Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

Miyu’s dematerializer shatters the crystal holding Mashiro (except for the legs portion…), and vaporizes the pillars as well. With her hands free, Mashiro blasts off to that domed section of the school and begins to glow green as she’s surrounded by HiME marks. Suddenly, ghostly Mashiro’s begin appearing next to all the defeated HiME’s, and all the Most Important Person’s (People?) are brought back.

Back at the battlefield, Mikoto seems to hope that Mai will get serious and defeat her. Reito offers a similar deal, but Mai refuses to help him. She’s decided that a world created on a whim is just sick, and Reito gets pissed at women in general, before putting Mikoto into “burnt-cookie-head” mode. Fortunately, at the last minute Tate appears holding Miyu’s discarded silly sword-arm. Reito draws his katana, and is confident in his powers, but at that moment the rest of the HiME Sentai are blasting off to destroy the giant HiME pollen. In a surprise move, Mai allows Mikoto to run her through (even though she takes no damage???), and hugs her. As Mai explains that real love is believing your affections are real and letting your feelings be known, Mikoto comes to her senses and her evil amulet shatters. This in turn closes Miroku’s red eyes, and the giant beachball falls to the ground. Mikoto then takes the opportunity to stab Reito’s amulet, and the real form of Lord Kokuyou is revealed.

At first it looks bad for Mai, since Kagutsuchi is unable to attack Lord Kokuyou. Conveniently, the other HiME’s use their anti-histamine blasts to destroy the HiME star, and the dagger sealing Kagutsuchi’s mouth disappears. Free of that uncomfortable ornament, Kagutsuchi releases a fearsome blast that pulverizes the beachball and vaporizes Lord Kokuyou. At a random location, Nagi yells in frustration and throws a tantrum.

With the threat taken care of, the various HiME marks and CHILD’s disappear. One poignant scene has a now cuddly Kagutsuchi bidding Mai farewell in mournful whale song/clicks. We flash forward in time and see that quite a lot has changed. Nao and Miyu are nuns now, and Nao gives one student advice on how to off her rivals in order to make the choir. Natsuki’s truancy finally catches up to her, and Mikoto brags about the new bra that Natsuki gave her. Meanwhile, Mai and Tate have an awkward picnic, and their long-awaited kiss gets interrupted by everyone. We also get to see a letter from Takumi (who is hanging with Akira in America), and a photo of Midori going all Indiana Jones with her beloved professor. It’s great to see that Mai can now accept her popularity, and of course the first thing she wants to do is rock some karaoke. Before the episode ends, we see Nagi and Mashiro going back to where they belong (hmmmm), and there’s a quicky glimpse of Arika, the heroine of next season.

At first I was a bit mad about how cheesy the ending was, especially regarding the MIP’s, but when I watched it again, I realized it was the right ending. After all, the manga that this anime is pseudo-related to is so funny and light-hearted that it would be a shame if all these characters we grew to care about were plunged into a life of suffering. Plus, when you think about it, the MIP’s were really just imprisoned, so it makes sense that destroying the pillars would free them. Also, if you watched the final Static-Subs version of episode 26, they offered a lot of great background research on the various character names.

A lot of the final fight was filled with unintentional humor. When everyone’s MIP got returned, I couldn’t help thinking that everyone’s eyes were watering because of that stupid HiME pollen. And when picking between Mikoto and Mai… shouldn’t there have been some sort of tribal council? I also found it interesting that there was no mention of Alyssa’s MIP, because he was just an evil old man. Too bad they never explained who Fumi really was…