Xebek\’s Blog

Hakuoro faces off against Dii to try and stop the destruction that the two of them bring to the world.

Summary:

• Hakuoro fights Dii, and as they fight they talk. We find out that what happened after Hakuoro and Mikoto escaped, is they lived a good life together, had a baby, but one day some soldiers came and sedated them, taking away Mikoto and the baby. Hakuoro was being confined in the lab and told of how they killed Mikoto, so he went berserk and turned everyone into those red blobs and went crazy.
• However Hakuoro was aware of himself, and asked himself to stop, saying he wants someone to stop him if not kill him. Then Mutsumi awoke and sealed him, however as Dii says she wasn’t’ able to fuse the two halves of him and so there was Dii and Hakuoro, one who was the good and the evil.
• The seal was then broken and Dii and Hakuoro were brought into this world. Hakuoro says to Dii how he won’t allow him to continue spreading destruction, and he fuses the two of them together. From the flash emerges one beast, and in Hakuoro’s voice. He says how he must go, as he can’t be allowed to stay in this world He asks Urutorii to seal him and Mutsumi says she will help, as it is what father wishes for. She however gives Kamyu back and so Kamyu and Urutorii seals Hakuoro, or really Witser….Wit. Then everyone charges at him with their swords and attacks Wit, as Hakuoro tell them to hurry up as we see Dii’s half trying to escape.
• There is a flash and everyone appears in some plane. Hakuoro is before them as kind of a spirit and addressing everyone individually, saying how since he will be sealed for the good of the world, and waves farewell to everyone. When he gets to Eruruu the scene changes to just him and her, him in a non spirit form.
• Hakuoro says for now he is going to sleep and Eruruu bursts out saying what for now means, and says she wants to be with him. Hakuoro just says her feelings are because of their contract and Eruruu exclaims it’s not, that she loves him. Hakuoro says however how he cannot stay and turns away. Eruruu steps forward but Hakuoro yells at her to stay back. Eruruu however keeps going forward and runs up to him, kissing him. As they hold each other they say how they will meet again and the scene fades away.
• We see everyone a bit later in the future about their lives. Yuzuha has died and Oboro turns control of Tusukuru to Benawi, as he feels he is too young to sit on the throne. Eruruu and Kamyu are having fun together, Touka and Karura getting in trouble together, and Eruruu at some village being the physician.
• We see that Aruruu notices something in the wind and looks surprised saying what that is. Kuuya and Sakuya are together and Kuuya’s childlike ness seems surprised and looks up to the sky happy, holding out her arms. We see Eruruu and she seems to be happy with her life saying she knows she will meet Hakuoro again. She then looks surprised and turns around, and smiles.

Impressions:

This episode was amazing. I think my favorite part was completely after the fight with Dii. It had nothing to do with the actual overall plot history they gave away or the fight sequence, I just thought they beautifully implemented the end. First off the scene where Hakuoro was saying goodbye to everyone was touching, addressing everyone individually. Then his and Eruruu’s scene was gorgeous. The music playing during it was just, it blew me away. That was one of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever seen. The feel to it, the music, and the emotions behind the characters were outstanding.

The epilogue after Hakuoro disappeared was also great. It seems a little rare for anime sometimes to have epilogues. I mean, it would just end when Hakuoro disappeared for some other anime but this one’s epilogue made the last episode much better. I think they wrapped up all the characters nicely, even seeing Kuuya and Sakuya even though they weren’t the main group that was with Hakuoro. Overall, it’s hard to explain. I liked this series and so the epilogue just had an extremely nice feel to it.

There are two main possibilities for how this series ended. Either Hakuoro came back at the end, or he didn’t. I’ll discuss each one separately. I’m going to say this here though, there IS NOT a for sure way it ended. I don’t give a damn about the game or anything; the anime is just based on it. I’ve heard it’s fairly open ended in the game too, but that aside, the ending really was entirely up to the viewer to decide what happened.

First off Hakuoro coming back. Now, I seem to want to believe this ending. Now, even if it didn’t end up this way I wouldn’t hate the series or anything. Either ending would be good because of how nicely they concluded everything. However to me this is a more prominent possibility for several reasons. First off, Eruruu wasn’t the only one who noticed things. We saw a huge reaction from Kuuya and Aruruu before Eruruu’s scene. Both of them seemed to sense something. Second, they seemed to emphasize a lot that Hakuoro would come back to Eruruu, that they would meet again. Eruruu seemed to be fairly content with this happening as it was assured they would be together. Also, I just think it would be stupid to show Eruruu turning to the camera and smiling if it was anyone else. If it wasn’t Hakuoro, what a crappy way of the ending the final scene. They should have just showed her smiling up into the sky or something with a gust of wind and a pan out.

The argument against Hakuoro coming back would probably be that just because Hakuoro and Eruruu will meet again, that doesn’t mean in this lifetime. On this side of the argument you could say that they will meet again at death and such. Also it isn’t uncommon for anime like this to have a fairly bittersweet ending which this would have been if this happened.

Yuzuha’s death was a bit surprising. Although, I was kind of expecting it to be actually in the series and nothing the end, it wasn’t so much I was surprised she died, just surprised when they showed it. She was sick after all and it seemed inevitable for her to die. Oboro looked amazing cool though when he was at her grave in that cloak, he didn’t seem as impulsive and thug like as he sometimes did. I really liked his look in the end.

Final Words:

Wow, I can’t believe it’s over. Overall Utawarerumono is one of my favorite series of all time. There were so many factors that piled on and on. The story, music, everything. First off just the setting was gorgeously implemented. The whole kind of primitive world with animal characters on people a common normal occurrence was just very cool. I don’t think the ending overall matters in whether Hakuoro came back or not. Either way I liked the ending. I would have to really question someone’s opinion if they are surprised at an open ending, because from what I’ve seen mostly all anime have one, just some to higher degrees then others. The open ending in Utawarerumono was fine. The thing though is that even if he didn’t come back, it’s not necessarily a sad ending. I mean, Eruruu seems perfectly happy with her life at the moment knowing they will one day meet up again. Its not like some other “bittersweet” endings where it actually ahs a sad feel to it, in this one even though a kind of sad event happened, everything was ended more or less in a good mood. In summation, this is one of the best endings I have seen in a long time.

This series had a great balance of fun and small comedy, with overall action, and a deeper overlaying plot. Not only did we have the major plot of Hakuoro’s past and him basically being God, but it wasn’t necessarily focused on the whole time. I mean, it was always there, and there were small parts along the way that pointed to it, but there were also a lot of sub stories and arcs about different wars. I loved that, and not only did the arcs about the different wares make it really interesting in terms of reactions to the killing and the dilemma of protecting the country but they really showed us the characters well and without them I don’t think the overlaying plot would be as interesting because you just wouldn’t care. The comedy was also there, although not much there were some great moments.