Holy crap, they actually did it. They actually finished this off perfectly! I was really afraid of this episode: I have seen so many wonderful series skimp out on the ending. And yet, with this episode, the creators managed to avoid every single pitfall that hits so many different series, leaving behind a wonderful ending.
– Focusing too much on flashy action? Nope, there was enough substance.
– Leaving behind an ending that’s too open? Nope, everything was answered adequately unless you really start nit-picking.
– Pulling silly Deus ex Machina to get out of the corners the writers got themselves into? Nope, everything just makes sense in the deliberately vague rules that this show created for itself.
– Just closing off with a straightforward and boring ending? Oh hell no, this episode pulled many surprises.
– Forgetting to push forward the characters even more? That too was averted, because so many characters got even more depth than what they already had.
– Running out of budget? This episode looked just gorgeous. After ten episodes I still could not see any cut corners.
– Being too fast? Nope, everything fit perfectly and it was still able to do everything, and things didn’t feel crammed.
– Being formulaic and predictable? Absolutely not. This really was the ending to Kyousogiga, not copied from another series or story.
I mean, this ending really was amazing. They did everything right here. I know I have been very quiet. Part of the problem is a change in my personal life, but another part is that I have felt really disappointed with the past Fall Season. It looked so promising, and yet nearly every series turned so generic or rushed, and nearly always it had to do with lazy writing. The one exception was Kyousogiga. Everything else this season just paled in comparison. Thank you Toei, for greenlighting this and making this possible.
**might be a Spoiler**
The ending was awesome and all but isn’t koto still bodyjacking that buddah? thats kinda f’d up. also the review episode was awesome as well!
No, she gave it back to the Bodhisattva. That’s why she was see-through (immaterial), only Inari could touch her, and stuck in the plane that the rest of the gods rested in that Koto-daughter was raised in by Inari. She was made her own using the powers of Creation and Rebirth.
I already enjoyed this when it was just a fun, artsy OVA, so I was bound to like this anyway, but I never expected it to be this good. I think a good way to summarize the show is how your family is your world and if you forget that there are these people who care about you, your world will fall apart.
I don’t know, it’s kinda hard to feel any tension when the whole climax is about the antagonist being moody and you know everything will solve just by convincing him. I loved the series but the ending was pretty generic.
I agree! Thanks for clearing up my self-turmoil; I didn’t understand why I wasn’t enjoying the series.
I think the stakes were never that high; didn’t he say that himself? The only thing that would really end was himself, unless he finally heard the words he wanted to hear (or others chose to just sit back and let their universe end, I suppose).
I’m really more shocked that they went for such a sugary-sweet ending. Koto got everything her way, and the others just sort of accepted everything without having much influence over anything, sans neo-Myoue actually activating his beads. I’m not sure if that’s anticlimactic or just a bit trite, but it bugs me more than i thought it would
Oh, so it’s just like Madoka ending, huh.
Except history stayed the same, the spirited protagonist basically got everything her way, the brooding protagonist chose his fate, and the antagonist basically just grew up instead of having his existence more or less rewritten. It was also an unambiguous and unabashed happy ending. Also the stakes were never really very high to begin with, despite appearances.
Up to you to decide which ending is better.
I agree that the stakes weren’t very high. It’s basically just about the unification of a family akin to last season’s Uchouten Kazoku.
The latter half of the story was much like Rahxephon’s… one can’t be quite sure what everyone’s relation is to everyone else and can only be 70% clear about the story’s plot and conflict. Perhaps not lazy writing but definitely a very… convoluted one. I had no attachment to any of the characters except for Myoue, whom I only realized was a semi-protagonist after episode 6 or something.
I also find a flashback that takes up 60% of the whole series quite uncomfortable (certain film ppl may tell you that if your flashback is 10%< your story, you might as well tell it chronologically).
Maybe, but tt’s not necessarily easy to structure a simple story like this chronologically without losing the emphasis on the characters, since the first half was about setting each of them up, and the second half was about the actual meat of the story (the reveal of the antagonist, the stakes, etc).
I’m also not as sure if the flashbacks were quite as prevalent as you claim; the first ep was backstory, the next few were character-specific chronological ones, and the rest was basically chronological. But I do agree that it jumped around a fair bit, making it much tougher to retain all the details (though thankfully they weren’t as important in the end as I thought they’d be).
So in the end this was actually a pretty typical happy-ending shounen anime, just told in a slightly more chaotic and colorful way, and having the grace and tact to tell its own story in its own way rather than relying overmuch on traditional shounen formula.
I think I’ll need time to figure out if anything was all that memorable aside from the OP, but at least it was a fun ride. Shame the ending didn’t really impress me, but at least it suited the series enough and wrapped things up quite well.
In case anyone mis-interprets me, I didn’t mean this was generic shounen or anything like that, just that it’s typical of a certain kind of shounen anime (which I could stand to see a bit more of from time to time instead of the franchise-building monstrosities we usually get).
That’s kinda the same way i felt. i applaud the series for telling its narrative beautifully but at the end of the day, that’s all i really got out of it. I didnt feel like it was truly special or awe inspiring. At the end of the day, it was just a very good series; but then that’s enough for me