The final episode of Akazukin Chacha saw a near-marriage between Seravi and Dorothy that didn’t go to plan, but still proved to be a fitting send-off for the show. The episode also had cameos by every previous Monster of the Week — except the Big Bad, Daimou, but since he was the main villain, it’s understandable that he wouldn’t be around.
The writers of The Big O cleverly wrapped a Cliffhanger and Grand Finale together in the final series episode. Just when every character almost figures out the big secret, the entire plane of existence is erased and rebooted. A few years later, it came out that Cartoon Network had apparently told them to leave things open intending to finance a third season, but then changing their minds and left the show extremely screwed over. In this show, it was more like a FINAL STAGE!!
Bleach has an abruptDistant Finale which provides happy endings for some characters but leaves myriad of unanswered questions. the author revealed he was suffering from a debilitating sickness and had to Cut Short the manga. Rather ironic for a series infamous for its Arc Fatigue.
Both the manga and anime of Chrono Crusade end with a bang. The last two volumes of the manga cover a 48 hour period in which all the characters come together for an epic battle to determine the fate of the world—and also ties up most of the relationships in the process. The anime version is a Downer Ending (or at best, a Bittersweet Ending), but ties up most of the loose threads and ends things on a very emotional note (although fan opinion is split on whether it was as good as the manga or not).
While not as action packed as the other examples on this page, CLANNAD's Grand Finale was a Reset ButtonGainax Ending, where the Girl in the Illusionary World, who is actually Ushio, sends the Garbage Doll, who is Tomoya having undergone Identity Amnesia, back in time to the day he first met her mother, Nagisa. Having done this, Tomoya, having obtained a Light Orb from Ushio, relives his senior year with both him and Nagisa knowing of their future daughter's powers. Using the Light Orbs, Nagisa is able to give birth without dying this time around, and the Okazaki family lives happily ever after.
Alternatively, Ushio just sent him back to the point where Nagisa was giving birth. While the anime is vague on this subject, the original game makes it clear that Tomoya remeeting Nagisa is something he's seeing in his head.
Code Geass: Lelouch's saga, which took two years (real time and in-universe time), comes to its ultimate conclusion when he's stabbed through the chest by his best friend and dies in his beloved sister's arms, all while the world unites by condemning him as the greatest villain in history and cheers his friend for the murder. Don't worry, it was his idea.
Cowboy Bebop ends definitively with the gripping two-part finale "The RealFolk Blues". Vicious attempts a coup of the Red Dragon syndicate, only to fail; this gets everyone associated with him, including Spike, targeted for termination. Jet is injured in a gunfight with syndicate goons, and Spike finally reunites with his lost love Julia, thanks to Faye delivering some timely information. Vicious' takeover of the syndicate eventually happens, and he keeps the hit on Spike and Julia alive; Julia dies at the hands of the Red Dragon's hit squad, and Spike storms the syndicate's headquarters to get his revenge. Once he reaches the top of the building, Spike faces off with Vicious in the show's climactic battle; Vicious dies from a gunshot straight through his heart, and Spike (supposedly) dies soon afterwards due to Vicious's katana and the injuries sustained during his assault on the syndicate. "Bang."
Cyborg 009 finally wrapped up in 2014, with "Conclusion: God's War", although as Shotaro Ishinomori had passed away back in 1998, it was his son at the helm, having used his father's drafts and story notes for the arc. The story puts the cyborgs and Dr. Gilmore through one last great battle that seems impossible to survive, with the darkness and violence in the story escalating. There's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, but it takes the team a lot of hell to get there.
Long before that, the series was originally to have its grand finale with the 1966 Underground Empire arc, which ended in the defeat of Black Ghost andthe deaths of 002 and 009, who burnt up in the atmosphere and became a shooting star seen by two children. Fan revolt quickly turned this into a Series Fauxnale.
Danganronpa 3 - Side: Future serves as one for the Danganronpa franchise's Hope's Peak Academy arc. Side: Hope also serves as the Grand Finale to both Side: Future and the concurrently-running prequel arc Side: Despair.
The last episode of Death Parade ends the shows overall Myth Arc with absolute certainty. Decim finally judges Chiyuki and sends her off to be reincarnated, after she has helped him develop emotions. While the overall system in the afterlife remains relatively unchanged, the show ends with the conclusion of her storyline.
Destiny of the Shrine Maiden ends with Orochi being destroyed permanently, meaning that Chikane and Himeko's future incarnations will not have to perform the human sacrifice ritual.
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna is the Grand Finale to the original Adventure canon as a whole.. The original DigiDestined are now college-aged protagonists, having already started to take strides in what they want to do in life. Confronted with all this, the group must face one last adventure.
The final chapter/episode of Death Note, in which Light is finally cornered, revealed to be Kira, and eventually dies due to Ryuk writing his name in his Death Note. Now a scene iconic and famous enough to have spawned half of the series' Memetic Mutation.
The Dragon Ball manga and Dragon Ball Z anime ends with the resolution of Goku and Vegeta's rivalry and the defeat of Kid Majin Buu, the ultimate evil in the Dragon Ball universe, with a Spirit Bomb formed by everyone on Earth (and Namek)note GT would top this with a Spirit Bomb formed with energy from everyone in the universe, followed by a Distant Finale ten years later where Goku Passes the Torch to Uub, a human boy who is the reincarnation of Majin Buu.
In Excel♡Saga, ACROSS and Daitenzin confront each other head-on (with both sides being left in ruins), Il Palazzo abandons his dreams of conquest and runs away with Excel, and Pedro and Nabeshin finally defeat That Man. This, however, was the second-to-last episode, followed by the intentionally unairable, appropriately-titled "Going Too Far," essentially a parody of the series.
Fairy Tail climaxes with virtually every character introduced in the series coming together for the epic back-to-back Final Battles with Zeref and Acnologia, followed by a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue and the main heroes embarking on a 100 Years Quest. However, this was overturned by the sequel, storyboarded by author Hiro Mashima himselfnote who was content to put it entirely in the hands of another author and picking up immediately where the original left off.
Franken Fran has a low-key, straightforward finale — Fran is hired to work as the doctor for a cruise ship, the ship sinks, and as Fran waits at the bottom of the ocean, she dreams that every single character over the course of the series throws her a big party. Veronica and Okita are shown coming to rescue her, and it then immediately cuts back to Fran working at the lab yet again. The collected volume adds a meta, bonus chapter where it's stated that the series was a dramatized documentary that depicted events as being Darker and Edgier than they really were (though it's lampshaded that Fran's got a pretty warped view of what that actually entails), and the comic ends there after some meta banter. With the Sequel SeriesFranken Fran Fanatic having come out some years after, this arguably counts as a Series Fauxnale.
Fullmetal Alchemist has a pretty big one, complete with a "Save the World" Climax. Ed finally defeats Father, even after he harvests the souls of all Amestris to bring himself to an obscenely high level of power, but it takes Al sacrificing himself to bring Ed's arm back to do it; in the end, Ed finally figures out what he can give up to bring back Al: his ability to use alchemy. The brothers are finally reunited, and after two years, they separate again to go and repay everyone who helped them during their travels. Also, in the final chapter and at the end of the final episode of Brotherhood, Ed and Winry are shown holding up two babies, implying that the children are theirs.
Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) had a bittersweet and satisfying conclusion in its final episode: Ed, knowing that it takes a life to bring back a life due to Equivalent Exchange, sacrifices himself to bring Al back — he ends up on the other side of The Gate without the arm and leg he had regained because of Al's sacrifice, and Al is found alive and human again, but at the age he was when he and Ed tried to bring their mother back, and with no memory of the adventures he and Ed underwent. The movie The Conqueror of Shamballa came along and followed up on that (some fans would much rather ignore it, though): after a madman on the other side of The Gate breaks through to Amestris, Ed follows and is reunited with Al, and the two save Amestris; Ed eventually returns to the other side of The Gate to seal it, but Al follows him while Mustang seals The Gate from Amestris' side, ensuring that the Elrics remained reunited.
GUN×SWORD ends with a climactic battle that spans at least three episodes. By the middle of the last episode, Van killed the Claw; Joshua gave meaning to his brother's death by stopping the Claw's Instrumentality plot; Carmen defeated Fasalina; and Wendy said a definitive (and maybe deadly) farewell to her brother. The series ends on a few minutes of Distant Finale which suggest that a few years down the road, Van and Wendy have a shot at Happily Ever After.
The playful spuff SD Gundam Force had one of the biggest finales ever. Every single character that had ever appeared, in every form they'd ever taken appeared on a stage. They all said their goodbyes. Some saluted, some waved others, Zapper's gang claimed they'd go on forever. It was all rather touching actually.
While we're on the subject, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack is basically the Grand Finale for original series main character Amuro Ray and The RivalChar Aznable. Some also consider it to be the finale for the original Universal Century continuity, although it had works set and released afterward.
And in a variation, ∀ Gundam can be considered the Grand Finale for series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino's work on Gundam. It helps that the show claims to be the Distant Finale for the entire franchise.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has a big finale for its in its sixth story arc, Stone Ocean: Enrico Pucci is moments away from completing his grand scheme to create a universe in the late DIO's image, and almost all of the heroes, including Jotaro and Jolyne, are dead. Emporio manages to defeat him, however, and when the universe is rebooted, he finds himself in an alternate universe where the Jolyne and Jotaro are alive and history overall took a much better route (implying that many — if not all — of the show's various protagonists who died over the course of the series survived in this universe). This gives way to a new timeline and continuity, starting with Steel Ball Run; this alternate universe is completely unrelated to the one seen in Stone Ocean.
The initial ending climaxes in a final clash against Ragyo, both as a group effort at the academy and later a one on one confrontation between Ryuko and Ragyo in space to stop her and the Life Fibers from taking over Earth. Ryuko succeeds but Senketsu sacrifices himself to save Ryuko in the re-entry as they fall back to Earth. The threat of the Life Fibers is averted and people are free from their influence.
The last, last episode wraps up loose ends with Honnouji Academy's graduation, Satsuki trying to decide what to do now since Ragyo's defeat, since most of her life was dedicated to stopping her and Ryuko trying to carry on after the above's events. Ragyo's former assistant, Rei, soon arrives to avenge her with the last of the Life Fibers she manages to get a hold of and waging a final battle against the heroes. It ends with Rei defeated when the spirit of Senketsu returns the Scissor Blades to Ryuko for one final attack. Afterward Satsuki convinces Rei the world doesn't have to be a crappy place and that they should work together to make it better. The island destabilizes due to the battle and sinks into Tokyo Bay. Everyone manages to evacuate, giving one final salute to the school and Mako convinces Ryuko that Senketsu will always be with her, in heart and spirit.
The explosive climax of Magic Knight Rayearth, where events have inevitably led the main characters, but which is nothing like they expected. Fan outcry was such that CLAMP had to write a sequel to deal with the Downer Ending.
Mazinger:
Mazinger Z: At the end of the series, the group has finally located Hell's base, and they head towards there, supported by the Japanese army (in the Go Nagai manga, an army of Mass-Production Mazingers was produced; Hell's counterattack was sending a fleet of seventy Mechanical Beasts, a submarine and an aerial fortress to invade and take over Japan in ten days). Mazinger, Aphrodite-A and Boss Borot duel against Hell's last Mechanical Beasts and start trashing his Base. Hell gets fed up and decides blowing his island up and fleeing on board of his aerial fortress. Mazinger goes after him and they engage in a last aerial duel. After winning, the heroes return to their Home Base, believing they are safe at last, but Dragon with an Agenda Archduke Gorgon sends two War Beasts behind them. Gorgon's Robeasts easily destroy the three Humongous Mecha and raze the Institute to rubble, but before they could kill Kouji, another Robot shows up and easily annihilates the Beasts, hinting the sequel.
Great Mazinger: Kouji and Tetsuya's rivalry reaches a boiling point when the Mykene army attacks Mazinger and Tetsuya refuses helping Kouji. Finally, he gets talked into launching Great Mazinger, only to be shot down by a War Beast was awaiting for him. At the same time, flying aircraft Demonika appears and starts bombarding the Home Base of the heroes. The Professor Kenzo Kabuto (Kouji's biological father and Tetsuya's adoptive father) commits Heroic Sacrifice to save his adoptive son. Tetsuya suffers a Heroic BSoD, realizing his fear of losing his father has brought about his father's death, and Mazinger, Great Mazinger, Aphrodite and Venus combine forces to annihilate Emperor of Darkness' Co-Dragons and blowing up their fortress. And in one of the manga versions, Tetsuya committed another Heroic Sacrifice to atone for what he had done.
UFO Robo Grendizer: After his daughter's death, Big Bad King Vega has lost his patience and decides deploying all of his remaining troops to launch a final attack. Gandal dissuades him, though, and challenges Grendizer to a mecha duel. When he loses, one of his personalities realizes Grendizer is invincible and plans killing King Vega to negotiate peace with Earth separately, but the dominant personality executes her by attempting to commit high treason, and tries to kill Duke Fleed with a kamikaze attack. When he fails, King Vega decides invading Earth, destroying his Space Base to show his troops there's no turning back. Meanwhile, the four heroes take off towards the space to fight the Final Battle, using Grendizer and a new Cool Starship. Both fleets clash among Earth and Moon. After a long fight, Duke and his friends manage to win. Unfortunately it also means he and his sister will have to bid farewell to their friends and return to his homeworld. In one of the manga versions, Vegans' final attack caused the End of the World as We Know It.
My Bride is a Mermaid has a Grand Finale which must be seen to be believed, involving the most ridiculous example of Storming the Castle ever. It involves a Terminator homage dressed in a schoolgirl uniform blowing crap up with eye beams. And that's far from the most insane thing that happens.
While the Naruto franchise as a whole is still going strong, the original Naruto series as written by Masashi Kishimoto ended with chapter 700, which is a Distant Finale set 15 years after the previous chapter. It is followed by The Last: Naruto the Movie, which is actually set two years after chapter 699, then several novels set between chapter 699 and 700. Kishimoto subsequently authored a short-lived manga series meant as a tie-in to another film, but by this point, we're on another series entirely.
While the show's original TV ending ("Congratulations!") wasn't exactly spectacular, and became controversial in both the Japanese and American markets, it was not intended as the "proper" ending. The "proper" ending was in fact planned, but Gainax ran out of money to produce it. In 1998, however, End of Evangelion was finally released, and was a suitable grand Gainax Ending finale to the series:
The first half of the movie features SEELE finally losing it with Gendo Ikari going against them and trying to hack into the MAGI computers to take over (and possibly self-destruct) the NERV base. When he gets the resident Mad Scientist Ritsuko Akagi to block them out, SEELE instead convinces the Japanese government that NERV plans to end the world in Third Impact, and they send in the military to murder everyone at NERV. And that means everyone. The first half of the film generally documents the systematic attacks on the Geofront and Central Dogma. Asuka comes out of her coma and gets into a massive fight with the military and some auto-piloted Mass Production Evangelions, culminating in her being utterly mangled to death. Meanwhile, Shinji undergoes a mental breakdown and ends up entering his Evangelion, who is also his mother, and in the process witnesses Asuka's mangled Evangelion, at which point he screams in terror. But wait! It gets better!
After the intermission, Shinji's Evangelion is crucified, and Rei Ascends to a Higher Plane of Existence by merging with Lilith, and becomes an enormous alien giantess. In the process, she releases a form of energy that negates the energy of everyone on Earth, dissolving their bodies away into LCL and freeing their souls to merge into Lilith. Shinji goes on a mental journey in which he decides humanity deserves to continue living, and is allowed to come back to life. He wakes up on a beach, and a few months later, finds himself laying next to Asuka, inexplicably alive. He throttles her to check she is alive, and then he collapses sobbing after she strokes his cheek, at which point she utters the final phrase in the series: "Kimochi warui" ("How disgusting"/"I feel sick"). Yeah. It's pretty confusing, and ninety minutes of intense mindfuckery that is impossible to forget.
The manga of the series ends things on a slightly happier note: Like in End of Evangelion, Instrumentality is underway. However, Shinji comes to realize that if people can't hurt each other, there would be no capacity to love each other. He tells Rei as much, rejects Instrumentality, and Rei pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to undo Instrumentality and give humanity a chance at a better future.
Possibly the funniest one is the final episode for the 1965-67 Little Ghost Q-Taro series. Q-Taro and Shōta are held hostage by a gang leader. When all hope is lost, they are suddenly rescued by Perman. They ask who he is and Perman replies that he's the star of the show. Q-Taro angrily informs him that his show starts next week; Perman arrived one week early. And yes, a week after the final Q-Taro ran, Perman did take over the time-slot.
Ojamajo Doremi had one for the Dokkan season. In this, we learn that Hana-chan (who turns back into a baby), Majo Rika and the fairies go back to the witch world, Momoko moves back to New York, Onpu moves away and we see that she wrote a new book that is popular, Hazuki is going to a different middle school than Doremi, and Doremi herself confesses her love to an unknown boy who is later revealed to be Kotake.
While it isn't the final Pretty Cure All Stars movie, Singing With Everyone Miraculous Magic is the last of the annual crossover movies to have every team in it (not counting HuGtto! Pretty Cure’s standalone movie celebrating the 15th anniversary, and the one created for the series 20th anniversary), as all the movies afterwards include the three most recent teams with the others being reduced to cameos if they appear at all. Not only is the movie a musical, it also features the revival of every Big Bad up to Dyspear. Granted, they don’t have any personality here, but it is still cool to see all of the major villains one last time.
Princess Tutu ends with a final epic battle in which the Big Bad is vanquished and Mytho once again becomes the Prince he once was, and also resolves the main romantic tension...although not in a way you might expect. It also ends somewhat open-ended by hinting that two of the characters (who had hints of a romantic relationship but never quite resolved it) might be starting on a new story together.
The Rose of Versailles ends just as you'd expect a show about The French Revolution to end. Short Version: Everyone except Rosalie dies.
Given that the works of Rumiko Takahashi tend to go on for far longer than they should, some animes end up ending abruptly without closure. The biggest example being Ranma ½. So it came as a great surprise to many that the Inuyasha manga was finally given its Grand Finale in early 2008. A new anime, Inuyasha: The Final Act, began airing in late 2009 to resolve the anime's plot as well.
Sailor Moon went out with a series of giant revelations about the major conflicts throughout the story and loads of character deaths, leading to a Distant Finale showing Usagi marrying Mamoru in the manga. The '90s anime version had different revelations, killed and revived all of the Senshi again and just ended the show with a rather traditional ending that had only a few series finale elements.
Samurai Pizza Cats: "The Big Comet Caper". Even though there is one more episode after it ("The Cats Cop Cartoon Careers"), The Big Comet Caper acts as more of a grand finale, as it depicts Big Cheese's last-ditch attempt to claim rulership of Little Tokyo after he is ousted from his position as Prime Minister.
The first Shaman King anime had a Grand Finale, one that remains controversial among fans. However, the manga never had an ending, since it was canceled before Hiroyuki Takei could write it. The only thing close to an ending in the manga is a four-part story depicting the future focusing on Yoh and Anna's son, Hana, ten years after the Shaman Fight. It wasn't until 2009 that Takei was finally able to provide a proper conclusion to the manga....which was also controversial among fans.
Space Runaway Ideon -one of the predecessors to Evangelion-, also used a movie for its grand finale (in this instance, the series was cut short due to budget constraints), and it pulls no punches in it. Opening with a shot of the hero's love interest getting her head blown off (a defining moment in the main series), we cut to how the Buff Clan and the Solo Ship's war has spiraled out of control. The Ide's sentience has become almost malevolent in nature, and its instability is making the two sides want to destroy each other at any cost. Then everyone starts dying. EVERYONE. The Ideon Gun's shockwaves kill Sheryl. Harulu kills her sister Karala not because of the war, but because she was jealous of Karala finding love and having a child. The ship engineer is shot by Doba. The child Ashura's head is vaporized by a bazooka. Kasha is killed by shrapnel from her own attack when protecting the ship interior. Bes is shot in the neck near the end. Harulu is killed in sub-space by the Ideon Gun. Doba is killed by his own men after finding out that meteors destroyed both Earth and the Buff Clan homeworld. Cosmo launches a suicide attack against the Gando Rowa which succeeds, but destroys the Ideon in the process, killing him and taking out the entire solar system they were in. The real tear jerker about it? None of this had to happen. Just before Doba died, both he and Cosmo realized that the Ide is unnaturally enhancing their negative feelings toward each other, and that this genocidal war was all brought about by a simple misunderstanding that neither side would make amends for. This is shown in the ending sequence, when everyone is a spirit in the afterlife, and how without the prejudices that they had in life, they are all able to happily live in peace. Then they're all reborn in a new world. Credits roll.
The 1999 movie, Tenchi Forever! (AKA Tenchi Muyo! in Love 2: Distant Memories in Japan), served as the conclusion to 1995's Tenchi Universe saga. Among other things, it resolved the Tenchi/Ryoko/Ayeka Love Triangleby having Tenchi choose Ryoko. Hiroshi Negishi, the director of Tenchi Universe and the two movies, Tenchi Muyo! in Love and Tenchi Forever!, would return to the Tenchi Muyo! franchise in 2016 with Ai Tenchi Muyo!, which isn't set in the Tenchi Universe continuity.
GoLion is an interesting example. It followed the 52-episode season of a regular kids' anime and had an eventful finale (almost a two-part in the way it was set up). Sinclair is told that his mother is Altea by Honerva. and then stabs her and over the course of the episode people die, including a character that Voltron merged into one character (in the original he is more a minor but impactful character) to avoid death. All in all it's a really dramatic finale but this became a problem after export. When the show was exported as Voltron, they made multiple extra episodes to fit the number required in American syndication and had to figure out a way to make the final episode no longer a final episode after the series killed off important characters. Obviously this involved a lot of editing and sound effects. (Apparently adding a water sound effect saves a character.)
Trigun: The manga and anime end with one final showdown between Vash and his brother Knives, but under vastly different circumstances. In the manga, it happens during an all-out war between Knives and humanity, complete with an entire fleet of spaceships, while in the anime, it's purely a one-on-one fight that isn't nearly as huge in scope, though Knives is still trying to wipe out all mankind.
Vandread really puts the "Grand" into its finale by ending its second season on a colossal battle between Earth, the series' main antagonists, and the space fleets of every single planet and faction the Nirvana crew managed to ally with over the course of two seasons, led by the combined form of all four of Nirvana's Combining Mecha. The ending ultimately shatters the entire galactic order that existed throughout the series (and a for long time before that), making sure that the protagonists' lives will be very different from there on.
Yu-Gi-Oh! ends with a four-episode Duel between Yugi and the Pharoah (Atem), each with his own body thanks to one last bit of magic from the Millennium Items. In short, Yugi defeats all three Egyptian God Cards and wins the Duel, proving that Atem is no longer needed. With his destiny of evil-fighting complete, Atem can finally move on to the Afterlife with all his old friends and family from ancient Egypt.
