The anime does end weird.
It's because Hideaki Anno (the anime director) started the series adapted from the manga and he realized the manga's ending wasn't going to happen for several more years. The anime ran from 1998-1999. The manga went from 1996-2005.
Anno wanted to create his own ending for the show, one that would end with the characters happy and content in high school. This in my opinion was a much better idea than how the manga goes which progressively became more and more retarded. For example, Maho-14- dating and having a sexual relationship with a 28 year old man really has no ethical questions attached outside of "I, Maho, do this cause I like to". Or how about 2/3's of the cast becoming international superstars and world renowned individuals (life doesn't work out that way) Or how about Hideaki Asaba marrying one of Yukino's children when she turns 15. The manga just becomes this weak insular world where all concepts of reality are dropped so everyone can accomplish their dreams and intermarry among their group regardless of age or ethical issues.
Anywho, Anno was aware he was making an adaptation without a conclusion and wanted to fashion one that worked in the context of a 26 episode anime. The manga creator disagreed and the producers and everyone had to give into her demands. Realizing he had very little input left as a director Hideaki Anno finished up the episodes he was working on (the last episode he had any hand in making was the Flashback Episode about how Yukino's parents met) and left the show to pursue his own work in live action. In my opinion you can see a real drop in quality after Anno left. It's like someone is imitating his style but doesn't know what to do with it. And then the show just kinda becomes sucked up by this whole "Culture Fest" affair which sucks up most of the remaining episodes before leading to .... nothing.
The whole affair's a shame cause the first half of "His and Her" is some of the most powerful directing I've ever seen. The second half isn't atrocious by any means (I really like the episode where everyone's a cut out storyboard element) but it feels like the heart isn't full there.
After the whole "His and Her" affair, director Hideaki Anno left serious anime directing for almost a decade doing his own life action films. He still occasionally did his friends some favors and did some moonlight work on some projects (he did some animation work on FLCL, Diebuster, and some other Gainax shows but nothing big). Anno didn't return to anime until he started up his "Rebuild of Evangelion" work which is what he's doing now.
There. It's on the Internet. Thus it's official
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DarcyBrandon
14 years ago
Oh thanks for the info. That's so sad because I would have loved to see the ending. I just gave up on the manga because it started to get really weird.
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