I agree with pretty much everything you put forth. I hate unnecessary fan-service so I'm glad they avoided that, in more ways than one even.

The Ayato thing did seem rushed, and I was like "Whaaaaaaaat" when Otonashi asked Kanade to stay. But the twist at the end was awesome. Apparently time operates differently in that world!

The OVA is not at all what I expected, I was kind of hoping for some background on characters like TK and Shiina, or some more details on what happened the three days prior to Graduation, but I'm not disappointed either. It was a fun Angel Beats! episode, nothing really special or groundbreakingly important to the series, but still good. There are some good laughs throughout most of the episode. The OVA supposedly takes place between episodes 4 and 5, in case anyone is curious. Sadly, that means no Iwasawa.

As for ~Another Epilogue~... Otanashi becomes the new Student Council President. It's kind of hard to decide if this what took place between Kanade's and Otanashi's disappearance (in that case, it took a lot longer for Otanashi to give in to reincarnation than I had originally thought), or if it's an entirely different ending where Otanashi doesn't disappear and follows in the footsteps of the Angel Player programmer and is doomed to the same fate. I'm leaning towards the latter, because first it's called ~Another Epilogue~ and not just ~Epilogue~, pretty synonymous with 'Alternate Ending', and the students talk about how Otanashi is waiting for someone (very likely he's waiting for Kanade somehow, but he could also be waiting for a successor). This is very similar to what happened to the Angel Player programmer before he wrote Angel Player. I suppose the argument can be made that it indeed took place between Kanade's and Otanashi's own disappearance since Otanashi thought it would be a good idea to stick around and help future souls, but I think he only said that because he wanted to stay with Kanade, and didn't want to risk possibly never meeting Kanade after reincarnation. In short, I think this is an alternate ending where Otanashi does not feel fulfilled, because he is without Kanade. In the original ending, even without Kanade, knowing that there's a chance they'll meet up again is enough fulfillment for him to move on.

I saw it as an alternate ending too, because of its title. I always just assumed that Otonashi bawled for a while and the eventually got over it and left, since he really just wanted to be with Kanade (and more importantly, he did vanish in the credits afterward.)

Another Epilogue to me makes it seem like he won't be leaving anytime soon--the flowers are there to remind him of Kanade, but as long as the flowers are there he'll probably be there as well. Which contradicts the OP of the final episode. Pretty depressing I think; he helps others only be enduring great pain himself.

MAN this was so nostalgic. Seeing a thin 5th Dan mirror TK's pose in the ep13 OP made me so happy.

"I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING BUT OKAY LET'S GO!!"

Don't get your hopes up. I've seen that picture and article at least a few times now, everyone says it's fake.


I really wish they would make two more seasons though. One that takes place before Otanashi's appearance, and one that takes place after everyone's disappearance, showing how some of them meet up and reunite after reincarnation.