We Are All Utterly Incomprehensible - Kill la Kill Review

It is not uncommon for anime to take refuge in audacity. I've watched enough absurd animes to pretty much appreciate anything at this point. Heck, I consider FLCL to be one of the coolest things I've ever watched. However, I found that Kill la Kill was a different breed of ridiculous. The laugh out loud kind of ridiculous that was unrelenting awesomeness from start to finish. There have been many animes that I have watched over the years but I don't think that any anime has ever given me as much enjoyment as this one. Let's get into it now.

Kill la Kill is the first project done by studio Trigger, a new studio created by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima, who worked together of Gurren Lagann. Based on that fact alone one can probably figure out exactly Kill la Kill is going to be all about. The story begins at Honnouji Academy, a highly disciplined school ruled under the iron fist of Kiryuuin Satusuki and her Four Devas. The school and the surrounding town is structured in a very hierarchical way. Living conditions are based on class ranks and each student is ranked by the amount of stars on their uniform. This is where things start to get a little tricky. The uniforms that the students have are meant to augment their skills. In simple terms, the uniforms give the students powers, they are known as Ultima Uniforms. The more stars an Ultima Uniform has, the more powerful it and it's wearer are. However, the highly disciplined world of Honnouji gets turned upside down when a new transfer student named Ryuuko Matoi shows up at the school gates. It's not hard to tell that Ryuuko has a hidden agenda and that becomes clear pretty quickly. Ryuuko brandishes a blade that resembles half a scissor and is looking for the person with the other half. Why? Because the person wielding the other scissor is the person who killed her father. She believes that Kiryuuin Satsuki knows the answer to that question and may even be the person who did the act, However, Ryuuko is unsuccessful at getting the answers from her and gets her butt kicked by some of the academy's club leaders. Going back to the remains of her father's house she finds an unusual uniform there, the incredibly powerful and sentient Senketsu. Ryuuko goes back to the academy and finds that she can synchronize with her new uniform and turn herself into a powerful warrior. After laying waste to Satsuki's cronies, she then makes it her mission to get the answers from Satsuki somehow and thus the plot gets going. The two girls clash several times and it soon becomes apparent that there are many more factors at play here and that their meeting may not have been just coincidence. Ryuuko's search for her father brings her not only into conflict with Satsuki but also Satusuki's mother Ragyou and her fashion empire.

The battle between Satsuki (left) and Ryuuko (right) is just part of what is an incredibly entertaining and creative plot.

Kill la Kill's plot is absolutely insane and it's actually incredibly enjoyable. It's not a stretch to say that the show favors style over substance most of the time but even so, it remains extremely entertaining to watch. The plot actually does make sense despite the insanity of it all. In fact, everything is insane about the show, to the fact that the students transform their uniforms into battle armors in order to fight one another. Or maybe it's just how ridiculous that fight sequences are. Explosions are rampant, rules of physics broken over and over again, hot-bloodedness racing through the veins of the characters. Every fight is a bombastic affair with the character's involved laying waste to just about everything around them. This ridiculousness is not unexpected however, these are two guys who worked on Gurren Lagann and while that show also loved to be ridiculous, it seems as though Kill la Kill lives and breathes insanity. However, it never feels forced or unnecessary, in fact it's a nice change from the many animes nowadays that take themselves way to seriously. Kill la Kill is an example how one can combine the more fun aspects of anime with a good, entertaining, plot and characters. I often found myself laughing along with the characters in several scenes and when I finished the last episode I felt a sad feeling that there were not any more episodes. I can safely say that I have never had more fun watching an anime than I have had watching Kill la Kill.

Like I said before, I actually found the more serious moments of Kill la Kill to be very interesting as well. Gurren Lagann posited several ideas on evolution and the way that man moves forward, having somewhat of an environmental message to go along with it. It also embraced the rate that man evolves and was a reminder of the great things that we could accomplish. Kill la Kill posits similar ideas but in a different way. On the surface it appears to be a treatice or parody on how disciplined and rigid the Japanese school system can be. However, it also talks about the role of clothing in society and how it is actually symbol of man's evolution. It's certainly unconventional but I found it very creative and was entertained the whole way through.

Every moment in Kill la Kill is silly, even mealtime

With such a ridiculous plot there is a lot of room for the characters to shine. Ryuuko, the main character has definitely become one of my favorites. She's incredibly hot-blooded and she's the one who pulls off the majority of badass moves over the course of the show. In the times where she's not being ridiculous, she becomes even better. She's a very strong character as well and the show does a great job playing on her backstory. Her relationship with Senketsu, her uniform over the show is actually quite touching and their dialogues are actually hilarious. Senketsu himself is an interesting character in the respect that he's a piece of clothing, it makes the relationship between him and Ryuuko all the better. What really makes the show what it is however it the large crop of supporting characters who are absolutely ridiculous and hysterical. Ryuuko's first friend at Honnouji is this quirky and excitable girl named Makanshou Mako who frequently isn't entirely aware of what's going on around her. However, she's many times the character who speaks the most sense in the show believe it or not and it's not an episode of Kill la Kill until she's given one of her speeches. We're also graced by the presence of Akisuro Mikisugi, Ryuuko's teacher and mentor who is also undercover at the school as part of an operation by a resistance organization. He also has trouble keeping his clothes on. On the other side of things we have The Four Devas, the highest ranking members of Satsuki's empire. Each of them get their own origin story and their chemistry with one another is really something special. They're each great characters. Satsuki herself is a strong character and many times it's hard to tell as to whether she's the true antagonist or not. That job is filled in better by her mother, the sinister Ragyou, who seems to have a plot of her own.

Visually the series looks absolutely fantastic. The same art style that was in Gurren Lagann is also present here. In addition to being crisply animated the character designs are brilliant especially when they characters transform themselves. For example, one of the Four Devas is the the leader of the band club which gives her transformed state two giant loudspeakers with which to do battle with. The creators really follow the school club aspect down to the letter and all the designs are fantastic. The music is probably Kill la Kill's finest aspects, shuffling through a catalogue of absolutely fantastic songs. Each character has their own theme and blares in when they are in the forefront of the scene. The Japanese voice cast did such a great job here that I'm actually worried for when this show becomes dubbed. I really don't think any other group would be able to do it as well. Either way, a fantastic AV job done here.

Ryuuko quickly became one my of my favorite protagonists from any anime

It's safe to say that Kill la Kill is probably the most entertaining anime I've ever watched. It's far different from many of the other anime crop because it never takes itself to seriously and embraces that craziness that makes people love anime in the first place. Sure, you could probably find an anime with a more serious plot that gives you more to think about but Kill la Kill is a wonderfully animated and brilliant masterpiece of it's own kind. It's the kind of anime that I want to watch again and again because I enjoyed it that much. It's an instant classic for me and one that everyone should check out.

My Score: 5/5

A World With or Without Pyramids - The Wind Rises Review

It goes without saying that Hayao Miyazaki is up there with Walt Disney in terms of his success and influence on animation. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totorro are just three examples of his massive appeal not just in Japan but in the West as well. Miyazaki can be credited with bringing the genre of anime eastward, telling a great story while conveying beautiful imagery and themes all at the same time. These are just some of the many factors that makes his retirement from cinema something especially tragic. That all being said, I had the pleasure of experiencing his final film on Sunday, The Wind Rises. While not the prototypical Miyazaki piece, it stands apart from his other works in an awfully unique and powerful way.

The Wind Rises is definitely not your regular Miyazaki film in the respect that this time he has decided to effectively make an animated biopic detailing the life of Jiro Horikoshi, a famous aeronautical engineer from the World War II era. However, despite not being a typical Miyazaki film, many of the themes present in his other other films make their way here. Unlike Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle we are not enveloped into a world of Miyazaki's design. Rather, through immense animation detail we are taken to a largely romanticized version of pre-World War II Japan, unspoiled and largely innocent. The film starts with Jiro as a young boy, making up his mind to become an aeronautical engineer. Frequently we are taken into the young Jiro's mind and into his dreams as we're frequently visited by famous Italian engineer Caproni. The dream sequences are the best parts of the film as Miyazaki is allowed to indulge us in the zaniness and the freedom that his other movies have. In addition to Jiro's dreams we see him play out his life in a way that almost represents a Japanese version of the movie Forrest Gump. In the same way that Forrest finds his way into almost every significant American event that happens in his lifetime, Jiro seems to be present for several extremely important Japanese events. The Kanto earthquake of 1923, the tuberculosis epidemic, the Great Depression, and World War II are all depicted here, each event shaping Jiro's life and painting a picture of what Japan was before the war left it in ruins. The characters frequently reference that the world outside is burning while this pristine depiction of Japan remains untouched.

Jiro's dream sequences are grand spectacles which brings the film's core premise to the forefront

One theme that is present in many of Miyazaki's films is the struggle of having pacifist ideals in a world that can be cruel. Throughout the film we see how Jiro's idealism clashes with the harsh realities of the world around him. His close friend, Honjo, is representative of a more cynical worldview and their discussions are indicative of their divergent thoughts. Jiro claims that he just wanted to create something beautiful and create beautiful airplanes. However, the world twists his creations into war machines. The film raises this question in a unique and interesting way as during a dream sequence, Caproni asks him "do you prefer a world with pyramids or a world without." Even if mankind may twist one's creation for something evil, the beauty of the creation never dies. Like I said before, the film seems to be a time capsule of Japan before the war and even as the rest of the world is burning, Jiro's remains pristine. Coming out of the theater, I wasn't entirely sure what to think of this movie, but the more I chewed on the themes present in the film the more I began to appreciate it's genius. While The Wind Rises represents a lamentation of how mankind corrupts beautiful things it also celebrates the beauty of what mankind is capable. The more I thought about it, The Wind Rises is less of a biopic and more of a though provoking film meant to make us lament and celebrate the beauty of human creations. This is especially true as the film ends after World War II, making us realize how that war truly changed everything.

While The Wind Rises is a beautifully made film, it struggles with focusing on certain plot lines. For example, the driving force of the film really should be Jiro's struggle to come to terms with the world around him. However, the film struggles mightily when it brings in his love interest Naoko. By the time the film ends it is left unclear as what exactly her importance to the film was. Perhaps their love was indicative of how Jiro could find something pure and idealistic in a cruel world. However, their plotline is rushed and never feels like it reaches much of a conclusion. The film flip-flops from scenes with Naoko and Jiro to Jiro's work on planes and then back again and it feels like two different worlds that we're being dragged in an out of without much time to appreciate either. Perhaps this was Miyazaki's intent, perhaps not, but either way it felt that the film was trying to balance two different plot lines with little effect.

The Wind Rises is a beautiful balance of both idealism and cynicism

It goes without saying that The Wind Rises, being a Miyazaki work, is absolutely stunning visually. Miyazaki is able to capture the unspoiled beauty of prewar Japan while simultaneously contrasting these scenes with a feeling that the rest of the world is burning. The film features scenes of planes soaring through the air at high speeds, rolling green hills, and the lush woods of the Japanese countryside. The romanticization of the period is clearly present and the animation is something to behold. Even if this isn't the typical Miyazaki film, the visuals are still captivating and suck you into the world. From an audio standpoint, the film's musical score is fantastic. Free flowing music conveying the freedom of flight as well as the more blunt sounds of when planes crash or when the tensions run high. In an otherwise calm film score, those more loud and explosive sounds are what stands out. The audio and visuals often combine into a work of art and this film is definitely one of the best movies I've ever seen in that regard. The writing however is somewhat disjointed especially in the English dub. It's very straightforward and some lines clunk like a CRT dropped out of a tall building. Even so, it's still cool to hear the voices of well-known actors like Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, John Krasinski, and Emily Blunt. Even Martin Short shows up to voice Jiro's short and very blunt boss. However, despite the star power, it's hard to say this movie is well written, with the exception of Jiro's dream sequences.

Overall, The Wind Rises is a worthy film to end the illustrious career of Miyazaki and a very fitting one at that. It seems right that Miyazaki end his career with a film raising deep philosophical questions about the world at large and the Japanese identity. Some of those who have seen Miyazaki's past films may be a little disoriented at first by the different tone and setting that he takes in this film. With a change in perspective however, it's clear that Miyazaki has created a masterpiece of a film that will leave you with several ideas to think about as you leave the theater. Even if the plot is sometimes unfocused and the dialogue stilted, we realize that there's something overarching here that's at times greater than the sum of it's parts. At times cynical but always remaining optimistic, The Wind Rises is an animated tour de force.

My Score: 4.5/5

Evaluation of the World Today - Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

I've had a rather tenuous past with Captain America. His first movie was aggressively average in every way, doing nothing to impress me or make me angry. However, I could forgive this mediocrity because the movie was, in reality, just a conduit for Marvel Studios to introduce Cap so that they didn't have to do all that work in The Avengers and collect some money on the side. However, Cap promptly followed that with another boring appearance in Avengers where his only role seemed to be wagging his finger at the rest of the protagonists when they didn't conform to his 1940's worldview. Let's just say that Captain America had a lot to prove when his sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, came out. However, I am happy to say that Cap finally proves himself to me in the sequel.

The story picks up just about where Avengers left off, we see what Cap (Chris Evans) has been up too since that massive battle in New York. He's essentially Nick Fury's (Samuel L. Jackson) errand boy now, playing the big rooms for S.H.I.E.L.D. alongside Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). The film opens up with Cap cracking jokes and kicking ass, taking back a ship from terrorists alongside a small squad of soldiers. It's pretty impressive seeing Cap clearing the entire ship by himself and even rising to the challenge when the head honcho of the operation goads him into fighting without his shield. However, during the operation, Cap walks in on Black Widow doing something off the books for Fury which once again leads us back to Cap's trademark finger-wagging. Early in the film we get brought back to Cap's trust issues with Fury; a strong hint here is that trust becomes a key issue in the movie. We also meet Secretary Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), Fury's friend and a member of the World Council, those same people who belittled the Avengers even though they had just saved the freaking world. Pierce is heading up S.H.I.E.L.D's "Project Insight" in which they plan to take three giant helicarriers and exterminate threats preemptively. Of course, Cap is already skeptical of this project and begins to question his commitment to S.H.I.E.L.D. As he takes his time to contemplate this, the organization becomes compromised, starting with an attempt on Nick Fury's life. With nobody to trust, Cap goes on the run with Black Widow and are joined by ex-military man Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). The three begin to unravel this conspiracy and have to deal with constant attempts on their lives by what they thought was S.H.I.E.L.D, who now appear to be led by a mysterious super soldier, The Winter Soldier, who has ties to Cap's past.

The Black Widow/Captain America shippers will go crazy here but in truth the film finally gives the characters the depth they've been missing.

The plot moves along at a pretty solid pace and there's plenty of action to boot. However, it's at it's best when they character's are left to themselves to develop. Cap's main storyline in this universe is adjusting to how the world has changed while he was asleep. While in Avengers he was mostly just there to be the idealist and his character never really went anywhere, here we finally get to see him adjust. Black Widow seems to be constantly bothering him to ask someone out on a date. Meanwhile, Cap's love interest from the first movie is alive, however she's elderly and on her sickbed. That scene in particular just hints as to how disoriented Cap is in the modern era. When Black Widow tries to help him move on, Cap comes right back with some armor piercing questions for her as well. The heroes of the film seem to get more light shed on their individual characters than they did in any of their other appearances in the Marvel universe. The real question is whether Captain America really even needs to adjust at all. The movie doesn't just bring up Cap's struggles with understanding the world of today but also that we ourselves may be missing some of that idealism that we had in the 40's. In this respect, The Winter Soldier is easily the most realistic and thought provoking of any of the Marvel Studios films as most of the others were just fun, mindless romps. This movie isn't just a strong superhero film, but it also gives you something to chew on philosophically when you leave the theater. Christoper Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy changed the expectation for what a superhero film should be and it's encouraging to see Marvel finally rise to that challenge. It's nice to finally get some character depth for Captain America and Black Widow. After seeing the movie it feels like we actually have an understanding as to who these characters really are underneath. Captain America is more than a guy who dresses in stars and stripes and Black Widow is more than just a badass agent. However, even with Captain America and Black Widow getting most of the screentime, the most memorable character in the film for me was Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson. While he never evolves into much more than "stock character who shows up to help the heroes", his lines were some of the film's best. It's clear that the actors all have great chemistry with one another.

However, this doesn't mean that The Winter Soldier is a perfect movie. The plot, while interesting, is a little convoluted (most comic book plots are so it fits) and there are a couple things that could be elaborated on. Robert Redford feels a little out of place in this film and as far as villains go, he's neither cunning or intimidating. If anything his character becomes a stock Knight Templar who seems a little too Ax-Crazy to be the savior he claims to be. In simple terms, there's not enough from the enemy side to make us understand their motives at all. In turns out that Hydra, the villainous organization from the first film, is behind the coup d'etat in S.H.I.E.L.D. and plan to use Project Insight for their own villainous purposes. It's a fine twist but it never feels more elaborated upon. So with the main villain of the film not really seeming too threatening of a person, that mantle should fall to The Winter Soldier right? I mean the film is called Captain America: The Winter Soldier, right? Unfortunately, while the Winter Soldier is sufficiently terrifying and badass in almost every way, he's barely on screen for most of the movie. The reveal of his identity doesn't come until three-quarters of the way through the movie and even then it feels like he's still in the background of the film. For a character who's name appears in the film's title, he never evolves into much more than a minor plot point. However, end credit scenes hint at him playing a bigger role in the future. This also begs the question as to where Hawkeye was during all of this. I mean, S.H.I.E.L.D. had another badass agent in their locker who could come right out and helped fight the turncoats. Perhaps that's just because I wanted to see more of Jeremy Renner's character since he's another one who still hasn't gotten his due in a Marvel film yet.

The Winter Soldier is a title character for this film and yet he's pushed to the background for most of it.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier isn't a perfect movie, but it's a very good superhero movie and that's all that anyone could (and should) really have asked from it. One of my biggest complaints about the Marvel movies is that there are rarely times when their characters are asked to question their own ideals and motivations. Captain America stands out because he's the one of the Avengers that you can definitely count on to stand by his ideals until the bitter end. Altogether, The Winter Soldier doesn't put it all together but it's wildly entertaining and it's calmer moments where the character's finally receive some depth makes it shoot up my list. Of the stand alone Marvel Studios movies I would say that it's the best one yet because of it's relevance to some of the questions that we ask ourselves today. Lastly, the film ends on a rather interesting note which makes next summer's Avengers: Age of Ultron even more exciting.

My Score: 4/5

The Ending Nobody Wanted

I'm not going to write a review of Season 9 of How I Met Your Mother like I had planned and I'm not going to write a traditional reaction piece to the finale. It's probably because I'm in such shock as to how a show that I treasure so dearly could have ended in the worst way possible. Let's get one things straight: I wanted HIMYM to end in the happiest way possible because I thought that it was the only way for it to end if the show wanted to display how their characters had evolved over 9 seasons. However, I also understood that such an ending probably wasn't going to happen even if my most honest thoughts were screaming at me otherwise. Nothing could have prepared me for what actually happened though. Nothing could have prepared me for Carter Bays and Craig Thomas to take almost 9 seasons of character development and plot lines and flush it down the drain in the last five minutes of the show's run. Basically, this is what us fans got:

Let's start with the biggest issue at hand here; The Mother (now known as Tracy McConnell) is in Ted's life for about 7 years before passing away due to what we can only assume was cancer. This comes after we've been given several adorable scenes, including the one where Ted finally meets her. It's every bit as good as we'd hoped and Cristin Milioti was the absolute best choice anyone could have picked to play The Mother. There was definitely a tug at my heartstrings as Ted began to recount all the times he had with the love of his life and with each moment I knew he was was leading to that inevitable end; "even when she got sick." As much as I didn't want this to happen, I could at least accept it. I thought that having her die was a rather cruel twist of fate for Ted. After all, he'd just found the love of his life after years of heartbreak and she just gets taken away from him like that? However, in the final 5 minutes, things went from bad to horrendous. Ted finishes his story and his kids are thinking somewhat of the exact same thing that we are: The Mother was barely in the story and the real point of the story is that Ted loves Robin. So what does Ted do? He runs right out of the house, finds a blue french horn and brings it to Robin's apartment where we can only assume that they spend the rest of their lives together: cue my outrage.

Cristin Milioti was the best thing HIMYM ever had and the writers promptly spoiled it

Ted ending up with Robin was the worst possible way that How I Met Your Mother could have ended because it destroys the entire premise of the show and everything that it had been building towards for the past 9 seasons. In just the last episode Ted claimed that he had moved on from Robin and that he didn't love her in that way anymore. It was sweet and it was perfect, exactly what was needed to finally move past the Ted/Robin storyline which was easily my least favorite part of the series. It was so obvious that the two didn't work and that Bays & Thomas were convinced that somehow, some way, they had to end up together is just inexplicable to me. The point of the show was that Ted had to persist through failed love and go through a lot of crap to find the woman of his dreams. In the first season, Ted was a hopeless romantic who thought that he was ready to settle down right at that moment. However, he still needed to grow up a lot and become someone worthy of meeting that woman. In Season 9 (more in the second to last episode of Season 9) we finally see him become that man. So what was the point of all that development if Ted was simply going to end up with Robin at the end? What was the point of even introducing The Mother in the first place? Everything that happens in the previous episodes gets completely discredited because now we know that Ted just ends up with Robin.

The final scene was shot during Season 2 so that Ted's kids would be the appropriate age for when the finale would air seven years later. However, one can't convince me that the writers felt that they were forced into ending the show they way they did because they were tied down to something they shot during Season 2. No, they wanted this end, they knew that some way Ted was going to end up with Robin even if such an ending is completely insane and would be a discredit to every character's development over the course of the series. Perhaps the show was trying to send a new message with this episode: nobody's life should end because another's does, Ted deserved to be happy after The Mother died. However, going back to Robin was completely wrong; what was the point of 9 seasons if Ted never progressed past the first episode of the first season? The saddest moments of the seasons were made better by us believing (thinking we knew) that everything was going to end up happy for these characters. Instead we find out that the writers were simply lying to us the entire time. Lastly, the theme of this series wasn't that one's life goes on after their one true love dies; it was Ted's maturation into a man worthy of true love. Maybe that theme could have been the direction of the show's first few seasons but by Season 9 the show had changed.

Second, Barney and Robin get divorced, spitting in the face of what was the entire premise of Season 9. The ninth season was the crowning achievement of the two character's development as the two characters in the show who couldn't handle commitment were getting married, to each other no less. Sure, there were a lot of things that didn't make sense about them getting married and even if it wasn't a perfect match the two had great chemistry with each other. We had just spent all of the ninth season at their wedding and within the first ten minutes of the series finale, the writers spit in the face of both characters. Even if the marriage didn't entirely make sense it was a powerful symbol of how far these characters had come. With the divorce both of the characters spiraled backwards. While I don't agree that them getting divorced was a good thing; there was no excuse for both characters to self destruct afterwards. Barney, who's development was the most palpable over the course of the show, went right back to his old ways. I don't need to point out that a man having a Playbook in his 40's is sad but at the same time I do. Robin meanwhile just ran away from her problems because she couldn't handle seeing Ted and The Mother together. It's insulting to see 9 years of character development get flushed down the drain because the writers were obsessed with this dumb notion that Ted and Robin had to end up together. Barney ends up having a child, a daughter who becomes the love of his life. However, Barney having a random child with a random girl who we never get to see was disappointing no matter how touching the scene with him and his daughter was. If Barney wasn't going to end up with Robin then why didn't the writers just have him stay with Quinn from Season 8, who was actually perfect for him?

Lastly, Lily and Marshall barely feature in the series finale and are the only one's who seem to get any kid of competent ending. Sure, we don't really get to see where Lily's career goes, we don't get to see much of them in Italy, and they're barely in the episode at all but at least we know that they end on a happy note. Lily gets pregnant with a third child, whose name we never find out which is a real shame. Marshall gets elected to the Supreme Court. Wait a second, these were almost all things that we found out earlier in the season through flash-forwards right? Marshall and Lily are the only two characters who seem to get out of this train wreck of a finale unscathed even if the end to their story is rather unfulfilling. We know Marshall becomes a judge but it's pretty unclear what Lily does with the rest of her life. It was definitely sad to Lily's desperate attempts to keep the friend group together. I could at least appreciate the theme that things change and people have to move on with their lives. While other characters didn't follow this, at least the part about the friend group felt real.

The finale proved that the show never progressed beyond this moment

How I Met Your Mother deserved a perfect ending, unfortunately it crashed in flames because the writers were too concerned with having their square pegged characters fit into the round hole that they had dug themselves into in Season 2. That ending was apparently so important to them that they decided to flush down the drain all the characters growth. So important to them that they threw away the best thing to happen to the series in it's entire run, Cristin Milioti, because they thought Ted and Robin should be together. Even though everything that they had written themselves was indication of why Ted and Robin shouldn't be together. Most of all, I can't believe that they would do this to the fans who have been watching for 9 years. Perhaps if the finale had just ended with Ted and The Mother under the umbrella with Ted simply saying "and that kids...is how I met your mother." We would be all set. What once was a touching story about a man and his quest to find the one became a story about settling for second best. I don't blame any of the actors here they were simply just victims of two writers whose egos got the best of them. Two writers who were so desperate for a twist ending that they ended up destroying everything that the series stood for. A twist has to have a point, there needs to be an end goal. Some finales succeed because they reach a predictable end but not in the way you'd expect. The twist in the finale here was cruel and served no purpose other than arrive at the terrible conclusion the writers reached in Season 2, to have Ted end up with Robin. But I'm done talking about this and I'm done with this show. Thanks Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, you could have had your show end the right way and go down as one of the best shows of the past ten years but instead you ruined it with your hubris.