We see how Keita and Akane are living their lives now that Kuro has left and the battle is over.

Impressions:

I thought this final recap episode was surprisingly good. For a recap episode, recapping 22 episodes it did a good job. What I liked is that it managed to show a lot of perspectives that weren’t there before, such as Kuro first coming to the city. They showed why she disappeared at times and went into her thoughts a bit more during some scenes when they had originally talked about something else. I also liked that they delved a bit more into Akane’s motivation for forming the contract. Although they had always kind of mentioned it, they never really explained it in a lot of detail. They still didn’t take a lot of time here, but they added a few tidbits I think is nice to have in the overall picture.

Of course by far the best part of this episode was the epilogue it had with Akane marrying Keita. Although the series came to a nice end plot wise with the previous episode it’s always nice to see some more closure like this. Then, going as far as showing him living a long happy life, dying of old age after having grandchildren was great. It also served not just to show how far he had come but the bit about him taking the curse with him was important, as it frees Kuro to live a normal life….I think. That’s the part I’m still confused on. It would seem, and be all nice and happy, that once Keita takes the curse with him and dies of old age, Kuro would be free to live a normal life not trapped in that sealing thing. However….shouldn’t Kuro die as well? That was the big thing about them being in a Tera Cycle, that if one dies the other does too…Oh well, still a nice ending.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, this series was good. It wasn’t anything earth shattering or epic. It didn’t really have one unique part of it that was different from other series; it just turned out to be a very solid action kind of show. It did have a lot of instances where the direction of things completely shifted, which was a good thing. First it was Reishin who was the bad guy, and he was “defeated” however then it turned out that Sawamura was plotting something. It was interesting to see a character from the sides turn out o be a mastermind, and then he became a bad guy. However once he was defeated it went back to Reishin who seemed to have another agenda, and then it went from Reishin to the Masagami who were the enemy. It seemed like it was jumping focus everywhere. However while sometimes that may be considered bad I think it was helpful here because it somewhat kept you guessing as to what’s happening, who is really the bad guy, and what’s his real motivation. The part of the show that kept you guessing was definitely one of the best parts I thought.

There’s not much more to say then that. Everything else about the show was just rather average. Still, it made for a fun and enjoyable show to watch. It just wasn’t anything spectacular. It was simply average.

Kuro and Keita try and defeat Twinrova without the Mirror Shield.

Impressions:

I thought this fight was pretty good. I’m glad they managed to beat Twinrova without the Mirror Shield. I was actually a bit surprised, as I thought the whole thing would take more episodes to finish. I kept thinking throughout this one though that it’ll be pretty boring to stretch out this fight into any more episodes, and turns out they won’t

I’m really not sure what to expect from the next episode. I’m actually a bit worried. The ending to this episode, although it left some things up to the imagination like where certain relationships may be headed, like Akane and Keita, it was still a relatively good ending for the overall plot of the series. It wasn’t all happy-go-lucky, but it was kind of bittersweet. They defeated the bad guy but still had to make a sacrifice in the end of Kuro not being around her new found friends. I thought it was good. I’m not saying I would hate it if some things were slightly different but I think that it definitely has the potential to be a lot worse if they screw things up too much with this next episode. Throughout watching the whole thing I thought this would be the last one just because it seemed to be wrapping up, so again, I really don’t know what to expect from this next one.

Reishin fights against the newly resurrected Masagami.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was really very good. The fight was pretty interesting and I was surprised how many twists it had for just being one episode, Reishin was winning, then not, then he was, then Kuro awakened and he wasn’t, then everyone was screwed, then Keita save the day, then….blah blah. Seemed to be rather action packed and it was pretty interesting. However, despite how cool the fight may have been it does seem as it Reishin’s sacrifice was rather pointless, as is shown in the preview, the Masagami is still alive. They seem to have fused into one, without Kuro, doing a whole Twinrova thing with the fire and ice. If only Keita and Kuro had the mirror shield…

I am also curious about what kind of focus they are going to give to Akane. It seems to be more or less officially accepted by everyone that Reishin is a good guy but I would still think there could be a little bit of discussion over the whole Akane suddenly joining up with Reishin out of nowhere. I’m guessing it may not be the best thing as far as trust goes between Akane and Keita. Now, it seems that she did it for all the right reasons, to protect Keita and Kuro, however whether or not they delve into that is another matter.

Reishin proceeds to try and defeat the Masagami by destroying the Holy Stone.

Impressions:

BOOM, I totally called it…again. This series is so easy to read and predict, I don’t know what it is but it just seems to fall into place perfectly with what I imagine it. It’s still a good series, and although I predicted that Reishin was doing all this to effectively save Kuro, it doesn’t make the fact that he did it any less interesting to the overall series, just, not a surprise.

I am a bit unclear though what will happen next. Kuro seems awake but I’m not sure if she’s now evil like the other versions of her or if she will help to fight against them. It almost seems like all that’s really left is for Kuro and Reishin to effectively fight alongside each other, if Kuro is indeed not evil. Then it will kind of be a battle royale thing between the two evil Kuros and everyone else. I suspect if something like that happens Reishin will die, because they stated its only when terra is in a cycle that both contractee and contractor die, and Reishin dying would allow Akane to remain. If Reishin does die Kuro will likely actually be sad about it, coming full circle effectively from setting out to kill him to crying over his dying body, but anything could really happen I suppose.

Kuro and Keita face off against Reishin and his contractee.

Impressions:

Well obviously they aren’t actually dead or this would be a horrible series. Even though apparently killing Kuro may seem like it interferes with my theory Reishin was doing this all FOR Kuro, I’m still sticking to my theory. It does interfere a little bit if he kills her, as it seems he thought he did, but I think that he did it to save her from something worse. Either that or he did it just to save the world, but I still think he cared for her well being too and not just the general picture. I’m a bit surprised Akane didn’t react more to Keita “dying” even if she did go along with Reishin knowing he was trying to save the world or whatever, it still seemed she cared about him more. She did at least react a little, I just expected more.

I’m curious if Nam is going to do…anything. So far her presence has been rather pointless, unless what she did to Yakumo is any more then healing him, she’s been kind of pointless. I understand she’s this historian character but so far she hasn’t done much. Informing us of the whole Masagami thing was interesting, but they keep showing her so either she is going to give us more information or she’s going to interfere for some reason, otherwise it seems odd for them to be keep her around.

Kuro and Keita make their way to the top of the Holy Land in order to stop Reishin

Impressions:

I totally called it. I knew that Akane had to have partnered with Reishin, for one reason or another. I didn’t actually base my previous idea off of any manga spoilers, I just knew it. Now, there are several reasons why she might have partnered with him. First off I don’t think she was forced into it. First off we’ve never seen any contracts that have been forced, the whole idea of it seems to be about these two people working together and I don’t think it would just physically work for one of them to be in the partnership unwillingly. The other option then is that Akane is evil, which also doesn’t really fit. First off she’s never shown any signs of being evil or having any connection or interesting in Reishin so she wouldn’t just go with him for no reason or take part in evil deeds FOR him. Therefore, the only conclusion I can reach is that she is partnered with him because Reishin has convinced her, rightfully so or not, that his actions and his goals are for the better good.

I found it kind of odd that they never really gave a good justification for why Reishin was doing everything he was doing. It was unclear. He wanted power, eh wanted to kill everyone, it seemed like it was just random chaos. That’s not a good motivation for a character like him. It doesn’t fit. After seeing Kuro kind of freak out in this episode, going all berserk and killing everyone in sight it hit me that everything he’s done, even killing their family, was for Kuro’s benefit. It seems that there is something up with Kuro, some kind of evil in her she can’t control, some kind of tremendous power and my guess is that Reishin is trying to help her no matter what it takes. It’s easily possible, as Akane has come to care for Kuro, that upon learning this she agreed to help Reishin even if it meant hurting Kuro and Keita in the process, thinking it’s for the better good.

Kuro, Keita, Yakumo, and Riona head to the Holy Land to investigate.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was good, especially the fight. I don’t understand why they don’t try and use that tactic in more fights. It’s always these Motos fighting against each other with their contractees cheering them on, when half the time their contractee is providing some magic support. Just attack the damn Contractee. I’m glad Keita did it in this one; they just need to do it more often. It doesn’t even need to be the contractee, if you are a Moto and fighting against a strong person who is made even stronger by a weak person….um, just attack the damn weak person. It makes sense yet in so many fighting anime, not just this one, similar situations play out and they never just go for the weak person. Use your head a little in battle people…It was awesome seeing Keita just attack the contractee.

I had a theory or idea pop into my head while I was watching this that really didn’t have much to do with the actual episode. I have a feeling that Akane is going to somehow wind up being a contractee of Reishin. I don’t know why, but there is just something about her disappearance. The fact that Reishin doesn’t have a contractee obviously severely limits his power. It wouldn’t really fit with how most fighting anime go if there was this very easy way for Reishin to get more power, yet he doesn’t. Akane is now a Master Root, so it would be a perfect fit. Then there would also be the fact that Kuro and Keita have to deal with an either controlled Akane or something when they deal with Reishin. Something that would add drama to the fight and make it so they couldn’t just attack all out. Again, I have no real reason to think that Akane would team up with the bad guy, but it’s just something I can easily see happening. Reishin wants power so forming a contract would fit, he’s too important to form a contract with an unknown person they just introduce at the last minute, it would give an interesting and exiting way to reveal where Akane is instead of just saying oh, there she randomly is. It would add drama to the fight as they have to worry about not hurting Akane or trying to defeat Reishin while freeing her or convincing her to come back. It just fits.

Keita and Kuro fight against time to defeat Sawamura before Keita succumbs to fate.

Impressions:

This episode was pretty big. First the kind of random Mototsumitami they were fighting before dies, then Keita almost dies but defies the rules and lives, then kills the most powerful Moto we’ve seen so far in the series and brings Sawamura to his knees, THEN something they were supposed to have prevented seemingly kills millions of people, or at least renders them unconscious. All in all it was pretty damn big… I’m curious what, if anything, this new super syncro will mean. Yeah it was a pretty interesting and somewhat convenient way to get out of the whole you’re supposed to be dead if you see your sub, however now that they’ve established he’s not dead because of seeing him I’m interested to find out if the only thing that will happen is they effectively make Kuro and Keita stronger and better fighters or if there will still be some repercussions to their contract.

I was kind of wondering how the hell they are going to do anything now, since Sawamura’s basically been overthrown and him and the whole Kaionji operation ruined, but thankfully the show decide to just haphazardly kill 90 percent of the population to jump start things. That was pretty damn surprising…Now they could easily not actually be “dead” but it’s still a bit of a shock that something so big happened so randomly out of nothing. It definitely seems as though that will be the next big thing they have to deal with. This show doesn’t do the best job at faces in my opinion so I can’t actually tell if that is supposed to be Reishin or something who we saw in the Holy Land when it appeared, if not then they have a lot more explaining to do along with the Holy Land. Well, they’d still have to explain how Reishin isn’t dead, but at least there would be no new back-story.

Keita and Kuro try to fight against Shinra while Sawamura intervenes between Yuki and Akane.

Impressions:

This episode was great. Especially at the end with them showing Keita’s root, or other sub. Knew they had to eventually introduce Keita’s counterpart. They can’t have the main character be a sub like he is and not encounter the problem of him meeting his root, considering that’s the problem they’ve been stressing subs have to go through. I figured they’d eventually meet but I still have no idea how they are going to explain Keita not dying. They stressed too much in the encounter with his mother’s sub that he is against the concept of killing to become a minus root so I could never see him killing him. Still, that doesn’t really leave any idea on how he’s not going to end up road kill, so it’ll be interesting to see because they obviously have to, he can’t die in this next episode or anything.

It does seem now that Yuki is dead. She seemed to stay strapped in her seat when the helicopter was underwater so…yeah, she’s probably dead. Considering they didn’t show Akane, she probably got out fine. It would be a pretty carp way to kill her. If they were going to do it they should do it…well…better. I did really think it was rather stupid of Akane to get in the helicopter with Yuki. Considering that once a sub meets their root they don’t just instantly die or keel over form an unknown illness, their death is by an “accident” getting in a vehicle doesn’t sound like the smartest idea. That’s just asking to die. Considering pretty much all the deaths are by vehicles I would think that you wouldn’t want to be around your sub when they are around a vehicle…

Kuro, Keita, and the others try and rescue Akane by attacking the Kaionji headquarters.

Impressions:

I thought this episode was great. Overall I think this show is improving a lot more than I thought it would based on some of the earlier episodes. I really just cheered for Keita when he busted in and broke up Sawamura’s speech. I wanted him to shut all the Master Roots up by totally kicking ass as a sub. I also thought it was about damn time Yuki did something. Although I don’t like her and wouldn’t want her o kill Yuki it was a bit boring seeing her just bitching about everything, at least she got up and did something. Hell, if it weren’t for the preview showing that she still hadn’t off’d Akane, I’d have said that she already did it but because there is still a scene in the preview of her holding the gun up I’m guessing it’s not going to happen.

My main concern right now for this series is if they are ever going to reveal any special qualities Keita has. So far he’s just revealed to be some random sub that happened to contract with Kuro. It seems a bit of a stretch for a sub with absolutely no special qualities to have survived this long. There has been numerous times where they’ve shown Keita having an enormous amount of terra, yet kind of regaining it. Sure he fell into that small coma just a little bit ago but it still seems odd that he would e able to do all he’s done without being something else entirely. This really has to do with the whole statement I’ve been saying from the beginning. KURO AND KEITA SUCK! They couldn’t even beat Steiner way back when, Steiner in turn couldn’t’ beat Reishin who in turn couldn’t beat Raiga, so how are Kuro and Keita ever expecting to beat Raiga themselves? Unless they do some serious revealing of Keita having some hidden power or just simply change something they’ll never be able to do anything really, which makes them a kind of poor main character.