Final Impressions / First Impressions / KIDDY GiRL-AND

Summary:

Ascoeur finds herself surrounded by enemies, but luckily for her, when Shade tries to use his powers on her, Torch stops him. Ascoeur then questions if they’re okay with everyone dying as a result of Geacht’er’s plan, and Torch reveals that he isn’t. He confronts Geacht’er about the meaning behind all this, so Geacht’er explains that it’s the universe that’s meaningless, and he orders Shade to kill Torch. When Shade refuses, Geacht’er uses his power to plant a deadly rose on Torch, and Torch falls out of the hole that the Mistral created when it crashed into the Erde Meteor. Shade jumps down into the abyss after him, but he first provides Ascoeur with some help by using his power to blind Geacht’er. Rubis also saves Q-feuille from falling through the hole, but the bigger problem is that the Erde Meteor has started to break down. Tweedledee sends Letuchaia and Pauki to help the civilians escape, and the two successfully lead everyone to an evacuation ship, but they aren’t able to launch because the ship is still tied down to the Erde Meteor. Q-feuille and company want to go help, but Geacht’er has Saphir stop them, leading to her facing off against Rubis again. Fortunately for Rubis, Q-feuille saves her from Saphir’s ice spikes and then freezes Saphir.

Although the others then go to help Letuchaia and the civilians, Ascoeur opts to stay behind with Geacht’er because she remembers her promise from long ago to stay with him. Even without Ascoeur, Rubis is able to free the evacuation ship, allowing it to launch as the rest of the Erde Meteor disintegrates. Ascoeur and Geacht’er meanwhile are flung into space, and Ascoeur grabs her brother. It is now that he finally reveals that he didn’t care about everything else and just wanted to be with her. Her presence makes him happy, and he admits that he loves her. As he begins to disappear, Geacht’er tells Ascoeur that all of her belongs to him and all of him belongs to her, and Ascoeur gives him one last kiss. In doing so, all of Geacht’er’s power transfers to her, and Ascoeur decides to try to stop the Galactic Genocider on her own. Seeing this from the evacuation ship, Di-air kisses Q-feuille and sends her to where Ascoeur is, and Q-feuille arrives just in time. The two girls reunite with a kiss and then combine their powers to move and disarm the Galactic Genocider. In the aftermath, the two are picked up, still holding hands, by Mi Nourose, and life returns to normal.

Epilogue

I’ll be blunt here: I did not think very highly of this finale. Yes there were some ES Member cameos and more of Éclair and Lumière, but the progression of the plot was so stupid I was groaning through pretty much the entire episode. For starters, it made no sense why it took Torch (and Shade) this long to question what Geacht’er was doing and turn against him, especially not since they knew of his plan. Geacht’er then appeared to kill Torch with a rose, and both he and Shade went falling towards the Galactic Genocider, so I thought that at the very least Torch was guaranteed to be dead. But no! Torch was very much alive in the epilogue, and that raised the question: if he could survive, why the hell couldn’t Trixie and Troisienne?

While we’re on the topic of surviving, why did they bother making it seem like Rubis got incinerated if she was just going to show back up in the epilogue? After all, as expected, all of the good guys survived in the end. The worst part of the episode, however, was what Geacht’er told Ascoeur when they were finally alone together. They tried too hard to redeem his character at the last minute, and the result of it is that all of his past actions were made pointless because his entire motivation boiled down to just wanting to be with his sister. It made me think that Ascoeur could have prevented all this if she had just kissed him earlier in the series. I mean, if there’s one thing that this series has taught me, it’s that kissing is the solution to everything.

Final Thoughts:

While individual episodes might have been decent and the production quality was relatively good, looking at the series as a whole, I can’t say I really enjoyed it. I stuck with it hoping that it would get better, but there was never really a high point in the series because the characters never became dynamic or compelling enough (Di-air was a walking plot device and Ascoeur’s was just plain annoying), and the story never matured in the right way. Ultimately, I find it very difficult to recommend this series to all but the most hardcore of Kiddy Grade fans.

26 Comments

  1. Definitely thumbs down on this second series. It’s a total failure in terms of characters and yes, the plot. Apart from enduring that annoying Ascoeur (mostly because of her voice) throughout the entire series, I really can’t stand in the end that Eclair and Lumiere somehow became the inferior to Ascoeur skill-wise. I can’t believe and refuse to believe that the staff made the two heroines of the first series look like merely two sidekicks. All in all, this second series had been nothing but torture to watch especially to the fans of the first series. After 7 years of calling and waiting for the second season only to see a sub par sequel. I feel so betrayed by the director and the staff. It’s such a big disappointment.

    お化け屋敷の主人
    Reply

  5. The hardcore Kiddy Grade fans are the people who will be steering everyone away from this the most. We’re more let down by this clusterfuck of a sequel than anyone.

    I’ve never been more disappointed by media in my life.

    ZTL
    Reply

  6. F U SATELITE!!!!

    i really had high hopes for this anime….I guess i was just following the illusion kiddy grade left behind……. what would have happen if the animators didng change their PLANS… its bcoz they changed their PLANS, that this sequel went haywire

    Alec
    Reply

  10. *posting from the ABYSS*…………….gave up 3 episodes ago…………..lost………….lost…………………lost..to the SPACE MADNESS!! forgive me OMNI for not even bothering …….to read what u posted and …..how the epi….episode ended……….no need for that here……… i see about 9 post’s …so far
    .,,, ,…. a record??? to you brave soul’s that endured… I SALUTE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *literally salutes the screen*

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  12. All the people saying that the plot to this anime is bad are wrong. THERE IS NO PLOT!. It’s just random, monstly unexplained, bullshit strung together to make it look like it has a plot. DAMN YOU DIRECTOR!

    DmonHiro
    Reply

  19. The gang’s all back! Cesario, Viola, Sinistra, and Dextera return! Ascouer and Q-feuille are stronger than Eclair and Lumiere! (NOT! Did anyone notice that Eclair wasn’t wearing her lipstick and Lumiere didn’t transform into her older, G-Class self?) Saphir and Geacht’er are dancing in the sky! All of the remaining shadow workers are alive! Guess the bromance of Torch and Shade was stronger than Geacht’er’s rose of death!
    Okay, this series isn’t as epic as Kiddy Grade, but it entertained me a little at least. Kissing solves lots of things! Kissing transfers powers! Eclair and Lumiere are back serving at the information desk! Eclair said POKKYUN! Need to watch Kiddy Grade again. Ta Dah! A lady should be more elegant! Saphir needs a gravestone too!
    …Yeah the crew messed this one up pretty bad…the BGM was good though. Thanks OMNI!

    samu
    Reply

  21. Interesting loose end with Saphir; frozen in time as she was, theoretically nothing exterior to her particular temporal shell could hurt her. Ergo, she should have survived the fall to the planet (whichever one’s gravitational pull actually got her.) Moreover, since there was a grave shown for Ge’achter, and all the other cast members were shown to be alive during the final credits, the lack of resolution for Saphir stands out even more. I smell a loose end left deliberately left in case they get to make an OVA.

    Agelastus
    Reply

    1. I agree with your assessment. Saphir’s supposed ‘death’ is suspicious to me for the same reasons you provided. But to take this argument one step further, I’m inclined to believe that the creators aren’t interested in tainting the innocence of their leads by having them cause the death–by direct or indirect means as it may be in this instance–of any other character; even the crazy ones.

      Rubis practically ordered Q-feuille to stop Saphir’s time, and if Saphir really did die by falling into the galaxy bomb, it would almost seem as though Q-feuille carried out a death sentence on Saphir. I suspect that was not the intent of the writers or even Q-feuille herself.

      Tyranoid
      Reply

  24. Here are some references for analyzing Kiddy Girl-and’s various flaws. (Based on Aristotle’s “Golden Rule of Story Telling)
    http://payvand.com/news/08/jan/1152.html
    http://www2.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html

    To get a good series that can withstand through time (and any other factors if possible), Aristotle recommended to arrange the elements of storytelling in the following order:

    1. Plot
    2. Character
    3. Themes
    4. Diction (script)
    5. Music
    6. Spectacle (special effects)

    However, Kiddy Girl-and (like a lot of other series), arranged the elements in the wrong order:

    1. Spectacle (CG, special effects, production design)
    2. Music (We got decent background musics throughout the series.)
    3. Themes (Kiddy Grade had a serious theme, while Kiddy Girl-and constantly switches from a serious theme to a humorous theme and vice-versa.)
    4. Diction (Time is wasted in some episodes, when the story could have gone further.)
    5. Character (Some characters are annoying, in reality.)
    6. Plot (The plot did not mature enough.)

    Overall, this series could have been better if some of the elements have been fixed.

    megazero
    Reply

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