Summary:

In response to Slash’s basket, Dan passes the ball to Rouge and lets her score. As they continue playing, Dan realizes who Slash is, but that doesn’t slow him down any. At around this same time, Yang launches the Legend Bullet with the Moon Cannon, and it arrives right around the time Dan is making a dunk. Recognizing Dan as the legend, Slash uses his Bigfoot to deflect the Legend Bullet, thereby saving the moon. The Ultimite on the moon appears to activate as well, but this is short lived, and the power disappears. The failure depresses Dan, but after Navi suddenly arrives with a new pair of shoes, Dan hears Iceman bouncing a ball, and this motivates him to continue trying. With the new shoes, Dan continues playing against Iceman, and everyone else refuses to give up as well.

In the middle of this, Flora realizes the voice she’s been hearing has been coming from the Legend Bullet, and she’s able to communicate with her family back on Earthdash through the Ultimite. She also figures out that the legend is not just one person, but everyone, and Miyuki’s grandfather explains that the rise of everyone’s consciousness has an effect on the Legend Bullet. If they activate the Ultimite on the moon with the Legend Bullet, then the Ultimite on Earthdash would be restored too. As the others join in, Rouge catches the Legend Bullet and throws it at Dan and Iceman. The two then fire the ball towards the goal, and at the same moment, Navi, Sela, Flora, and Falcon shoot their balls as well. This leads to the moon’s orbit returning to normal, and both words are saved. In the aftermath, everyone goes back to Earthdash, and Coco starts walking again. Life goes on for everyone else, and Dan and Iceman continue playing basketball.

Epilogue

Well that was disappointing. I can really only name one good thing about this episode, and that was that they used Citron’s After The Heart Rain song from the recent album. It was a good change of pace because I was dreading that they’d use the opening song again. Other than that, I really didn’t enjoy the finale – it felt rather rushed and wasn’t satisfying at all. For starters, Slash reverted to being a child, but we never found out what happened to him after that. Navi, on the other hand, is a character I thought would play an integral role in the story given his moon giant background, but all he did was appear again to deliver some shoes and give Sela a happy ending. And then the actual climax was completely lackluster and very abbreviated. Dan and Iceman and the others shot their balls, and that’s all that was needed to save the worlds and go to the epilogue.

Arguably the biggest problem though is that Dan essentially ended up with Iceman. That’s right, Iceman. So much for all that DanXRouge and DanXMiyuki development – Dan ends up just playing basketball with Iceman. In a way, it’s like Macross Frontier’s finale all over again with Alto not having to choose, except they didn’t even bother addressing the issue here. They show Rouge playing basketball by herself and Miyuki working in the garage and that was it. The sad thing is that Falcon and Violette even got more concrete development than Dan and Rouge did this episode. Aside from all that, there were a bunch of little things they could have shown to make the epilogue better, like showing Coco actually standing and playing Basquash, or showing what happens between Haruka and James, or what Flora decides to do with her life. The fact that they didn’t address those kinds of things suggests again that they ran out of time.

Final Thoughts:

Basquash has been a series of highs and lows. In the beginning, I thought the basketball theme was a bit silly, and I felt the story lacked direction for a long while, but I became much more excited about the plot and the characters in the second half, around the time the new OP and ED began. There was a lot of potential there, but unfortunately, most of it was wasted in the end. I’m sure the director change part-way through didn’t help things either. On the plus side, there was some pretty good music in the series, mostly coming from the talented trio voiced by Tomatsu Haruka, Hayami Saori, and Nakajima Megumi, and I still adore Spanky’s character. That’s not enough to carry the show though, and in the end, I find it hard to recommend Basquash to anyone unless they’re really desperate for a mecha series and don’t mind the basketball theme.

37 Comments

  1. Extremely disappointing. For a show that usually loves to hurl its own spoilers at us, the finale didn’t tell us that much. I’m extremely biased towards Flora, so I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who found it lacking. At least Satelight stopped trying to make Flora miserable.

    Casse
  2. *sigh….I guess d trailers or the 1st episode of this anime are the only things that made me excited bout the show (prolly coz of d NIKE thingy involved….. the rest of the episodes r boring…

    Alec
  3. …I really wish that I didn’t call it. I totally didn’t expect iceman though. I don’t think anyone did…so much for ending with an awesome bang.anticipation to watch this when my preferred subs releases it has dropped a bit now

    C.R
  4. Honestly, what’s with that final.. we got disappointed again.. Is it so difficult to sew all the lose ends together, being concrete about a relationship with Rogue and the other possible couples? Too rushed everything – a pity as the show had some good potential.

  5. Ughh.. Well there goes my interest to this series. I was just waiting how the reaction to the ending would be. Well I guess I’m skipping this.

    C’mon people don’t let the story side slip just because of the pretty visuals…

    First Canaan then this. -_-

    megalith
  6. Epilogue

    Rouge pratice the free throw skill
    Coco start to walk
    Sela and Navi continue playing together (now she the heir)
    Violette is now the children school teacher (and have crush with Falcon)
    Citron is now the solo artist (with Iceman glasses and shoe on her neckles)
    What about Dan and Iceman, Well they continue to play 1-on-1 on street basketball.

    ededdeddy
  7. Note to self:

    1. NEVER expect any satisfying romance conclusion from Kawamori.
    2. If the pair is THE main couple, he’s going to screw it in/near the end. He’ll tease you with banging hints all throughout the show and do everything in his power to screw it or make it unsatifisying for you in the last episode.
    3. If you don’t care for romance and hates the characters,THEN Kawamori’s works are for you! Go for it.

    End note.

    Andi
  8. same here…..i personally didn’t like macross frontier because you’ve watch 20+ episode and keen to know who he picks and guess the director did the same mistake in this show, another waster of time T_T
    Guess he wants every side character to get a love relationship except the main character due to his coolness lol

  9. See… I enjoyed this series up until episode 18 and then the story just got worse… and worse… and worse. They added random plot element that did nothing, made 3 more people fall in love with Dan all of a sudden, and then made some characters disappear to introduce some more, only to bring them back in the end.

    Oh yeah, the moral of this episode is if you get a new pair of shoes, it will help you become better at basquash/basketball

    Alive
  10. So Kawamori keep trolling us with concepts that have a lot of potential, and became a total waste of time. I liked the first half of the series, when it was developing the “no limits” concept but the change of director really messed up the things, and the series lots it focus … a real shame, this could have been THE mecha series of the season, but it have ended like a bad and cheap cd’s and shoes commercial. DAMM YOU KAWAMORI!!!

    pd. sorry for my tarzan-like english 😉

    Exelius
  11. Although I’m rather unsatisfied with the undeveloped conclusion between Rouge x Dan and the fact that the story did get more ridiculous after a certain point, I still give this series a huge plus for originality, especially compared to everything else that aired/is airing this year. With nothing to work off of, it was pretty good. I’m kinda annoyed by the factor regarding the director change now since we all know him for Black Cat and Kissdum, both of which hit rock bottom towards the end. Hopefully Kawamori’s remastered Blu-Rays will do some adjustments with the story. Although the first three episodes simply removed the “fanservice” in this show, I’m hoping for greater changes after episode 13 such that the series will be “remade” into what it is suppose to be.

    Kit-Tsukasa
  12. i think it was a good ending. because you have 2 types of endings. one that let it settle and where you get this feeling in the pit of your stomache because its sad thats its over and nothing is left. the second is where they never tell you anything and you feel slightly dissapointed but theres a feeling that it will never end. lols. its sad when something ends…. and your like omg what do i do now. so i like the second one better.

  13. I think everyone is making a big deal with the ending. While it wasn’t the best, it was not a terrible ending to start.

    Yes Dan didn’t get to suck face with Rouge, but was that really the driving point of the entire series. To see if couples ended up being together? Dan’s objective from the start was to get Coco to walk again, done. Floria was to witness the birth of a legend, Done. James, Slash & Haruka emphasis on finding/creating the Legend through the use of Basquash, Done. Everyone who had a plan from the start finished it. And while I do agree that the lack of a DanxRouge was a small disappointment that was it. A small disappointment.

    Basquash! is not Macross Frontier. Similarities aside it isn’t Macross Frontier and it’s pretty cheap for posters to compare the two in terms of disappointment because Dan ebd up playing basketball with Iceman instead of sucking face with Rouge causing the masses to scream out “OMG WORST SHOW EVA!11” You have to look at it in a whole. Did the main story pan out? More and less it did, and with the blatant Nike advertising and the heavy use of cheesy basketball battles you all knew what you were getting from the get go.

    Basquash! isn’t the best, but isn’t the worst. It was a good show. Nothing amazing, just good.

    Gamma Rallyson
  14. This series get an A+ for originality within the Mech genre. They melded, basketball, mythology, and science seamlessly into a coherent and enjoyable story. I think necessitating a romance with a beginning and end in order for one to consider an anime well done or acceptable is tremendously shortchanging this series.

    Best series ever? Definitely not, but most certainly better than most of the other shows that aired in the same season.

    So Very Odd
  15. Pretty much no couple was truly confirmed just “I understand you” comments. It took the whole series for everyone to realize that everyone is a legend and need to come together to do spirit bomb dunks.

    ssj4jw
  16. I agree that it was a rushed ending, but I still kind of liked how things ended in order for them to save both worlds. I really wonder if Slash can still talk normally when he turns into a baby form? A lot of things were left unquestioned. What happened to James, Haruka, Thousand and even Yan? Well the ending just shows that Dan loves basketball more over relationships. =p And Citron’s singing FTW!! Well overall, the series was more than what I expected in the beginning. There are flaws here and there, but every anime is like that. Well, its a basketball/mecha anime I’ll definitely remember. Basquash! Haha.

    Tenkou
  17. i totally agree with the final thoughts here! im actually routine for a dan x rouge in the end, but the episode didn’t atleast deliver that! the final ep feels too crammed! the final battle between slash and dan actually ended before the damn op started, the only saving grace for me in the epilogue was that rouge was i think and at the least in the same city as dan, though they could have done the epilogue much better i think, overall, the thing that made me watch basquash was mainly dan x rouge, coz in the beginning i though dan was gonna end up with miyuki like other typical anime with love interests.

    diveche
  18. yep I’m late with it!! REAL LATE!! hahah but i felt differently about da ending OMNI, i understand that lots of peeps wanna have closure on every thing or more elaboration on what happened or happens,BUT i thought it was good cuz it basically hinted at a whole Lotta possibility’s and all that. yeah funny! dan X iceman, but i saw it as this… yep yep we saved the world and got the all the girls feening and are big time heroes but guess what!! we still BALLERS!!! so lets go do what we DO! let the viewer imagine what he/she wants to happen from that end montage.
    btw- sick dunk by slash and nice crossover by dan..if only they animated more HOTT cgi mech playing of actual basketball skills it would have added to the excitement of the anime..all i saw was a bunch of roof climbing and super long distance passes with the occasional regular dunk or shot COME ON!!! USE UR IMAGINATION!!! YALL COULDA MADE ANYTHING YALL WANTED TO HAPPEN example: how bout an upside down tag team reverse 360 SLAM!!! see?? HOTT SHIT!!! anyway thanks fo blogging as always

    BROOKLYN otaku
  19. I got under the impression that something happened that caused Dan and Iceman to fall out of the picture…because after they dunked Rouge was like, “where’s Dan?”and then it just cut to the epilogue, and he AND Iceman weren’t hanging out with their friends.

    Also, Citron had Iceman-reminder-like things around her neck. Like his glasses and a shoe…

    Seemed weird to me.

    Cherish

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