Finally, we have reached the end of the 2013 winter season of anime. There have definitely been some great shows that are worth a revisit, while there are others that probably could have been skipped all together. Like with every season, there is always a mixed bag and you never know what’s going to be entertaining or just simply displeasing.
Our final show for the winter season is Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East. Why Hakkenden? Just why? I had put faith in you these last several weeks, and you’ve shown so much improvement! With this final episode though, it feels like no one was trying that hard to tell a good story.
In the final episode of the first season, Karma, Shino is confronted by Souske’s Shadow, discussing a lot of exposition. That’s all that really happens in the final episode. The rest is just filler, except for the last three minutes of the show, which tries to remind you that there is supposed to be an overarching story in this somewhere.
For a regular episode, maybe this could have worked fine, but this is supposed to be the finale. It seems like they knew they were going to get a second season (which will be released in the summer) and didn’t try to give it a proper conclusion. Now, this poor episode makes me wish that they hadn’t been renewed so the creators could feel foolish about the episode that they gave us. Instead, they just pandered to the fan girls, which obviously seemed to pay off quite nicely for them.
To say the very least, Karma was very unsatisfying, especially for a show that has been consistently mixed. Right here, at the end, Hakkenden broke me, probably much more than any anime has in the past while.
Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East - Karma gets two stars out of ten.
