And life continues on …
Episode Thoughts – There are some pretty hard scenes to watch as the show is coming to a close, but without a doubt the pinnacle of this episode for me is the slideshow of Yuuki growing up. The whole final words of adieu from Mirai thanking Yuuki for being born as her brother and the beautiful pictures coming into scene with the accompanying music is a moment that is really pulling on your heart strings.
The whole scene where Mirai discovers Yuuki’s text message he had left for her was hard to watch also, a moment in time when he was perfectly fine happily texting away. Even the scenes where Yuuki is gradually fading away are very moving. Ah! Every scene is good!
The only odd thing that really bothered me was that Mari took an entire month to finally meet up with Mirai.
Overall, this is a great final episode to a great series and I’m really glad I stuck with it to the very end despite its early hurdles.
Series Thoughts – When I reflect back on my initial impressions of the first episode I am thoroughly surprised by how much I would enjoy the series as it comes to its end. Looking back on my first entry, I was so displeased with the episode I couldn’t even remember Mirai’s name, just leaving it blank in my post. Mirai had turned me off so much with her negative attitude she made the first episode borderline unwatchable. Back then I could have cared less if she was killed off by some falling debris. It didn’t help either that the last scene of the episode was when Mirai enters the text message where she wishes “everything would just break” and at that very moment the earthquake hit the city of Tokyo. If that isn’t cheesy I don’t know what is.
But as the weeks passed by and as each new episode aired, the show had gradually begun to stand on its own two feet. The opening credits were always touting the show’s surreal realism and each episode fully delivers on that claim. However in the end, I believe the show will be better remembered for its huge (yet very subtle at first) change in direction during the midway point of the series rather than the series’ original attraction of a “what if scenario.”
While some found the whole notion unrealistic and breaking away from the show’s original objective of presenting something “real”, let’s face it, the series as a whole would have turned out pretty stale. That and I believe the whole anime / blogger community had a blast digging into said episode for all the clues. Some more willing to accept Yuuki’s fate right there and then while others just figured the hints were some sort of coincidence and were eagerly waiting for the following episode to confirm or deny everyone’s suspicions. Looking back, kudos for a well thought out episode.
Ultimately I believe someone important needed to die. The death of external persons outside the main characters never connects with the audience. I believe someone needed to die for the audience to understand that in such a large earthquake, people are going to lose their lives and there’s no better way to enforce this reality than killing off one of the main characters that the viewers are attached to. Notice they didn’t kill off Mirai because no one cared about her, come on you didn’t either during that point in time.
We see plenty of times random people in the background die to a multitude of things during the post tremors but we fail to remember them in any significant manner. Even the many scenes where there are hundreds if not thousands of people being treated and even the church scene with all the deceased bodies lying around can only do so much to try to illustrate to the viewer the impact of the earthquake on the city.
On a final note I cannot forget about Mari. Mari for me definitely was the only reason I stuck around for the second episode and without a doubt a major reason why I liked the series. She really has reminded me of a non-ass-kicking-warrior version of Balsa, to be commended for sticking around with these kids who had an annoying knack of straying away from her.
Your final thoughts on the episode and the whole series as a whole?
How would you rate the show itself and against other shows you have been watching this season.
On a side note, the shows for the upcoming anime season look very promising as you can never go wrong with more Darker Than Black. I have usually been bummed by the quality of shows recently (though Canaan did a really good job of entertaining me also this summer) but I am hyped for all the new goodies debuting in the following weeks.
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Best show this season by far, simply because it’s new and refreshing.