Dusk Beyond the End of the World

Episode 12

After the last few weeks we've had with this show, especially, I didn't exactly start this episode feeling optimistic. But wow, somehow it “exceeded” my expectations. Against all odds, this ended up being a worse ending than I thought we'd get. I'm almost impressed. Almost.

Throughout the episode, all I could see on loop was the milk spilling over from the secret box episode of SpongeBob . The whole Yokurata thing was pointless and went nowhere, and he died after the most sudden and anti-climactic fight ever. And speaking of sauceless fights, Yoiya-moru versus Yugure. This should've been the centerpiece of the episode, but maybe it's because the conflict felt so incredibly forced that it just wasn't hitting. When they were headbutting, in particular, all I could think was, “This is so uninteresting, this is downright pathetic.” And then they meet the real Akira—who's alive, I guess—just in time for him to die to save them, and not really do much of anything else. The show framed this as though it wanted it to be A Moment, but especially since we learn Towasa is dead, keeping the real Akira—who we, the audience, haven't been given much (if any) reason to care about—alive just doesn't really move your heart the way I'm sure this anime wanted it to.

But the worst of the worst has to be all the romance stuff. We've spent the whole series up until now with Akira saying he doesn't care for Amoru romantically, and nothing suggests Yugure feels that way about her either. Meanwhile—and seemingly against the intention of the anime—Amoru seems to selfishly feel entitled to their affection. Despite how we've gone the whole series up until now with Akira and Yugure not being interested in her romantically, I guess now they've suddenly changed their mind? On one hand, love some positivity for polyamory. On the other hand, this is such a poorly written romance on all fronts. Absolutely zero chemistry between these three, and the whole thing feels really forced.

Romance has, since the start, been at the center of Dusk. Looking back on the series as a whole, I think this, more than anything else, is what sealed its fate. Namely, if the romance—any of them—had been more engaging, it might've been able to make up for the shoddy writing. If nothing else, it at least would've made for a good distraction. But Akira and Yugure feel forced, Amoru and literally anyone feel like the series completely not realizing that they made Amoru feel like she's owed their affection, and all three of them together only compounds those issues. They're all terrible romantic leads—Amoru especially—and this series tries to throw enough weight into the romance department that their failings drag the whole series down with them.

This was, in my opinion, the worst anime of the season (that I watched). The writing was catastrophically bad, to the extent that what are ostensibly supposed to be payoffs feel like a joke. Every single romance feels underdeveloped at best, and forced at worst. The character writing is abysmal. Maybe the only thing I can give it a compliment on that's not followed by a qualifier or asterisk are the visuals, which were, admittedly, both good and consistent. The worldbuilding also could've been a really cool thing Dusk had going for it, if only it were able to give it any meaningful payoff. It was good at building up the suspense, but that feels like such a meaningless achievement (if you even want to still call it one in the first place) when it can't stick the landing—it's only succeeding at half of the equation, and 50% is still a failing grade.

It's disappointing to see an anime original work, in particular, fall so flat, because I do find myself wishing there were more of them out there, and we've had some really good ones this year. In a sea of adaptations, they can be a breath of fresh air. Still, alas, I guess this is an unfortunate reminder that they can't all be winners. But on that note, the silver lining I have to offer all of you is that if this show left you hungry for a better anime original, post-apocalyptic work whose main character is a robot, that came out this year, there was such a show that fits your weirdly specific bill: Apocalypse Hotel was, by every quantifiable metric, leagues better than this, and has a lot of similarities to Dusk (even if many of them are, admittedly, pretty superficial similarities).

Rating:

Dusk Beyond the End of the World is currently streaming on HIDIVE.