Forum - View topicWhat's The Best (And Worst) Anime Ending You've Ever Seen?
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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Toradora is one of my favorite shows, but i can't say you're wrong here. spoiler[Ryuji suddenly confessing his love for Taiga and proposing marriage felt like it came out of nowhere, plus that forced separation did feel really lame.] Still love the show, but i concede your points. For best endings, there are a lot that i like. I agree with JO that there was an inevitability to Cowboy Bebop's ending, even if i couldn't articulate why. I also love TTGL (that bombast!), Kill La Kill (most cathartic ending ever for me), and Tokyo Ghoul S1 (one of the best individual episodes i've ever seen). My favorite ending has to be Madoka Magica, for reasons already stated. The writing ties itself up so neatly, with such bittersweet happiness, that i was emotionally destroyed for about a month afterwards (hearing the OP song on my ipod at work would nearly make me start crying). It's great writing, emotionally devastating, and hopeful at the same time. Until Rebellion came out... For worst ending, this is a bit harder since i tend to stop watching shows i lose interest in, so i rarely get to "bad" endings. However, the worst ending i've seen is Soul Eater. While the manga wasn't perfect, one thing it never lacked was imagination and creativity; two things the anime ending had none of. Most of the character development goes in weird directions, all story arcs are tied up in ways that are so... "safe" it's like it was written by a fan fiction author. Compared to the spectacle and flair of the manga, the beige writing of Soul Eater's ending is just sad. The final battle with Medusa is basically Maka yelling "Medusa!!!" a lot, the Kishin turns into a philosophy-spewing Metal Gear villain, and the final battle is defined by out-of-nowhere power-ups, way too much talking, and every negative shonen trope in existence. spoiler[Also, why on earth did they make Maka a weapon?!?! The twist adds NOTHING to the plot, affects none of the characters in any way, and is immediately forgotten.] Things we could have had (if the manga ending had been animated): 1. Where was the Kishin hiding? spoiler[ON THE FRIGGIN MOON] 2. Krona's much better written (and more tragic) character arc 3. Tesca Tlipoca, the best manga character of all time. 4. The Chainsaw Weapon's death (spoiler[his soul is so full of rage IT EXPLODES]) 5. Those creepy clowns not being random dungeon bosses. Is the ending blatantly offensive, or Gainax-ed? No, but it was disappointing, given how well it adapted the source material previously. |
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Marzan
 Posts: 515 |
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Agree with that Cowboy Bebop piece. Perfect ending. Consistent with the story. No second guessing and no chance of a sequel. And everyone who's seen it remembers it.
I'm surprised about what I'm gonna type, but I like the ending of Code Geass. After the silly twists, plot holes you could drive my aunts Ford Pinto through, it actually managed to deliver a poignant and significant finale. |
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killjoy_the
 Posts: 2459 |
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If it makes you feel any better, in the novel spoiler[they only get separated for a few weeks. It ends with Taiga making the effort to get her family situation fixed, and her family rents her a place near her old school so she can still be with her friends and Ryuuji.] Much less melodramatic than the anime, imo.
The manga's ending borrows a little from EoE, imo, with a very different ultimate ending, though. Give EoE a try if you're interested. As for my favorite anime endings, apart from NGE, already mentioned, there's Katanagatari, with both great action and catharsis after what happened at the end of the penultimate episode. A lot of people dislike the final minutes, though I think they're fine. Fate/Zero's second cour, with spoiler[Kiritsugu finally getting the edge slapped out of him], among a bunch of other things. The World God Only Knows Goddess' Arc's ending is great too, with the direction really stepping up for the finale, and spoiler[the closest thing we'll get to the manga's ending, which was also good] As for worst endings, without getting into source material being butchered or the like, there's stuff like Blood+ or Big O where I honestly just fast forwarded the last few episodes because I was so bored of the whole thing and should've dropped it much earlier, but doing so right at the ending felt like a waste of time. There's Chuu2Koi's Second Season's tease of an ending, which I still don't know why it's a thing when spoiler[in the novels they kiss with not too much fanfare]. Akuma no Riddle's giant rollback of an ending that made me feel like every character was extremely incompetent, and while I don't think it's anywhere near worst anything, One Punch Man's ending managed to be probably the best animated sequence I've seen in a TV anime and also the longest yawn an anime battle had ever made me give. |
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Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 898 Location: Southern California |
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Extremely surprised that no one has mentioned Mahou Sensho (maical warefare) one of the worst endings I have seen in recent years.
In fact, I dare to challenge anyone to find a worse ending than that in last 5 years, yes, even valvrave is better than that disaster |
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Man vs Pillow
Posts: 18 |
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The best ending I've ever seen is School Days.
The worst ending I've ever seen is Soul Eater. |
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ragz
Posts: 56 |
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Worst ending for me by far is Kenshin, especially given how dragged out the ending was.
Best probably Gundam X |
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omiya
 Posts: 1826 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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I'll have to watch Simoun sometime, having managed to buy the OP and ED singles and first soundtrack album second-hand from Mandarake Nakano Broadway (all well worth getting). Good Endings: Planetes, Macross Frontier (series) not over-dramatic or unbelievable for the series' content, Angel Beats! for reasons already mentioned by others. Last edited by omiya on Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Angel'sArcanum
 Posts: 303 Location: Toronto, Ontario |
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Good:
Baccano and Giant Robo both had endings which closed off all the current subplots in a satisfying manner and teased more content that might've been on the table, but framed them in exciting ways and again, you still feel a sense of completeness all the while. Kino's Journey - a depressing, direct punch to the gut for Kino's travels - it's beautiful, it's tragic and it's absolutely incredible. House of Five Leaves - Closing out on a very heavy "rock-and-a-hard-place" scenario for one of the main characters that had a ton of emotional weight to it, that character is left in total devastation and confusion afterwards, but then we have an echo to the start of the series, but with a role reversal of who lifts whose spirits. One man has transformed into a livelier, more optimistic man, the other has become a grounded, humbled person in need of genuine friendship. Fantastic character development in this series, and a perfect ending to everything. School Days - Everything in the ending had been perfectly calibrated towards its huge tragedy, all the other threads fleshed out and tied up superbly to close in on the finale and bring everything back to a center point, and in a way, everyone got something that they wanted in a twisted way, and they also lost some things as well, totally satisfying revenge and tragedy, I'll stand by this series to my dying breath as a masterpiece. Kure-nai - I think School Days may have my number 2 favourite ending, where this is my number 1. Some people apparently don't seem to understand this ending, but it is the perfect (and arguably the only real) ending for the series. This is not a story of heroes and villains, simply people with different life values, both inherited and generational, and it's about seeing us as we are: flawed human beings seeking atonement. The main character is a young man who grew up in poor economic conditions and lived independently as a regular high school student with a tough job for income. Meanwhile he has to take care of a girl kidnapped from a corrupt, wealthy family with some archaic and controversial values. The two spend time together growing a little bit along the way, showing each other some of their personal beliefs and how they learn and adopt certain parts of them into each other, but then it reaches the inevitable point where they must confront the family head on, at first physically to try and infiltrate their home and then ideologically so they can learn to change and be more caring people. The boy still has growing to do which is refreshing because within the confines of a series, I don't totally expect someone to become an ideal humanitarian at the end, though that still has its perks, the family gets some redemption from their misguided ways and steers on the right path and the two main characters have forged fond memories of one another and a lasting friendship beyond the end. (this all may be a bit too vague, I may just edit it all later with spoilers and more direct statements, but for now I'll just try to keep it subtle) Now for the bad ones (firstly, good series with weak endings): Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 - Although the TV series ending is supposed to have an ambiguous sense of hope that will be overcome in its own way independently, there's still some big hanging threads and villains to take care of which are kind of just left on their own (and the whole alternate world Germany thing was pretty corny). Meanwhile Conquerer of Shamballa closes all the dangling series threads satisfactorily but then throws in a one-off villain and conflict to keep the gears moving on the film so it has some drama, but it's all pretty dull and hokey, then leading to the really disappointing ending where people part ways again. I like that 2003 was at least more daring than Brotherhood's too-perfect ending, but it's still a rather irksome one either way. Gankutsuou - I loved pretty much everything about the first 22 episodes of the series, but then the last 2 were rather dire. The resolution to the conflict involves some really stupid and tacky pseudo-homo-eroticism that is incredibly aggravating and had me recoil in frustration, and then the finale is one incredibly drawn out search for the main character's would be lover across the city which has nothing going for it and doesn't end until like right at the credits, it's totally corny and felt like the directors were struggling to fill out those final 2 episodes, they were dreadful compared to the preceding ones. The bad endings to bad anime (I'll try to be quick on these for now, there's a fair bit): C - Control - the whole back half hit the fan as it got totally rushed and felt like one massive trainwreck after another, the finale doesn't highlight the drawbacks to the main character's ideologies when there was give and take to both his and the villain's, the MC falls in love with "the manifestation of his future" and all this other silly crud. Denpa teki na Kanojo - There's all this hokum thrown around about how the main characters are supposed to be a reincarnated king and knight or what have you, but they constantly bring it up without ever delving into the origins of this. The OVA is just a series of psychopath girls committing atrocities and attacking the main character before his "knight" shows up, it's all poorly animated and ineptly timed, incredibly awkward (from the man who directed the laughable episode 1 of Elfen Lied!) Then the ending is just spoiler[ one more girl trying to attack the main character by pushing him into an oncoming car, only for her arms to get ripped off by the car, he gets rushed to the hospital as he's still conscious with minor injuries and his knight is there talking to him while in the ambulance.] The End. Abysmal. Samurai Flamenco - The series that kept gradually getting worse ended in a bottom of the barrel, odious thing about some minor character becoming a villain after the main character had spoiler[ become God basically] so the final conflict feels quite needless, and the villain and his goals are absolute lunacy, there's some abominable twists and another awful BL tease that shouldn't be. Bleck. Char's Counterattack - One really confusing and slipshod film that runs at 2 hours mostly just building to a final confrontation between Amuro and Char with a bunch of terrible new characters thrown in, Char devolving into an egotistical jackass and a really lame "dark" conclusion with Newtype powers blown up to their most ludicrous. Witch Hunter Robin - "We're going to do the same thing as the bad guy, except not be 'bad', nothing about any of us or our objectives has changed, and Robin may or may not get together with Amon at the last second!" I've written about this series enough before, I don't want to get back into it, it's awful. Kemonozume - The villain's motivations for turning everyone into beasts is because "my son is a weird looking giant and stuff", spoiler[ he essentially gets his goal accomplished, but then the final one or two episodes has him planning to spread a gas that with certainty turns everyone into a beast (which they all should be at this point), he gets defeated in some hokey showdown, no solution for the problem is given and the main characters jump off a plane to land somewhere in each other's arms...] Michiko and Hatchin - While this series is kind of above par, I still didn't like it very much, and the ending was pretty obvious from some of the episodes coming before it. It sums up to "men are all stupid, we were meant to live with each other all along!" Spare me. A few quickies I guess: Colorful the Movie was also really obvious based on the poorly defined premise and didn't really have good character development, Terror in Resonance summed up to "MURRICUH", "save the trees and the energy" and "love and peace". Gargantia was also some strange treehugger ending copout and instead of focusing on all the interesting sci-fi stuff, ran with the poor romance elements and such, really disappointing. Lastly Say "I love you" may not count because you can probably ignore episode 13 since episode 12 gives a quiet, but sweet little conclusion, but 13 is this really stupid melodrama episode of misunderstandings and running into each other or missing each other at just the wrong time before it's like "hey, I love you" "oh that's nice", end. Now, the WORST ending for one of the WORST anime I've ever seen is Apocalypse Zero. The final battle takes place at a swimming pool. The "final" villain shoots missiles out of his phallus and he's an old crotchety demon who keeps talking about his "weenie", spoiler[ the ACTUAL main antagonist FUSES with this LESSER demon to try and kill the main character but fails, the old demon dies, the main antagonist is apparently "regenerating" and the main character walks off into the sunset waiting for the antag to recover and to find her properly. I was just yelling at my computer screen and throwing a fit over how she fused with an inferior demon to try and kill the protag and is said to still be alive at the end.] Ugggggggh. Last edited by Angel'sArcanum on Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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The most satisfying ending to an anime series that I have watched is probably the one for Steins;Gate. Even the OVA was very satisfying.
The ending that I have hated the most is the one for Black Bullet. The series was never good, but it picked up positive momentum in its middle episodes, only to be betrayed by a non-sensical and kind of out of left field ending. |
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DigitalScratch
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Since everyone is taking a crack at it, here's my personal Bests and Worsts. I don't watch that many anime to the end, since if I can see it's heading a bad direction I usually stop. Other endings I'm pretty neutral about, or have what I don't consider endings (aka they leave you at a point where you can continue in the manga.)
The Best Endings: - Azumanga Daioh A nice and simple ending to a fun adventure about some of the best high school girls I've seen in anime. The girls all successfully graduate and make it to College, but even though they're going to be apart Chiyo's comment at the end gives you hope that no matter what they're still going to be friends. There's no dramatic flair or twists, just 6 friends spending as much time together as they can. And that's how the last days of your school life should be. -Princess TuTu One of the more satisfying endings I've seen. The final dance was beautiful and showcased just how much Duck has grown throughout the series. And by the end, everyone has earned their right to be happy. Yes, I consider spoiler[Duck returning to her original form, a duck,] as a happy ending. Because spoiler[she's no longer living a in a tragic, fantastical story]. She's back to who she truly is and appears to be living fine with spoiler[Fakir as he writes new stories for the town.] The two of them didn't fall into the tragedy and accepted to live their lives happy in the real world. The Worst Endings: - Soul Eater This one is definitely personal because I love this series. But not only was the ending of the anime rather bad, but also the entire last quarter. Most fights were no longer impressive, the colors were all dreary, little development among the main characters, and Asura is one of the most boring anime villains in recent time. As a result the final battle didn't really keep me at the edge of my seat, because I had zero expectations. What exactly would happen if Asura stayed active? The world just got redder, and that wasn't even because of him. If the final villain is unexciting, then watching him fight feels like watching any other character. Throw in spoiler[Maka's random weapon form and her courage filled punch] and you just get a very unsatisfying end to an anime that had such a fun beginning. Not that the manga ended any better, but this is about anime and the manga's ending is the lesser of two evils for me. - Diabolik Lovers If you know about this anime, you pretty much know how it ends. Good god was it agonizing to watch. Things I do for a good laugh. Last edited by DigitalScratch on Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Best Ending: For me its Shriobako, the show ends perfectly leaving you feeling good about everything BUT still leaving a tantalizing desire for more. If there is never anymore made I consider it a great show, if I hear they're making more, I will expectantly look forward to it. It is a rare series that can do that.
(Honorable Mention: Agree on original Gunbuster, that one was also really good) TERRIBLE endings: Theron gets the nod for accuracy that Oreimo is just gawd-awful. spoiler[Two people you grow to hate ending up together and then ... haha, just kdding, not only did we piss off everyone else, but screw you to anyone left who might've actually been INTO the incest.] Two others: Death Note (duh) spoiler[End it halfway, then maybe its decent, but it's basically "Sherlock Holmes v. Moriarty = kill Holmes, then find a NEW "great detective" and expect people to buy that Moriarty will fall to the new guy despite the audience having no emotional investment in said new guy] Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. I know MANY (especially Gundam officianados) will disagree, but I HATE this ending, I understand the statement, but I truly DESPISE what they did here. spoiler[Hey, war is senseless and pointless, we'll prove that by giving you sympathetic characters in either side who become friends and then have them (pointlessly) kill each other in self-sacrifical efforts because they are not informed that what they're doing is ACTUALLY unnecessary.] Last edited by HeeroTX on Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7357 |
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Best: Princess Tutu-for me, every single note of this ending was perfect. It didn't betray what came before it, just for a perfectly happy ending (as I've seen weaker shows do), but damn did it take its bittersweet ending in complete stride. And it just fit it perfectly, it was the natural ending to the show, just not the most happy one. But sometimes, that takes the most balls to pull off.
I have different awards for Worst, for Worst Ending that Didn't affect the show, I got with Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. The main character literally learns nothing and actually goes so far into retconning things so he doesn't have to ever learn anything. But that's hardly what you'll remember about a parody show where they go to "America" and this dude tries to sell them hotdogs while cursing every other word. And for just plain worse, maybe Gilgamesh. I remember hating the whole show, don't get me wrong, but the ending itself just put the icing on the cake of making it the worst TV anime I think I've ever seen. I am absolutely someone who likes objectively terrible things (think Garzey's Wing, Mad Bull 34, or Genma Wars) ironically, and when something falls below those levels, I become genuinely concerned. And for as bad as the show itself was, the ending comes along and just... there are no words. The bar was already in the earth's crust, and the ending, which does its very best to be as confusing as possible and introduce a completely new "big bad" who wasn't even hinted at before while taking everything completely seriously, but not in a funny Birdemic sort of way, just drops it straight to the center of the core. |
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Wakazhi
 Posts: 203 |
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Evangelion's ending was as "bold" a choice as someone committing cannibalism because they're about to starve to death and lost all sense of reason.
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Takkun4343
 Posts: 1499 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Pretty sure the moral of the story there was "absolutely do not trust anyone named Hiroshi Morenos". |
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Barciad
 Posts: 130 Location: St Andrews |
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Best Ending...
The Cowboy Bebop ending was damn majestic. A shame the rest of the series was so underwhelming. The ending of Nadia, Secret of Blue Water almost made up for the 'Island Arc. I won't spoil the ending for Captain Harlock: The Endless Odyssey. Just to say it was very good. Worst Ending... Vision of Escaflowne was a bit of a let-down and Evangelion's was needlessly weird. Plus a the endings of a lot of the Ghibli films were a touch abrupt to say the very least. |
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