Kuromukuro – 26 (FIN)

With Ken planning to leave Earth to help Zell and Muetta fight another battle, Yukina is forlorn, but she regains the will to do something about it thanks to her supportive circle of friends, who have always served as a kind of Scooby Gang, performing impressive feats by utilizing and pooling their individual talents. Akagi in particular takes one for the team, as ultimately Yukina’s happiness is more important to him than being her husband.

 

When it comes time for Ken, Zell, and Muetta to make their move, trying to open a wormhole to Zell’s world with the Pivot Stone, Yukina and her friends descend on Kurobe lab armed with their wits, the press (so there are eyes on the military’s actions), and Yukina’s unyielding determination to accompany Ken on his journey, lest he go and get himself killed.

Sebastian also lends Yukina, Sophie and Kaya a hand, while we learn with shock that Dr. Hausen is Kaya’s dad (good for a chuckle). It’s understood that Ken, Zell, and Muetta, along with Yukina and her friends, are violating international law through their actions, but neither Graham nor Scully are quick enough to stop them.

Even when Scully corners Ken, Zell and Muetta, Yukina manages to pilot Medusa, bursting through the wall and giving Ken an open path to the Kuromukuro. And when she grabs a hold of Kuromukuro and Ken demands she let go, Yukina…doesn’t. She’s in this for the long haul, whether he wants her in danger or not. Ken accepts that Yukina (whom he calls his “wife”) won’t take no for an answer.

Unfortunately for Yukina and Ken, Tom and Shenmei have orders to stop them at all costs, and while Ken ultimately succeeds in going through the wormhole, it isn’t with Yukina, and they are in an instant separated by perhaps thousands of light-years.

Cut to a few years later, and thanks to the technology lifted from the Efidolg mothership, mankind has developed interstellar flight, and have built a spaceport a slightly older Yukina, Sophie and Sebastian utilize to finally meet up with Ken (whom Yukina knows is still alive thanks to a bauble given to her by Dr. Hausen).

After a tragic separation, this epilogue paints an optimistic future for Yukina as she says a temporary goodbye to her family and strikes out in the vast expanse of space to join the man she fell in love with. Like him, like the samurai, she is always going forward.

And that finally does it for Kuromukuro. The ending episodes weren’t quite as good as when all shit hit the fan and everyone had to deal with the aftermath in episodes 6-8, but they were still solidly entertaining.

P.A. Works took an offbeat, novel approach to the sci-fi mecha genre, but with lovable characters above-average animation and taut action, and a good helping of the all-important “not taking itself too seriously”, the studio churned out another winner.