Suteki Tantei Labyrinth - 25
Whaa! I could have sworn that this series had 26 episodes! To think that this was the final episodes, this series sure features a lot of series that end sooner than I expect.
And the cheese! The overwhelming cheese. This episode may not have been my idea of top-notch writing, but it sure as hell was entertaining! I remember predicting that this episode would be over-the-top, and I was right in a way. This episode was over-the-top, but not with action and manliness, but with melodrama. Seijuu ends up dead, along with Byakko, because he tried to see the future but couldn’t due to Mayuki’s mother’s influences. Mayuki tries to stop him by the request of his mother, but in the end fails.
And teh TEA IS BACK!!! After Seijuu is dead and all, Mayuki falls asleep due to exhaustion, and doesn’t wake up for days. Guess what saves him? His favourite blend of tealeaves. Things get even better when every female ends up in tears when they find out that Mayuki has woken up, and when they see him again it’s like a fest of smiles and “glad to see you back again”.
But the creators really saved the best for last. Don’t ask me how or why, but a reincarnation of Mayuki’s mother shows up at the last moment. That scene will get an “OMG” or “WTF”-reaction off almost everyone. The plot-twist is ridiculous, but I absolutely loved it. It’s good to have such a cheesy series once in a while.
Now, to get a bit more serious, it’s a shame that Seijuu didn’t really develop in the end. Sure, he was fleshed out, his motivations were shown, but he never really changed. One thing that the creators could have done better is make one of his plans fail badly; it would have been much more interesting to actually see him challenged, rather than simply defeated in the end. I like how Byakko ended up, though. She has been a character that was developed, she has questioned her master many times, and yet at the end she decided to stay with him, and I’m still not sure whether this was because she was brainwashed, or just really changed. I doubt that Seiju really in his final moments was in the mood to take everyone with him, and something really tells me that she committed suicide out of her own will.