Stardate 20040324.2147

(Captain's log): As I continue to watch various anime series, I've noticed that it is nearly impossible for me to predict, if I like the first few episodes of a series, whether I'll still like it once I've watched the entire thing. That's because to a great extent my ultimate feelings are a function of how well the director and writers ended up handling the ending. Too often now I've found myself let down once it's over.

One of the advantages of the Japanese anime format is that the majority of series are not indefinitely long. Most run one or two seasons, and this means that they're better able to plan an overall story arc for the series and develop it along the way. When the writers don't actually know how long the series will run, that's not really possible. Of course, sometimes they still don't even though they do know how long the series will run.

Of all the series I've watched so far, the one which best took advantage of a known and planned length was Noir. Watching it feels like watching the first half of North by Northwest where all kinds of dangerous and mysterious things happen to Mireille and Kirika, none of which makes much sense. But in the end, all of it does. The backstory and plot are extremely tight, and there is a reasonable explanation for everything that happens in the series even though it seems terribly confusing as it unfolds.

I would have to say that Mahoromatic best demonstrates the opposite extreme. The ending was thoroughly botched. I hated it when I watched it the first time, and I've hated it ever since. Which leaves me with extremely mixed feelings about the series as a whole, since I loved the early part of it, and still do. I find myself going back and rewatching some episodes of it again and again, just because I like the characters so much, and because a lot of the episodes stand well alone. (My favorite episodes are the beach, the haunted school and the dark martial arts festival.)

I confess that my favorite character is Chizu, the little blonde gourmet who can taste a sample of chocolate mousse at a bakery and then tell the cook exactly where and under who he originally trained, or instantly recognize just by sight that Mahoro's Christmas turkey came from "Henderson Farms in Kentucky, America, which has earned the title of 'world's tastiest'". Chizu's reaction to Mahoro's cooking is a running gag in the series, and I never get tired of those scenes.

One problem the directors and writers face in producing a series arises when they're working from a manga. To a greater or lesser extent, they'll base their anime episodes on events in the manga, but it is not uncommon for an anime series to be based on the first part of a manga that hasn't actually been finished, or alternatively to outrun the manga. I've been told that part of why the ending of Mahoromatic sucked so badly was that after the first season was so popular, they rushed to do a second season immediately – and ran out of material from the manga and had to improvise their own ending. (Which thoroughly stunk.)

A couple of days ago I picked up a boxed set containing the entire series Martian Successor Nadesico, and I just finished watching it earlier this evening. This is a very strange series, and there's actually a lot to like about it. For one thing, every time I thought they'd settled into a groove, where I thought I had a pretty good idea where they were heading, they crossed me up and totally changed direction. A lot of characters whose roles I thought I had pegged turned out to be entirely different. The series is about a war, and I was caught totally by surprise by later revelations about the enemy. The guy I had pegged as the primary villain in the series wasn't; the real villain was not someone I suspected at all. Underlying mysteries and complications didn't work out the way I thought they would. The annoying ditz that I thought was mainly comic relief turned out to be complex and interesting and heroic and even a bit tragic. The complicating love interest ceased to be a love interest about half-way through. It wasn't that they were changing directions randomly; it made sense after the fact. It's more that I underestimated them and assumed that their characters were more clichéd than they turned out to be.

And so the ending of the series was a mixed experience, since it didn't really end it. Turns out that the series really gets ended by a movie which was released two years later, which I'm going to have to order.

Part of why I didn't do so well trying to guess where they were going is that the series is actually partly a parody. It has a serious story to tell, and it also has strong comic elements, and it has interesting characters, but it also sends up a lot of previous series most of which I know nothing about. Even so, with my limited experience, I definitely spotted references to Voltron and to Neon Genesis Evangelion. (There's also something of an homage to Forbidden Planet.)

Speaking of which, Neon Genesis Evangelion is another recent acquisition. And it is another series which kept me guessing. It didn't end up anything like I expected it to, ultimately. I was totally surprised by where the series ultimately went.

But getting to the point of this post, it occurred to me that it might be handy for others to get a sort of short checklist for various series of "How satisfying is the ending?"

Series name: Mahoromatic, Automatic Maiden
Length: 12 episodes on 3 DVDs
Wraps up the story: No
Ending story arc: Final 3 episodes
Is the ending satisfying? Basically, yes. It isn't outstanding, but it didn't leave me feeling cheated. The basic conflict gets resolved, and all the characters I wanted to be part of it actually were. No one broke character, so the final result made sense, and the result wasn't a disappointment.
Recommended? Yes

Series name: Mahoromatic, Something More Beautiful
Length: 14 episodes on 3 DVDs
Wraps up the story: Yes, or at least pounds it into submission
Ending story arc: Episodes 10-13 (with episode 14 as a coda)
Is the ending satisfying? No, it is dreadful. It is far and away the worst series ending among all the series I've watched so far. It abandons logic, and character consistency, and dramatic consistency.
Recommended? The first two DVDs. Watch the third only if you want to know how it all comes out and are prepared to be disappointed and pissed off.

Series name: Louie the Rune Soldier
Length: 24 episodes on 6 DVDs
Wraps up the story: No
Ending story arc: Final 3 episodes
Is the ending satisfying? Middling. The biggest disappointment is the fact that it didn't actually wrap up the story. I had thought it would, and a lot of why I felt cheated was because it didn't. Because of that, a lot of questions were not answered, and a lot of ultimate character confrontations didn't happen. There was at least one major logic problem in the story. Two of the main characters broke character somewhat in the end, and one main character continued to be totally wasted, as she was from the second DVD on. One main character was treated cavalierly, which I really didn't think she deserved. On the other hand, there was a crisis and the good guys did win it, and there were some things which did get resolved in ways which were quite satisfying. It's clear they're setting up for some kind of sequel. I hope it ends up being a movie, because I don't think there's enough juice left in the basic story concept to support a full second season. Whether I ultimately decide the series is good or not will depend enormously on what comes next.
Recommended? Yeah. It's not the best series I've ever seen, but it has a lot of good points to it and it's a lot of fun to watch. Several of the characters are interesting and their interaction is even more interesting. It's good light entertainment.

Series name: Cowboy Bebop
Length: 26 episodes on 6 DVDs, plus a movie which fits into the continuity between episodes 23 and 24
Wraps up the story: Yes
Ending story arc: Final 2 episodes of the anime
Is the ending satisfying? I still have mixed feelings about it. It's consistent, it wraps up all the major questions, all characters stay in character, and all the characters but one that I wanted to have involved in it actually were. What happens makes sense, logically and in character terms. But it wasn't what I wanted.
Recommended? Yes

Series name: Hand Maid May
Length: 11 episodes on 3 DVDs
Wraps up the story: Pretty much.
Ending story arc: Episodes 9 and 10. (Episode 11 was a special.)
Is the ending satisfying? I didn't really think so the first time I watched it, but it's been growing on me, and now I actually like it a lot. It helped quite a bit for Greely and I to spend some time trying to come up with a half-way rational explanation of what-the-hell actually happened. (Given that it involves time travel, it wasn't easy.) This isn't really a series where the attraction is plot or story; it's really about characters and feelings, and overall I think the ending stayed consistent with that. So I would have to say it is satisfying.
Recommended? It's not for everyone, but I really like it.

Series name: El Hazard, The Wanderers
Length: 26 episodes on 4 DVDs
Wraps up the story: Yes
Ending story arc: episodes 18-26
Is the ending satisfying? Pretty much. They dragged it out a bit longer than they really should have, but this entire series is pretty thin soup. All the right people are involved, and the good guys win. The last little bit of it confused me a little because the animators tossed in a graphic icon which has a definite meaning for me as a Westerner who grew up Christian, but which I suspect has an entirely different meaning for the Japanese. (My interpretation was that it meant a particular character was dead. But I think they interpret it more along the lines "purity of spirit".)
Recommended? No.

Series name: Serial Experiments Lain
Length: 13 episodes on 4 DVDs
Wraps up the story: Yes
Ending story arc: The entire series is one story arc
Is the ending satisfying? That's not an easy question to answer, because this is not an easy series to understand. The first time I watched this series, I was deeply bewildered by it. At the same time, I did not feel cheated by it. The ending doesn't wrap everything up in a tight package which gives you predigested answers for all your questions. There are answers; but you have to work for them. This is a very challenging series, one which operates on many levels, one which is very dense. It will stay with you after you've watched it. The ending gives you everything you need but not necessarily everything you might want. But if it had included much more, I think the series would have been spoiled.
Recommended? YES!!!!

Series name: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Length: 26 episodes on 8 (!) DVDs
Wraps up the story: Yes
Ending story arc: final 2 episodes
Is the ending satisfying? Not even remotely. As I understand it, the director ran out of episodes before he ran out of story, and was forced to butcher the ending to make it fit. The result is disjoint and makes virtually no sense at all. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with it, either, because eventually two movies were made, called Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. The right way to watch this series is to watch the first 24 episodes, and then to watch The End of Evangelion. That works far better, and in fact the ending makes far more sense and does wrap up the series far better, even though it's still not totally satisfactory.
Recommended? I can't make up my mind. On balance, I'd have to say yes, but this series is very strange, and some people will hate it. The impression one gains of the underlying series concept from the first few episodes is entirely wrong, but that is deliberate on the part of the director. This series is very disturbing on many levels, and it is also very graphically violent. The reason I don't unconditionally recommend it is that even with the movie as an alternate ending, the ending still did not for me maintain the quality of the experience that led up to it, and left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

Series name: Noir
Length: 26 episodes on 7 DVDs
Wraps up the story: Yes
Ending story arc: More or less the final 3 episodes, but this series is really one unified story arc from beginning to end
Is the ending satisfying? You betcha! It's outstanding!
Recommended? This is an excellent series for adults. I loved it.

Series name: Fruits Basket
Length: 26 episodes on 4 DVDs
Wraps up the story: No
Ending story arc: final 3 episodes
Is the ending satisfying? Very much so. I've probably watched it 10 times now, just because I like it so much.
Recommended? Absolutely. Fruits Basket is an ongoing manga which has reached 89 chapters and is still going, and the anime is based on the first 45 chapters, so it doesn't come even remotely close to ending the series and a lot of things are left hanging. Nonetheless, the actual ending they did use in the anime is so well done that the series still stands well on its own. I do hope that eventually there will be another series after the manga has been completed, but in the mean time what has actually been produced here is superb.

DWL: Oh, and by the way, please do not send suggestions for other series I "might want to try". My list of "things to watch" is already too long.

Update 20040325: Greely goes into more detail about some of these (including some mild spoilers).