Bryce's Blog

I hope that everyone had a good week.

Things have mostly begin good, but the fact that the simulcast that I decided to follow has come to an end makes me somewhat sad.

Of course, everything must come to an end eventually, even if we do not want it to.

Today, I will be reviewing the final episode of that show, which is Boku Dake ga Inai Machi episode 12.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier post, I will not go over it again.

Having finally regained all of his memories from both the original timeline and the events that lead to the new future, Satoru has come face to face with Yashiro, who had caused him grief for all of these years, and is determined to stop him.

However, with his current inability to walk, he may have some difficulties in cornering the ever observant teacher.

After how disappointing the previous episode was handled, I had my doubts as to whether or not this one was going to be that great.

Fortunately, I kind of liked this episode, though not as much as the first ten.

I really liked how it was explained how Satoru found himself in a hospital.

While it was not explained as nicely as I would have liked it to have been, since it did not explain how Satoru survived, it did kind of make sense.

After all, seeing as there was actually a person who was pretty much unconscious for 19 years, according to article on the BBC News website, the medical bills for such a stay would be pretty high where I live, which some people think would be because of hassles of dealing with insurance and other think that is because of the fact that not enough people have health insurance.

Still, I kind of do wish that things were better explained, so I cannot really give A-1 Pictures as much applause as I would have liked.

I also liked how observant Yashiro was during the final confrontation with Satoru.

Seeing as Yashiro has been committing crimes like this for years and getting away it, I would not really expect him to be as much of idiot as most criminals in our society are.

If he was an idiot, I would have really angry because that would mean that even in a story that is not part of the detective fiction genre, nor is it a story like the stories of Arsène Lupin written by Maurice Leblanc, where the criminal is the protagonist, the police are still portrayed as more incompetent that their real life counterparts.

Another thing that was pretty good was that Satoru finally achieved his dream of being a successful.

In the beginning, he was trying to make a name for himself in the manga industry, and people were saying that something is missing.

Here, however, it is shown that Satoru was able to finally make a name for himself and is able to focus solely on writing, and drawing, of course, to make a living.

Of all the ways to make a living, doing something like Satoru did takes quite a bit of talent and practice, and does deserve quite a bit of praise, though that praise should be coming from readers of the people following the work.

I really wish I could reach the same stage as Satoru, because that is much more admirable than having a middleman between you and who is actually paying you for your work, like many people settle for when they reach adulthood, even though there is still kind of a middleman, called a distributor or distribution channel that will want to take a cut.

The thing that I liked the most though was that Yashiro was finally brought to justice.

While there are stories that must end with the antagonist winning for it to any be good and there are also evil people in our world that get things that they do not deserve, at least in the eyes of the innocent, I do like seeing the protagonist win out in the end, unless they do not learn something or grow along their journey.

For example, Edward Elric from FMA gave up his ability to perform alchemy because he realized that even with his alchemy that he was still incapable of doing things that would be equated with being a god.

In this episode, Satoru finally figured out how to add in the thing that his work needed and no longer had any regrets about what had happened in the past, such as being unable to save a friend or two.

If he had not learned anything like that from his experiences of going between the past and future, I probably would have want Yashiro to win in the end.

Seeing as A-1 Pictures pulled this off pretty well, I really want to give them some major applause, even though they had already given up any possibility of this series surpassing its original source like the anime adaptation of RailgunÔÇÖs Sisters arc did in A Certain Scientific Railgun S.

If the staff at A-1 Pictures that worked on this series could improve their abilities, they might just just finally be able to create the best anime of the year.

Outside of those things, I cannot really think of anything else that I particularly liked.

The fact that there is some bit of explanation, though not too much, about how Satoru found himself in the hospital and Yashiro seemed to be as observant as he should have been, as well as the fact that Satoru finally achieved his dream, made this pretty enjoyable.

Although I liked the episode, there are some issues.

However, aside from some issues that I think would be best held off until a review of the series as a whole, there was only two thing that really bugged me.

First, the final confrontation between Yashiro and Satoru was not that great.

Now, this is probably because I had just finished reading the penultimate chapter of the manga fairly recently, but while watching this episode, I did not really feel the tension or that Satoru was still marching on towards his goal.

The final confrontation between a protagonist and the antagonist must have a lot tension and feel like everything is on the line at that moment.

Here, however, it did not really seem like Yashiro was really doing anything.

Yes, he did take notice that Satoru was possibly recording what was going on and try to send a fake suicide note, but that was all he did.

Really? Yashiro is supposed to be SatoruÔÇÖs ultimate enemy and he practically letÔÇÖs Satoru do whatever he wants, aside from committing suicide?

Where are the feels?

In the final pages of chapter 42 and all of chapter 43 of the manga, where Satoru confronts Yashiro for the last time, I felt glued all the way through, wondering whether Satoru was going to survive and end YashiroÔÇÖs crime spree or if Satoru would fail and play right into YashiroÔÇÖs hands.

Not only was there tense in the manga, but Satoru stood his ground and showed signs that he was not going to falter, despite needing crutches to stand at the time.

This is how a final confrontation should be, and seeing that A-1 Pictures has been producing anime for a while, I would expect them to know this much.

Unfortunately, they failed to accomplish the task here, much like they failed to make the Fairy Dance arc of Sword Art Online feeling like anything more than something that was tacked on just to make things a little longer.

This is very unacceptable A-1 Pictures! You have dilvered great quality in other episodes, but failed to make me feel things that Kei Sanbe was able to make me feel in the manga.

The thing that I hated the most though was how this episode ended.

No, it was not exactly terrible, and I did feel like things were really over, but the director of this anime promised to adapt the mangaÔÇÖs ending.

While I will give some leeway, because the previous episode closed off any possibility of a final confrontation like the one from chapters 42-43 of the manga, there were a few more scenes that could have been included just fine, like Satoru and Kenya talking about what happened after YashiroÔÇÖs arrest and trial.

However, all that was shown is that Satoru finally got his name out there in the manga industry, enjoying his normal life, and reuniting with Airi.

This is not what I would call an adequate adaptation of the mangaÔÇÖs ending, because I actually felt more fulfilled by the mangaÔÇÖs final chapter than the final minutes of this episode.

Honestly, if I am promised a faithful adaptation of an end, I should be able to see more scenes than just what I had seen.

I would have enjoyed a lot more if I were not promised a faithful adaptation of the mangaÔÇÖs end, but because I was, I cannot really overlook what the staff from A-1 Pictures did and will mark this as a major issue.

Other than those things, I cannot think of anything else that I particularly hated that only affects the quality of this episode.

While things were not too bad, the lack of a great final confrontation and broken promises from the director hurt this episode.

Despite the fact that there were a few things that hurt the episode, the good present was enough to make this worth watching.

I only recommend this to fans of the Boku Dake ga Inai anime, because they are the only ones that will enjoy this.

As for the fans of the Boku Dake ga Inai Machi manga and everyone else, it would be better to start reading the manga starting at chapter 32 and keep going from there.

What are your thoughts on Boku Dake ga Inai Machi episode 12? Did you like it or hate it? If you liked it, were you satisfied with the final confrontation, or did you want something more exciting, like I did? Was there something that you liked or hated that went unmentioned? Feel free to comment.