Usually you can tell when an anime is going to suck, but in the case of Phantom Memory Kurau, they had me fooled right up to the very end.
Back in November when I first reviewed Kurau, I had two beliefs – that it was a brilliant series, and that it had very little Yuri. Well, I find my opinion now 100% reversed on both counts.
What was a finely crafted exploration of science and emotion, love and friendship and ethical ecological and humanitarian responsibility, in the end, became nothing more than a weak fairy tale. I maintain that the final episode was written by a 6 year-old who, when questioned about what should happen said, “They all got married and had babies and lived *happily* ever after! The End!”
In the beginning, there was alot of good material between tough-as-nails cop Ayaka and mystical-powered-agent Kurau, a lot of love and shared experience between Kurau and her Rynax “twin” Christmas…and in the end, there wasn’t anything. Just Ayaka going off with her child, and Kurau, having been stripped of her Rynax entities and the power they brought, has becomes stale, flat and unprofitable…and a mother although, apparently, not a wife. Only Christmas is left, alone with her Rynax energy, until, unexplained (and inexplicably) a new Kurau-Rynax clone appears to fulfill her dreams and bring her happiness. The end.
I spit nails for a long while after watching this last episode, I admit. I don’t understand why they chose such a shoddy, pat ending to what had been right up through the penultimate episode, so excellent.
However, in retrospect, my opinion of the Yuri potential of the series has changed. In the beginning, I stated that Kurau and Christmas seemed more like sisters to me than lovers – especially as Christmas had been formed from Kurau’s own Rynax energy. But it was a side story that changed my mind. In this side story, we encounter a young boy, also a Rynasapien, who is desperately looking for his “twin” (Rynax, apparently, function well only in pairs.) I had assumed that all Rynax pairs were like our idea of twins – two beings who are related, in this case, by the Rynax energy…in other words, a kind of sibling. So it was a bit incest-y for me to imagine Kurau and Christmas as lovers.
In the side arc, the boy (whose name is escaping me at the moment…) who is looking so intently for a twin finally finds one and finds some happiness for a short while. It’s a tragic arc, but there is no doubt that they have bonded deeply and permanantly by the end of the arc. So, clearly, Rynasapien do *not* have a pre-determined twin, but can find one as chance allows. Which means that they are not, a priori, related or bound to each other. Which means it can be a kind of love that brings them together, as opposed to a kind of energy-bond.
You see where I’m going with this? In short, Kurau *could* be in something that looks more like love with Christmas than, say, sisterly affection, and vice versa. Now…I’m going to hold on to the fact that the first Kurau and Christmas had that sisterly relationship. But the second Kurau, the one made up of only Rynax energy and Christmas’ hopes…*that* one could be, if we so desired, love. So, yeah, based on that, I’ll up the Yuri rating.
But the overall still goes down because the ending totally blew.
Ratings:
Story – 7
Character – 9
Art – 8
Music – 8
Yuri – 7
Overall it drops to a 7 because it was, *overall* a good series, but the final episode was a 1. Maybe a -1, because I felt like they owed me when it was all over.
Just watch the first 23 episodes, the go write your own ending – you’ll be a happier person for it.
2020 Update: I re-re-reviwed this series again in 2008 and had third (still not terribly positive) opinion about the ending.
Personally, I don’t think the ending is that bad. Ayaka and Kurau had too litle time to properly develop their friendship anyway, and I believe the writers didn’t have any intention at all to make it seemed more than that. The appearance of Kurau-Rynax child at the end can be expected, it’s similar to the birth of Christmas during the first ep. After all, Christmas had been waiting for her pair too for 10 loooong years. So now, there’re 3 Kurau lookalikes. I hope the son of Kurau-human won’t grow up to look like his mother, or else that’d be too creepy.
*grumbles* didn’t get to hear Moonlight at the end… :(
I dunno, I understood the relationships and entities to be completely different to what you guys have written.
I believed that the original Kurau is just a shell that is inhabited by the Rynax-Kurau and taken over like a parasite taking on it’s host.
The underlying Rynasapien system was about the Rynax pair-bond. So basically, at the beginning of the series Rynax-Kurau was torn away from her twin and brought into our reality. It searched for a host, and inhabited and overtook Human-Kurau. And over the years just “became” her while waiting for her Rynax-twin to manifest. And then along came Christmas and they were able to enjoy their time together in this existence/reality until the ending where Rynax-Kurau gave up her energy.
I understood it as Rynax-Kurau expending her energy that manifested itself in this world and being sent back to where the Rynasapiens came from. And in her place all that’s left is the Human-Kurau “shell” that experienced everything in the last several years just as a “passenger”.
They’re completely two different entities. And the ending made a lot of sense to me and was really heartwarming because Christmas was waiting for her twin to return and manifest in this reality and she did. That wasn’t a new “kurau” at the end. It was the original Rynax-Kurau that was pulled into our reality at the start. She just sacrificed her energy and was sent back to where she came from, and only at the real end she was able to come back to our reality.
If you think the end is bad it means you don’t really understand the context of the whole series. It’s a masterpiece from the start to the last second.
Regards
Good job Joyce, checking in 15 years later to tell me you don’t agree with my assessment. I’ll give the comment all the consideration it deserves.