Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo – 13 (END)

Short Summary:
Knowing that Sayaka is being controlled, Ureshiko leaves Tatsumi, transforms, and flies out. Chane and Hermes, in crow form, block her path and attack her, but she is saved when Valentine comes to help her. Bruga joins the fray and engages Valentine in a fight. She lands a hit, but quickly retreats afterwards knowing that she’s gone too far. Yuki, before she disappears to Realm, gives Ureshiko one more present in the form of materializing Tatsumi on Ureshiko’s broomstick. Sayaka, free of hypnosis, realizes what she’s doing. Since she can’t seem to stop the spell or take off the ring, she can only think about what type of world she creates. Remembering Yuki’s words of wanting to keep things the same, she starts to understand what she has to do. After seeing the skies brighten, Ureshiko worries about her actions’ effect on Cruje. Unsure of what sort of world Cruje will to create, Ureshiko doesn’t want to lose Tatsumi. He reassures her that he won’t disappear, and they share a hug and then a kiss.
However, Tatsumi soon fades away as a bright light overcomes the current world. When Ureshiko wakes up, she finds Tatsumi, Oba-chan, and Freya waiting for her. The world Cruje created is still the same one as the one her mother did. At school, Sayaka’s friends seem to remember a fire, but the school is completely intact. At a celebration of Tamotsu’s new book, Tatsumi approaches the author and asks him to give up Ureshiko, saying that he loves her. Tamotsu punches him, but later smiles and tells him to take care of her happiness. Ureshiko voices over several shots of the town, explaining that that her mother created this world known as Wonderland and that this town will never disappear.

Boo for stock footage: they showed the same transformation sequence for Ureshiko that they’ve been using this entire series. The problem is that it shows her with the ring – the ring which she hasn’t had since episode 11. You’d think an error that big would have been caught and edited. Fortunately, that’s all that I can gripe about…
The finale of Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo doesn’t disappoint with great animation, great music, and the kiss we’ve been building up to for the entire series now. This ends how you’d think it would: Sayaka doesn’t really change anything, Tatsumi and Ureshiko kiss, and Tamotsu gives her up. But for the lack of any real big surprises (not a bad thing), they made up for in quality. The music crescendos when Tatsumi and Ureshiko finally kiss, making that quite a powerful (and my favorite) scene. I also rather like the way they do the conclusion by playing 「jewelry」 and having Ureshiko’s voice-over to finish out the episode while they give a view of the town (similar to the one Ureshiko sees at the end of the ED sequence).

Final Thoughts: Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo is a show that’s probably not for everyone. There’s quite a bit of fanservice, and it does involve magical girls (which turns some people off immediately). But those who do watch it will realize that it has a strong and unique story about magical girls creating and protecting worlds, about the old versus the new, and about love. In Ureshiko’s case, that is both love for Tatsumi and love for the world.

Oh yea, Canvas2 premieres and airs in this timeslot starting next week.