This was the last volume, and there were actually two bonus stories that I never read before. This was either because they didn’t actually appear in Animerica Extra or because I didn’t care to read them at that time. In either case, I read them and they were good (they featured characters who I assume were in the anime), but they weren’t part of the main storyline.
I understood the ending a lot better this time, and I still think it was really good. Apparently Akio, Dios, and Anthy are a race of… magical beings. Magical beings who watch over humans. This is never really explained further than that and has no actual bearing on the plot beside a link between Akio and Dios (which one suspects after Akio is introduced anyway), so I don’t feel like it’s a spoiler. The first time I read this I felt kind of betrayed since they spring that stuff on you at the end and it’s confusing, but this time I just kind of took it in stride. It makes more sense if you just take it at face value.
What happened to Utena at the end was what made me like it so much. The fact that the series had the strength to do that and still pull it off was what made me admire it the first time without knowing quite what was going on. One of the last lines of the series, Anthy’s search, made me like it a little less, but Anthy’s transformation and the fact that only Touga and she had memories… it was great.
Yes. I did like this series an awful lot. It was quite magical, and definitely a good girl’s series. Hooray for that.
