Yep, as you can see from the screenshot above, we got one of those lame endings. Read on to see how this all unfolded.
— I didn’t even realize Bizon’s new mecha had a penis until a commenter pointed it out to me. Thanks, commenter!
— I would say it’s unbelievable that a guy would stew in resentment for seventy years over losing a girl, but at this point, does it even matter? Nah. But seventy years, man! Still, you’d think at least one person in those seventy long years would’ve told the guy to seek therapy.
— We get awesome lines from Bizon, e.g. “Become a lump of flesh and die!” Your old years are not treating you well, Bizon, ’cause Aoba already is a lump of flesh…
— What’s apparently special about Bizon’s mecha, however, is that it’s Coupling… with itself. I shit you not, the guy is connecting to himself. Talk about masturbatory.
— Meanwhile, Hina’s old allies are mad at her… I feel like they’re only fighting just to keep Hina busy. With Aoba trying to keep old man Bizon at bay, Hina’s gotta have something to do. But that’s primarily the problem with these last two episodes. Like I mentioned in the previous post, the storytelling here feels like an obligation. When Tarjim calls Hina a traitor, there has been no build up to it whatsoever. Hell, we hardly even know Tarjim. So instead, it just feels like he’s simply reading his lines, fulfilling a part he has to play, etc. They just fight because it’s the last episode and they have to fight, not because everything has organically led up to this point.
— Unfortunately for Bizon, he has the same limitations as everyone else: your brain gets fried if you Couple for too long. So after running out of juice, he demands that Hahn removes the Limiter on his mecha. From what I can tell, however, removing Limiters don’t seem to do jack shit these days.
— But Hahn fulfills Bizon’s request anyway, so the crazy guy becomes even crazier. The yandere in him becomes even… yandere-ier, I guess.
— Bizon then tells Hina to stay right there: “I’ll spend plenty of time playing with you once I’ve killed Aoba.” Yeesh.
— So the good guys just do exactly what Bizon is doing: they’re going to solo Couple. C’mon, at that point, do you even have to call it Coupling anymore? And yes, Elvira and company “threw this thing together” in the time that Aoba was trying to hold Bizon off. I know we only have two episodes to finish this entire story up, but we’re not even trying! Naturally, Elvira stands there, talking about the brand-new solo Coupling system to nobody in particular. Exposition ahoy! She then explains how Bizon was able to interfere with the standard Coupling system like it really matters to the audience. No, really, do the finer details really matter to you guys with just ten or so minutes left in the episode? I don’t think so…
— She even insists that solo Coupling puts a great strain on the pilot. I thought the Coupling system already did put a great strain on the pilots. I guess this is an even greater strain. Essentially, Buddy Complex ran out of ideas, so it’s just going to double down on its gimmick.
— No wait, we’re not just doubling down! We’re going to triple down on this shit! As a result, both Hina and Dio connect with Aoba… at the same time!!! How very open-minded of Aoba to say yes to the devil’s threesome.
— I wonder if the writers had a second season full of gimmicks planned out. Like at first, they’d do solo Coupling ’cause maybe Dio got jealous of the bond between Aoba and Hina. Then eventually, the power of friendship brings Dio around, so the three of them then do triple Coupling. But since we only have two episodes left to wrap the story up, we’ll just unveil these two gimmicks back-to-back.
— Something something about Aoba and Hina having the exact wavelength, so they’re like the same person. As a result, tripling becomes possible. If one Aoba wasn’t good enough, have two!
— We thus see how this whooooole mess even started. In the original timeline, Aoba and Hina went on to graduate from college and become research scientists. They thus developed and performed the very first Coupling experiment… on Hina. Somehow, she got sent to the future, where she then fought for the good guys. In a battle against Bizon, however, she then got sent back to the past somehow… and the rest is history. Very, very boring history. I’m not sure if a montage set to some insert song was the best way to go about it, but… eh, time constraints. At the end of the day, however, this montage means that our final chapters have even less content. I mean, sure, we learn how Hina got caught in the loop in the first place, but it wasn’t a huge revelation or anything. She was a researcher and she fell through a wormhole. That doesn’t really justify such a long montage.
— If you thought the coup d’etat in the previous episode was sudden, it seems as though there has been a reverse coup d’etat! And guess who led the charge! Why, it’s our good friend Margaret! As a result, Alfried tries to arrest Bizon. Tries.
— Bizon immediately goes even more nuts, grabs Hina’s mecha, then squeezes hers to his own. We then get lots of rape undertones for no reason: “It’s your fault. If you’d only quietly laid down beneath me…!”
— So Aoba returns with, “I can understand a little of how you feel. Having watched Hina all this time…” Dude, what the fuck is there to understand?
— But it’s okay: our threesome finishes off Bizon. Unfortunately, they do it sloppily, so like every villain ever, Bizon gets to pull one last bullshit out of his ass…
— But before Bizon dies, he commands the Gorgon to unleash all of its power at the same time. In doing so, the satellite will wipe out the entire planet. Oh good, let’s destroy mankind ’cause Aoba NTR’d your ass. Classic anime storyline. Just like how the bad guy in SAO became a murderer just because his super special build became popular thanks to another player. I feel like we’ve given up on giving our villains any sort of realistic motivations. They just go nuts, because going nuts is easy as hell.
— In any case, with all this energy being unleashed, you know where this is going… we’re going to get ourselves another wormhole. I mean, you didn’t think Aoba and Hina would stay in this timeline, did you?
— Thanks to the power of Coupling, Aoba and Dio are going to throw themselves at the Gorgon in a last ditch attempt to destroy it. But then something weird happens, and our two heroes start skipping in time… this is according to Elvira, okay? Honestly, her resulting explanation all sounds like pure hogwash to me, but enjoy the last bit of exposition in the final episode of Buddy Complex.
— I mean, let’s just skip the bullshit. Long story short, our heroes travel back in time just a few moments to before the satellite’s about to go off. This way, they can destroy it before it destroys Earth.
— Aaaaand as soon as the satellite blows up, a wormhole appears. Who would’ve thought! Aoba gets sucked into it, and Hina decides to join him. Dio cries for his departing friend, but… but that’s it. Just a whole bunch of asspulls.
— Seriously though, Buddy Complex‘s asshole must be fucking tired! Let’s take stock at all the bullshit we’ve just pulled out in the last twenty minutes alone. First, Bizon solo Couples, so our heroes joins him just to keep up. Next, to really beat Bizon, our heroes triple Couples… yeah… Not to be outdone, Bizon wants to go all Death Star on the planet, and destroy everything just because… just because what, actually? He lost Hina, Aoba showed him up, and… that justifies sitting around for seventy years in order to take over an entire republic, then use the republic’s resources to blow up the planet? Sure thing, buddy! Ah, but nobody asspulls like the good guys. As a result, Aoba and Dio jump constantly back and forth through time until they get to a point where the satellite hasn’t fired off its laser yet. Then a wormhole conveniently appears to shove Aoba and Hina back to their original timeline. There’s no profound reason why the singularity must appear. It simply does because Sunrise is tired of this shitty franchise that never went anywhere, so let’s just wrap this shit up and be done with it.
— I guess with Bizon and his old-but-not-quite-so-old government gone, there is now peace between Zogilia and the Confederate. That was easy.
— Elsewhere, Elvira and Lee finally tie the knot, and to add insult to injury, Mayuka catches the bouquet. Who’s she going to marry with Aoba missing?! Well, he should be an old man now…
— Then as one final fuck you to the audience, we see a scene in which Hina bumps into Aoba at college, and even though she feels as though she’s met him before, he says that they have not. Since they don’t remember anything, who’s to say this bullshit time-traveling nonsense won’t just repeat itself? The writers must be patting themselves on the back for coming up with that.
— That was… that was bad, man. Since Buddy Complex wasn’t popular enough to justify a second season, you’d think the writers would use this opportunity to take the show in a wild direction if only for just the final two episodes. I mean, who would it hurt? It’s not like the series had a lot of fans to begin with, y’know? So why not just go crazy with the finale and really entertain us? Unfortunately, Sunrise gave us more of the same. Another showdown with Bizon. Another Coupling system… what’s that? You want more Coupling? Triple Coupling! Then of course, we get the dumb reset ending. Why play it so safe? Nobody even likes this shit, so again, why the fuck would you play it so safe? Oh well. I can now finally say that I’m well and truly done with Buddy Complex for good.
Moe Sucks 
The series could have been interesting, y’know. If only they had made Hina the main character, same way Valvrave could have been good if they had just made Saki the MC. Well, at least the guys at Sunrise have nowhere to run now that they have Cross Ange premiering. No way are they going to fuck up this one, right?
No use asking questions that I was supposed to ask now.
But I do find it amusing that the guy who voiced Aoba is the same guy who voiced M3’s Akashi and SAO’S Kirito. Poor guy can’t seem to take a break from these horrid roles.
Well, it’s directed by Fukoda the Human Lightning Rod… and the main character pilots in a bikini. Unless it’s more than just a fanservice show, I doubt they’ll screw that up.
The guy who voiced Bizon fared no better (largely because he had to play the asshole), and I’m sure that when he saw the script, he wasn’t going to do a serious Bizon considering how fucked up his character was (that was some real over-the-top laughter for a man about ready to annihalate the Earth). But, at least most of the dumb characters he have done are long over (though he’s still a standby mecha antagonist, as Argovillian (sp?) & Sidonia no Kishi aren’t done yet), and he can go back to doing the horror/occult characters that he loves so much, such as Uta from Tokyo Ghoul (which just ended) & reprising his role as Saber in the latest Fate/Stay Night anime.
Wow… Margaret actually did something right. That’s a surprise considering the one time she got control of power, she made a few critical blunders. But, when the guy you are usurping is Bizon, ANYTHING is good enough evidence.
You know, I was going to say that this is where we part our seperate ways, because I found this blog when I typed “Buddy Complex sucks”. However, I think I’ll stick around. You’ve been very insightful, but I’m not gonna be trying any new anime for a long, long time (I’ll only prepare myself for sequels like Build Fighters Try & the Digital Monsters show next spring). I’ve had a horrible batting record.
The problem with valrave is towards season 2 it stopped making sense. That anime was literally just throwing every idea it could think of at a wall to make a story. Everyones reaction was what the fuck is going on. I can’t even think of the thought process it takes to fuck up valrave the way they did. Its like the writer got schizophrenia and there mind started going everywere. So no focusing the story on Saki would not have fixed it.
I’m sure he’s just happy to get work.
We’re not confusing this guy with Nic Cage are we?
Finally got home and watched this myself.
It’s a horrible ending fitting to a horrible anime which doesn’t deserve a second season.
A old man who lusted after the same woman in seventy years? Whoa there.
But the woman had a threesome with a gay couple, where one of the guy is bisexual, in front of him? Sweet,
Yeah, it was the pits. But I had to watch it just for closure. Never again will I worry about Buddy Complex getting new episodes.
Boy, “rushed” ain’t the word for it. And talk about the lack of character development.
After Mahouka, and this. and god SAO. Am i just getting older or is anime simply dying…?
decent animes are hard to find…I think i will just go back to reading books (not LN)
It’s no secret that the overall quality of the vast majority of anime have gone down for years. In both the writing and animation.
Blame it on the greed of the anime industry for its conveyor-belt business philosophy. Standards are way down while shoveling as many show onto a season and hope something sticks.
Nowadays anime seems to be more about otaku pandering & defensive marketing in order to minimize the loss than trying to do something creative or smart. While not perfect, one of the reason that I liked Zankyou no Terror, Psycho Pass, Stein’s Gate & Kill La Kill may have to do something with how rare anime like these are starting to become.
I still can’t get over how bad the title is.
“Buddy Complex” just sounds REALLY lazy. I’d rather go for a cliché mecha shounen title than this 80’s Hollywood B-Title movie name.
I actually feel the name it what keeps me away. I like mecha but that name not touching this show.
I don’t see what’s so complex about these buddies. LOL.
Re: mech-penis: Not putting something in-between the legs of a giant robot is a waste of space in the design. The great designers are always thinking about what to put between their legs.
Of course you can’t put anything wide, but it’s a good spot near the center of gravity to minimize movement or absorb recoil. Designers should always put either a massive gun barrel (with or without dual low hanging ammo magazines), or a cockpit. (as in Zone of the Enders, Turn A Gundam, lol he said cockpit, etc etc.)
To be real, realistically thinking about anime mecha and how they could be more functional is sort of a waste of time. It’s almost akin to thinking how to make ninjitsu or just straight-up magic more real. They’re not really viable (as far as we know) and 90% of their design is just to look cool while doing cool things.
On the other hand, spider-tanks found in Ghost in The Shell are way more likely to happen. Just look at BigDog. Now give that design another 20 years and we’re looking at weaponized legged vehicles.
Ok the ending was dumb as it was contradictory! The first time Hina traveled through time and remembered everything! So than to have them go back in time and forget everything is contradictory and just plain stupid!
You can not just change the laws of physic for the universe like that if you do not forget one time you won’t forget another time.
I really hate it in any show when they just flip flop the rules of the universe as they wish.. one time it’s this way and another time it’s not.. Plain stupid.
I really think it’s just poor writers.. my thoughts on it.
Writers realized that with Aoba only going 70 years into the future they could still be alive in this time frame. They are around 16 years old.. so that would mean they would be 86 years old but essentially could still be alive.
I really think this is why they stupidly changed the rules of time travel and made Aoba forget because they would be like.. Oh No! They could still be alive in this time frame and would know what is going to happen and may give a warning or that. So the writers thought oh we are just stupid idiots we should have put it further into the future.. so let’s change the time travel and make it that they forget everything! It is a cheap cop out ending.
but, you’re all still watching it…if you hated it from the start, why would you still watching over this crappy shit…
well, end is end…”COME ON SUNRISE! entertain us with more decent mech anime” your thought is screaming aloud into every single universe dude! :D
cross your finger
‘Cause it’s fun to mock dumb shows. It’s not rocket science.
Obviously, this Buddy Complex Final chapter was made as second season in mind… and as always, cramping one full season (13 chapters) into two 25 minutes chapters will never be good. F91 Gundam have proved that (a good anime turns bad since it’s one years anime cramped into 2 hours movie).
So many things left unanswered, like :
– Why Aoba can couple with Dio (though we can guess why)
– Why Aoba and Hina can have similar brainwaves (this I can’t guess)
– How the time loop actually starts just like the first season
Also there are so many plot holes created by this two chapters… well, plot holes bound to happen in time-travel story though…
If they make Buddy Complex final chapters into one full season, may be it will turns out better. Perhaps they will properly make the “Hina saga” where she pilots Luxion. And may be they will properly explain Aoba and Hina relationship and experiments in the past (they only use flashbacks in final chapters).
Also, in the flashback, Hina do come back to Aoba in pilot suit… what is that all about? So perhaps there are stories after that?
Sorry, I word it wrong for the first item of things that haven’t been answered:
I mean “Why Aoba can couple with EVERYONE?”
”Why Aoba and Hina can have similar brainwaves (this I can’t guess)” : I can only guess it’s because Gary Stu and Hina Stu are such soulmate that they time travel to meet and save each other.
I was surprisingly entertained by Buddy Complex (mostly thanks to all the innuendo about solo coupling and OTP3).
LOL, if that’s the reason… it’s not scientific at all… It’s better to just make that Aoba is the perfect template for coupling (he can couple with 100% synch with everyone) because he and Hina is the one who invent coupling system and they use Aoba brainwaves as the base.
And yeah, I agree. The plot may be a little bland and predictable and there are plenty of filler here and there, but I was quite entertained by it. The solo and triple coupling (and coupling with Hina on first season) is easily predictable but still enjoyable.
Thanks for the review, I swear you’re the only one who actually managed to do a review on this final chapter and I’m glad you did cuz I really wanted to see a discussion on WTF that finale ova was about!
My thoughts of the pacing and plot is similar to yours and even for the final epilogue was a big screw you to all its viewers! Why?
Aoba and Hina ARE STILL BOTH STUCK ON THE SAME TIME LOOP! How did this happen?
Please bear with me, there are 2 time loops, a BIG TIME LOOP and a SMALL TIME LOOP.
Remember in that sudden flashback that Hina/Aoba/Dio had when they did a triple coupling (lol), here are the finer details from that stupid time loops and if anyone wants to add a detail or disagree feel free to reply:
BIG TIME LOOP:
Original Timeline: [Before all this mumbo jumbo time travelling looping none sense]
– Aoba and Hina met in college (they dont know each other/dont remember)
– Presumably became lovers and went to a festival where Aoba got her the cat hair pin
– Became research scientists working in a laboratory specializing in coupling
– Both tried out the very first coupling experiment to each other and by some weird none sense only Hina got sent to the future timeline
Future Timeline (1) [Aoba not present in this future, instead it was Hina]
– HIna first met Dio (presumably also became couplers)
– Hina became part of the federation piloting Luxion and combating Bizon but then that weird time tunnel appeared swallowing both Hina and Bizon to the past timeline (1)
Past Timeline (1) [Not the same as anime, as Hina piloted the Luxion]
– This is the first instance that Hina traveled into the past and went to the same high school as Aoba (whom she already knows as they met in college in the original timeline)
– Hina knows about Aoba but Aoba doesnt know Hina, and it seems that Hina enrolled in order to be with Aoba OR protect him from danger (explained below)
– Now here’s a plot hole that I will try to explain, then why would Bizon attack Aoba in high school when they havent even met in the future as it was Hina who first went into the future timeline, not Aoba?
My reason is that EITHER it was Hina that Bizon wanted to attack (she simply went to the same high school as Aoba to be with him) OR Bizon wanted to attack Aoba as he was one the major reason why the coupling technology existed to begin with, because Aoba and Hina first started researching it thus led to the advantage that the federation has over Zogilia. Also it would make sense that maybe Aoba further advanced the coupling research in order to bring back Hina and in retrospect made him a target of Bizon
– Anyways Hina was sent first in this past timeline (1) then Bizon who attacked Aoba’s high school and Hina protecting him using the Luxion and then she fought Bizon and once again went to the time tunnel and told Aoba that Dio is waiting for him this starts the small time loop below:
SMALL TIME LOOP (ALSO PART OF THE BIG TIME LOOP):
Future Timeline (2) [Same events that unfolded in the anime, with some minor differences]
– This is also the second future timeline instance but not exactly the same as the anime as when Aoba got sent to this timeline, Hina was piloting the Luxion not the Zogilia valiancer as she was part of the federation
– Presumably the same events that unfolds in the anime as Hina went to this future (2) earlier than Aoba and became a child losing all her memories (she doesnt know that she met Aoba in the original time line, as lovers and scientists, and became a federation soldier)
– Hina this time became part of the enemy Zogilia and fought Aoba and co.
– Pretty much the same as anime EXCEPT that Dio was not able to view Aoba’s memories so him and the crew did not believe in his story of being a time traveller so Dio stopped Aoba from saving Hina from entering into the time tunnel in order to go back to the past to save Aoba. This ending is the start of the small time loop and the start that we see in the anime in the past timeline (2)
Past Timeline (2) [Also part of the small time loop]
– Official start of the anime we see unfolded like Hina becoming Aoba’s classmate and saving him from Bizon using Zogilia valiancer this time NOT the Luxion as in the case in Past timeline (1) and pretty much as we see unfolded in the anime that Aoba got sent to the future timeline (3)
Future Timeline (3) [This is the future timeline we see in the anime and ova Part of the big time loop NOT the small one]
– Same as the anime and that Dio was able to read Aoba’s memories, thus believing in this story and so did not stop him to save Hina, instead helped him save her thus getting them out of the small loop
– Now we factor in that stupid Final chapter OVA, where in this timeline, Bizon managed to survive and unable to kill Aoba in the past, held his grudge for 70 years to kill him in the future (wah?)
– Another time tunnel appeared and both Aoba and Hina went to the this tunnel where now at the end of the OVA, we see how they first met in the original timeline, that is they bump into each other just like the flashback and that they dont know each other at all.
DUM DUM DUM, this is the ending point of the BIG TIME LOOP where we go back to the original timeline where they became scientists again to do the coupling thing and so all this crap gets repeated for eternity. WTF!
Why were the both of them still stuck in a loop? If the two of them did managed to get out of the time loop, then the best way to show it wouldve been at the point where Aoba as a scientist saw Hina coming back to the laboratory from the future wearing that Zogilia suit (just like an image flasback they did in this ova) and that they still managed to retain their memories and can finally move on. However, in the end it showed them first meeting up in college and not remembering each other, so it showed that they never actually got out.
So sorry for the long explanation, I just love trying to understand and explain time travelling crap, but unlike Steins Gate this series was just a mess.
You’ve gotten everything right except the ending, the way I interpret it is that at the end AFTER the Time Shift (TS) of Dio and Bizon being able to see everything at the end of OVA, that time tunnel that sends Hina and Aoba back to their exact times they’re started the time traveling. TS Hina goes back to Original Aoba back after the first coupling experiment, and TS Aoba gets sent back to when he was in middle school. There is no proof to this, and no way to explain the Aoba part because it gives none, but if you watch the realization part again when all four saw the links from the quad coupling, the first time Hina met Aoba at college they bumped shoulders. In the TS Original, which is what you see at the end of OVA, Hina gets knocked over by running into Aoba. So that leads me to believe that that’s where Aoba was dropped off at the end of OVA, and that it is a completely different timeline all together.
Hopefully that wasn’t confusing at all lmao.
I mean…it DID say that they both dated at college which is after the final scene when they met each other. Even if TS Aoba got sent back, they would end up together in college either way. That’s the reason why even in the wiki page it says Hina= Girlfriend and Aoba = Boyfriend