Well this episode had a couple surprises, but overall it went exactly as you would expect it would. We started out with the showdown between Hibiki and Yamato and carried on from there. It was a pretty good fight overall. Sure, there was the standard arguments about beliefs sprinkled in, but it was still a solid fight.

This honestly was a weird episode. It followed the general path I imagined it would, but it threw some surprises that I didn’t quite expect. I felt like some of those surprises were hit and miss especially with the very end of the episode. That scene where Hibiki starts running off and you know he’s out to meet with Yamato. That in itself was alright as was the impression that Yamato doesn’t remember Hibiki. It was at that point where things got weird. Hibiki just starts crying and breaking down right at the end of the episode. It was just weird. Was it really because his ‘friend’ didn’t remember him? Was it because of everything he had gone through? I don’t know. It was just odd and then the series ends with him getting up and looking semi-serious. I just thought the whole breakdown was really awkward. A good laugh of course with Yamato giving the impression that he did remember to some degree, but just not bothering to actually tell Hibiki that. Maybe to pay him back for the wish he made to Polaris.

The scene with Polaris as well was kind of disappointing. I know he’s this godlike figure, but come on. We spend all this time watching the trials of Polaris and we can’t even get an audience? This being that decided humanity wasn’t worth allowing to exist just listens to Hibiki and that’s it? I know we were pressed for time, but give us something. I wanted a legitimate debate with this being who decided to wipe out humanity. The debate with Yamato was fine, but shouldn’t we have some sort of interaction? What’s to say Polaris doesn’t just decide to wipe out humanity tomorrow?

The fight itself was fairly entertaining. I wasn’t sure if they were going to make it good enough between two guys that had managed to not summon many demons during the series. At least they gave us a good excuse for why Hibiki had been running this whole time with only 2 demons. So he could just splurge at the end using all his friend’s demons of course! It figures that fusion would come into play at the very end here. It was a good touch in terms of theme. Yamato had always pressed forward under his own power, so the demons he combined at the end were his own. But Hibiki had been admitting his own weakness for a while and relied on his friends to get him through this. It was a pretty large stream of summoning until finally he got to Lucifer. A showdown for the ages between Lucifer and Satan. Though kind of funny that it all ended with a hug XD.

Yamato was always an interesting guy. Someone who knew what needed to be done and ignored everything else. Sacrificing people was fine because he was going to rebuild the world. In many ways his logic is sound. But, I’ve got to side with Hibiki when it’s all said and done. Everyone struggled and fought for the world they’d always known. It isn’t close to being perfect, but imposing Yamato’s beliefs on it would make it a pretty dull place. That’s kind of why I wanted a showdown or debate with Polaris. Debating the value of the current world and the chance for people to change. But in the end it was interesting to watch these two talk and have Hibiki make a bit of traction.

In the end they did just go ahead and revive everyone with just about no one realizing what happened. Hibiki and Yamato are probably going to be the only ones that retain any sense of what happened. Whether it was alive or dead everyone else was absorbed by that nothingness and their memories were fading as they went. I’d figure only the people who made it to Polaris can really remember those events. Still, it was nice to see the friendship between Hibiki, Daichi, and Io getting restarted. It won’t be built on any tragedies and even seems like Hibiki is giving Daichi a push to go for Io. It was good to see how everyone was doing. Of course it did kind of just follow what bits we actually knew about these people. Jungo cooks, Hinako is a dancer, etc. It was good to have an idea what everyone was doing when the world went to hell.

Overall, it was an alright last episode. This series wasn’t anything special, but it managed to not fall apart at the end. Although I might count Hibiki acting rather weird at the end there as being a downside.

Final Thoughts:

I will say this series felt like a big commercial for the game. Only 13 episodes really didn’t seem to be enough for this show. The pacing was really hurried and we only really got a feel for a few of the main characters. Some like Joe were barely around long enough in order to remember their names. I will say if it was a commercial it was fairly effective. Has me curious enough about how the story would play out with a bit more time to flesh out the characters. So will probably check the game out at some point down the road.

I do think characterization was a major problem for the series. Everything was in such a rush since they needed to crush a Septentrion per day. It also didn’t help that you could somewhat shrug off deaths because you didn’t have much attachment to the characters that died. Eventually when the Polaris wish came into effect you also kind of lost appreciation for their lives since long as Hibiki survived then they could all be revived. Might have been nice if there was at least some doubt if that was even possible.

Still I think it had some good moments. I liked the rescue of Io and Daichi’s moment of triumph. A couple characters who I would have liked to see more of outside of those key moments. Io was a character who gave us even a little insight into the pressures and stress these characters were suffering from. Their world was going to hell and the amount of people dying each day just kept skyrocketing. The flashback for Daichi and Hibiki helped with understanding why Daichi is so important a friend for Hibiki. This guy suffered from not having a lot of power through the series, but his heart and friendship kept Hibiki from being crushed under the cold environment his parents created. When Daichi summoned Black Frost it was pretty awesome.

The music in the series I thought really helped bring it up a level. The climatic moments had some pretty good music. Of course the insert song when Io was saved also was nice to listen to. Combine that with the OP and ED and I can say that it was a good series to listen to.

I think this series could have been a lot better with more episodes. Even if an attack had to happen every day it would have been nice to just have a chance for the characters to show more of who they were. It would have made early deaths a lot more dramatic. Seeing how all these characters were dealing with such a stressful situation would have been great. It was a decent series, but I won’t call it anything special.
Score: B