Zetsuen no Tempest – 24 [END]

When fruit attacks

Well, time to say goodbye to Zetsuen no Tempest. It was a fun ride. …I  wish I could honestly say that this was the best anime I’ve ever watched that revolved around magical fighting trees and Shakespeare references, but there’s Romeo X Juliet out there too. …I think I still liked Tempest better by a small margin though.

AHAHAHA IT WAS HIS ARM.

Man, I feel silly for worrying. Honestly. So in the end, nobody died! Yay! There were still some slightly worrying parts though, I guess. That last part with Hanemura losing and falling didn’t quite sink into the ‘depths of despair’ territory with me despite the obvious parallel situation with Megumu falling into the ocean. Sure the stakes were high, but it just didn’t feel like that desperate of a situation to me. Once Yoshino’s injury was revealed to be small and non fatal, the tension just kind of dropped from there. Since at that point, it was pretty obvious that everyone was going to make it through just fine. …And then lord knows where that giantass sword at the end appeared from. I guess it came from their hearts uniting as one as Aika put it? Or maybe it was the fact that the Kusaribe were supporting Exodus. …Though really, they’ve been doing that since the beginning with Samon trying to revive it.

Yeah, that didn’t really feel complete either. I assume those people in black were the Kusaribe or something. Everyone was obviously expecting something from Hanemura too, which I assume was what brought the sword out of nowhere. But… there was no moment where it felt like there hearts were ‘united’ or whatever. To be blunt, I don’t think it had as much impact as a scene as it was attempting. Aika’s words made sense and the scene certainly hinted towards that feeling, but where they all had a moment (or at least Megumu did), I wan’t emotionally invested.

I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would with Aika’s final words either. This is probably due to Mahiro and Yoshino’s ability to laugh in the end about it (…and also due to her joke at the end, but it was still a very Aika thing to do). Aika is dead now and despite it being a big issue before, it’s okay now. The characters had their moments of shock, but they’ve come over that now. Aika made her own decisions and there was nothing they really could have done to stop it. I’m not quite sure if what she did or if her way of thinking was ‘right’ (since I don’t think life can be quite compared to a play… as said by Mahiro), but it was right for the plot. Plus since everyone seems to be moving on, there’s no point in dwelling on it. I’m just glad she had the final word at the end of the episode.

So as a finale, it had it’s parts I didn’t quite click with, but overall it was satisfying. The problem with Genesis was solved, Mahiro and Yoshino got over Aika’s death pretty well, and everyone had plans for the future. Sure, crime rates were up again at the end and you just know that humanity is going to damage whatever Genesis fixed, but the future still seems to hold promise. Or at least the characters are satisfied and considering that they carried the plot, I’d consider this done for good. Mahiro said something about the dream being over, and since the Trees aren’t around, I guess it really is. They all had an adventure and they all seemed to have gained from it, but it’s time to move on. Sure, if their speculation is correct, Genesis and all of this will probably appear again in the future, but that’s waaaaay past what the characters are going to live to.

They mentioned a few times that this ending was a ‘beginning’ and really, I can’t deny that it wasn’t. Genesis has been defeated, but there are just so many new things that are happening. Like Hakaze dealing with being a normal teenager. …Or like Mahiro apparently meeting a girl. That was shocking for some reason, but admittedly, I still kind of think of him as the revenge crazed siscon sometimes. There were also the normal developments like Hakaze and Yoshino and the Kusaribe all helping Takumi in the end. It’s great that the alliances and relationships this built up didn’t disappear once the threat of Genesis was gone. I was also rather fond of the development with Megumu. He wasn’t even around half of the series, but he went from whimpy Yuki Kaji character into someone with a relatively larger amount of courage by the end of the series and it didn’t come off as rushed development at all. I’m glad he decided to try a relationship again with (the faceless) Yuu-chan. The story ended like the Tempest I guess in that absolutely everyone (or at least, the main characters) had some sort of happiness in the end.

So what do I feel about the series overall? Well, this wasn’t flawless storytelling quite like Shinsekai Yori was (well, it was in it’s own way, but still fell short in some aspects). It never made it quite to that level, but I can’t deny that it had it’s moments of brilliance.. I mean, this series made a 4 episode argument in front of a tree interesting. That’s an achievement on it’s own right there.

Despite the depiction of the world’s realistic reaction to things I can’t say that this was realistic though in either the characters or the storyline. Everything felt… scripted, I guess? Though that in itself is brilliant considering that this was like a tribute to Shakespeare and theatre. I mean, the main characters were based off of Shakespeare characters sure, but even then they all seemed like they had overbearing personalities that would be perfect for the stage. Of course, that’s an anime thing in general, but since they already drew the comparison in there with the constant Shakespeare references, let’s continue with this. Even more so in the fact that all of the characters (or at least Aika) kept saying things like how everyone was just acting to the scripts that the Trees had already written. A huge part of the show was that everything happened according to fate and that everything had a reason, so having the writing like that (intentionally or unintentionally) was a nice tie in. …Plus the dialogue was certainly long enough at times (again, I bring up that conversation that lasted 4 episodes).

The character interaction in the second half was undeniably fun (since everyone went from being enemies to practically living together). Where Yoshino and Mahiro felt like flat characters in the first half, the second half opened up sides that I wouldn’t have even guessed existed. The flashbacks we saw between the two of them and Aika suddenly felt so much more meaningful. And then let’s not forget when Aika showed up. Her thoughts and intentions were rather difficult to understand, but then a single episode was enough to change that completely. Actually, all of the characters had great moments to them and I wish that this had been longer, just to see more of how they acted when they got together. Because of that, I didn’t even mind the sudden genre change from some story about revenge and Aika’s death to the lighter comedy where everyone got along in the first to the second half. Plus it was a good switch over since nobody was ‘evil’ to begin with and it was more like they all had separate agendas.

Like I said above, this was a pretty good series and I’m glad I picked it up all the way back in Fall on a whim. Every issue I had with it either became less significant with time or lost in how great the characters were. The action of the first few episodes was kind of lost too, but that was okay. Especially since after Genesis revived, there really was no real reason to fight amongst themselves anymore. Overall, I think everything worked out well in the end.

So thanks for sticking with me these past two seasons and see you again in a couple of days for spring~

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.