The Nature of Open-Ended VS Close-Ended Series in Tokusatsu

[Painted_Outlaw]

The monster is dead? I never saw Deguva die. I just saw him and Kuuga fighting in a bland battle that just moved on to the next scene without showing the outcome.

[hide]There's a piece of paper in the final episode that confirms Daguva's death.[/hide]

The same goes for Agito's finale. I saw two balls of light fly around, not actually seeing any characters fighting it out and winning.

[hide]Shouichi rider-kicked Darkness Overlord and, the Overlord's physical body was destroyed. Overlord was also content with letting humanity evolve w/o his intervention[/hide]

In Dai, Shadam was the main villain, he was defeated.

Was he?

My biggest beef besides Evangelion is the ending to the stupid Utena movie. That was the dumbest piece of **** ending I have ever seen.

The movie was basically trying to do the whole "breaking free of societal norms/ adolescense-subversion"; except, in a weirder way than the series did.

Evangelion, RahXephon, etc, all do it.

[hide]Huh? Eva never did it.

- TV Ending: AU!Shinji gets accepted by every other character. "CONGRATULATIONS!!"
- End of Eva movie ending: Everyone LCLs and Asuka and Shinji are left by themselves.
- Rebuild of Eva: Hasn't ended yet[/hide]

 

[Dr Kain]

[hide]There's a piece of paper in the final episode that confirms Daguva's death.[/hide]

[hide]Shouichi rider-kicked Darkness Overlord and, the Overlord's physical body was destroyed. Overlord was also content with letting humanity evolve w/o his intervention[/hide]

Was he?

The movie was basically trying to do the whole "breaking free of societal norms/ adolescense-subversion"; except, in a weirder way than the series did.



[hide]Huh? Eva never did it.

- TV Ending: AU!Shinji gets accepted by every other character. "CONGRATULATIONS!!"
- End of Eva movie ending: Everyone LCLs and Asuka and Shinji are left by themselves.
- Rebuild of Eva: Hasn't ended yet[/hide]

But you never saw Deguva defeated. I want to see the main villain beaten on screen.

Same goes for Darkness Overlord.

Shadam was the main villain of DaiRanger, the guy who was there from episode 1 until the finale.

Not even going to bother with an Utena discussion.

As for Evangelion, yes, The End of Evangelion was still technically a reset button ending because they were goi... ng... to... oh forget it, I can't explain it because it was a cop out, it sucked, and makes an average series crappy.

 

[NeonZ]

What happened to the main threat? The ones they were fighting since before the show started!?

[hide]They were gathered and defeated in episode 46, alongside the most powerful executive worm. The executives and most worms were all killed there. There were still some worms alive afterwards like shown in the beginning of 47, but they couldn't amount to much anymore[/hide]

 

[Glamador]

THIS POST HAS LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!



The monster is dead? I never saw Deguva die. I just saw him and Kuuga fighting in a bland battle that just moved on to the next scene without showing the outcome.

The same goes for Agito's finale. I saw two balls of light fly around, not actually seeing any characters fighting it out and winning.

With that said, there is more to an ending than whether or not the hero still has their powers. To me, an ending is when the main villain is fully defeated (on screen) and all plot holes are closed.

But you never saw Deguva defeated. I want to see the main villain beaten on screen.

Same goes for Darkness Overlord.

This is a ludicrously closed-in idea of what an ending should be. You have to have the villain defeated on-screen? Not only were both of those villains shown very plainly to have been defeated, the villain isn't even the real point of the ending!

As I said in the Faiz thread, the show ends when the thematic or narrative purpose of the show is concluded. Often times in Toku that's synonymous with defeating the Big Bad, but in the case of a show like Black or Agito or Kabuto or Blade you can have an extremely satisfactory ending without even a final confrontation. At least, not a physical one.

The thematic purpose of Kuuga was fulfilled the moment Godai transformed into Ultimate Form (and perhaps, didn't go berserk). Anything that happened after that moment that IS a conclusion can be considered a valid ending.

Agito's thematic purpose was concluded AFTER the final confrontation (which DID end with the villain being defeated very plainly on screen I may add) by the short conversation between the Overlord and his cohort. The struggles with the MotW were a mere physical consequence of the mental battle for approval from what is essentially God.

Defeating the 4 Kings, despite what you claim, was NOT the narrative purpose of Blade. Blade was about the advisability of selfish adherence to survival of the fittest as a principle of living, the nature of choice, and morality of killing something just because it is dangerous. And all of those things were neatly tied up in the final moments. Which didn't even involve a physical conflict!


I covered Black back in the Faiz thread, and these 3 are enough to illustrate the point so I won't go on. But suffice to say, there are many ways to have AN ending. And whether or not they are open ended has nothing to do with whether or not the big bad is defeated on screen or the hero loses his powers.

 

[Painted_Outlaw]

Shadam was the main villain of DaiRanger, the guy who was there from episode 1 until the finale.

I know, I was jokingly referring to the [hide]whole Clay doll ending. :laugh:[/hide]

 

[kuroihikari]

I know, I was jokingly referring to the [hide]whole Clay doll ending. :laugh:[/hide]

I think that's what he meant by "the Shadam who was there from the start".

 

[knightphoenix2]

What About The Ultraman Series?

It seems that most, if not all, of the Ultraman series are closed-ended. The two apparent exceptions are Dyna (albeit after an eleven-year "hiatus"), and Cosmos (1 prequel movie and 2+ sequel movies.)

 

[Shynilyte]

Was Dyna's ending really "open"? The villain was defeated, and Asuka manages to understand his father.

[HIDE]it just didn't make clear where Asuka ends up.[/HIDE]

I guess that's kind of open.

I'm not sure about Cosmos, but he did at least defeat Chaos Header.

 

[Dr Kain]

This is a ludicrously closed-in idea of what an ending should be. You have to have the villain defeated on-screen? Not only were both of those villains shown very plainly to have been defeated, the villain isn't even the real point of the ending!

Closed or not, I don't care if the villain is the point of the ending, when I sit through 50 episodes of something, I want a big pay off. I want to see the main villain defeated on screen. That was one of the reasons I sat through 50 episodes when I knew how it was going to end up. Imagine Lord of the Rings just ending when Frodo was about to drop the ring into the volcano and the scene just cuts to everyone looking into the sky happy. That would be piss poor story telling and create a lackluster ending. Something that was not worth sitting through the adventure when there is no payoff.

The problem with 555 is there was no payoff. It wasn't bad enough that the whole King Orphenoch did not even make any damn sense, but then there was that random organization guy that came out of the blue without any forshadow, explanation. We are just supposed to believe that group is there. Then the riders are supposed to protect the king, or defeat the king, or something that was not explained very well. The last 10 episodes of 555 were utter garbage and the writers knew it. They just kept making some random **** up because they had no idea what to do with the show anymore.

 

[Hell Kaiser Andy]

Seeing the villain actually defeated on screen is more just a way of being certain, "I know the Heroes won, I know how they won, so I can see it's actually over".

I'm not saying that's how it always have to be. But in this genre it's a simple and easy way of knowing, "Hey, the good guys won and I know why everyone is so happy."