Never stop believing.
What They Say:
Finally Satoru regains his memories and faces off against the culprit!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I’m terribly sorry this is so late, but Anime Boston couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the sake of getting to one of the most anticipated finales in years in time. While most of the series has been a remarkably rapid upward trend, the last few episodes started unfortunately moving back down a bit, so all hopes were for the finale to be spectacular enough to make up for the slight missteps and shoot the quality up to a point beyond even the highs that it had reached a few episodes ago. I haven’t checked around enough to know if this opinion is shared across most of the massive audience that has latched on so tightly to this series in the past three months but, after seeing how it all ends up, I imagine a disappointed reaction is not uncommon at this point.
It’s not that the finale shocks in a way that feels wrong for the series. At the very least, it’s not the first time that has happened, considering some of the recent events leading up to it. The rushed pacing in trying to save everyone else after the deftly paced arc of Kayo followed immediately by a somewhat underwhelming reveal of the big mystery of the series marked the first time there was reason to worry, and the penultimate episode shooting so far past the period in which all the intensity occurred and should’ve been resolved made for an uncharacteristic calm and some uncomfortable developments, all of which we knew wouldn’t be reversed this time. After that, I’ll admit I didn’t have much faith that the finale could really pull it all back together and make this the next new show to suddenly become one of the greatest of all time, but I still hoped it had something up its sleeve more in the vein of what we had seen prior. Instead, there’s nothing to really get excited about in this finale, the plot concluding in an acceptable enough manner (I’m still very grateful that we got the real ending) but not with the kind of power that so grippingly characterized the series for these weeks that have seemed to last much longer than they did.
That’s not to say there’s anything that’s truly bad, or even less than great. To say it didn’t end up as one of the greatest of all time is hardly a condemnation; it’s merely how feasible that seemed early on that spoiled us and ramped up the expectations to levels they never would’ve been going in. Like a great student, an A- can seem low if an A+ is perceived to be within sight, even though it would be fantastic in most other contexts. BokuMachi is that brilliant honors student that had a rough day before final exams, and unfortunately that hurts its GPA permanently. In the end it’s not that it will even miss being in a pretty favorable spot on my top anime list, just that I saw a very real potential for it to make it into my top 5 just a few weeks ago, which is not the case now.
In Summary:
Whatever you want to call it, this series was something special. It was instantly captivating in a way that nothing else of its kind is so early on, full of some of the most realistic and relatable character writing in anime, thoroughly riveting storytelling, phenomenal music to accompany it, and beautifully directed imagery. The film motif that permeates the presentation down to the past being letterboxed is one example of what is often perfect execution, always smart and never pretentious. It could’ve reached One Punch Man status just one season later (ironically the two couldn’t be less similar aside from looking great – also in different ways – and being easily accessible outside of an anime audience), but with an unfortunate disappointment of an ending it has to settle for merely being extremely great, rather than a truly beyond-flawless masterpiece.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
