The interpretation I subscribe to is that Nagi is a servant of the Obsidian Lord who overseas the the "festivals" every three hundred years on his master's behalf. (Note his dialogue implies he's met past HiME.) In which case he's not actually the kid he seems to be, but one of the oldest characters in the series.
Did I sink your ship by any chance?
On a more serious note, It's interesting how at times Nagi seems to care about the HiME and at other times seems to revel in their suffering.
By this I assume that it's never explicitly laid out in text so I'm raging. Lmao, but no I completely figured he was old af but wanted a label for the weirdo. And it's impossible to sink my ships, they are as terrible as they are unsinkable. (unless i get tired of them in which case, I've moved on~)
He's a very contradictory character! I'd like an origin story if only to get a better sense of his motives still, but hey, whatever lmao.
Alyssa's "father" disappeared in response to Kagutsuchi taking out Artemis, not Greer poisoning Alyssa. But yeah, perhaps the instruction Greer was issued during the HiME counterattack came from another faction who wanted to take the opportunity for a little backstabbing. Then again it's not really clear if taking out a HiME takes out her most important person like taking out her Child does. (Well actually Yukariko's big taking you with me moment suggests it does, but that came later.)
Andelevion, I hope you don't feel too cheated by this episode. This was one of the things I was trying to warn you about a few weeks back I told you that you might not like some of the things that were coming up. I'm often a bit nervous about how people are going to take the ending but you seem to have gotten particularly into the darker parts of the series.
I have to admit, I found the ending pretty bad the first time I saw it. It may be part of the reason I initially considered the series good but not great. It wasn't until years later that I rewatched the series in full that it got added to my top favorites list. For some reason I didn't find the ending all that bad the second time around (possibly because I was bracing myself for something far more awful and cheesy than what I actually got ).
In fact in time I've kind of come to like the ending. I'm pretty attached to the characters so I want them to have a happy ending where they're around to benefit from the character development many of them received over the course of the series (this is one reason I'm actually not fond of the extended cut -I feel it undermines some of the development that occurred over the course of the series). I also think the show did a pretty good job of laying the groundwork for the ending in advance, and I think it's nice to recapture some of the comedy that was present earlier in the series.
But for all the good things I can say about the ending, I can't deny that it comes across as a massive cop out. While I think the show made a good effort you just can't expect to turn on a dime when you've built up that much dramatic momentum.
Then again for all my issues with the ending improving it isn't that simple. Going with a full on dark ending would have its own issues, and dealing with the reconciliation I like to think occurred behind the scenes would have been anticlimactic. Though perhaps it could have made good material for an extra episode. One of the things that bugs me most about the ending (aside from the stuff with Yukariko and the art teacher, which still makes me uncomfortable despite the obvious shift in power in that relationship) is Nao's eye being miraculously healed, but if I was going to change anything about Nao's ending, I would make it even more positive by having her mother wake up. Rather than a scene of Nao being the worst nun ever, I'd have a scene of her with her still in rehab mother where she's acting like little miss perfect -and more importantly pretending she's been miss perfect the whole time her mother has been in a coma (possibly with other characters looking nervous about or sickened by the act Nao is putting on -think the mother/daughter equivalent of the sickeningly sweethearts scene with Akane and Kazuya ). Not only do I think that could be pretty funny, but I think it would give character growth to one of the characters who was still a bit short on it.
Honestly I think a lot of why 26 feels like such a complete cop-out, especially on the first viewing, is how quickly and easily the Obsidian Prince/Lord/Thing goes down. Bringing everyone back to life only works as a plot point once you've rewatched and catch on to all the little hints and plots Mashiro has been running around with in the background. And after that coming out of nowhere... Shizuru brushes off everything she did with a joke, all the HiME are spontaneously not at each others throats and know exactly what they're doing, and the HiME Star just... pops like a giant soap bubble? There's no explanation or justification given, so it just feels like the writers pulled it out their arse. After all the narrative momentum the series had built up that felt like a straight-up anticlimax. With the desperate lurch to the lighthearted comedy of the early series it feels less like 'everything is okay now' and more 'everyone got slapped with a time machine'. It felt thoroughly rushed, like all the character arcs just got chopped off and aborted rather than satisfyingly concluded; Shiho is still vying for Tate's attention, Mai still hasn't picked a bf. Nobody has actually moved on or acknowledged anything that happened. (This actually makes me like Nun!Nao the most out of the epilogue because at least she's actually showed signs of change instead of signs of amnesia over the past ~10 episodes. And because she's kind of hilarious).
And yeaaaaah the Yukariko stuff seriously had me staring in horror and confusion. Like, seriously, what. The series had up to that point made it abundantly clear that was a horrifically abusive relationship and then... that? Fucking seriously? Episode 26 leaves a bad taste in my mouth for that scene alone.
One of the ideas to try to make sense out of it was that it was Mais power that was shaping there rebirt there including her impression of them , it is lacking a substantial backing but at least it deals with the problem of the character no longer being themself.
Alrighty, the finale of Mai-hime. It's been a ride.
EPISODE 26
We get a thing of Miyu destroying the pillar place, and the Crystal HiME aka Headmaster turns the whole place starry.
also, it's still too late? Ah! I was right about Alyssa being the thing despite how she's a fake.
Mai tries to ask Mikoto, but nope. They gotta fight
Also, Headmaster goes and splits and HiME marks to all the previous (surviving?) HiME????? Wat...
whats with the orange people...... dont tell me.........
(if people get resurrected, well at least I know why I never got the idea that people died. But I really hope it doesn't go that way.....)
Oh wow, at this point, Mikoto just seems like she wants Mai to kill her....Goddamit.
To be fair, defeating Mikoto doesn't mean she'll die. Actually at this point, it's way more likely for her important person to be Mai or the Obsidian Prince and wouldn't that fuck things up lol?????
and I guess Reito is taking Mai on himself? fight til submission kind of thing?
I mean sure, get them to be HiME again. And sure I actually liked seeing Akane get Kazu again, because that was sweet, but fucking hell are you fucking kidding????
damnit.
IF YOU'RE GOING TO KILL CHARACTERS OFF YOU BETTER FUCKING DO IT, NOT THIS......
I'D BE MUCH COOLER IF YOU RETURNED THEIR POWERS BUT NOT THE SACRIFICED PEOPLE. GET THESE ALIVE GIRLS NEW SACRIFICES, OR POWERS THAT DONT RUN ON SACRIFICES.
DONT BRING BACK THE DEAD LIKE THIS.
i especially hate that Tate is apparently saving the day. like fuck u
Also time to read the spoilers people gave lololol.
at this time, I will admit, I accidentally saw one spoiler where they said it would make sense that Mikoto is Mai's most important person in the end, so i was trying to ignore that fact but also I was kind of sort of expecting a scene where Kagatsuchi fucking dies, and then Mikoto slowly disappeared in Mai's arm, as that resolution.
Basically Mai invites Reito to the beach. Ends up being a trick, as the Hime girls want payback for the crap he put them through. So they bury him to the neck in sand and feed him horrible spicy foods. *lol* We also see some lingering effects from Shizuru's rampage, etc etc.
I've seen a fansubbed version of the Bluray special. I actually don't like it very much. The resolution to the series depended a lot on the HiME being wise enough to live and let live rather than pursuing grudges after they got their loved ones back. Then that special came along and had them all torturing Reito because of what he did -while possessed (granted his character short from the DVDs suggests he kind of gave in to the darkness within, but still...).
Also I'm one of the people who actually liked Mai/Tate, so throwing a wrench in their relationship years later because of Sunrise's spat with Tate's voice actor and/or the show proving popular with the yuri fandom doesn't sit that well with me (though from a strict story perspective one could argue she was just saying that to trick Reito).
Yes. Yes, these are the very worst nuns. Possibly not as bad as the previous priest, though. And the previous nun got into a relationship with a skeevy art teacher and ended up pregnant. I have a feeling she should have done a little more research about what the "passions of youth" actually are. (Although, practicing safe sex would have been a completely new set of sins... @_@)
Anyway, as far as Alyssa goes (and for that matter Yukariko, and Nao's eye), basically Mashiro cast what amounts to a classic D&D Raise Dead Fully (I'm thinking the Companion Set version, the one that raises the dead, regenerates all permanent injuries, and restores HP to full on the living or the dead) on all thirteen HiME (or at least the eleven whose MIPs were released), presumably as a side effect of all that tasty soul energy being released from the Obsidian Palace's control. It sort of makes sense when you consider how the Crystal Princess is basically a power conduit, taking energy from the HiME Star and channeling it to the Obsidian Prince.
And yeah, of course Alyssa got resurrected. That's why Miyu was helping. (She already killed Greer, who killed Alyssa, and she has minimal personal interest in fighting the Obsidian Prince; she was serving Alyssa, not the Searrs Foundation.)
(I have seen a fair number of fans who were so off-put by the "WHAT DO YOU MEAN EVERYBODY'S STILL ALIVE!?" ending--especially those who miss all the foreshadowing that this is where they were going all along and that Mashiro Had A Plan--that they miss the actual mechanics of who was doing what to whom and they fail to note that non-HiME fatalities have not been reversed. Father Greer is still in however many pieces Miyu left him. And Shizuru still has a fairly substantial body count on her resume from her little jaunt through District One HQ.)
