Gate Episodes 23 + 24 [Wait…It’s Over?] [Final Impressions]

Well, after all this time, 2 seasons (split apart by a season in the middle even) Gate is finally over. Am I sad that it’s over?Actually yeah. I really enjoyed this show and i’m not happy to see it go. It was one of the few shows in the past while that i’ve really gotten into and wanted to see more. (especially with Rory) However, while all terrible shows must end, so must the good shows. So the question is, did the series end with a whimper or a bang? Well let’s perform a double dose of reviews and do this one more time.

So episode 23 starts up with the army rescuing the kidnapped pro-peace senators. And…it really does go off without a hitch. It’s pretty straight forward. They rush in, kick everyone’s ass, and take back the prisoners.

After a while, the  Japanese then just start parachuting in.

meanwhile, back at that battle at the jade palace, the SDF shows up and, you guessed it, wrecks the rest of the guys.

And really, the reason that i didn’t review this episode by itself last week is because this is all that happens in this episode. The SDF shows up and rescues everybody. Everything goes flawlessly and the only casualty is that some random guy gets shot in the arm with an arrow. But he ends being being fine later anyway.

The blonde knight lady tries to go back for the princess, but that doesn’t work, so the SDF saves her and the purple haired one (fuck I don’t know their names)

and that’s really all that happens in this episode.

So we’ll jump to 24 where the series wraps up and stuff actually happens.

So our main heroes show up and go like “yeah, we’re going to rescue the princess.” That’s about the time that the rest of his team from season one also show up and say they’re going to help.

Our main guy then decides to just say “fuck it” and take Rory and Leilei and walk through the front door to talk to the prince.

I love this scene because the prince is all “mwahaha I will be ready by the time they show up to save you” and they show up 10 seconds later. That was pretty goddamn hilarious actually.

He tells them that he won’t let her go so he sends an ogre after them. And they kick its ass. They grab the princess and start to leave. When the prince tries to protest, a sniper bullet zooms by his head. After this, they take the princess and go.

After escaping the castle in the truck, They apparently also rescued the emperor who wasn’t dead, but the poison just made him weak somehow. But when they start talking he conveniently wakes up.

He then makes the princess the official leader of the people as he decides to retire.

We then cut to her coronation where we find out that the blonde chick has been seeing the sdf dude and she’s pregnant, the purple haired chick started seeing the guy who caught her and….of all people, the guy who got stabbed started seeing the bunny girl who he shot. …yeah…I…I don’t have much to say about that pairing….I…I really don’t.

and of course the 12 year old is paired with that ambassador guy. I’ve actually scoured the internet trying to figure out this guy’s age, but I can’t find ANYTHING. However, based on the fact that he’s an ambassador i’m going to guess at the YOUNGEST he’s about 25. Which… (snicker) that’s pretty terrible show. Wow.

Anyway, i’m sure you’re wondering what happened to stupid ass bunny girl, right? Well, turns out that she runs away with her tail between her legs (haha get it? because she’s a bunny girl?) and even though she’s getting her revenge she’s sad.

See, i’d feel worse for you if you didn’t send out assassins to kill innocent people and put ideas in the princes head to do terrible terrible things. As it stands, you can go fuck yourself.

So we only have one more scene left. It turns out that Itami isn’t at the party because it’s one year later and it’s time for that doujinshi event he missed last year because of the attack. When he arrives however, Leilei, the elf, and Rory show up too. Because of this, the police grab the four of them and take them somewhere safe away from the throngs of people much to Itami’s dismay.

And that’s where the series ends.

So yeah….the series doesn’t exactly end in a perfect nice little package, but it ends nicely enough. Basically this is one of those endings where if they really wanted to, (aka it makes enough money) they COULD make a third season and it wouldn’t feel forced. But they could also end it here and a lot of people would be satisfied. Of course i’m not one of those people, but that’s just because I really like this show.

ALSO BECAUSE RORY AND ITAMI AREN’T A COUPLE YET!

Yeah, gotta say, if you haven’t guessed, I AM quite the Rory fan. In fact, I saw THIS up for preorder the other day. No way in HELL I could justify it….but man do I want it.

This series was interesting. It was one of those “none of the main cast dies” series…but for once, I don’t really care. It was weird for me to see a series where all the main characters are crazy overpowered and yet…I was still cheering them on. It’s very strange to see that. Normally when a character is not the underdog you don’t really care if they succeed. But I actually felt sucked into the story and DID care for what was going on.

To me, the most interesting characters were Rory and Itami. The rest I could take or leave. Leilei was….okay nothing special, and the elf chick kind of annoyed me for being all “where’s dad?” for half the series. We all know what I think of Bunny girl and the prince as villains as well as everyone else, but that aside, they all seem to work together and  make a very entertaining show.

Episode 23 was funny and entertaining, but the problems were the same that a lot of the other episodes had. It didn’t focus a lot on the main characters, and while enjoyable to watch everything go right for the good guys, there were no real named people I cared about as they were all still on their way there. It would have worked better as half an episode rather than the whole thing dragged out.

6/10

Episode 24 though was pretty enjoyable I must say. I really wished it was wrapped up more concisely, however I suppose that has to do with the whole “possibility of a season 3” thing.

Episode 7.5/10

Would I like there to be a season 3? Yes. Yes I would. True the series COULD wrap up here, but I feel like there’s more stories that could be told. The prince is still alive and things haven’t quite wrapped up with him yet I believe. Also…the pied piper’s still out there so that would be cool if they brought him back. The gate is also still there and hasn’t closed as they said that it eventually will. So until that gate closes there are stories to tell, INCLUDING PAIRING RORY AND ITAMI TOGETHER DAMN IT. (yes this broken record will keep spinning)

Head: Great idea. I think it was very interesting to have the good guys be the overpowered ones. It worked in a way where unlike Yugioh or One Punch Man, that although they were overpowered it was still in a way that they could be defeated and I found it very compelling. A lot of the plot did annoy me at times like how the bad guys’ plan was just to throw more soldiers at the invincible people, but that added to the hilarity in a way. There were episodes that I felt there were unnecessary things, but it didn’t detract from the entire series overall. I kind of just forgot those episodes were there. (like the adventure of 12 year old running away girl) 7/10

Eye: The art was extremely good. The females looked very cute and the guys looked masculine. The scenes in Japan were cool and across the gate were very pretty.

Eye 8/10

Heart: This is the spot where it could get patchy at times. Some of the episodes had really good emotional scenes and then you had things where they tried to make you feel bad for the bunny girl or something stupid like that. There were times I could just not get invested. Like when they introduced all those dark elves just to die. That was more funny than anything.  Also, even though it was a while ago, they really did make the other country leaders look like douches. That was pretty funny though. All in all…. the feelings were…….okay. 6/10

total score 21/30 = 7/10

A solid show. I think this series would have ranked a bit higher though if Itami HAD ended up with Rory definitively but that’s just my own personal preference. If you don’t like that pairing that’s fine, I’m just adding my own two cents of personal opinion.

All in all, do I recommend this show? Yes. Yes I do. I would say if you want to see a show where the underdog is not the good guy but they can’t just go around punching all their problems away, I recommend giving this a go. Oh well, it looks like it’s time to say goodbye to gate one last time. Peace out Gate. See you on the other side.

-Hideki