[Hyper]

It's just occurred to me that while we can take it as a bittersweet ending, one can look at another angle and realized that this can be viewed as the opposite as well. Namely, Houtarou is someone who had seen the difference in talent for so long that he had given up on achieving anything in his life. In the course of the series he has been slowly coming out of that shell and finally accomplished quite a task in this arc.