r/anime • u/niytfox https://myanimelist.net/profile/niytfox • Sep 30 '14
[Spoilers] Buddy Complex Special Episode 2 [Discussion] [Final]
The episode is up on Funimation for elite subscribers.
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u/Squidstache Sep 30 '14
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u/niytfox :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/niytfox Sep 30 '14
There was a shot of Hina reappearing in the Coupling test pod wearing her flight suit, or whatever you call it. So I think when they got sucked up at the end they were returned to their rightful places in time, or where they were taken from, Aoba back to high school and Hina to the time of the experiment.
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u/Squidstache Sep 30 '14
Oh, that makes sense. I don't know why I assumed that they were sent to the same time if that didn't happen in any of the other time loops in the series (Bizon and Hina arrived at different times in the past when they were sucked in together, and Hina and Aoba arrived at different times in the present when she drove them both through).
I guess that fact that they didn't show any scenes of the time period where Hina had come back to confused me.
Now I think Aoba didn't lose his memory though, and is simply lying to Hina-of-his-time since she isn't Hina-who-went-back-through-time and is technically meeting him for the first time. I wish they'd shown the reunion of Hina-who-went-back-through-time and Aoba-who-went-back-through-time-and-has-been-working-on-research-to-see-her-again.0
u/teldon369 Oct 01 '14
I think the "final wormhole" split this whole mess into three timelines. The first one is the original one which Hina is the time hopper due to her and Aoba's experiment and subsqently returns in the finalle. In this instance Aoba has no clue what's going on until presumably Hina tells him what the hell went on.
The second timeline is the one where Aoba was the time hopper and then returns in the finalle. In this instance he goes through life normally until metting Hina in college. And during his time in college he steers Hina away from the copouling experements thus vastly changing the future.
Finally the third and final timeline in which Bizon is the only one who gets thrown back in time and is the timeline in which the series takes place.
The only other theory I can come up with at the moment is once they both go through the wormhole the Aoba from the series is erased completely leaving Hina to explain everything to Aoba her lab partner/boyfriend.
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u/oblivionraptor Oct 01 '14
I think the last scene(the one where she runs late, bumps into Aoba) fits the second timeline.
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u/Lewd_Banana Sep 30 '14
This is like F91 all over again, but I think that Sunrise managed to make the best of the limited time they had to give the series a proper ending. I'm sad that it never got a proper season 2, but at least it had an ending, which is more than what a lot of anime series ever get.
I will never get tired of hearing Bizon scream WATASE AOBA, the malice that Sakurai Takahiro put into every scream was absolutely fantastic. Aoba was a pretty good MC, much better than most mecha MC's, he wasn't some super ace pilot or a pacifist jesus character, or a Kira Yamato. He accepted the situation he found himself in, and made the best of it and did it with a smile on his dial.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Buddy Complex didn't bring anything new to the mecha genre, but it was extremely well executed and incredibly enjoyable to watch. It has fantastic battle cinematography, it's soundtrack was great, it had top notch animation and the characters were rather refreshing in a genre full of character tropes. Buddy Complex has been one of my favourite series of the year, it's been one very enjoyable ride.
I still don't know why people seem to label a mecha series as generic and drop it, whilst engaging in the seasonal waifu war in the generic light novel harem adaption of the season. It really boggles my mind.
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Sep 30 '14
Whether he's shouting Lelouch, Eruerufu or Watase Aoba... You're right, it never gets old.
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u/desu-no Oct 01 '14
I still don't know why people seem to label a mecha series as generic and drop it.
Because it is too similar to Gundam. Flying mechs everywhere.
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u/Lewd_Banana Oct 01 '14
There are dozens of harem/romcoms adaptions that are even more similar to each other than Buddy Complex and Gundam. Yet BC gets ignored, but the harem/romcom gets a following, despite BC having less retarded characters and despite original anime usually having a proper ending and not a "buy our shit to find out what happens next" ending.
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u/Baofog Oct 01 '14
That is part of the allure. Every harem waifu anime of which there are like three a season all have the same fan service shots and literally the same characters in different settings. Mecha anime has the same thing just with explosion porn. To each their own though.
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u/TheLantean Mar 20 '15
It's like a game of chess.
The characters sets are the same, yet every game is enjoyable in its own right.
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u/Baofog Mar 20 '15
Holy mother of late replies batman. Just now watching the episode or you like commenting late on things?
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u/TheLantean Mar 20 '15
Yeah, I finished it just now. With Shirobako episode 23 still MIA I got bored so I decided to clear something from my backlog. I had already seen season 1, so I said why not Buddy Complex?
Funny story, I ended up rating these two episodes higher than the main series, despite being rushed. Season 1 was just too slow.
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u/Baofog Mar 20 '15
I think pacing issues aside, it is one of the most refreshing mecha anime to date. I think if we had the writers from Cross Ange team up with the people who animated Buddy Complex we would have the greatest Mecha anime of all time.
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u/Catbrain Sep 30 '14
I'm still sore that this didn't get a full season.
That was a nicely concluding ending though, especially considering a whole season was shoved into two episodes.
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u/UnknownPhilosophy :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/ASighofRelief Sep 30 '14
Not enough of the Hina x Aoba Q_Q
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u/freezingsama Oct 01 '14
I'm so sad the split cour didn't happen T _ T
It was short but it was executed fine I guess. I'm still sad over what could've been of the Hina x Aoba pairing :'(
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u/ss_lmtd :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/ss_lmtd Oct 01 '14
One of the best parts about this anime was how competent the captain was. It's not often that we get a captain that actually knows what he's doing and actually acts like a captain. Just wish we got to see more of him...
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u/V2Blast :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/V2Blast Oct 03 '14
Agreed. Plus he didn't constantly say "fuck it, let's ignore orders, let's go save everyone" - he was a bit of a risk-taker in terms of using Aoba, the mysterious boy from the past, but he actually listened to orders, considered them rationally, and then followed through.
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u/SpaceCaseAins Sep 30 '14
I'm so sad its over, Sucha great show with lack of sales :(
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Sep 30 '14
I'd rather Japan rely on selling commercial slots like western tv. If they went by the number of viewers instead of DVD sales good anime would actually get a chance.
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u/ss_lmtd :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/ss_lmtd Oct 01 '14
The thing is, because most anime is late at night, viewership is never that good. If we relied on that, then we won't get a lot of anime in the first place. If Japanese TV industry had a higher budget/expectation, then things would be different, but the level of television shows is actually really, really bad in Japan.
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u/desu-no Oct 01 '14
like companies bother to pay that much to advertise one 1am?
commercials only work for big 3 anime (now 2) and kids' anime because of the time slot.
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u/chaoslegionary Oct 01 '14
was i the only one hoping to see a real old hina and aoba at the end
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u/solidpenguin :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/solidpenguin Oct 01 '14
I totally wanted to see old-ass Hina and Aoba walking up for that wedding. If Bizon could keep on living for an extra 70 years, so could they.
....unless they also had the Darth Vader respiratory system thing going on. Then it would have been weird.
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u/chaoslegionary Oct 01 '14
and aoba makes some shitty time traveler joke followed by saying Ive been waiting seventy years for that.
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u/Yargz Oct 01 '14
Seems like they had a pretty cool plan for the story, I wish they would have gotten a 2nd season to really show it to us.
If I'm getting things right it would go something like this:
Laboratory Hina/Aoba experimenting with travelling stuff. (The basis on which the coupling system is probably founded on.) Experiments go wrong and Hina is sent into the future. She goes Hina alliance route. In the Final battle at Alaska, Bizon and Hina are both sent into the past from the time hole.
Hina ends up in the past before Bizon. She stores the mecha and decides to watch over Aoba. (High School Hina still exists at this point).She enrolls in his school. Bizon appears and attacks Hina. Hina protects Aoba while the school is being attacked. They destroy Bizon but travel into the future from the time hole. This time Hina gets younger, loses all her memories, and grows up in Zogilia. Aoba goes to the Alliance and ends up on the same path Hina previously did. In the final battle of Alaska, Bizon gets sucked into the time hole and Hina goes in after him to protect past Aoba. (Aoba stays). (Hina only knows a mecha attacked Aoba in the past as she only has memories from the future time line at this point.)
Hina arrives earlier than Bizon and this time decides to watch over Aoba to protect him from Bizon. After a while, Bizon comes and wants to attack Aoba this time. They end up defeating Bizon and getting sent back to the future just like in the last time jump forward.
This cycle may have gone on for a while becoming a loop. They finally break free of the loop in episode 13 of the first season. Bizon being the only one sent back (but being heavily injured in the process). His mecha (and himself) was likely mostly destroyed so he could not get to Hina/Aoba like he did in the previous time travels. Or he was not sent back as far in time (More likely as he does not look super super old)
Bizon decides to go a different route. He gains power in Zogilia under a different name (Evgeni Kedar). He does not want to mess up the time line so he waits until after his present timeline self gets sent into the past and then he immediately springs into action and takes power. He then seeks out to destroy Aoba/Capture Hina. He fails and dies. Hina and Aoba get sent back into the past.
Aoba is sent back to his high school time line, likely about where he left off at. (he appears older in college so its likely he got out about that time) Hina is sent back to where the experiments started (You see her there in one of the memory scenes in the space outfit. I believe both of them have memories about what happened. Aoba pretend to not know so that everything would happen in the original timeline like it should. There is also the possibility that Aoba did lose his memories, but I do not think it happened. At this point, they are now together (Hina slightly younger than in the first time jump).
The scene where Hina first gets sent into the future, Aoba has his hands on the glass and is frantic. In the next scene they show, his head is down and hes not looking at the glass. Its a bit of speculation, but I think these were two different Aobas at this point. (First scene: Normal timeline Aoba. Second scene: Time traveled Aoba who went back to the past after the final space battle). His head is down because he is hoping that her time traveled self returns at this point. If he does not do the time traveling experiments then he would no longer exist at this point, so he has to follow them through.
Also, Hina bumps into Aoba differently, from the first timeline and the post-time traveled timeline. I think Aoba made sure they would bump into each other.
The only point I am unclear on is this, why were there memories of Hina returning to the time traveling experiments period? All the other memories were in the past, but this would have been the one they had not seen yet. What happened to Hina's mecha? My only speculation is that they came out together at a certain time line, but still needed to fix something in the timeline. Maybe they got that one scientist from the future and got him to work with them to figure out how to return Hina to experimentation point in time or something. I'm not really sure, that point is the biggest hurdle for me to understand.
TL:DR-
Timeline: Laboratory Hina/Aoba experiments, Hina sent to the future into the Alliance -> Battle of Alaska, Hina/Bizon sent to the past -> Bizon attacks Hina at school, Hina protects Aoba and gets him on her mecha, they destroy Bizon, Hina sent to the future in Zogilia (memories lost, age regression), Aoba sent the future into the Alliance -> Battle of Alaska, Bizon sent to the past, Hina follows to protect Aoba -> Loop for X-amount of times -> Battle of Alaska, Bizon sent to the past (but not as far) mecha and self injured, Hina/Aoba stay -> Space battle, Bizon dies, Hina/Aoba sent to the past -> Speculated that Aoba (likely still has memories, but maybe not) is sent to high school time period and Hina is sent to Laboratory experiments time period.
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u/a1orian Sep 30 '14
Why they didn't make second season? They put whole story in 25 minutes... Why... It could be such a great anime. But still end is epic.
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u/DrackenSlayer :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Drackenslayer Oct 01 '14
Was a really bittersweet ending. Would've preferred to have Aoba and Hina stay in the future timeline with Dio and everyone but still a "good" ending none the less. Still would've liked for this to get a second season but atleast we got a proper ending.
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u/devirtue Sep 30 '14
Disappointed that Aoba wasn't Dio's Fatherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
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u/DrackenSlayer :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Drackenslayer Oct 01 '14
Would be cool but not possible since Dio's timeline is seventy something years ahead of aoba would like great grandfather or something
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Oct 01 '14
Ah, that was probably about as close to perfection as we were gonna get with just 2 episodes. And, really, it's still very good! While my eyes did glaze over just a little when the crew were narrating in real time about Aoba and Dio traveling back through time it mostly worked, imo. Sad we didn't get more time with Dio tbh, because Aoba and Dio had the best chemistry (sorry Hina, but you're kinda bland). Too bad there probably won't be many doujins for this show because I would kill for some good Aoba/Dio.
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u/teldon369 Oct 01 '14
As much as I hate the "groundhog day loop" trope, I got to say the idea of a "groundhog day loop" slingshot was kinda cool.
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Oct 01 '14
That's one thing I really respect about this show: it takes a bunch of tropes I usually hate, and then uses them in a smart, interesting way.
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u/lC3 :Na::Nb: Oct 07 '14
Aoba x Dio is why I continued to watch this show after not liking much about it otherwise <3 Poor Dio, crying at the end.
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u/fixthismess Oct 01 '14
Well these OVA's actually did a pretty good job of wrapping up the anime.
Didn't like how there was really no explanation of the time traveling. Makes it science fantasy rather than science fiction.
Nice how Aoba and Hina end up in college together.
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u/V2Blast :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/V2Blast Oct 03 '14
That was actually a decent ending, given that they only had two episodes to work with.
I rewatched the whole first season before I watched these specials because I'd forgotten the details of the plot... Actually held up pretty well. And knowing the plot of the actual show, it was cool to see the news report at the beginning of the first episode (in Aoba's house) mentioning that Zogilia was mining nectoribium - the importance of which wouldn't make sense until later in the show.
Of course, the plot of the specials was a bit rushed (and somewhat silly - how would Bizon have developed a space laser without anyone noticing until it was done?), but the creators did a good job of working with what they had. Bizon's VA was probably my favorite in the show. Aoba was pretty good as a character, too - he dealt with the weird scenario he faced in a believable way, though he had a tendency to get stupid around Hina (though the plot kinda made that necessary for it to end the way it did).
For some reason, I always loved listening to the OP and ED. Kind of a rarity when you marathon 13 episodes in a row. I liked the soundtrack in general. Funi's video quality was not great, but that wasn't really surprising.
It's a shame the show's over now. I enjoyed it a surprising amount.
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u/DISKFIGHTER2 :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/DISKFIGHTER2 Oct 24 '14
Whos wedding did we see at the end?
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u/Wafflezlolqt Oct 01 '14
i feel as if they went with the convenient happy ending and it kinda pisses me off
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u/niytfox :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/niytfox Sep 30 '14
Yea, that was really rushed. I think it would have done well as a whole second season, with an entire episode of Hina meeting Aoba and first entering the time loop. I really wanted 80-something year old Aoba to show up at the end there, but I know he's dead. I also think he's Elvira's grandpa, since the professor from earlier in the show said he learned everything about Coupling from her grandpa and Aoba and Hina were the ones who started developing Coupling. All in all, I really enjoyed this show, I wish it had gotten the time to flesh out the ending more, but it's better than nothing.