https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicalDestroyers/comments/13bqfwk/ending_song_analysis/

Where do I even begin with this dissection? So much told, so little understood.

(资料图片)

Just as Johnny Cash changed the nature of "Hurt" to fit his life experience, I'll try to see how this anime ending changed Gospelion to fit its theme of rejection, ostracism & personal struggling against elitism / societal expectations for "the economy's growth".

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(imagery of surgical lights & Otaku Hero being treated as someone sick, as a problem person in society -> Talcott Parsons theorises that the 'sick role' is conferred for instances of deviancy in society, and deviancy is a 'problem' to be stamped out)

"Oh, what a day, are you there? Can you hear me? This thriller isn't over; I see her smile when I close my eyes"- possible onset of loneliness in a society that grinds people down (and forces people into escapism, aka otaku)

(shots of the moon, of a wide angle showing the moon high above & the city below, pronounced stark difference between heaven and earth. Helps put to perspective how small & insignificant one feels. -> Switches to imagery of magical girls holding a flower with a solemn attitude, partly wishing his recovery & partly feeling the lethargy. The camera pans downward, with yellow squares / pages in the background, the mind's transition descending towards fiction instead of looking up to the future / real conditions of life.)

"I guess I'll sleep, so that I can see her in my dreams, where we'll live again"- overbearing pragmatism of the world, the escapism mentioned earlier. To 'live again' in the fantasy, showing that they no longer consider a formal life in society something "worth living / going through the motions for".

(scene change to a beach where Otaku Hero is still being medicalised as a 'sick' person for showing greater interest in fiction than in real life, the magical girls are stranded on a beach like dying sea animals. Evidenced further down the line where they are caught in fishnets and other floating sea-junk -> "there are many fish in the sea" allegory, women viewed as expendable, having only 3 "varieties" represents possible stereotyping / categorising of women, a kind-of bitter self-fulfilling prophecy on Otaku Hero's POV. "If I'm going to be treated as someone sick and deviant, I may as well make the most of their treatment / stigma")

(Magical girls are placed in a nurse position where palliative care may be provided at anytime -> Women often placed in expressive roles for care-giving. Pay attention to how a) the 'treatment' is administered by the girls that caused the problem, almost like an addiction; much as how drinking doesn't make your problems go away and only makes you want to drink more b) the faces are expressionless, there is no emotional / humane attachment to the assistance offered by the 'treatment'. <Shift work, along with other constructs like defensive medicine in the hospital, has made it exceedingly difficult for patients to feel attached / humanised during the treatment process, they feel alienated and treated only on the surface level of "preserving the order in a society that never cared for them".> The root cause of their sorrow, the loneliness in the stanza earlier, was never addressed.)

(closer focus on beached / stranded women, particular of note being the school theme with scattered bags, notebooks, uniforms worn by women)

"Everything I've seen and everywhere I've been, reflect the days we used to have"- Longing for a past that will never return, the agony of being conferred expectations upon transitioning towards adulthood

"And even though they're now a blur, I really don't regret what I did for her"- Potentially taking deficits for another party to get in their good favours -> A possible partner the person takes interest in

"I was all alone, then felt at home when you were standing here right beside me"- Finding a purpose, a validation for their time. Mixed with the imagery -> implies that most otaku find school life to be a high-point of their lives

"But suddenly it ended, I'm not offended, gone with the sound of a ringing bell"- Being cut off from further contact, almost too quickly (other party notices you're an otaku and breaks away as fast as possible) -> I think this is the saddest part of the entire ending clip; the Japanese experience of otaku stigma has become so hated and misunderstood that the otaku themselves recognise they are powerless to change things. They've accepted it as something that's obvious and normalised; a fatalistic structure primed against their very being even when society created them in the first place. Where in the West being an "otaku" is a symbol of Japanese media consumption (and not necessarily negative), the poor use & understanding of this term in its Japanese context is a big issue regarding the poor conditions that otaku in Japanese suffer from. Much like how in Episode 4 the cultural acceptance of "otaku" differs between generations, where those from the 1980s had to hoard their denpa horror collections in secret while kids nowadays can brandish Jujutsu Kaisen bag plushies in public. The other part to address is how the 'ringing bell' can denote many things: the end of school and another fruitless day of trying to connect with the other party, the church bell of that special someone finding another partner etc. Life passes on for everyone else but because they've been denied this opportunity (from the exclusion & marginalisation of being an otaku), they can't really move forward. This is where you play [Keane - Everybody's Changing] to connect with Otaku Hero on a deeper level.

(scene cut to Otaku Hero being centralised, stereotyped nurses by his side to serve on convenience & even more stereotypes sprawled on the floor. Another possible & disturbing interpretation is that they're scattered on the floor like used tissue <you can guess what they were used for>; the camera intentionally shoots at an angle that resembles an otaku in bed with a messy room, stuff scattered on the floor representing a disorderly <and thus dysfunctional> member of Japanese society.)

"I guess I'm alone now, I'm on my own"- Extension of this fatalistic acceptance mentioned earlier

(zoom to stereotypes on the floor, caught in fish nets, stronger lean into the allegory of women being as consumable as fish -> To use another person as mere means, as a consumable -> possible that Otaku Hero himself feels like he's been treated as a resource, not a person, by society at large. Enforced by the cuts showing the girls in candid, cheery poses and having fun. Note the quick snaps towards possible symbols of fetish: The zettai ryouiki, nape, cleavage, feet, and interestingly of Anarchy holding Otaku Hero's head for a kiss -> Beyond the physical attraction, the one thing that's desired in a relationship is consent. The partner could be the ugliest person you've ever met, but the notion of consent becomes a demonstration of eroticism via validation. It leaves some questions about how consensual the act really is for Otaku Hero himself, and the potential to transform into an abusive relationship is possible.)

"As funny as it sounds, what goes around comes around again"- Society-wide confusion between chicken-or-egg allegory that everyone in society inevitably confronts; Is society using you as a consumable because you're treating women as consumables? Or are you treating women as consumables because society treated you as one? <Meritocracy is, fundamentally, a lie that downplays the role of luck; if it weren't a lie I would have become much more than a chairman candidate of a fiction club with this analysis alone by now.> [Of great importance to note is that these parts of the song were deliberately picked and spliced for this ending. Anyone who's heard the original song by 13th Tailor knows there's like 2 stanzas this skips directly over, and importantly the cut stanzas eerily match everything I've described thus far. It's for this reason, and this alone, that I'm even doing this analysis in the first place.]

(scene change to the stereotypes fawning over Otaku Hero, clamouring for him, desiring him despite his get-up & him remaining true to his escapist, otaku-like nature. -> Satiation of self's validation and identity, the "something real" that Hikigaya Hachiman always wanted to look for. Everyone searches for this sort of validation to differing degrees, and for Otaku Hero it's the peak of his fantasy that will never come true. But, which parts? That women really only have "3 types"? That he would ever be loved to this degree? That despite being same-faced and stereotyped, there'd be special ones that grow wings and come for him, descending from above like seraphim?)

"I don't blame your lies, And I hope we can remember all the days that we both smiled. They were real with you."- Acceptance that the contact cut-off was instinctive, that the other party didn't mean to hurt or offend. -> Reminiscent recall of fonder days before the prejudice became pronounced. The fantasy of his escapism, as mentioned before, peaks here.

"I know I'm not the type to take your time and waste it, I just want you to smile"- Almost like a quiet wish from Otaku Hero himself / every otaku in his position. Society has traumatised them on the basis of time: To show signs of maturity and manage (reluctantly ascribed) expectations upon biologically growing up, to place pressure by constantly being put under analysis by others. "The neighbour's boy is 29 this year and he just had his 2nd child, meanwhile you're 32 and never even had a human girlfriend, how much TIME are you going to waste?" -> They are pushed and forced to believe that time is something precious that shouldn't be wasted, and this subtle pressure by ignorant parents, the oppressive society & the quantified performance of others dents them wrongly; they develop a fundamental misunderstanding of how time should be used and optimised in a relationship, without realising that couples sometimes waste each other's time on purpose (teasing them, or intentionally pulling pranks / messing with them) to develop a greater sense of appreciation and affection for each other. But how could they possibly have realised something like this, when all romantic candidates in their society judge them so quickly on the basis of being an otaku?

(scene change to Otaku Hero's death -> Japanese society {6-day work week, hard work ethic, groupism & how everyone is responsible for the wellbeing of everyone else} has created otakus with excessive expectations, ostracised them with medicalisation, traumatised them with fatalistic structures where every romantic candidate <in this example, girls> they meet in real life is ultimately another sickening product of the society they came from. It has reached a point where these otaku will never truly open their hearts to anyone. These otaku are forced to hold strongly to their deepest thoughts, and at times they can't even be honest to those of the same condition as themselves.)

"You know that I'd never let you in."- They would rather live with the annoyance of a simulated life like Yukinoshita Haruno has, than to open up and feel more pain from being betrayed, being NTR'd, being hurt while still bearing a wound that never ages. What the otaku suffer isn't an 'old wound' that happened years ago; it's genuine marginalisation. Much like how a Muslim or a vegetarian struggles at every mealtime with securing food that's suitable for them, the otaku struggle at every point of communication on the possible topics they can openly discuss.

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It's open for discussion, obviously, but this was my take on how the ending managed to retrofit 13th Tailor's song into their narrative. It's so eerie, though.

Think some parts of the analysis didn't jam with you / make sense? Critique openly; I'm not sure if the current analysis is holistic enough. Maybe there's some Japanese adage that's commonplace which I've overlooked that changes the perspective of the song dramatically, I cannot know unless you tell everyone through the comments.