Kyokai no Kanata - 12 (END) + Final Thoughts

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The final episode of Kyokai no Kanata is emotionally-charged with plenty of action.  I’m actually sad to see it end.

Mirai and Akihito begin working together to fight against Beyond the Boundary, and it’s pretty epic.  They definitely work well as a team.  They help each other work out things that they might not have been able to on their own.  And Akihito’s right hand apparently absorbed the youmu stone in the last episode, which makes him able to better fight because it contains part of Beyond the Boundary.

Meanwhile, the Nase siblings, Nino-san, and Sakura track down Miroku (which honestly isn’t that hard, since he’s standing by a bright purple light shooting up toward Beyond the Boundary) and intend to fight him.  But he only wants to deal with Izumi, for some reason, and traps the both of them in a cage of some sort, closing them off from everyone else.  While alone with her, he reveals that both of them have youmu inside them.  This actually explains both their strange personalities, if you ask me.  Izumi is closed-off because of it, and Miroku doesn't care who he hurts in the pursuit of his goals because of it.

Back in the alternate plane Beyond the Boundary created, Akihito ends up basically fighting his shadow self.  Because Beyond the Boundary was inside of him for so long, it basically is him, fueled by all his negative emotions.  But rather than destroying Beyond the Boundary, Akihito brings it back into himself.  This way, he can remain immortal, and he prevents Beyond the Boundary from destroying the world.

Reclaiming Beyond the Boundary, though, causes Mirai to disappear.  This isn’t completely explained explicitly, but I’ll do my best to explain it the way I understand it happening.  Mirai had previously “fused” with Beyond the Boundary when she brought it out of Akihito.  Thus, in taking Beyond the Boundary back into himself, Akihito also, in a way, takes Mirai into himself, as well.  He doesn’t realize this at first, of course, because he sees Mirai as separate from Beyond the Boundary when in fact they are fused.  (This could be completely wrong; this is simply how I interpreted everything in this episode.)

In the aftermath of everything that’s happened, Hiromi finds out that Izumi has a youmu inside of her (at which point she apparently leaves), Miroku has vanished and no one knows what has happened to him, Hiromi begins overseeing the Nase family in Izumi’s stead, and Akihito goes about his daily life with a bittersweet feeling, as Mirai isn’t there to share it with him.  However, due to his apparent newfound control over Beyond the Boundary, with enough willpower he’s able to bring her back to the rooftop where they originally met.

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Final Thoughts

I think Kyoto Animation’s branch out from moe/slice-of-life productions is a decent start.  The plot of Kyokai no Kanata is definitely an interesting one, steeped in both KyoAni’s signature slice-of-life and breakout dark fantasy genres.  The overarching theme is the importance of overcoming negative thoughts and emotions, evidenced not only in the fact that youmu are the embodiment of these things, but also in the fact that overcoming such feelings is exactly what the main characters have to do in order to succeed in the end.

There are definitely some remaining questions, though.  The finale seemed quite rushed, mainly because so many new questions were introduced as though forced into the plot.  What happened in the past to Miroku and Izumi?  Did they both choose to take youmu into their bodies, or was it forced on them?  Did they know each other in the past before it happened?  On a similar note, as Izumi asks Yayoi in this episode, “What exactly is the half-youmu?”  What made Akihito the way he is?  Was he born that way (is that even possible)?  Related to that, who is Akihito’s father?  The answer to that question might help clear up some of the other questions around him.

The fact that these new questions were all shoehorned into this finale makes it seem very likely that there will be another season in the future.  On top of that, several of the characters in this episode say things that would indicate as such.  Yayoi’s last words in the episode are “to be continued,” which is basically blatantly telling us there will be more.  When Izumi tells Hiromi that he’ll understand some day, it seems as though there are plans for an explanation behind her and her actions to come in the future.

Plot holes aside, Kyokai no Kanata is still one of my favorite anime of the season.  The animation is phenomenal.  When I heard that Kyoto Animation was going to do an anime with a lot of fighting in it, I was skeptical as to how good it could possibly be.  But KyoAni really stepped it up for the fighting scenes in this series.  The music is also wonderful.  The OP and ED songs fit the tone of the series very well.  And I find the majority of the main characters to be very relatable.  We’ve all done things in our lives that we regret, and Akihito and the gang can help us work past that regret by example.