Gainax Ending: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

A Gainax Ending frequently involves bizarre and nonsensical [[Genre Shift]]s, [[Fauxlosophic Narration]], and/or [[Faux Symbolism]], and may very well cause [[Ending Aversion]]. For an aborted [[Sequel Hook]], you might encounter a [[Diabolus Ex Vacuus]] (where a new villain appears from nowhere, does something villainous, and then disappears again) or [[No Ending]] in the form of an ambiguous [[Cliff Hanger]]. Either way, it would have been addressed in the sequel... had there been one.

The [[Trope Namer]] is [[Studio Gainax]], who became associated with this trope after the infamous ending of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

 

 

{{examples}}

* As mentioned above, ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', to the point where this trope could be named Evangelion Ending (if there wasn't a movie titled ''[[End of Evangelion]]''). Due to the budget effectively being shot, the final two episodes consisted heavily of stock footage, musings on human nature, discussion of the characters' psychological problems, some mention of the [[Assimilation Plot|Human Instrumentality Project]], and a [[High School AU]] with a [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|Rei Ayanami on]] [[Genki Girl|Genki]].

** Even the [[End of Evangelion|movie]] ending, while straight-forward, is pretty bizarre by ''normal'' standards, and would probably be considered an example by the standards of most of the other things on this page if the TV ending hadn't out-Gainaxed Gainax.

** This one ''is'' a bit more contested, though, as quite a few people have pointed out that, given the [[Lensman Arms Race|awesome scope]] of the posited final battle, that the still pictures are still remarkably effective and that their effect is greater than what could have been with "actual" animation.

* ''[[He Is My Master]]'', another show animated by Gainax, is a light, funny, gag series about a guy with a maid fetish. How else to end the series than with a sudden [[Mood Whiplash]] into angst and philosophizing?

** It's not so much that the ending is weird or incomprehensible as that it flies directly in the face of what ''looked'' like it was the moral for the entire second half of the series and the ending it led you to expect.

** Also, it's intended to be ambiguous: whether {{spoiler|Sasshi has successfully managed to "fix" reality}} or has simply {{spoiler|created yet another, even more elaborate fantasy dimension that is ultimately doomed to collapse just like all the others}} is left for the viewer to decide.

* Creative differences caused a Gainax Ending in ''[[Kare Kano]]'', abruptly ending the story just as a new arc was starting up.

** In fact, it's so big of a Gainax Ending that the characters who didn't see it coming react to it in much the same way the viewers do.

** And that only covers the last three minutes of it. In more or less chronological order... {{spoiler|Panty spends an undefined amount of time as a farm girl (the setting of which is otherwise staged), Panty and Brief finally do it, Brief accidentally unlocks Hellsmonkey, which is a ''[[Gag Penis|giant penis ghost]]'', Corset turns Scanty and Kneesocks into weapons and kills Garterbelt before fusing with said giant penis ghost, Chuck and Fastener turn into awesome monster things, Panty and Stocking use Garterbelt's credit card to buy enough weapons to attempt to deliver an [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|awesome finishing blow.]] They miss and hit Heaven, which summons a pair of [[Medium Blending|lifelike legs]] to close the gate that Hellsmonkey is coming out of. This pair of legs turns out to be Panty and Stocking's mom. Oh, and Garterbelt dies again. [[Death Is Cheap|And comes back again.]]}} Among all this, the heavens are actually [[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann|pierced]] with a [[This Is a Drill|drill.]] Even the tropes Gainax are most closely identified with are up for parody.

** It is rumoured that this is actually a previous battle with {{spoiler|the Anti-Spirals and the person who appears to be a grown up Simon is in fact a young Lord Genome}}. This makes it foreshadowing in terms of the plot.

** The ''actual'' theory that [[Word of Dante|Gainax went with that the fans came up with]] is that {{spoiler|It's an alternate future in which Simon and Dai-Gurren-dan actually cause the Spiral Nemesis and trigger what amounts to the Big Crunch from overuse of Spiral Power.}}

 

* The anime of ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' actually ''inverts'' this trope; in the last few aired episodes [[Cerebus Syndrome|it suddenly gets a real plot going and is much more serious]]. Then in the final (albeit unaired) episode, it becomes even ''more'' weird, as if to make up for the serious finale.

* ''[[Chobits]]'' starts out as a typical [[Magical Girlfriend]]-cum-[[Moe]] show, then, about halfway through, gets... er, [[Contemplate Our Navels|weird]]. And to top it off, after spending half the series contemplating the sentience of persocoms, the single most advanced persocom in existence states that she isn't really sentient, and neither are any of the other Chobits - they're highly advanced, naturally, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, they're only following their programming. Most of the fans interpreted this turn of events as a gigantic middle finger from [[CLAMP]]. In the anime, they are sentient.

** To elaborate on the anime, two agents (who later turn out to be persocoms) appear out of nowhere, nearing the finale, and said persocoms' origins are never to be explained. Chi finds "the one just for her" (Hideki) and then activates this... program that makes her float to the roof of the building, whilst glowing, and transmitting a signal that makes all the persocoms stop functioning (something that's happened at least twice in the series). The two aforementioned persocoms apprehend her, but not for long as the manager appears out of nowhere and WIPES Chi's OPERATING SYSTEM. Not the data stored on her hard drive, HER ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM. At this point, the fact that she was able to walk back to the manager is a miracle. But, then Chi restores her OS—or rather, the manager erased FREYA'S OS when she was erasing the OS... or something. Then Chi sends a signal that makes every persocom's eyes gain... pupils... or something that's not well explained/explained at all. The plot is resolved by a [[Deus Ex Machina]]...

* ''[[Code Geass]]'' briefly seems to go for one of these in the penultimate arc when it starts to look a lot like an EVA clone. However Lelouch then decides to not play along with it and [[Earn Your Happy Ending|remake the world on his own]], resulting in a truly climactic finale with the [[Melodrama]] rocketing trough the roof.

* ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]''. Of course, compared to the ''[[Mind Screw|rest]]'' of the series...

* ''[[Dragon Ball GT]]''. While GT has many things to scratch your head about, the ending is so sudden and bizarre it's nothing short of a [[Mind Screw]]. What happened to Goku in the last 2 episodes? He's clearly dead from that huge energy ball, then suddenly he's alive again somehow able to talk to everybody on earth, then when he's charging the spirit he cannot be killed by Omega at all, despite direct hits. We're not even sure if he's dead or [[Back from the Dead]] because there's not even a halo to give us any idea (How that is even possible under the circumstances is itself a mystery). Then after the bomb's thrown, he's dead again, apparently brought back to life, then suddenly he just leaves without even saying goodbye. Vegeta knows something's up, then suddenly we see his clothes left on the ground. But in DBZ when [[No Body Left Behind|they die]], they die with their clothes (In fact, that shot is ''out of sequence'' and is shown after the end of the next couple of events). But then he's off to visit Roshi and Piccolo, who both also know something's changed about him, but a mere "Are you...?" [[Shrug of God|is not very helpful]]. When they take their eyes off him for a second, there's suddenly no one there. Then the Dragonballs merge into Goku, then he disappears. Where does he go? What happened to him?

** He doesn't return for 100 years, and if you leave aside what you saw in A Hero's legacy, it's not clear if he's alive or dead. Theories include [[Ascended to A Higher Plane of Existence]] or that Goku became Shenron himself. And is he isn't even remotely bothered by the fact that almost everyone he knew is dead.

* The bizarre way they treated Tetsuo's fate in the ending of the ''[[Akira]]'' anime counts, I figure.

** Gainax is even one of the production companies involved in the film.

** They weren't sure if they'd be able to have a third series, but only the epilogue would have changed - Chiaki J. Konaka originally had a different epilogue which went into more detail than the one we got and literally ended with a curtain falling, but was asked by the U.S. network to write a less conclusive ending in case they picked it up for a third season. They didn't.

** For that matter, nearly anything [[Tsutomu Nihei]] has finished has had a Gainax Ending.

* ''[[Xam'd: Lost Memories|Xamd Lost Memories]]''. An [[Ancient Conspiracy]] of soul-eating albino children. A stillborn [[Death Seeker]] [[Kaiju]]. Only a mass-sacrifice [[Combined Energy Attack]] can stop the [[Big Bad]], except not. The main character goes to a [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]] and defeats the [[Big Bad]] by giving him his name... Or was it the laser? [[Instrumentality]]! The main character dies, and gets better nine years later for no reason! ...Oh, and he has inexplicably aged in the meantime.

* The manga version of [[Sound Horizon]]'s ''Ark'' starts out straightforward enough, but a few pages into the second and final chapter, it takes a sudden detour through WTFville into Gainax Ending Land. I translated said manga and am quite familiar with the overall story line of the [[Rock Opera|album]] it's based on, and I ''still'' don't get it.

* While the ending of the manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' is better explained than some of the other examples here, due in part to some poor planning from Daisuke Moriyama and a rush to get everything explained in the end, the last volume or two of the manga feels like there's a sudden [[Genre Shift]] mixed with several open-ended questions, unless you were clever enough to pick up on subtle foreshadowing throughout the series. Some of the weirder points of the ending include the revelation that [[Our Demons Are Different|the demons]] are really [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]], Rosette's soul leaving her body, causing her "death" and a trippy afterlife scene that ends with her and Mary Magdalene entering her body together to revive her, Chrono finding out that the demon [[Hive Queen]] was a human woman that was kidnapped by the demons and transformed into Pandaemonium—who was pregnant with human twins that would grow up to be Chrono and Aion, Chrono and Aion charging at each other for their final battle, only for the manga to cut away and change focus, deliberately hiding the outcome of the battle and Satella freezing herself and Florette/Fiore into crystal, and the two of them found and revived in the year 1999 and forced to start over their lives after (almost) all of their old friends have passed on. While the [[Gecko Ending]] of the anime is [[Downer Ending|depressing enough]] that many fans prefer the manga ending, it's still known for being quite weird.

** To elaborate a little further The two Sakuras gather their magic, i.e. [[Divide by Zero]] twice over and grant their own wish of coexisting even at the cost of the foundations of the universe. This distracts Fei Wong to allow everyone else to give the finishing blow to Fei Wong. Then the 3 Syaoran: The Clone Syaoran, the original Syaoran, and Watanuki get trapped in a void outside of time from the dimensional aftershock and/or Fei Wong's last wish. Clone Syaoran in a desperate attempt makes a wish by using his very existence to get the other two out, which the other two accept on the grounds that they understand the repercussions of making an un-[[Equivalent Exchange]].

*** To finish the trail of thought Syaoran chooses the price of "being always in movement" and he takes the souls of Syaoran and Sakura clones and starts to travel in order to find a place where the four of them can live together. He also gets a present which allows him to go back to where Sakura is more often. Watanuki chooses the price of "staying in one place" and becomes the new master of Yuuko's shop, while he waits for her to reincarnate.

* ''[[Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo]]'' ends with the entire cast saying "This is how our show ends?!" although it was really more a subversion of the [[Cut Short|unresolved cliffhanger]] imposed by the show's cancellation.

* ''[[Gantz]]''. Like, WTF at the end? Did he save the girl? Why was he running from the train all over again? Cut to Gantz once again, almost as if started from the beginning...?

** The last several episodes of the anime are [[Gecko Ending|an original idea of the director]]. They do not follow the manga at all.

* The ''[[Berserk]]'' anime's ending could be considered a Gainax Ending. If you watch it without ever reading a bit of the manga, you'll have a lot of trouble understanding the fact that towards the end, monsters unknown to each and every character start showing up and eating them, which is hard to understand because the anime doesn't even mention the existence of other behelits apart from Griffith's. Oh, also the anime ends abruptly, with Caska being raped by Griffith (now as Femto), while Guts is forced to watch, being subdued by a group of demons and losing an eye after carving his own arm off to escape some other demon's grip, with no sign of closure whatsoever. No epilogue, not even different credits, it just ends. It didn't get cancelled or discontinued either, its supposed to end there. Talk about ''downer ending''.

** The strangest thing of that is that after the credits {{spoiler|we see a healed Guts leaves Godo's house to have his revenge on Griffith. In the anime is never explained how that happened.}} Talk about [[No Ending]] or [[Left Hanging]].

** It's simple really. Lain made a world where she never existed... but that didn't mean she stopped existing herself. Presumably she's somehow manifesting a body from the internet. Or whatever.

** Another explanation is much more complicated: It would say that Lain was never a real person, but was only {{spoiler|an AI created by Masami Eri--who was in turn created by Lain's father in the real world as an "acting God" until his usefulness was outlived--after his own death, but after the Knights are all murdered, only Lain is left to believe in his existence as a God, and his existence is dependent on being considered a God, which he explicitly states to Lain as a necessary trait of being a God. When Lain pulls a rather brave [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] in his monstrous face and renounces him, he completely disappears, and Lain maintains her capacity to "reset" the Universe as she pleases without Masami's control over her. The "Human Lain" we see most often is and always has been an AI programmed to interact with the real world convincingly, and was the only form of Lain given an ego by Eri, but becomes attached to it as a result of Eri's programming that made her *too* connected to the world and the people in it, while the others spend most of their time in the Wired, but still have the capacity to interact with the real world, such as Wired Lain's appearances at the Cyberia club. After Lain "resets" the entire Universe for Alice's sake and effectively becomes the daughter of God instead of just the creation of Eri who has been used the whole time for God's purposes (her father acting as a God-figure even after the Universe reset, as evidenced by their odd interaction in the clouds in which her father is literally watching over her from above), she completely deletes her "Wired" self, leaving only the "human AI" Lain left. Lain then chooses to recreate the entire Universe as she wants a second time, in which she still has a God's powers and is omnipotent and omniscient, but mostly just wants a normal life and to be as human as possible while protecting Alice forever, even in death, just so she can watch Alice marry and have a normal life herself, before Lain unwittingly destroyed her original life before the first reset.}} What the human form of Lain is, exactly, remains ambiguous, because Eri could have been wrong or even lying the whole time, along with the whole [[Secret Identity]], [[In Mysterious Ways]] and [[God Was My Co-Pilot]] things all going on at once.

* The ending of that one episode of ''[[Kirby: Right Back at Ya!]]'' with the Dedede dolls in it. Seriously, King Dedede actually ends up flying into space and past a planet shaped like him as a result of [[Kirby]] swallowing one of said Dedede dolls.

* The original ''[[Shaman King]]'' manga qualifies. The heroes go to sleep the day before the final battle. After that, it cuts to a series of scenes with Manta and Anna, including a short dream. After that, the series ends. The final battle is neither shown nor spoken of. The ending is unknown. All we get is a "The End" author's note. Luckily, Shaman King Kang Zeng Beng finally showed the ending, but that came out MUCH later.

** {{spoiler|The fact that the [[Grand Finale]] ends here isn't due to Madoka becoming a god, it has more to do with the fact that the show takes great pains to make this series a [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Genre Deconstruction]] for [[Magical Girl]]s. The ending, however, does a '''''complete''''' 180 in tone and direction, while pulling a [[Decon Recon Switch]] along the way. That and the rather suspect/curious [[Faux Symbolism|symbolism]] and timing of the [[Grand Finale]], you have quite a few people still scratching their heads over the whole thing.}}

** {{spoiler|Not to mention that it bears several suspicious similarities to [[The End of Evangelion]].}}

* ''[[Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen]]''. Goddammit. Just... goddammit. {{spoiler|It ends on a horrible cliffhanger, with Mazinger defeated and the Earth seemingly about to be taken over. It seems to be a hook for a Shin Great Mazinger sequel, but there's no plans for one.}}

* ''[[Hanaukyo Maid Tai]]''. A mild version in the second series ''La Verite''. Ryuuka proposes marriage to Taro again and beats him up when he doesn't agree, the other maids all try to kiss him but he escapes. He meets Mariel and they walk off into a white background hand in hand.

** It's actually not clear weather Reiji was hit or not. Also note that both he and Ein have been [[No One Could Survive That|"Killed"]] in the past, only to show up alive-and-well sometime later. Whatever the case, the pair's survival is a hotly debated topic.

* ''[[Shitsurakuen]]''. With no buildup, a character is suddenly revealed to be the [[Big Bad]]. In a dream sequence. There is no final battle either; the main character solves the conflict by making up an ending to a story. [[The Un-Reveal|Which we never get to see.]] And [[Les Yay|the yuri harem?]] {{spoiler|[[Bait and Switch Lesbians|Almost all of them end up with guys.]]}} Just to make things more confusing, the collected edition adds an extra chapter, making it a [[Revised Ending]].

* The anime version of ''[[Soul Eater]]'' suffered from this, mostly because it [[Overtook the Manga]]. A punch of "courage" was all it took to end Asura (who represented terror) in the anime. The manga hasn't even reached that point yet. This is after Asura was completely [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomping]] everyone with their respective weapons.

 

* The ending to DC's ''[[Final Crisis]]'' is really beyond explanation or understanding, as if [[Grant Morrison]] had all these epic ideas but never figured out how to stick them together coherently.

** This is what happens in the end: [[Darkseid]] had become a black hole that was sucking [[The Multiverse]] down. [[Superman]] and the rest of the surviving superheroes shrunk and froze the remaining population to save them in the JLA Satellite while they constructed the [[Deus Ex Machina|Miracle Machine]] from Superman's memories in the [[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|30th century]]. Once the Miracle Machine was constructed, Superman killed Darkseid's soul with a note of music vibrating at the exact opposite frequency. Then Mandrakk the Dark Monitor appeared and Superman powered the Miracle Machine with the solar energy in his cells and Nix Uoton, who had become the Judge of All Evil when a Rubik's cube transformed into a [[New Gods|Motherbox]], brought forth [[Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew]], the Angels of the Pax Dei, the Forever People of Earth-51, and the entire friggin' [[The Chosen Many|Green Lantern Corps]] who stake Mandrakk and then help pull Earth out of the black hole, while the Miracle Machine restores the rest of the Multiverse (since Superman had asked for a "happy ending"). Then Nix Uuton declares that the Monitors should interfere no more and the Overvoid swallows them all up (they presumably turn into normal humans like Nix did). And [[Batman]] is stuck in the Stone Age due to Darkseid's Omega Sanction, where he carefully lays to rest Anthro. See? Simple.

* ''[[Ronin (comics)|Ronin]]'' seems like a fairly straight-forward comic until the end where you find out that everything you knew was a lie. It all ends with most of the story wrapped up with a couple mild questions still lingering... and then the very last page throws everything out the window and raises several more.

 

 

* On the subject of the [[Mind Screw]] subtype of Gainax Ending, ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''. Essays have been written. [[Epileptic Trees|Many,]] [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|many,]] [[Wild Mass Guessing|essays.]] (The book was slightly better explained.)

* ''[[The Shining]]'' ends with a photograph from 1921 which in the foreground showed... Jack Nicholson. Whatever this means is up to the viewer.

** It's also something of a [[Brick Joke]]. A "famous historian" is slaughtered by a knight early in the film, and we get little snippets of the police tracking Arthur and his knights between scenes.

** And there's an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: The ending is a "cop-out".

* ''[[Lawn Dogs]]'' is a fairly realistic and depressing movie about the friendship between a 10 year old girl, Devon, and a 21 year old lower-class outsider, Trent. You know it's going to end bad, when {{spoiler|after Devon shoots the man who is beating up Trent and helps him to his car, she gives Trent a comb and a mirror and asks him to throw them out the window as he drives away, to cover his tracks. When he later does so, a river rises up underneath him, and a forest sprouts up behind him.}} This actually makes some sense metaphorically and was slightly set up, but still seems to come completely out of nowhere.

** It probably makes more sense if you read [[wikipedia:The Water Nixie|a lot of fairy tales]] as a kid. That sort of thing comes up [[wikipedia:Nix Nought Nothing|over and over again]].

* The somewhat obscure Monte Hellman western ''[[The Shooting]]'', from 1966, has an ending that raises a lot more questions than it answers.

* ''[[Monster a Go-Go!]]'': at the end, the monster suddenly never existed, and the astronaut who everyone thought had turned into said monster turns up alive in the North Atlantic. It leaves a number of questions unanswered, starting with "then why did you have footage of the monster wandering around killing people?", moving through "why did we get to see, in graphic detail, every preparation the military made to hunt this monster that doesn't exist?", and finish up somewhere around "what the flying rat heck?!?"

 

* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[From a Buick 8]]'' and especially 'The Colorado Kid' are based on this theme: the mysterious death of the titular character from 'Kid' is no closer to resolution at the end than the beginning.

** His Dark Tower series could be considered for this trope as well. Although the ending does tie into the overall theme of 'ka' (Karma/fate) as being a wheel, so it could be taken as a more symbolic ending.

* Joe Haldeman has written several novels (Mindbridge, Forever Peace, Worlds trilogy) where the plot seems to have come to a halt, and the resolution apparently is to introduce an all-powerful, invisible, sadistic alien that randomly murders and tortures several of the characters. Then this alien wanders off, apparently satisfied it's made its point, whatever that was. Then the plot continues to some anti-climatic 'and life goes on' type of ending.

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: ''[[The Aeneid]]'' is an ancient example of this: the story literally ends with Aeneas killing [[Big Bad|Turnus]] and Turnus going to hell. (That's assuming that his [[Author Existence Failure]] wasn't at fault, and that the relevant pages aren't just missing, as happens with much ancient literature.)

* ''[[Legacy of the Force]]'' is particularly bittersweet, but it raises two questions: Is Jacen redeemed or not, and how the hell did Daala become president? But between the fanservice, the [[Cain and Abel]], the [[Shotacon]], and the like, Gainax could've written it.

* A.E. van Vogt's fixup novel ''Weapon Shops of Isher'', which is mostly about the titular weapon shops, the Isher Empire that opposes them, and an immortal man trying to keep them in balance, ends with an alien concluding that humanity is "the race that shall rule the sevagram". This is the first time anyone in the story has mentioned a sevagram, and we never learn what it actually is.

* ''[[Warm Bodies]]'' makes clear that its zombies aren't simply diseased humans, and implies early on that they're in some way supernatural, but most of the story plays out in a pseudo-realistic fashion. Then the ending all but states that zombies are a consequence of human sin, and explicitly calls upon [[The Power of Love]] to fight them. This doesn't outright contradict anything earlier in the story, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

* Almost all of the novels of [[Bret Easton Ellis]] have or border on having Gainax Endings. The most well known of these is the ending of [[American Psycho]] where the main character [[Unreliable Narrator|may or may not]] have imagined everything, with evidence supporting both theories.

* The ending of ''[[The Last Battle]]'', the final book in ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. You can read the summary [http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Battle here].

 

* ''[[The Prisoner]]'' is one of the earliest examples. A synopsis exists at [[wikipedia:Fall Out (The Prisoner)|Wikipedia]].

* ''[[Kamen Rider|Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'' managed to pull off an [[Everybody Lives]] ending without ruining its [[There Can Be Only One]] premise, ''and'' while justifying the alternative continuities of the movie ("Episode Final") and the TV special ("13 Riders"). It's just damn confusing the first time you watch it, mainly because it's something of a [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]].

* Most ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' sketches and episodes end in bizarre fashion. When the troupe felt that a sketch had run its course, they'd drop a 16-ton weight; have the "Stop, this is silly!" officer enter; or segue into an animated sequence, news broadcast or documentary. This was a reaction against conventional sketch comedy where every sketch had to have a [[Punch Line]]. The Pythons thought it would be funnier to deliberately subvert convention, and were dismayed to find that their comic mentor [[Spike Milligan]] had done it first with his show ''Q5'' (Many of Milligan's sketches ended with everyone stopping what they were doing and shuffling offstage chanting "What are we going to do now?" ''shuffle, shuffle, shuffle'' "What are we going to do now?").

** The episode that ended with The Argument Sketch turned the Gainax Ending almost into an art form. All episode long, sketches had been ending with the police entering and making arrests, and the Argument Sketch was going to be no different. Then another police officer comes in to arrest the whole show for Gainax Ending abuse, only to suddenly realize that his doing so made him guilty of the same thing. As was true for the next cop who entered to arrest ''him'', etcetera ad inifinitum.

** Much of [[Monty Python]]'s humor made fun of how British comedy shows were written, produced and performed, something [[Write What You Know|the members knew about all too well]], as they were veteran British comedy writers themselves. They hated punchlines and how anticlimactic they were compared to the goings-on within the sketches, so they did away with them or [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded their arrivals]] .

* In the American remake of ''[[Life On Mars]]'', Sam Tyler is a New York detective from 2008 who somehow found himself in 1973. Was he mad? Lying in a coma in a 2006 hospital bed, dreaming of 1973? Back in time? None of the above. Sam and his fellow officers from 1973 were really all from 2035. They were astronauts on the first manned Mars mission, and were kept sedated, with artificially-induced dreams, for the voyage.

* On the note of ''Stargate SG-1'', that show ended with Daniel, Vala, Carter, Teal'c, and General Landry spending several decades in a time bubble while Carter tries to figure out a way to get them out of their current predicament. Unlike previous seasons, none of the season's major plot threads are resolved, and the episode, while poignant, is a huge [[Mind Screw]] when placed as a [[Series Finale]]. The reason for this is that the creators were convinced they'd be picked up for an 11th Season (unlike every other season where they were sure they'd be cancelled), and saw no need to tie up loose ends this time around.

** Though they did change the ending of the finale at the last minute so it wouldn't be a total cliffhanger, and later came out with two movies to clean up the major [[Knight Templar|surviving]] [[Affably Evil|baddies]].

* Brazilian sitcom ''Toma Lá Dá Cá'' last episode: the cast was about to be killed by an invasion. And since one of the main actors is the main writer of the show, [[Post Modernism|they hand him a laptop and order him to write an ending that saves them]]... involving the arrival of an alien ship, which had previously "rescued" a character [[Put on a Bus]].

* Joss Whedon's ''[[Dollhouse]]'' kindly gave us the [[Lost Episode]] first season finale "Epitaph One", which is ''really'' different from all the episodes that preceded it. The series finale "Epitaph Two" is a little bit less of a [[Mind Screw]] ending only in that it's setting was somewhat foreshadowed in the latter half of the second season and it is a direct sequel to "Epitaph One". It still counts as an extreme case of this trope though. Think of all those viewers who watched it without having even ''heard of'' "Epitaph One"...

* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' threw one in the third season finale, the Xindi plot was resolved in a totally sane ([[Crowning Moment of Awesome|and awesome]]) way, and the Enterprise goes back to Earth, without their Captain, who they believe is dead. They try to call Starfleet and no one responds, so figuring some sort of communications difficulties they send a shuttlepod down to San Francisco. They meet a flight of American P-51D Mustangs. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Captain Archer has been discovered unconscious by Nazi soldiers. One of them asks the others in the group if they recognize his uniform. The camera pans over each of the officers until finally one steps out of the shadows and reveals himself as an unknown alien wearing a Nazi uniform. Roll credits.

** A ''lot'' of fans who had been enjoying the Xindi arc threw up their hands and stopped watching the series in frustration at that point. Amazingly, however, the next season managed to explain/resolve the Evil Alien Nazis story in a not-entirely-stupid fashion.

* The final episode of ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' ends with the leader of The Midnight Society {{spoiler|of the previous generation finishing his story, which happened to be about the ''real'' supernatural events occurring to the members of the ''current'' generation of the Midnight Society}}.

 

* [[The Beatles]]' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJhcGepfG04 "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da,"] about Desmond and Molly Jones, a market vendor and a singer, respectively. They fall in love, get married, and have kids. The second-to-last stanza describes Desmond and his children working in the marketplace while Molly still enjoys her singing career. But the final stanza switches their roles, putting ''Molly'' in the marketplace and ''Desmond'' (who is now apparently a woman) in the band.

** This was an accidental case; they weren't paying proper attention during the recording, but decided to [[Throw It In|keep it as-is]] because they thought it was neat.

** That ain't got nothing on "I Am the Walrus."

 

 

* ''Our House'' the ''Madness'' musical: was always going to have two endings due to the parallel universes plot. However, even after these are resolved via {{spoiler|dual [[Karmic Twist Ending]]s}} there's still time for a third 'ending' to turn it all into a [[Shaggy Dog Story]] (done by introducing a ''third'' option in the life-changing event at the beginning of the play which would mean none of the things we've just been watching happened at all.) Oh well. Song and dance number!

{{quote|Einstein feels a sneeze coming on, and takes his handkerchief from his pocket. In Act II, he realizes that he is not going to sneeze after all, and he puts his handkerchief back in his pocket in Act III. ** (The whole thing is a parody of ''Einstein on the Beach'', an opera by [[Philip Glass]] and [[Robert Wilson]], which is notorious for lasting four and a half hours without plot.)}}

** This is the summary of the epilogue [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|supposedly tacked on by PDQ Bach]]:

{{quote|Einstein goes down to Hades to bring back his cousin Sophie, avenge the murder of his brother at the hands of Tsar Ivan the Inside Trader, slays the dragon guarding the entrance to the Golden Cave, seduces the Count's daughter on the eve of her wedding, and unites Italy.}}

 

* The ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' series is probably the best example of this. Although the second game is pretty straightforward, the first one still has people arguing about it on forums. Also, not a single damned person has a bit of an idea about what the ending of the third game means at all.

** Or the entire game, for that matter.

* ''[[Treasure]]'' games are probably the most notorious of this trope, with their [[Mood Whiplash|unexpected mood swing]], [[Faux Symbolism|symbolic references]] and/or [[Downer Ending]]s (''[[Gunstar Heroes]]'', ''[[Silhouette Mirage]]'', ''[[Radiant Silvergun]]'' to name a few) to complement their [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] leave many to think that they are the [[Gainax]] equivalent to videogames.

** ''[[Astro Boy Omega Factor]]'''s ending: A giant machine called Death Mask appears right the fuck out of nowhere and kills all robots on Earth, including Astro. Roll credits. {{spoiler|Fortunately, this turns out to be just the halfway point of the game, and the rest involves Astro getting unstuck in time thanks to the Phoenix and jumping around the game's timeline to find out how to prevent this from happening.}}

** It makes sense when you consider the boss of Stage 5 is a robotic body Mr. X controlled via {{spoiler|his [[Brain In a Jar]]. If he was able to get his brain into a jar then there's no reason he couldn't have multiple bodies to control, or backups, seeing as how he's supposed to be dead, if not critically injured by the end of the second game.}}

** ...and after {{spoiler|the bad ending route's stage 7, you see him safe and sound like nothing happened. [[Cloning Blues|May be a sign that he really loves cloning himself that way.]]}}

** And the boss itself? [[Mind Screw|Let's not even get started on that]].

* ''[[Oracle of Tao]]''.

** Even if you win, the ending depends on your ending party. That is, you can "win" with the wrong party and have most/all of the party die (since the final boss has a final attack scripted by the story).

* At the end of ''[[Mother 3]]'', Lucas {{spoiler|pulls the final Needle and awakens the Dragon, which destroys the world. A giant THE END screen pops up... but if you use the D-Pad, you can walk around and talk to the various characters. Whether Lucas created a new world for his friends and family, or destroyed the world and put everyone in the afterlife}} is up to you to interpret.

* ''Tir Na Nog'' and ''Dun Darach'', by Gargoyle Games for the old ZX Spectrum had (for the time) incredibly huge animated sprites (56 pixels high!!) and deep, deliberately obscure gameplay, and partly thanks to the slow pace took hours and hours to finish. When you finished the first, the screen changed colour slightly a few times. When you finished the second, you entered an entirely black room with the words "ta from gg" on the wall. And. That's. It.

* After killing the Enderdragon in ''[[Minecraft]]'', you're treated to {{spoiler|a wall of scrolling text depicting a discussion between two [[Sentient Cosmic Force]]s discussing '''[[Breaking the Fourth Wall|you]]''', the player of the game. [http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/End_Poem The discussion in question] implies that the entire game was [[All Just a Dream]], life as we know it is merely an even bigger dream, the many mobs we fought in the game were the darkness in our hearts, and humanity's entire existence is a quest to understand itself.}}

 

* Every ''[[YouTube Poop]]'' '''ever!''' It makes sense, considering the videos themselves in turn aren't even supposed to make sense to begin with.

** In fact, [[Walrus Guy]]'s last-ever [[YouTube Poop]] was titled [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OVCpD-7nI4 "One More Final: I Need You(Tube Poop)"], which is a reference to the ''original'' Gainax Ending of [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]].

* An episode of [[Salad Fingers]] ends with the title character having his head eaten by a clone. Or was that the clone?

* ''[[There Will Be Brawl]]''. Hoo ''boy.'' The reveal of {{spoiler|Kirby}} as the ultimate mastermind and {{spoiler|Ness and Lucas jointly acting}} as "the Butcher" isn't too hard to understand. The ''really'' weird stuff happens after the final battle when we see Kirby is still alive, has murdered ''[[Rage Against the Author|Masahiro Sakurai]]'', and presumably is about to off ''[[Shigeru Miyamoto]]'' in the same way before it fades to black. Buh?

* The ending of [[The Angry Video Game Nerd|James Rolfe's]] ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131029130028/http://cinemassacre.com/2006/06/11/wizard-of-oz-3-dorothy-goes-to-hell-2006/ Dorothy Goes To Hell.]''

* The original ''Ryan Vs. Dorkman'' ends with {{spoiler|Dorkman successfully offing Ryan and walking away to leave - only for Ryan to reappear and ignite a lightsaber through Dorkman's chest}}. It didn't make any sense until the ending of ''Ryan Vs. Brandon 2'', which reveals that {{spoiler|there is a bunch of Ryan clones - this also explains why Ryan has lost every single one of his fights and manages to come back alive}}.

 

* Decades before Studio Gainax became known for this stuff, [[Fleischer Studios]] loved having totally bizarre, unpredictable endings. One prominent example would be the ending of ''[[Bimbo's Initiation]]'', which ends with the leader of the cult "Do-It-Or-Die" be revealed to be [[Betty Boop]], who seduces Bimbo into being a member. Once Bimbo accepts, the other cult members show themselves—and then rip off their disguises, revealing themselves to all look like Betty, and then they dance to the end.

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Rosebud".

* ''[[Total Drama Island|Total Drama World Tour]]'''s finale may also be considered. The challenge involves the final two racing to throw driftwood-and-pineapple sculptures of each other into a volcano in Hawaii. Okay. But once Heather does so, Ezekiel suddenly shows up, steals the money and falls into the volcano, completing his nonsensical [[The Lord of the Rings|Gollum subplot]]. Then we suddenly find out that [[Ass Pull|pineapples make]] [[Chekhov's Volcano|volcanoes erupt]]. Everybody races down the mountain and into the water, Alejandro gets horrifically burned, Ezekiel flies out of the volcano and sinks Chris' ship, and the show cuts off just as everyone's swimming for their lives and Heather looks like she's about to be crushed by a rock. Given that the new season will have all-new characters, [[Fridge Horror|this implies things]] [[Inferred Holocaust|didn't end well]].

** {{spoiler|[[Everybody Lives]]. Except for (possibly) Blaineley. Even Ezekiel, who goes on to survive other severely life-threatening incidents.}}

* Several episodes of ''[[The Ren and Stimpy Show]]'' end in this way:

** "Aloha Hoek" has Ren and Stimpy getting stranded on an island. Long story short, it ends with them taking off their disguises, revealing they're really human [[Not Even Bothering with the Accent|"Russian"]] spies (who talk like [[The Flintstones|Fred and Barney]] for some reason) and riding off in a submarine.

* The ending of Disney's ''[[The Three Caballeros]]''.

* Some episodes of ''[[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]]'' ends this way, like "Chambraigne".

* The non-canonical ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' short [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuSshdGE1Lo "School Time Shipping"] ends with Katara dating the Blue Spirit. No, NOT Zuko. Zuko stands right there, watching.

** One could also call parts of the series ending, a Gainax Ending. Especially the part where Zuko visits his dad in jail and demands he tell him where his mother is. We never get the answer to that question.

*** It's even brought up in the sequel series where one of Katara's grandchildren tries to learn the story of Zuko finding his mom. Katara makes it out to be really epic and then another grandchild butts in before the story is even told.

* The ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Mommy Can You Hear Me?" plays out as a normal episode, with Candace trying to bust the boys while they try to send their astronaut friend Sergei, who is searching for wormholes, a birthday message. Long story short, Candace, in her attempt to bust the two, accidentally sends a message to Sergei that leads him to a wormhole. Everything is wrapped up, but Phineas is still bummed that he never wished Sergei a happy birthday. Cut to Sergei, who is now lying in bed as an old man akin to the end of ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''. Ferb appears as a starchild, floats up to him and whispers, "Happy birthday". Sergei responds, "They did remember. Such nice boys."

** Same thing with "The Curse of Candace". Starts out normal, with Candace thinking she's a vampire, thanks to a [[Twilight (novel)|teen vampire movie]], among other things. She confronts her brothers about this at the end, and they explain the reason behind some of her vampire powers. So thus, they take off the cloak she was wearing, exposing the sun to her and... {{spoiler|she turns to dust}}. A bemused remark from Phineas, and then? Roll credits. Of course, since he said {{spoiler|"Ferb, I think we're gonna need a dustpan and some glue,"}} it could be that {{spoiler|they actually managed to put her back together. Given that it's Phineas and Ferb, it's not impossible.}} But it's still really weird.

{{quote|'''Pinkie Pie:''' And that's how Equestria was made!! }}

** She then goes on to add "Maybe one day I'll tell you how I got my cutie mark!" Cue head explosions.

* ''[[South Park]]'' has the episode "Royal Pudding". The Royal Canadian Wedding is interrupted when the princess gets kidnapped and Kyle's little brother Ike (who is Canadian) has to rescue her. At the end, Ike rescues the princess they have the royal wedding, but after the "I do's", the prince tears off the princess' arm and shoves it up his ass.<ref>As is tradition</ref> It [[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context]].

* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' cartoon "Riff Raffy Daffy", Daffy ends up tricking Porky into letting him sleep in the department store by taking out a couple of wind-up ducks and presenting them as his "[[I Have a Family|children]]". In the end, as Porky walks away, it's revealed that he understands what Daffy's going through because ''his kids are also wind-up toys''.

 

* Death. It comes suddenly and often with no warnings, leaving many loose ends to our individual stories, and extends to the people affected by the death.

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:This Might Be an Index]]

[[Category:Ending Tropes]]

[[Category:Twist Ending]]

[[Category:Writer Cop Out]]