[7thMethuselah]

Originally Posted by husyk

Just finished watching Saikano yesterday, and I thought it was too emotional. When I saw the description of the anime, I was hoping Chise would be more like Kosmos from Xenosaga. Plot was allright overall, but not enough explanation in terms of cause of the war,

Well the war is not important, the story is about their relationship, so the reasons of the war and who are involved doesn't add anything, in fact it'll only distract from the actual story.

why are they after her,

And the japanese are after Chise because she is their ultimate weapon, she is their last hope, they see her as the only way to survive.

the chnages in personality.

What in fact happens to Chise is a bit more clear from the manga.

Spoiler:

At the start of the anime she is a regular girl. But when the first attacks start Chise's cybernetic implants (the things in her chest) take over. However this change in Chise doesn't happen over night. Chise slowly changes from a regular shy schoolgirl to a cyborg weapon.

This change and the effect on her love relationship with Shuuji is what the anime is about, everything else is of second importance.

As Chise changes and slowly loses her Humanity, she struggles with her feelings, at first they are the only thing she can rely on in her life, it's her only support to get through the changes, later on in the anime she starts to doubt if she can actually "stay human" in her new destiny. Eventually she chooses to be human and not a weapon (the parts where they run away and go live in a small remote town). However when the pills suppressing her symptoms are gone, the cyborg part comes back. As you can see these changes in her personality are only natural when you realise what she goes through.

In the final 2 episodes we meet Chise as a complete cyborg, however due to Shuji she remembers her memories that she seemed to have forgotten.

It would have been better seeing her in battle as a weapon, and would have been better if everyone has died in the end, Shuji should have killed her like promised.

Again, the war is NOT what the anime is about but it's about the changes she goes through and her relationship, and the consequences of the one on the other.

Spoiler:

At the end of the anime everyone does die, it's not explicitly mentioned but Chise mentioned several times that everything would be destroyed and that everyone would die.

PS Yes you may have noticed that I absolutely love this show