Not as good as the previous episode, but still a worthy climax for this series. With one exception, everything from the past episode came together very nicely, all of the major questions were answered well and sufficiently, and this episode was overall a great and action-packed closure to this series. So what the heck is up with that final episode?!
I’m surprised how many people disliked the inclusion of black and white mages. I mean, this show is called Occult Academy: right from the start it was clear that it explores occult from all over the world. Don’t black and white mages belong amongst that? Either way though, this episode really explained a lot: all of the previous monsters that tried to kill Maya were sent by that black mage. It makes full sense for her to be the key of Nostradamus, it makes full sense that Maya didn’t go around to carry her notebook everywhere around with her and to prepare some sort of backup plan. And it’s very interesting to see that Maya’s father was still alive: that’s why her death was faked in the previous episode: to prepare for that plot twist. And as if to make up for the fact that nobody seemingly dies in this episode, the creators actually did kill off a few characters.
Now, that ending intrigues me. I mean, while it’s nothing new to have some kind of “bad guy behind bad guy”, it came completely out of left field in this series. I mean, the entire series was supposed to be about getting rid of that Nostradamus Key. Maya even got up a good future when she photographed it. So why is there still an episode left, and why didn’t the future change? I’m really curious whatever plot twist the final episode has in store here.
Now, the only problem I have with this episode was how Bunmei was suddenly unkillable at the most critical moment. I mean, the creators seemed to realize that it didn’t make any sense, but they made no attempt to answer that, and it’s a very strange question to leave unanswered at this point.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
“Maya even got up a good future when she photographed it. So why is there still an episode left, and why didn’t the future change?”
Well..if I recall, Mikaze wasn’t the only thing in the picture that Maya took. o.o
Great first half, though~ Awesome fireworks.
Its true that Bunmei was in Godmode when reading the spell…maybe the Vice-Director put some kind of magic on him before she died…0.o
Well, it wasn’t only Mikaze in that picture but Bunmei as well…
Or if going for another approach: Just because they changed the future doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve changed THAT future as well. Maybe they only created a new future for them which won’t affect the future Bunmei came from.
Afterall, if their future would change as well, they would never have sent someone into the past and thus no one could have saved them from the aliens and thus a peaceful future wouldn’t be possible.
That’s the tricky thing about time paradoxons…
All in all this was a great episode which I liked even better than the last.
Whith the last episode everything came so quickly but this episode nicely used the things introduced in the last episodes and made the best out of it.
I even liked the whole white mage black mage thing a lot better in this episode, their fighting was just awesome!
As for Bunmei.. I suppose the last poem of the vice-principal was sort of a protective charm.
yeah I’m in the parallel timeline boat myself. They can’t change the future that’s already happened.
I didn’t like the white and black mage just because they were tossing energy blasts around like they are on DBZ. It’s more like they crossed the concept of white/black mage with Magical Girls
Lastly, I just figured that the spell was weakening Mikaze as they recited it. Which is why none of the stuff did much damage to Bunmei.
Mikaze wasn’t able to kill Fumiaki because her powers were being drained. Pretty clear from how she gasped, looked at her hand, and said “masaka”.
It is obvious that the spell was weakening Mikaze that’s more then likely why Bunmei wasn’t getting hurt by it much.
Mikazes power got trained and Bunmei was protected by a spell (spell of love?)
yea, Mikaze says “don’t tell me my power is…” so I gather part of her power was already being sealed.
I liked this series overall, I just wish that some things were better planned out, I feel like for a short series there was a lot of time wasted.
And my theory about why the future didn’t change is DBZ’s time theory: you can change the past and it will change that specific time era, but it won’t change the time period you are from (instead you create parallel timelines)
My theory is that it is actually Bunmei who is the key , there was a lot of foreshadowing for it from the 1st episode onwards.
First Maya herself points out that his first appearance in the beam of light fits with the prophecies.
Second in the flashbacks of his past it was shown that he was A) a true esper when younger.
B suffered a strong emotional trauma because of his mother RIGHT BEFORE THE DISASTER ACCRUED.
I think Maya and 2012 Bunmei need to interact somehow with the 1999 Bunmei to stop the disaster.
Makes for a bizarre time paradox, though.