It's funny how a show can turn out exactly the way you expected it would, yet you hold your breath all the way to the end. This entire episode I kept thinking about the question that was posed by not-Rokka before the fairy tale analogy/alternate universe/purgatory wore thin: "Who's the main character?" While I still think a valid argument can be made for any of the three characters, at the end I think that this was Shimao's story. My reasoning is that, love him or hate him, he's the character that we get to know best. He's a hard character to pin down and define in a few quick words. He's clearly the antagonist (using the broad definition here of the obstacle that needs to be overcome to get to the conclusion) yet I wouldn't call him an anti-hero. He's extremely dislikable, mostly because of his selfishness and childish attitude, and yet his situation is heart-wrenching. In my opinion, all of these conflicting sides made the ghost the most human character out of them all. And in the end, it's not Hazuki who gets to make the choice that sets the future in motion. What he needed to do was grow up a little bit. What Shimao needed to do was embrace the saying, "If you love something, then let it go." The entire show seems to have been building up to the point where Shimao holds all the cards; Hazuki is banished to storybook purgatory, and Rokka is willing to commit suicide to get over her guilt of stil living and falling in love again when her husband's time is already up. And yet, even with all those negative and selfish sides in possession of his soul, he makes good on his claim that he only wants Rokka to be happy. For me, that made the less-than-stellar parts of this series worth it. This show tackled some pretty big themes, death and grief in particular, and sometimes it felt like it bit off a bit more than it could chew. Some parts that were given great emphasis and a large chunk of the running time--the fairy tale purgatory in particular--are just be a time sink in retrospect, despite being interesting at the outset. I do feel like the time could've been better spent filling in more backstory on Hazuki or Rokka before she met Shimao, since they both seemed to be grappling with feelings of inadequacy that go beyond their current situation. That said, those aspects didn't bother me so much since everything else was handled very well. This is one of the best adult-relationship-centric shows I've ever seen, mostly because it never took the easy way out. Love and grief are complicated emotions that we can't just get over because the world tells us to do so. However, I did feel that Hazuki's final lines and Shimao's last actions really hit at the heart of what this show was trying to get across. I think the message was that life is a miracle, and you should take all the chances you get with it, and that even people who were dealt a bad hand by fate can find their freedom. I'm feel like I'm getting a little too symbolic and hyperbolic with this last post, so I'll just try to summarize. I feel that this is a series for anyone who has loved and lost. If you've ever been in love or lost someone that you loved, I think that this show will speak to you. It's also the kind of show that, depending on your life experience, everyone will take something different away from it. I related most to Hazuki in this show, since I'm his age. But Shimao fascinated me the most because his situation is still unfathomable to me. Flaws aside, this is a really good show if you sink your teeth into it and allow your own experience to inform it. This was easily one of the best shows I've seen this year, and I highly recommend it. It's not just a love story. It's a story about dealing with the realities of life, even when we don't want to think it through to its natural end. Images from Crunchyroll.com. Check out the complete series screencap gallery on Subdued Fangirling's Google+ page!
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