Endings Without Context 7: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

“He brought this feature back for this!?”

“So it’s about uh, this guy Elric and he has a brother who lives in that armor suit. They are trying to get the brother’s body back after they messed around with alchemy and cost the guy his body. For some reason there are people after them too.”

– Me Attempting to Explain the Plot to Full Metal Alchemist to a Co-Worker circa 2006

I’ve decided to raise this feature from the dead after two years. It wasn’t simply a case of running out of shows that I hadn’t watched, but rather it felt like I was being compelled to only watch those shows that had infamously bad endings. Why not take on a show that is popular and pretty much watched by anyone who has casually watched anime, but that I had not seen? As for the explanation above, it was 11:30pm on a college campus where beer was being served a few feet away and I could only go off of what I had picked up about the show in vague things I read online. I think we’re good to go here.

Endings Without Context 6: Aquarion Evol

Symbolism…

It’s been about 9 months since I last did one of these as there just hasn’t been much in the way of motivation. In this installment, we have a Kawamori vanity project that was seen as one of the best shows of 2012 at least within the Anime Power Rankings blogging community. For everyone else, it sits at a fairly pedestrian 7.5 on MAL. What drew me into doing this series is first, the series is pretty well known for being incredibly nuts both in direction and in story, and second was the fact that this is a second season. I didn’t watch this because I still haven’t seen the original Aquarion series.

Endings Without Context 5: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

This edition of the series features film projector porn.

Something a little different for this installment of Endings Without Context, in the form of one of the few Gainax series I have never seen. Soon after watching this episode, I went off to some minor convention in Baltimore where kriz and I found single DVDs in a bargain bin for $5 each. It merely served as a reminder that I eventually had to get this post written. Gainax’s history of perplexing endings and my ability to comprehend them be damned.

Endings Without Context 4: Mawaru Penguindrum

The episode opens with a lot of suffering, and it hardly lets up.

This fourth take on watching only the last episode of a series brings me back to another show I had not watched during my summer off last year. AJtheFourth at Altair & Vega remembered that I had not seen any of Mawaru Penguindrum, though that may be due to the fact that I did an entire post devoted to being 24 episodes behind on it. That said, there are many fans of this series while there is also the fact that the director of this series also created Utena.

Before I drag this introduction into why I chose this too long, they key thing she said about my watching it is that it may ruin any enjoyment I get from watching it the future. I didn’t really think something so acclaimed by people I trust could be ruined by just the final episode. Then again, maybe I would need a larger social circle to recommend shows to begin with? So how did I see it?

Endings Without Context 3: Soul Eater

The fist is mightier than the oversized magical scythe.

The 3rd edition of Endings Without Context features Soul Eater, the first shounen series I’ve really attempted to write about here. This series which aired over a full year beginning in April 2008, is extremely popular (MAL rankings of 196 on score and 12th in popularity).

However, as is always the case with these things there is always at least one good reason I’m given to attempt these last episodes. The final episode has a bit of a horrible reputation. These were reflected in comments before hand which ran the spectrum from “I never finished it because I heard the last episode was shit” to “I liked the series, but that ending was shit.” With that in mind, here is what I made of watching the 51st, and obviously final episode of Soul Eater.

Endings Without Context 2: Darker than Black

The climax to this episode is a little surreal

The 2nd in this series that I hope will continue for a while is Darker than Black. In particular, I will be taking in the final episode of the 2nd season of the series. The few fans of Darker than Black that I do know usually refuse to acknowledge that this 2nd season actually happened. I guess that means that no matter how wrong I am on this post I can’t really offend those fans any more than this existing did.

Endings Without Context 1: No. 6

What the hell am I watching?

With a certain competitive popularity contest coming up, why not choose now to launch a new series. So I came up with the rather uncreative name of Endings Without Context. It’s where I react to watching the last episode of a series without having watched any of the episodes prior to it. The first one to kick off this series is No. 6 suggested by (Dan), a show that aired in the Noitamina block last summer, when I was taking the season off from anything. Given the quality of Noitamina over the last 18 months, this will surely be terribad material.