I figured I might as well get this over with while Narutaki was on vacation so she did not have to revisit this unnecessarily unless she wanted to. Let us discuss the ending of Eureka Seven: AO (episodes 21-24). I suppose we could talk about the series as a whole at another date but I just want to get this little amount off my chest. You might wonder why I put up a picture of Dewey Novak for this review considering he does not ever appear in this sequel. Trust me. He is critical.

My main complaint about the ending is simple. But it is a fatal flaw that trumps all the other many minor flaws. According to Eureka Seven: AO it seems that Dewey Novak was right. He might have been a pedophilic mass murder who would not only commit patricide but also tried to destroy the world but as it turns out he was right. Mankind cannot live with the Scub Coral and the Coralians. One race must die so one race may live. So AO flushes the entire lesson of people learning to coexist utterly down the drain. Since I though that the original show and its themes were amazing this was a less than preferable twist in the sequel. I’m not saying that is no merit to the idea of a former villain actually be proven to have a legitimate (and actually correct) reason for his insane plan. I’m just saying in this case it was done super poorly.

Then there is the fact that Elena Peoples’ story line was amazingly anticlimactic, Naru Arata’s plot line seems totally forgotten by the end, and Truth was just all over the place as a villain. Everyone switched sides at one point or another and not always for good reasons. And in the end it all did not really matter as the Quartz Gun erases about 99% of everything that happened in the series. In the end I was mostly just glad the series was over.

It is really a shame. I had decently high expectations for this series. The first episode was promising and intriguing. But sadly my initial ideas of where the series was going were far better than anything that played out on-screen. This series certainly does not ruin the original series for me. That is still aces in my book. But I would never recommend anyone watch this after the original.

The finale has arrived, Kekkaishi’s last volume (35) hit stores as 2012 was coming to an end as well.

The finale volume is mostly falling action, which was rather refreshing, as the final pieces of the puzzle are revealed. I don’t think it is spoilers to say things mostly work out with the fate of the Shadow Organization falling to a new head. Karasumori’s existence is put to rest though still with some surprises in the mix and one very beautiful moment that brought a tear to my eye. And the rivalry between the clans Sumimura and Yukimura is dissolved.

I was pleased with the roles Yoshimori and Tokine played in the ending of this grand story. But they weren’t the only ones to have a big piece in the finale, and that’s what I liked best about the entire series. This was an ensemble cast and story which played out as such up until the very end; characters were not thrown by the wayside to build up Yoshimori’s importance. With such a great cast, I wouldn’t mind side stories about any number of them.

I’ve been so pleased to follow this wonderful shonen fighting manga for quite a while, anticipating each new installment. I’ll continue to sing its praises and recommend it even if it won’t be constantly reminding me of its presence every couple of months. I really hope VIZ picks up Yellow Tanabe’s new work in the near future.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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