Jigoku Sensei Nu~be~ Series Finale, Overall Thoughts

Episode Highlights

• All my friends are dead 🙁
• Maruyama screams and yells and its all sad and shit
• LOL The ghost of his teacher. They’re not even trying.
• ” I believe in you because you have the power of justice. If it’s you, than you can do it. ” – Awwwwwwwwwww thanks minako-sensei
• Tamamo-sensei entrance to save the day is gold
• ” Do you have a plan? “, ” Of course not!” Cue in Gamushara Koushinkyoku. It all makes sense.
• ” Not giving up is the worst trait of humans “, Damn Baki, best one-liner in the whole damn series
• Does anyone in this entire school know that their students are fighting a 50ft red demon in the middle of day?

It’s over. This drama is final finished.

After Baki releases himself from Nube’s hand, he goes around town destroying things to get Nube angry and show him the worst side of humans. Nube, after a brief stint of recovery in the… school’s nurse room…. he tells Ritsuko and Yukime that he must fight off Baki because if he doesn’t true hell will come to earth.

So, without the power of his hand, he manages in some way to recruit the help of Tamamo, who had a brief moment of inner over dramatic conflict of being a demon who is becoming more, and more, human. Izuna also joins the group and four set off against Baki. But the demon manages to own all of them while Nube watches, distraught.

Somewhere along the line, the power of friendship and the relenting will to never give up, manages to grand Nube the power to seal Baki again and then the rest of the episode is spent … like in this bizarro, ” Hey guys, whats up, welp guess I’m gonna move on now! ”

I don’t think the writers of this drama knew how to condense a 20+ chapter manga into 10 episodes, nor does it seem as if they knew how to end the show. There was some people complaining about the drama taking place in a high school instead of an elementary school, where the original story took place in, so at the end they make Nube transfer to an elementary school. At this elementary school, he meets a group of kids, finds out there’s a demon masquerading as a teacher in this school, and again begins the cycle of Meisuke Nueno, demon exorcist.

There was much talk about letting go and finally maturing into their own selves. Nube’s father passes away, which is a load released off of the teacher’s shoulders, he’s able to seal Baki on his own (ish) which allows Minako-sensei to wish to be finally released (Nube finally matured into a great teacher and powerful exorcist, everything that she was)… and since his students have, in that short period (he only stayed with them for one semester), matured in their own right he has no need to stay anymore in town. Izuna also becomes a traveling exorcist too.

In the original manga, there was a love triangle between Nube, Yukime, and Ritsuko but in this drama that story gets pushed to the sidelines. Yukime and Ritsuko come to an agreement and both leave Nube alone on his own. So instead of finally discovering that he loved Yukime and eventually getting married to her like he does in the manga, here he is more or less disappointed that the girls decided for themselves that they no longer have any romantic interest in him and he can finally go as he pleases.

This episode could have made the fight between Baki and crew the center piece. Give Nube something to fight for but instead, like I predicted last week, what defeats Baki is pretty much conversation. When Nube’s class comes to defend him, Baki is completely baffled as to why they would do such a thing. This gives the power trio the time to form a triangle and give Nube the power to seal Baki… But most of it was just more theoretical conversation about morals and humanity than anything. The effects were also laughable… It seemed like they were all fighting the hand from Super Smash Brothers.

It made everything seem uneventful. Like, this big fight wasn’t worth the two fucking episodes they spent on Baki’s little bro causing terror around town. Actually, it made it seem as if Zeki was more of a threat than Baki. At least Zeki managed to mortally wound somebody and be a worthy opponent whereas Baki seemed to just be throwing a temper tantrum around town and Nube had to go in and put his pet back in order. Spending the last twenty minutes on a, ” YAY! The day is saved lets move on!! ” was a complete let down. Not to mention it made the episode seem longer than what it was and made watching the series an overall let down.

There was a lot of potential but no one seemed to really know how to tap into it. When Nube leaves his class, there really wasn’t any heartfelt goodbye or any emotional evoking. And that’s what I think is the worst part about this drama — You honestly don’t care for none of those students. The first half the episode was spent introducing them but they ended being more annoying than cute or interesting. In some ways, it was more like a, ” Ugh, thank god. I don’t have to hear that nasal whinny sounding girl in the pigtails anymore. ”

Not to mention, was there actually students that went to that school? A whole staff of teachers and a huge high school. But the teachers were always in the teacher’s room and there always was one class of students who always seem to be in self-study, Nube’s class. Whenever shit went down in that school, NO ONE thought it was weird or noticed it. With all that screaming and yelling, you would think the teaching staff would finally get involved but the only one who knew what was up was Ritsuko. When Baki decided to blow up the school, the only people who were outside in that sports field was the demons, exorcists, and that one class of seniors. Nobody else.

Budget constraints? No time? Who knows.

In the end, Nube is not a bad drama. It’s not great either. It’s definitely like a tokusatsu, but the difference is that tokusatsu shows knows how to plan big fights and building up to the ultimate battle with character conflict is a huge determining factor of a tokusatsu story. Here, though, the writers couldn’t care less as long as they got a few effects in there, Maruyama flying across screen, and the hissatsu waza. Perhaps Nube would have been a bit more successful had the show had the episode length of a tokusatsu (25 minute, 45 episodes or 45 minute, 20 episodes). At least then characters could have been fleshed out, conflict could have been better developed, and the fights would have been better.

Garo (and its many spin off series) is probably a great example of an exorcist tokusatsu that has great character development, amazing action scenes, and good pacing and conflict building.

I think Nube fell entirely flat at the end. Like it just gave up at the finish line. But, hey, at least there was some enjoyable moments of eye candy. It just could have been… better.