Aww. What a heart-warming way to close off this series and the past half year of anime. Really, the creators resisted the urge to force in some last-minute overly ambitious climax, and instead chose a wonderful little story that brings perfect closure to this series. In one way it’s a bit of a shame that Heitai didn’t get the time to show off his arc, but Mario undergoing surgery in order to go back to boxing, it fits exactly with the sappy nature of the series, and at the same time it was the perfect excuse to bring the focus back to An-chan. And we actually got to meet his mother, that was a very pleasant surprise!
The thirty percent success of the surgery of course did not matter in terms of plot: the surgery would be successful. The creators indeed wisely decided not to create any fake tension by dragging out the surgery scene. Mario just enters the surgery room, and then we cut to a boxing match. That’s not rushed, that’s perfectly paced, and I love the guts of the creators to actually do that. Instead, the thirty percent was mostly meant to show Mario’s resolve to continue with An-chan’s dreams: even if it would have been one percent, he would have gone with that chance if it meant a chance to continue An-chan’s dreams.
Overall, yes the second half of this series was sappy. But at the same time it was just incredibly heart-warming. It’s in the same way that the first half was melodramatic, yet incredibly intense. It’s the combination of the two that really made this series memorable, though. The direction for this series is flawed, but by god, the story is so well rounded that it perfectly makes up for this.
This show really got me thinking on how to evaluate first impressions, because I nearly didn’t blog this show… in favor of Kaichou wa Maid Sama (yeah). After the first episode, I remember not seeing any future in this series because of the hopeless overacting of this series. That overacting of this series was indeed the reason why this show never had the chance to become a masterpiece, but in the end it brought enough to the table to make up for this. That’s something I’ve got to remember when doing the upcoming first impressions of the new Autumn Season.
I can blog seven new series, and yet there are ten shows that I’m really interested in covering. There’s only one show that I’m guaranteed to blog (Letter Bee), plus the series that you’re going to force me to blog (only two days left on that one, by the way!), leaving me to choose five series out of eight potentially very interesting ones, which makes choosing the ones that will be the most fun to blog, rather than failing to see potential between flaws.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
