>Mai-Hime, despite the contrived happy ending,

I have to object to this. Yes, the ending was just as mood-whiplash to the HiMElander arc as that was to the first half of the show, but all of the elements that made it possible - the power granted to the 'victor', their imprisonment by the Obsidian Lord, their eventual replacement by the new victor, Mashiro being the kind of person that would do that - were set up explicitly ahead of time. They just weren't foreshadowed as being connected, so people who've been conditioned by Disney-esque copouts keep mistaking the existence of a positive twist for a deus ex machina.

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"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."