Going into this episode, I was prepared to hate it. I was prepared for a horribly out-of-nowhere forced happy ending, based on how last episode ended.
To my considerable relief, the narrative did a surprisingly good job of transitioning to a very happy ending after spending
so much time clearly building up to a decidedly bittersweet/tragic one.
The way the narrative did this was two-fold...
1) Finally, Riki's Narcolepsy, a seemingly important recurring element that many of us nonetheless found kinda obnoxious and/or laughable, was used very well.
2) Adding a deeper meaning to the idea of Riki "surpassing" Kyousuke.
By clearly tying these two recurring elements into Riki and Rin successfully saving everyone, the ending manages to at least feel like it did
not come absolutely out of nowhere. In order for Riki to save his friends, he had to overcome his recurring weakness - His narcolepsy. And that narcolepsy was directly tied into him panicking during a truly terrible personal tragedy. So to get a better result with
this horrific vehicular accident, Riki had to overcome a weakness that plagued him in a previous one.
Riki also had to "surpass" Kyousuke in maintaining hope in rescuing his friends, something that Kyousuke himself clearly never imagined possible.
So, kudos to JC Staff for decently managing something that is pretty hard to manage - And that's completely changing tone in the last episode and a half of an anime show.
That being said, I probably would have respected this ending a
little bit more if it had stuck to the theme of how it's important for people to become emotionally strong enough to overcome great personal loss (since just about all of us will face that at one time or another in our lives).
My one other major critique is based on how one of my fields of training is Occupational Health and Safety. Part of that training involves learning about Emergency Preparedness, and how best to respond to emergencies just like this one. My background here is part of the reason why I
really didn't like how neither Riki or Rin called emergency services last episode. The fact they didn't do that this episode either does exasperate me a bit, I have to be honest there.
Riki and Rin are heroes, but what they did in this episode was absolutely reckless in the extreme. They never called for emergency help, they tried to do
everything themselves, and they even took a major risk with a freaking gas leak. I
really hope that nobody considers this a good example of how to respond to a major emergency involving a major vehicular accident.
However, this is still a reasonably well-executed happy ending, and that is a treat in itself. It was very nice to see more scenes of the full Little Busters gang, including all the girls, including all of them alive and well.
I'll give this finale a
8/10.
Author
I believe she deserves a spin off.
