Closure on Kaede

[somenoobie]

hey everyone! i just watched the final episode! I really loved the series since the entire thing wasnt just fillers between the first and last episode.

anyways, i really didnt like that Asa ended up with Rin. Please, no offense to Asa lovers k! she was barely focused on in the first half of the series and all of the sudden, she was forcefed to viewers beginning with that trip to the love-park.

I really thought Kaede wouldve been a better partner for Rin. I felt so sad for her because she tried so hard for him. Yes she started their relationship for penance & forgiveness, but she also did admit falling in love with him which is why she continued to serve him. To Rin it was like an "Owner & Dog" situation so-to-say and thats why he moved to let her go, but I wished that he could have seen otherwise!!

Its feels so unfair that Kaede was so caring and faithful to him all that time and he just broke her off. She even got so desparate that she made sexual advances at him just so she could get his attention again. Why (and how) could you not see after those incidents that someone is so devoted she would do something extreme like that for you, not once but 2 times (earlier episode where she gets 'work exhaustion' and the other 'psycho kaede' episode). thats what made me sad the most lol

but thats why i love anime where the main char is some guy who dont see things coming until its after-the-fact haha. This series was great and im glad that Rin didnt get assassinated by that wierdo handerkerchief man, and leaves room for continuation!!!!!!!!!!! (please oh please let there be more shuffle!)

thanks for reading my rant!

[2H-Dragon]

Rin went for Asa for the simple reason he was "in love" with Asa(cant blame the guy). Thats enough reason imo. Yes its true, it was unfair towards Kaede, but wouldnt staying with Kaede be wrong? Its against Rin's will. One sided relation ships dont work. Going with Asa gave Rin what he wanted and left room for Kaede to move on.

[somenoobie]

poor poor kaede

[Altima of the Gates]

Thats all great and wonderful, but it seems none of the girls really moved on at all. It would have been great if we had gotten a scenario that suggests that they would move on but there wasn't. More suitable male characters would have added some spice to it i say.

[tetsuo69]

anyways, i really didnt like that Asa ended up with Rin. Please, no offense to Asa lovers k! she was barely focused on in the first half of the series and all of the sudden, she was forcefed to viewers beginning with that trip to the love-park.

this the reason why i end up hating the series.. it seem so Fake
and it destroy my Fav character image wich was Asa...Kaede or the other two demon girls were more fit to stay with that idiot

[SeedFreedom]

i also feel the asa ending was a little pushed. with barley any intrest betweeen the two(sure there was the occasional comment) as well she is the first to say "i dont want to change how things are" i feel that should have taken her right out. why they did it we'll never know. as for kaede, she found a new partner *points to sia*

[SnakeLegend]

well as long as Kaede's not married, whats there to be worried about?

[12characters]

Originally Posted by SeedFreedom

as for kaede, she found a new partner *points to sia*

I actually think I went into shock at that.. I just HAD to watch the ending credits ~_~... Sad I know, (Sad that I went into shock from a yuri scene in anime, I was expecting it all through the series but let down my gaurd. Or just going into shock from anime period heh.).. I'd rather she wound up getting Rin someday, they have a pretty deep relationship imo.

[Vexx]

I have to keep in mind when anime writers say they're going to do something innovative .. its kind of like the Honda Corp. getting all excited about a new innovation like an advanced cupholder....

They decided up front to end it with Asa (since it includes the over the top Rin sacrifice from the game and it was a from the blindside solution) but in retrospect... they spent too much time with Sia, not enough time with Nerine, hardly any with Primula, and then the toughest arc to get around --- Kaede, they had an arc writer who could write like crazy but it got so fired up that when they applied the brakes it just whimpered out and made Asa's arc look like a muddled mess (the game arc is pretty weak as well... but they missed the opportunity to fix Asa with better motivations for not using magic). THEN they go massively into reverse in the last half of ep24 by having all the girls electing to continue to pursue Rin instead of moving on... Asa had better work on her polygamy sensibility I guess.

I liked Asa's character and they established there was a lot of hidden "heat" in their bonds early on but she had decided not to take it any farther until Rin decided thats the way he wanted to go .... it bothers me she didn't immediately think of Kaede's feelings though ... one line of dialog would have handled that thought. She did correctly identify herself as a "monster" when crying it out with Kaede under the bridge. But her motivations for not using magic were so lamely written .... a couple of lines of dialog would have fixed that as well.

Ya know.. I still *liked* the series... but it is kind of like watching someone write an essay with a premise you really really liked but they overslept and then just schlepped something out to make the deadline.

I'm going to keep my expectations for Soul Link pretty low...

[LocrEpinS]

Well obviously I’m die-hard Kaede fan, but I don't ever discriminate against others on their preference of characters.
I had all my hopes for Kaede to be the 1 that Rin chose but it wasn’t so.
I was quite disappointed at that fact, but since that really is only a small part of a bigger story I didn’t give much attention to it, but still, why doesn’t the story always go the way I want it to? But then again this is the second anime that I’ve finished watching and the first one did go as planned(Chobits), except it was a little expected, so it didn’t have as much of an effect as first thought.
Can’t think of anything else to say, so I guess it’s ‘til next time.

[Vexx]

greets, LocrEpinS .... yeah... I'm kind of like you in that the type of girl I prefer *never* wins in these series. I've concluded it says some fundamental things about the fantasies (delusions?) of the writers and their target audiences in Japan.

I started the series really expecting a polygamous solution, probably Sia, Nerine, and Kaede, which is still somewhat unusual (despite Futukoi Alternative). Once I figured out that there was too much baggage with Kaede and that Asa was the submarine win (that scene in her bed with the sprained ankle .. and then Nerine's observant comments several times early in the series)... I expected great things from the Kaede arc.... and they delivered right up til they "cut power" in ep 21.
The Asa arc showed some serious deficiency in understanding what might realistically motivate characters ("I'm going to die so my mother won't cry"???????). For a while I thought we were missing something in translation but I sat there and did my own translation... nope, the writers were just putting stupidity into the mouth of Asa (and Rin).

I tend to be attracted to the "kendo girl" or high performing lone wolf types.... Nerine came closest to that type in this show.... but in intellect rather than physical skill.

[wildarmsheero]

As much as I love Kaede and as much as I wanted Rin to be with her, his Asa choice made the series a lot more interesting.

[Shiroth]

I gotta agree with Heero on this one, i mean - i'm the guy who wanted Rin to end up with Ama. ^.^

In many people's eyes Kaede should have had all of Rin's love - but that really wouldn't have been a good series ender.. but maybe a decent OAV ender~

[somenoobie]

since my dream was shattered -

i hope that one day Asa comes home from school and catches Ama & Rin (absent because "not feeling well") doing the nasty. and then Asa surprise back-smacks Ama to death while Ama's in the bath, and finally blows up in front of Rin after confessing to him.

that is the only way i'll be happy about this series again.





just kidding haha.

[andiyar]

Heh. Now that would be something fun to watch - the NC-17 rated sequel OVA, perhaps?


As for Kaede not getting any closure... well, judging from the last half of episode 24, noone really got closure at all. Everyone is still gunning for Rin in their own way (except possibly Primula) except that he's no longer a bachelor target.

To the Asa was a total surprise - I do beg to differ here. Vexx mentioned a few situations early in the show where Asa was somewhat subtly drawn into the spotlight as the partner and then was again backgrounded. Kind of subliminal. By the time I'd seen the first half a dozen episodes I was convinced Asa would 'win' simply from how she was being treated, and how they were all interacting. I was also convinced that Kaede could not possibly win, due to, shall we say, familial issues - which sparked a rather extensive and heated debate during the Kaede arc.

But then Shuffle! didn't hit the marks i was hoping it would, especially (as Vexx said above) in the 'closure' on the Kaede arc, and in the actual execution of the Asa arc. They could have been done much better, but (as I wrote in the ep 24 discussion thread) there were probably reasons that they weren't.

One of these days I'm going to get back to my Shuffle! series & character essay. But until then... I liked Shuffle! But I mourn what it could have become.


-Andiyar

[evil-samurai]

To be honest I dont really!! care all that much about the way they ended things. It only an apdation. There is always the Wonderfull! game if people want to see the original Story of all the girls. If the show wasn't based on the game I might of been ripping my hair out Since I really loved Primula's character and would want to see more!!! Also what is kinda good about the Shuffle genre.. is that there is no one/two girls that fits for the the main character (though it would be best if it was primual ) unlike many! other ero-games, all 5 (7) girls get alot of focus what ever way the story is shown (e.g anime/game/manga/Novel)

Well since I like some harme ero-game apdations, I hope that the next lot that comes out have a character designs just as good as Rin since I'm really am sick of alot of the crappy male character designs in alot of the harme (most based on novels/manga) shows. Well dont have much else to say... well I'm looking forward to playing the game Now ^^

Originally Posted by LocrEpinS

The game is in jap right? is there an english version of it?
If not then how would u play the game? i don't know for sure but i figure most of u don't know much jap as neither do i.
But yes it would be possible to just randomly select things in the game and hope for the best.

Neat! seems like you live in the same place I do LocrEpinS ^^ well now about those questions..

The game is in Japanese (which I cant read ^^;; ) and is currenly being translated to english ( yea!! )
We have a thread that one of the translators (heklin) does post in. Plus there is a Site up here!! as well, so far the translation project is said to be at 95% so it should be finished fairly soon you would think, but still you never know how long it could take since things come up and people get busy.

If you ask were can you download the game.. It''s agaisn't the rules to ask here for a game in which you can Buy. (its not free ^^;; )

[LocrEpinS]

The game is in Japanese right? is there an english version of it?
If not then how would u play the game? i don't know for sure but i figure most of u don't know much Japanese as neither do i.
But yes it would be possible to just randomly select things in the game and hope for the best.
Edit: I don't like offending ppl, btw i had no clue, as from now i'm gonna try my best to use JP or Japanese instead, thx for da infos. Japan's pretty much my most fav country, i love almost everything about it, so this is the least i can do

[wildarmsheero]

Japanese, please. Saying "Jap" is the same as "Nigger' or "Chink".

[Vexx]

I've about decided our Australian friends use "jap" without meaning any demeaning nature given all the AU correspondents I've seen use it. However, "jap" is considered an insult in the same way "wop", "chink", and other terms are tendered -- most forums, including this one I think - consider use of the word a bannable offense.

That said.... typing "japanese" repeatedly can get tiring I guess .... I've taken up the practice of using the domain acronym (or the keyboard locale phrase) "JP" when I"m in a hurry.... one letter difference and no one seems to mind.

My wife is japanese-american and I can tell you the fastest way to lose your kneecaps is to use "jap" within earshot of her. The term is extremely derogatory and used as part of the racist propaganda tools of WW2 to dehumanize the enemy. (just like the japanese used racist tools to dehumanize their opponents ... pretty shabby human technique to make it easier to mistreat others). Her cousin and I are best friends from high school and I can say the *only* time I ever saw him lose his temper was once when a fellow student was an ass called him a "dirty jap".

To answer your question: the game is in japanese so you'd have to learn the language or get a walkthrough to determine when to choose what. There is a project underfoot to provide an English patch (see Heklin's posts) and its mostly done apparently, but I don't know its current status.

Keep in mind these games are not terrible interactive .. they're more like visual novels with occasional "choose your path" points.... like a very simple Zork with pretty pictures and good writing.

[andiyar]

@ Vexx:

I'd have to disagree. Noone I know in 'the real world' uses the term except to be derogatory. I dislike the use of slang terms in general, especially those that carry as much baggage. I refer to it as 'Japanese' all the time, as do all the people I know and associate with. If you're interested in an Australian 'anime group' perspective, the best place to visit would be the forums of Madman Entertainment - they're our anime distributor down here (yes, pretty much just them!).

For reference - on the Madboards (as they are termed) using the word 'jap' is considered offensive, and repeated use is bannable. So nope, it's not an Australian thing


-Andiyar