Multi-season anime (via sequels and splits) are more common these days. But Kaya-chan wa Kowakunai is most likely a one and done proposition. With virtually all the manga chapters used up it seems as if this was always the plan. Which is fine – I mean, I’m still glad it existed. But it does manage to offer up a decisive conclusion – more conclusive than I expected in fact. Whether that was actually a good thing is something I’m not quite sure about, though.

That probably sounds odd (even to me). And it’s hard to quantify why I found this finale less satisfying that most of the series. It was pretty conventional, really. Linear conflict-resolution, good triumphs over evil, the power of love. Nothing wrong with a happy ending even if it’s not an ending in manga terms, but this was pretty neat. And Kaya-chan on the whole is a show I prefer to be messy, I think. And messed up.

I mean, we certainly start out with quite a mess. As Mabuo says it seems as if Mirai’s plan is no less than to wipe out the Ebisumori clan. And that indeed includes Kaya, though Mirai is probably telling the truth when she says she doesn’t hater her. Kaya was a failure – the curse aimed at the heart of the family that was a misfire. Maybe if she’d turned out to be a normal little girl with no spiritual powers, Mirai might indeed have been able to live her life as a muggle and put the madness of her family behind her. But once she saw what Kaya-chan was, that ship had sailed.

Nana gets a call from Kaya’s dad, saying that Mirai has disappeared from the hospital. The most important thing, she says, is to make sure Mirai doesn’t die and unleash the Hiruko. So everyone piles into their cars (Nana’s license plate is “666-13”) to hunt for her, But she – and her little demonic bun in the oven – have come to them.  After causing the two cars to collide head-on, Mirai snatches up Kaya-chan and makes it very clear that she intends to end her daughter’s life along with her own. And Nana informing her that Mutsu did what she did in order to try and free Mirai from the curse hanging over comes off as too little, too late.

Namu makes an intervention here, freeing Kaya from her mother’s hands. He instructs Mabuo to tell Chie-sensei to take Kaya-chan to the room where her grandmother’s memorial is, which she does. Namu passes along Mutsu’s final message, then takes Mabuo and gets the hell out of Dodge (illegally – he has no driver’s license), leaving Nana to try and win her sister over. The human in Mirai almost surely believes Nana at this point, but has resigned herself that it’s too late. Which it would be, if Kaya were not the OP exorcist that she is.

There’s nothing overtly wrong with any of this. Kaya-chan is stupidly strong and if anyone was going to defeat the curse being, it was going to be her. I just felt a sort of detach in watching it all play out. I’m not sure my issues are with the happy ending so much as with how comprehensive and tidy it was. Even if the final shot does suggest something else, it’s more a comic flourish than a real bit of foreshadowing.

For all that, though, I’m still overwhelmingly positive on Kaya-chan wa Kowakunai. Even if it concluded its run by doing what was expected, for most of it it defied expectations. Smart and fearless writing combined with an outstanding direction is always going to be a winning combination.  And hey, we still don’t know what happened with that teacher and the mirror. Even if we don’t get another season we still got one of the better horror series of the decade so far, and an excellent selection by the patrons.