Devil Survivor 2 The Animation Episode 13: Sunday of Realization – II [FINAL]

‘What is living?’

Synopsis: The old world is gone, and Yamato stands poised to remake the world as he sees fit. Hibiki is determined to thwart him, but it will take all his resources as Yamato reveals the true extent of the demon-summoning app’s powers. Using its function of demonic fusion, Yamato brings forth Satan himself. In the end, only one will stand before Polaris, who will grant not simply an audience — to the victor will go the chance to wish for anything they desire.

Impression:

 And so, it has come to an end. Am I glad it’s over? Yes. Will I be more cautious when selecting ‘survival’ as a genre for blogging? Almost certainly. But all that aside, how did episode 13, the finale, do as Devil Survivor 2’s swan song? Did the show go out with a bang? Or was it more of a ‘poof’ that could nay be hear over the cacophony being produced by the likes of Suisei no Gargantia and Shingeki no Kyojin? Let’s find out…

  Oh Yamato, you never fail to amaze me with your stupidity. I can’t even understand why, at this point, he’s still trying to achieve his goals. Hibiki has shown him on several occasions that his methodology is wrong and that he lacks the basic humans empathy required to ‘change the world’. But no, Yamato insists the if Hibiki wants to really be friends with him and save the world he’s going to have to kill him. And I thought you were smart Yamato.

 And another thing, did anyone else feel as though this episode shared a close affinity with an episode of Bakemonogatari? Don’t get the wrong idea, I mean, if anything it would be a bad episode of Bakemonogatari if anything, a bad episode with demons, big kitty’s and backgrounds that put Araragi’s (Bakemonogatari’s protagonist’s) house to shame. The first 7 minutes of the episode consisted of Yamato and Hibiki talking about Yamato’s random introspection and contemplation, thought processes that had nothing really to do with the show and if anything were an underlying theme that partially made the basis of the show. What is life? The hell if I know, I mean, for all his talk Yamato still made no progress on trying to answer that question and bored Hibiki’s dead friends so much that they sent Hibiki all their demons so that they could get it over with faster.

  And speaking of Hibiki’s friends sending him their demons… Deus Ex Machina much? Where did that ability come from? It seemed as though the show used the elusive nature of the ‘Nicea System’ to make Hibiki stronger when necessary and in the end it just felt cheesy and out of place. Hibiki’s out of his depth? Well of course his dead friends can send him their demons, why not. If this feature existed why didn’t Hibiki use it to give Daichi one of his numerous bad ass demons? Apparently no one could figure it out until the last five seconds of the show, even though they’d been researching this application for several weeks (it has like seven buttons for God’s sake! How hard can it be to figure things out?!)

Just saying… what the hell is up with Satan’s six tits? It’s not even that it’s creepy, it’s that I had this odd boner that wouldn’t go away until I saw Hibiki crying again, it’s that… why does Yamato have this demon? Is he so sexually repressed that he has to summon a demon with six tits? Is his need, his lust, his… blue blues – are his blue balls so bad that he’s been deemed worthy enough to summon the six breasted demon Satan? Apparently so… oh! And another thing… not to anger you philosophy lovers out there but… I thought Lucifer and Satan were the same thing? The same entity? Without six tits? You know, human in appearance and all that jazz? I guess I’m reading too much into this. I apologize.

 And by ‘Kawaii’ I mean, wouldn’t you have just loved it if Hibiki had run out of the underground and gotten hit by a truck? I think it would have been the perfect way to end the series, y’know? A bit of humor to liven things up and not the pale and annoying face of Mr Hotsuin.

We all knew Hibiki was going to win, it was a given right from the get go. Hibiki’s declaration and vow to beat Yamato made it almost impossible for him to lose… you know how cliche heroes are these days… The ‘episode’ ended way to quickly for my liking and even though the cat fight was nice and epic, it ended within seven minutes, six of those seven minutes being spent on Yamato’s naive philosophy. The rest of the episode was comprised of back stories that could have been introduced earlier on in the series and would have made for a greater impact… I guess that’s what happens though when a Shin Megami Tensei game is crammed into 13 episodes of 25 minute anime… sad really.

This episode wasn’t all bad though, I mean, we did get to see good ol’ Daichi again and that’s always awesome. The show coming ‘full circle’ with Hibiki and Daichi living through the same(-ish) first day was awesome and how can anyone resist epic wish granting? The only other gripe I had however, was with how obvious and cliche this ending was. From the moment we were told in one of the early episodes that by surviving the seven days you would be granted a wish, we knew that Hibiki would win and ask for Polaris to return the world to it’s former state. This was made even more evident when we found out that the world was being corroded with darkness. It was predictable and I didn’t like that, but other than that I think it was a good ending that fit the shows friendly nature perfectly… Although Hibiki crying over seeing a guy who’d all of but five seconds ago been trying to kill him, was a bit much.

To conclude, a good finale, not the best, but a good one. There were some downsides and equally there were some commendable points. And, to come full circle with this post in true Devil Survivor 2 style, did I enjoy this anime? Not really. Were there some enjoyable episodes? Definitely (episode 9, for example). Would I watch it again?…no.

I think that says it all.