Summary:
We get a little classic Ellen-Reiji teamwork as they make short work of Neun and Fünf. While Ellen joins Scythe Master, Sechs, and Sieben for drinks, Reiji takes on Acht and Vier. Reiji doesn’t seem to remember anything about ammo conservation, and the Zahlenschwestern are using cover and driving bulldozers at him, but he manages to drop a chandelier on one of the assassins. In both life and death, Cal proves to be nothing more than a distraction for Reiji, and when one assassin is distracted by Cal’s watch suddenly popping open, it’s all Reiji needs to take care of business.
Meanwhile, Ellen knows Scythe Master pretty well and gets the Zahlenschwestern to bite on some classic Noir knife fighting. Ellen knows the Zahlenschwestern’s moves because they’re all based on the same training that Ellen received, and Ellen quickly takes both of them out. Scythe Master thinks that Ellen will only kill when threatened or ordered because she is a moody chick with major guilt issues, but when he tosses away his pistol and surrenders, Ellen tearfully shoots him in the face. Six months later, they have dug up information about Berlin’s Helmut von Giuseppe, and eventually find out that he went to Ulan Bator 5 years ago to adopt Ellen. Just as a random old man told them, Ellen sees the unforgettable colors of the Mongolian sky and knows she is in her hometown. As Ellen smiles and lays down amongst the flowers, a cart passes in the background and Reiji is killed with a single silenced gunshot.
Reaction:
So at first I thought that the writers were bringing SechsyBack to cap both Ellen and Reiji, but when the last scene showed only one shell casing I realized what had happened. Raymond, as he told his random toadie, wanted to eliminate all the youngsters associated with Scythe Master in order to prevent anyone from challenging Inferno. The assassin followed our duo to Mongolia, where the assassin proceeded to take out Reiji; fortunately for Ellen, the assassin did not recognize the girl with the mullet. Think about it… who has seen Ellen since Scythe Master first defected? The only one left who could have recognized Ellen was Sechs, and I’m pretty sure Ellen killed her with a neck-breaking axe kick.
Ellen then gave Reiji her true smile so he could die in peace. Reiji had just wanted to fulfill that one promise before his will to survive fizzled out. At the same time, Ellen now had a name and a hometown, so she wasn’t about to get all emo and try to off herself on account of Reiji. The sad thing is that Mio is probably still at home in Japan, waiting for that booty call that will never come. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Anyway, I’m glad that Ellen survived because she was always my favorite character in this show. I liked how she killed everyone in the face, whereas Reiji preferred to do it from behind. Also, you just know that Ellen was screwing with the calibration settings of the Zahlenschwestern, because Ellen would never let herself be outsourced like that.
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1971 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Frankly the ending was equal parts of
LOL: Lelouch shot Reiji!
and
(屮ﾟДﾟ)屮: What’s going to happen to Elen!? Reiji’s fulfilled his quest but now she’s lost her reason to live!
The ending pissed me off so much when I first saw it, but as I distanced myself from the episode a bit more, I eventually realized that it fits perfectly. I did get plenty of enjoyment from the shitstorm that came up ’round the ‘net, though, haha.
I’m still torn on whether Elen is alive or dead. The symbolism suggests to me that she is dead, but any scenario for her death strikes me as a stretch, considering what we are shown. And I don’t think she would kill herself, even after Reiji’s death. Your comments about her continuing to live the life Reiji wanted her to live certainly seem plausible to me. I would rather Elen stay alive, really, haha.
She’s alive. Due to economic conditions, Inferno’s assassin could only afford one bullet.
Works for me!
Ah man, I was so pumped when Scythe Master finally got shot, but Reiji my god. If you didn’t mention the fact that Elen showed her true smile at Reiji I would have been so sad. Actually I’m still sad, Reiji was my favorite character. The silencer in the end just blew me away. I just couldn’t fathom it.
A new challenger for Kabitzin’s pun throne has arrived!
I was sad Reiji died, but then again he was a jerk when he couldn’t even tell Cal the truth before he offed her. In the end the story was really about Elen, so I’m glad she lived.
What I want to know is, how did everyone believe that Mongolian Elen is actually Japanese Reiji’s sister, and how did no one recognize Reiji when they lived in his tiny hometown for 6 months.
:blank:
It’d be hilarous if he actually re-attended his old high school: ‘The last time around I couldn’t get a girl friend, but now with my Phantom Pimp Powers, I shall snag the school idol while Elen calls me Oniichan!’
Reiji was obviously killed by Horo and Lawrence from Spice and Wolf.
The fact that they killed Reiji doesn’t really bother me, but they did it in the dumbest way ever. It was like they killed him as an after thought.
“Well guys, we’re almost done with the anime now…but how should we kill off Reiji? Wanna just have some dude in a cart shoot him in the last scene? Yeah let’s do that.”
Stupid. It reminded me of the ending to A Kite, which is another anime ending I hated. I choose to disregard the end of this anime. As far as I’m concerned Reiji is still alive, just like how Spike from Cowboy Bebop is still alive.
how did she know that he wanted that? and when someone dies , you just smile?
Where exactly did you figure that? I watched the anime with fansubs from “Inferno” and nothing similar is stated.
Moreover, Elen is sure that Reiji died so she didnt run to him? -Oh a gunshot! Reiji fell down, okay, time to smile- is this what she thought? wtf?
Alot of different thoughts about the ending but I agree you with here. The last scene was to show that ellen was able to live for herself and not just! for someone else. Weather or not inferno came to collect and hunt her down is up in the air.. But she didn’t need!! Reiji anymore, Interesting that many people miss the meaning of this scene and Reiji.. I dont think had any intention of living a happy lifestyle.. and Karma is coming to Collect… he was still full of Guilt about everything..
Plus is interesting to note that we dont even now if ellen and Reiji are looking at each other at the last scene (as Reiji walks away the scene before it) So mabye Reiji saw the smile but mabye he didn’t. >.> They just dont want the ending scene to be clear.. >.> Though there is one thing in the ending scene which is Clear is that Reiji was able to bring Ellen to her hometown and Ellen was able to ‘live for herself.
Now this is if… Ellen was looking at Reiji.. mabye.. Ellen understood Reiji goal and bringing ellen home and fulling his promise was pretty much the only only he was trying to do (he never did mention anything else apart from this) and thus his death is not a tragedy in her eyes he was able to fulfil his goals and die. Because after everything he has been through he didnt have any intention to live on if he had no promises to keep.
Then she smiled to whom? The flowers? the driver?
through Telepathy or what?
Even on the last episode, Reiji mentions again “To kill in order to live on” That doesn’t seem like someone who doesn’t care to live on.
And one more point: Elen says “i want to live more with him” in the final episode, meaning that she wanted to live with Reiji. If you explain this phrase, by Elen wanting to live with Reiji to help her find her past, then Elen just uses Reiji for her own shake without caring if he dies in the end. But still everyone says that Reiji is the guilty one and judgement passes upon him, while Elen just lives smiling. So why Reiji is the guilty and Elen is not?
Interested to hear what Mentar has to say about the ending. I do vividly remember his NOOOOEEESSS reaction to Claymore. orz
To me it was pretty clear that Ellen wasn’t a threat to Inferno, and therefore didn’t need to die, if there was no one left to give her orders. Scythe Master went on and on to anyone who would listen about how he had to tell Ellen to do this and that and how she couldn’t even undress for her daily oil application unless he told her to do so. What Scythe Master (I loved all the dramatic pauses before they said his name) failed to consider is that Ellen would be willing to receive orders from someone else. Reiji distinctly told her to go kill Scythe Master, so even though it looked like she was getting up her courage to bust a cap in his ass, she actually had Reiji’s order to fall back on. Anyway, once Reiji is removed there is no reason to eliminate Ellen, because there is no one left to pull her strings.
I think that Reiji deserved to die in the end because he was lazy. Few places make this clearer than the scene in the church where he was in there hitting on Cal while Ellen was, yet again, out there kicking ass and taking care of business. She killed like 40 people while he was in there doing a poor job of taking care of his personal issues. This theme carries through to the final scene where Reiji was trying to take credit for Ellen’s smile, when she had actually arrived at that happy place through hard work and guts (mostly other people’s).
Ugh. I really loved the phantom anime, all the way till the very end, then I filed it under “just another anime” instead of “great anime”. I read the original VN and got all of the endings in it, and while I understand that there are limitations to VN->anime translations, this was one that baffled me.
Why change the very last scene to kill off Reiji? If you want to change SOMETHING in the anime, why wouldn’t you change the weaker parts like why Reiji never tried to reconcile with Cal? In the VN it makes a bit more sense, since there’s a Cal end that you can read if you want to see Reiji and Cal get on friendly terms again, but if you’re making the anime only follow one route, you should stick to that till the end. I suppose since Reiji never technically promised Elen that he’d be with her forever in the anime, he’s not breaking any promises, but he promises to be with Elen in the VN, which was a major plot point (that is, Reiji finally being able to keep his promises he makes). There were other scenes they changed too (mostly near the end, like the yakuza attack and Elen and Reiji getting “married”), but they were forgivable. Changing the last scene like that though leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
The only reason I can see BEETRAIN doing this is because they wanted to “darken” an already very dark story (the VN ended on a happy note), or they just wanted to get a big reaction so more people would pay attention to the anime and maybe increase DVD sales.
/vent
what’s VN?
Visual novel.
First i see Elen killing Reiji at the end she did not move a muscle when he was shot this implies that she killed him herself to such a skilled assassin I think with any fore warning she could take out most anyone even with hand to hand. She gave him the smile he was looking for ended the life that he was so ashamed of than ate the petal off the blue flower which i guess is poison. Hate that they died at the end sucks so bad what they went through to be able to live.
This is what really happened, mr,Mcguire said, there are things we must do, meaning this : we need to get rid of them, so they send and assasin, the assasin knew it was 2 targets a women and a man, on the last scene while reiji was lost on his thoughts, he got shot from behind, it took him 15 secs to fell down and die, elen smiles….the only one there was reiji, so she was looking at reiji, then they skip the scene and we see her laying on the grass with those “dead eyes”, no one knows if she suicide or if she got killed, one thing is sure Bee train intentions was to leave it as a mistery, no one can figure that little mistery, im telling you people ,,,is that fair? of course not , people unsatisfied or pissed off, thats not fair.
he.. A smile isn’t always ‘directed’ at someone. Ellen could of just smile because of finally being home and finding the reason to live “these memerios are enough” Its true that we see Ellen turn her head and smile… as Reiji falls in the preivous scene, but we never knew how close they were to eather other.. as they was never a ‘bigger picture of things it was all close-ups of a certain character. (They were next to eather other before the sunset but then we see REiji walk away.. and we dont know how much time passed) I’m not defenant about what to make of the ending. But they made the scene like that to make it even more ‘up in the air as to what happened.
Reiji is not a simple character. Yet he could kill but he will carry a hell of a lot of guilt with him. He wanted to runway and live with-out killing anyone but now he takes a stand to kill and runway. He will kill because he has a reason to keep on surviving, to keep a promise with Ellen once that is done, I think the his guilt we be too much for him in the end and wont have any desire to live a normal life.
He Promised to Ellen to take her away from SM to her hometown where she will be able to be a ‘normal girl’ She knows this.. and even said it to Reiji in episode 21/22 that she is waiting for Reiji to bring her to her hometown as it was able to heal him (though really it didn’t (imo) since he was ‘dreaming’ and running away from reality) she she might also be able to find this ‘peace’
You know.. Its Karma for Reiji to Die.. because if he is so stupid to think the only way to deal with Cal was to kill her.. then that line of thinking will come back to him .
You are totally right, but inferno is going to pay as well, and one more thing, i know she looked at reiji, as we see reiji looking at elen, he didnt move a bit.
Pfff after so many explanations i’m feeling even more dissapointed with this end. All saying that Reiji had to die… You know, what he didnt have much choice either… Ofc in some points he could make some better options but that wouldn’t change the overal picture of Phantom.
Guys – let’s not overcomplicate the end bit. Obviously it’s deliberately confusing, which is what disappointed me about the whole anime (I was really into it, and that was a BIG anti-climax).
All we know is that Reiji gets shot, while Elen is in the grass satisfied and in peace with herself.
It’s irrelevant whether he saw her smile or not. The fact is Elen now knows roughly where she comes from, is at peace and content, and Reiji has done the best he could. He has therefore fulfilled his promises, and it is time for Karma to takes its toll (when you live by the sword you perish by the sword). However, Elen is not dead. She is just at peace, the only one who gets shot is Reiji (hence the one bullet on the grass at the end) – a bit confusing, because why would Elen be spared?
Now, my problems with the Anime: I think the whole thing was a bit lame at the end and full of inconsistencies. Cal was a pointless character at the end, because she just gets bumped off randomly – it was totally absurd and illogical that Reiji didn’t even level with her about the whole flat explosion. Just doesn’t make sense. It was also a bit illogical them going to school in Japan like little kids, after being top assassins (just doesn’t work). The Elen/Reiji relationship was also weird and illogical at times. The story was great, but they could’ve just stuck to developing the Elen/Reiji relationship instead of bringing in all these pointless and unfinished side stories.
What a shame! I thought there was a lot of potential there, they just overdid it with all the side-issues, the inconsistencies, and the deliberately confusing ending.
umm..i think elen shot reiji, thats why she wasnt surprised when he fell, and they wanted to live on to discover her past but at the end she said that looking at the sky was enough. so she killed reji and then herself. i know there was only one bullet but when shes lying in the field it shows a flower with a petal missing, i forget the name of that flower but im pretty sure its poisonous. So she shoots reiji and then kills herself because they were satisfied with what they found out about her past and wanted to repent. That was the explanation that made most sense to me, plus i heard suicides like that are kinda big and symbolic in japan which has it make even more sense
sorry ment to say she killed herself by eating the poisonous flower, thats why only 1 shell was on the ground, and also why it showed the flower with the petal missing at the end
Then Mr remman, i trust you are a smart gentlemen, then can you tell me why Mr McGuire said that last statement he made on the last chapter, im very sure he sent an assasin, i have no doubt, but perhaps you could tell me a couple of things.
she didnt care that she was in her hometown, she was saying/thinking … new memories of reiji, together, happy and so on , he got shot ( where i belive that she had some todo with his death or contacted the killer, there were enough chances to kill them in different cities and 6 month have past while they are in the mountains of wherthehellever) she smiled knowing he was dead but also happy that since she now has some memories she is happy and can die, then shot herself and thatswhy the shell is in the grass and not on the road where reiji got shot, even with a silencer on she would have heard the shot, and the assassin shot him there was no shell dropping ?!!? so he’s dead she killed herself
thanks
p.s. why she wanted him dead?! they are like living dead who probably couldn’t/ didn’t want to go back to a permanent peaceful life
and sec. to make sure not to make a new series or maybe to make a new series PHANTOM – RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD ASSASSINS
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