SnO ends more or less as it spent most of its run – as a pleasant diversion which occasionally both soared into the realms of brilliance and slipped into the pit of mediocrity.

The last episode was, at least, one of the more balanced of the series in terms of light fanservice and serious drama. The battle with Chaos was the dramatic climax of the series, and the last episode was left as both a romantic tease and a pretty standard ecchi diversion. The latter was Tomoki going into Tomoko mode and turning into the water in the school pool with Ikaros’ help. Predictable results ensue, with the girls catching on, Mikako being incredibly annoying and Tomo getting flushed into the ocean with the sewage (twice).

Of far more interest was Ikaros’ insistence on pinning Tomoki down about his proposal. Her memories restored by Nymph, the proposal was still clearly her obsession – to the point of beating the bathroom door down to accost him on the john (twice). Tomo, for his part, says he doesn’t remember – but Mikako engineers a machine-gun wedding with Sugata as the preacher (I don’t see that holding up in court) and eventually brings all the girls in and tries to force Tomo to choose. Fortunately for him, Chaos – back in loli form – crashes through the ceiling. She’s fully deredere now, all “Oni-chan!” and such, but as far as Tomo is concerned the best thing about her is she got him out of having to make a commitment.

And that’s pretty much where we leave things. The whole gang is at Tomo’s house, he officially takes on Astraea and Nymph as their master and Sugata suggests he may as well take Chaos too (wasn’t Astraea going with Mikako?). While the most delightful part of the finale was Nymph’s joy as finally being Tomoki’s angeloid, we get no resolution on the romantic front. Sohara goes so far as to wonder aloud who Tomo would have chosen, but that’s as close as we get. This is a harem show and I don’t expect a monogamous romantic resolution, but in my heart I think it has to be Ikaros.

Following the credits we got a promo for the upcoming SnO movie. That should be interesting, since this show has come pretty close to the edge a few times even in TV form. Maybe we’ll even get some romantic development, though I rather doubt that.