Level E - Episode 13 (Completed)

With bodyguard Colin outed as an accomplice to Baka's brother and bride to be, and with the prince's (or rather, Yukitaka's) home bugged, for once the boot is well and truly on the other foot as Level E's closing episode begins.

Of course, with Baka's level of rather frightening genius on offer, there's still an opportunity to turn things around, and between some research of documents left for Baka by his sort-of fiancée and a throw-away comment by Yukitaka and Miho, it seems as though he's figured it out - his real brother and potential bride have been kidnapped by occupants of Dogura's moon Magura, in the hope of having the prince marry an imposter and thus creating a perfect opportunity to give the latter moon a fairer stake in universal affairs against their "big brother".

Of course, this being Level E things aren't quite that simple, and while Baka's plans to out these imposters seem to have succeeded to make for the expected ending with the real fiancée and brother safe from harm, everything turns on its head when Baka decides to marry the supposed imposter instead.  Only she isn't the imposter at all, but rather the prince's actual, originally assigned bride, as even Baka finds himself fooled for once.


Thus, just like its opening story arc, Level E goes out on a much needed (and really quite wonderful) bang that defies all expectations while somehow continuing to make perfect sense with each of its machinations, twists and turns.  This makes for a fantastic ending to a series that has delivered some great story arcs early on, before losing its way rather and only "finding itself" once again within this final episode.  It's a bit of a shame that this show ended up sagging in the middle as it did, as it puts a bit of a dampener on what felt like one of the winter's freshest shows, but ignoring some of those weaker story arcs Level E managed to give us some great moments to remember when we talk about 2011's anime highlights further down the line, so for that if nothing else we should be thankful - I doubt any other series will leave us feeling stupid with our minds twisted quite like this series in its pomp.