The outcome really isn’t as close as it looks.

— Man, that’s a lot of people for an exhibition soccer game. Sure, it’s free, but you’d actually have to pay me to watch a match with no stakes.

— So apparently, the park is short a few hundred visitors thanks to a bunch of no-shows. To be honest, however, our heroes should’ve planned for this very likely scenario. There are always no-shows, especially when that something is free. But of course, this is all just a contrivance. If the customers already have the ticket, then it really shouldn’t matter if they show up or not. For the sake of drama, however, people must literally pass through Amaburi’s gates for it to count.

— The characters then take to the streets to beg for visitors. Honestly, I think free food would do the trick… or maybe give them vouchers for another free trip to the park in the future. At the moment, they’re literally just asking people to take time out of their day to pass through the gates and nothing more. An exhibition soccer game? C’mon. I’d rather do nothing.

— Led by Moffle, everyone starts to call up their families and friends. There are a couple humorous moments here and there:

Unfortunately, our heroes are still three people short. This is why you shouldn’t procrastinate, kids. Just minutes away from the deadline, and I still need three more paragraphs! Argh!

— So who ends up saving the park’s hide? These weirdo kids:

Ugh. Poor Fiddy. This man once took multiple gun wounds to his body. Has he not suffered enough?!

— Obligatory celebratory scene.

— And in the end, all Queen Latifah did was look sick in her bed.

— Am I as elated as the characters onscreen? Well, like I’ve been saying this entire time, things never really kicked into high gear until the last couple of episodes, and even then, because the main plot of the series had been put off for so long, Amagi Brilliant Park had to rely on a bunch of montages to expedite the storytelling process. As a result, I don’t really feel that the happy ending has been earned. When you work hard for something, you naturally start to care how it turns out. You start to feel bad if something goes wrong. But in the twelve episodes that we’ve seen, our heroes probably spent only 30% of it actually working on fixing up the park. So while it’s nice that everything worked out for Kanye and friends, I’m not emotionally invested. I don’t feel as though I or the characters have been put through the wringer.

— Obligatory touching speech scene. I couldn’t have done it without you guys!

— Why does he really have to resign, though? No one wants to see him go, and as much as he won’t want to admit it, he obviously doesn’t want to go. So why not just stay? Actually, I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up, ’cause you just know that the guy will end up staying with the park after it is all said and one. There’s no way a show like this one would ever have a bittersweet ending, and to be honest, a bittersweet ending wouldn’t really fit its tone anyway.

— Apparently, the other half of the park will be sold off to Moll Mart, a company that specializes in developing shopping malls. The hope is that Amaburi and the adjacent commercial center can form a symbiotic relationship. This subplot could’ve been developed a little better, though. Like maybe there were a bunch of competing companies with competing offers, and Kanye had to make a difficult choice. At the moment, the current revelation just feels kind of convenient. Again, it doesn’t feel as though it’s earned. Everything’s just falling neatly into our heroes’ laps one-by-one in the last couple of episodes.

— Then to top things off, Takaya Kurisu isn’t just some businessman hoping to reappropriate Amaburi for his development group. He’s really the evil wizard who had place the curse on poor ol’ Latifah!!! Well, that’s lame. I mean, c’mon, did we really need a comically evil villain like this to show up at the 11th hour?

— Afterwards, the people closest to Latifah huddle around her as they wait for midnight to strike. I can’t help but stare at the featureless grass, though. I dunno, for such a pivotal scene, it’s kind of sticking out like a sore thumb to me.

— As expected, the hero gets to spend the last few seconds alone with the princess. Alone together, she finally confesses that she’s not as strong as she looks on the surface. Unfortunately, all Kanye can do is hold Latifah as she sobs in his arms. That being said, I still don’t feel anything. Her character hasn’t done anything all series long, so even this sadness doesn’t feel earned. You have to build up to a moment like this. You can’t just drop it in my lap and expect me to feel for the characters. In general, Amagi Brilliant Park is a nice, pleasant show, but it hasn’t worked really hard for anything. It’s really just coasting by on KyoAni’s charm and production values.

— Like I’ve said before, the story would’ve been better served combining Latifah and Fiddy into one character. We spent a lot of time with Fiddy for the majority of the season, but she’s pretty much been relegated to the sidelines for the past couple of episodes. I mean, ever since she realized she was in love with Kanye, her character development has come to a complete standstill.

Likewise, Latifah has contributed little to the story… until the last couple of episodes. Wouldn’t it have been nice if they were just one character with lots of character development from start to finish? I’d think so!

— But the tree is blooming more than usual this year! That means… that means…!!!

Yeah, well, Vegas oddmakers had this ending pegged anyway.

— What happened? People had fun, y’all. And fun saved the princess.

— From one underdeveloped hot babe to the next…

Kanye is such a player.

— He wants to say something to Fiddy, but he’s struggling so hard with it. He ends up sounding like he’s constipated. So he just rides off and says nothing. Eat some fiber, son.

— I like how this is one of his fond memories. I bet it is fond for a lot of the show’s viewers, too.

— The soundtrack sounds like something out of Persona 4.

— Apparently, Kanye needs his aunt to tell him the obvious: “Because it looked like you were having fun.”

— Of course…

— Just Kanye being Kanye:

— But somehow, there’s still one episode left… so I wonder what that’s all about.