How many times have you watched in slack-jawed wonder as an anime that started out so promising and so good devolved into a giant steaming pile of crushed hopes? Have you ever felt cheated by an anime ending badly since you believe your investment of time and emotion should pay off after nine frigging hours? It’s one of those imponderables we think on when we have nothing better to do or are trying to crack the universe’s code of “WTF?!”
Neon Genesis Evangelion was the first anime series which left me screeching at the TV and going “WTF?!”, due to it’s sensationally crappy ending. Why Eva? Didn’t we have a good thing? I thought you enjoyed what we shared. How could you take all the time we had together and flush it down the toilet? I want answers!
I invest many things in anime: Time, money and emotion. I expect a payoff in the way of either answers or a satisfactory ending. And by satisfactory, I don’t mean “happy” or even comprehensive. I mean a proper ending apropos to the general flow, feel, and direction of an anime. If it’s a flighty, random anime, I’ll be satisfied with a flighty, random ending. If I’m watching a mystery-themed anime, I expect the ending to either answer riddles or remain a mystery. On the other hand, if I’m watching a happy, bright anime with rainbows and unicorns, I sure as hell do not want an ending showcasing chainsaws and glue factories.
Considering there’s no way in hell we’ll ever get any good answers outta the fine folks who wrote and developed Eva (puh-lease, one series and two movies later, I’m not holding out any hope), I’ve added Eva to my mental list of “I wish they’d re-write this” anime. Gantz is the only other anime on that list, though. Every other anime with a crappy ending was a crappy series overall and needs to be tossed, not have its ending re-written.
Who else has suffered the pain of feeling gypped out of a satisfactory ending to an otherwise good anime? How many were the times you wished you could re-do the finale so it made more sense? Which anime’s ending would you re-write if you could?
Please share your painful finale experiences and re-write wish lists below!
I liked Escaflowne a lot, but the ending was just a little too brief. In fact, I prefered the ending in the fan-made spoof “Nescaflowne.”
Green Green TV was a train wreck, but it was enjoyable until the last two episodes.
Orphen season one was a decent show, but the entirety of season two was one huge letdown.
I have to mention just about every major Rumiko Takahashi series, with the exception of Maison Ikkoku. (That manga ended well, but I don’t know if the TV series did.)
There are numerous shows which should’ve stopped while they were still fresh — before they turned into lousy spinoffs and sequels.
There was always End of Evangelion which had a different ending (at least the perspective and events the watcher experiences)…
Love Hina’s ending (actually probably the whole second half of the season) completely failed, so that’s a definite rewrite.
Black Cat
the start was a good alternative to the manga but the ending left much to be desired.
Mahoromatic’s ending… And all of its “action” episodes actually…
I don’t know truthfully (outside of agreeing with Rachel about Evangelion).
Though, I do remember being rather… startled when _Myself; Yourself_ ended. It just felt so rushed; like the writers suddenly realized that “hey, this is the last episode, we’ve got to do something to tie things up.” But that’s not so much a re-write the ending, as add another dozen episodes to finish telling the story. After all, the poor boy didn’t even get that much time with most of his harem
Code Geass
all those CLAMP character designs and then in the end they all exploded.
Fate/Stay Night…
Mai HiME
Stupid reset ending.
another vote on Mahoromatic
Chrno Crusade
Nice Boat
Possible Darker than Black SPOILERS!!!
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-Darker Than BLACK. HUGE HUGE climax. Itty bitty resolution, if any at all. Lots of loose ends with a “Everything and everyone went back to normal” kind of tie-up. Lame. Though I do hear they’re having another episode that will be an OVA which would be nice. But we’ll see.-
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End Possible SPOILERS!
I’d rewrite Love Hina. There’s, like, 3 or 4 girls who’d be better for Keitaro than Naru. I’d probably go for Motoko, after beefing Keitaro up a bit and having everyone’s favorite absent-minded archaeologist teach him some martial arts during downtime on their digs.
Or maybe Escaflowne. Merle/Vann is awesome. I’d go for Hitomi/Allen too, but Allen’s honestly probably best off as a bachelor.
Can you tell I’m a bit too obsessed over fictional romances?
Possible Death Note Spoiler!
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-I would rewrite the ending to Death Note. It should have concluded at episode 25. I would have removed everything after that, and tidied things up in a final, 26th episode. Once the battle between L and Light concluded, everything else was pointless.
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End Possible Spoiler!
Hey folks, could you please note possible spoilers in your comments? It might not seem a spoiler to you, but some detail you let slip might ruin the entires series for someone else. Just type in SPOILER and post the comment a bit below it.
Thanks!
If you’re even bothering to read these, you should expect spoilers. There be spoilers. There, you’ve been warned.
Fate/Stay Night, but more because I wanted Unlimited Blade Works than because the ending itself was bad. Even with Fate route, they could have compressed the opening arcs in order to add more exposition about how lancer ended up with Kotomine and about Kotomine/Kiritsugu Gilgamesh/Arturia confrontation in the past. More exposition on why Illya is the loli grail and how she was Shiro’s sister would have been cool. I mean, the tossed in the whole caster arc which wasn’t a part of original fate and gave us, if only by implication, the link between Sakura and Rin. If you minimalize it, all we got for an ending was some nice battles and Bedevere wishing Arturia well under the tree while everyone else lived more-or-less happily ever after. It could be argued that this series as a whole either needed more time/episodes to explain its complex plot and backstories, or a hell of a lot more narration/internal thoughts of the characters. Just my $.02.
I think that the now-trademark “gainax ending” of eva is part of the eva experience. Though I must admit to being curious about Michael Huang of Anime Diet’s suggested experiment of showing a first time viewer D&R+EoE instead of the “original ending” of the last two episodes. And then showing them the original ending, and comparing responses with the rest of us. Most of whom saw the original “gainax ending” first. But I digress. I wonder how rebuild will tackle this, because in my mind eva isn’t eva unless there’s some good degree of mind-fracking happening throughout and especially in the ending. The original ending works for me on that level because it isn’t just the reveal, it’s your main characters under the microscope. And you don’t really get that kind of treatment done that often in any medium.
Personally, if I had to rewrite Eva’s ending, I’d chuck a meteor at Tokyo-3.
Screw endings, when everyone dies, there’s not need for an ending.
Of course, if it were up to me, I would have demanded Hideaki Anno to commit harakiri for even thinking of such a show.
When it comes to endings, I’d rewrite Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu’s. It’s supposed to make people cry darnit.
Full metal alchemist was saved by the movie. I have heard wallflower ended poorly. I think all endings should make you emotional that’s what makes it worth 14hours. If a shouldbesad ending leaves me confused then it deserves to be rewitten
Possible spoilers. Inuyasha had the most horrible ending ever. It didnt even end. I havent read the end of the manga but the show could have at least had the balls to have an all out demon bashing time. After spending years of my life watching this show and seeing that it didnt really end it just pisses me off.
Maharomati for one. It was good yes, but the ending had too much of a “huh?” factor to it. But the biggest culprit to vague endings comes from either Samurai Deeper Kyo and Trinity Gun.
Actually scratch Trinity Gun, it’s just too horrible to begin with that you might as well rewrite everything.
@ Andrew
Episode 167 of the Inu Yasha anime did end at an inconclusive point. The best that can be said is that it finished an arc. To be fair, Sunrise had to make a difficult decision. When the series ended production in 2004, the anime had essentially caught up with the manga. Sunrise basically had three options…1) break away from the manga and end the series with their own ending (Full Metal Alchemist did this); 2) produce filler material to allow the manga to get far enough ahead so that they could animate a season or more uninterrupted (Bleach and Naruto did this); 3) end the anime at an arc and go on hiatus (which is apparently what Sunrise decided to do).
There was an economic factor as well. While Inu Yasha was a popular show in Japan, the ratings were beginning to decline. Yomiuri TV (the broadcaster) and Sunrise had a silent agreement to discontinue the series. I guess you could call it a “quiet” cancelation.
I have not read any official statement from Sunrise or Yomiuri TV about the status of Inu Yasha, but various diaries/blogs from the production staff have mentioned there is interest in concluding the anime once the manga ends. Unofficially, staff from Sunrise said they may conclude the anime with a series of OVAs instead of a TV series.
Just a warning…it may be a while before the anime starts up again, since the manga has not ended yet. Mangaka Rumiko Takahashi recently completed Chapter 530…the anime ended at around Chapter 356. According to the Wikipedia article about Inu Yasha, the manga is heading into the final arc. However, the reference cited is the preview to Chapter 531 which reads:
“Preview: Due to the power of the Shikon no Tama, Naraku begins his transformation. To settle everything, on to the final battle…!”
To me, this is not the best reference to use, so I am not convinced that the manga will end with this arc.
Thanks Mochi for the info but will it ever end. (whimpers)
Whew! Looks like many fans have at least one beef the way anime ends.
@dork at large, if you could pick one anime as the one inmost need of a re-write, from the ones you listed, which would it be?
@IcyStorm, End of Evangelion was another letdown.
@Kidan, I’ve been victim of many an anime’s rushed ending. I hate it when the anime feels like the studio said: “Oops, we forgot that this thing ends at episode 26! Let’s smoosh it all together and screw it.” It’s one of my biggest pet peeves in anime.
@PassinGass, Chrono Crusade ended well, IMO, just not the way I would have liked it to.
@DrmChsr0, I second your “ending” to Eva.
@Marie, yes an anime should have a payoff with some emotion. I just got screwed outta a decent ending with “Spiral”, goodbye 9 hours…
@Andrew, yeah I heard Inuyasha had a bad ending, i.e. didn’t payoff for the investment of time and $$$. Hence why I never made that investment in the first place.
@Edrei, do you mean Trigun or is there an anime out there called Trinity Gun?
FATE/ STAY NIGHT,
Why cant there be a happy ending?
And its all too fast…
Or perhaps theres a sequel?
His and her circumstances
They introduced new characters towards the end of the series and didn’t really resolve anything.
@Fishtub, I hate it when anime do that. Makes me think they’re planning a second season just squeeze a few more bucks outta a series. Weak.
You simply just did not get EVA at all if you couldn’t appreciate the ending. Thank god you can’t rewrite the ending, otherwise the genius that is the Eva series would be lost.
@BabyJ, yeah, well I’m guessing the thousands of other anime fans who also thought the ending for Eva sucked “just did not get EVA at all…” either.
I don’t think it was a matter of “appreciating the ending”. How could anyone appreciate something they never received?
I really liked the series ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion, if people want battles there is plenty of other robot anime out there…Its rare that you get a series that you can talk so much about with other people, trying to figure it out, I really love Neon Gensis, every episode.
@glitchu1, I don’t think it was the lack of a major battle which made the ending of Eva bad. No, it was the Calvin Klein commercial-esque, existential BS they spouted.
Now, if the whole series had this feel, then this ending would be perfect, but it was like putting up a brick wall at an exit ramp on the Autobahn
@nadir-Code Geass never ended if you take a look a new 2nd season will be aired in japan very soon
@people who didn’t like the anding of Eva-the new four movies of Evangelion may be better than what you saw before. I already saw the first of the four and at the path it’s taking this version could be even darker than the TV series