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While this is a solid comedy and adventure anime (similar to western 90s Saturday morning cartoons)with above average artwork and superb voice acting that I believe more people should watch, the second half of the final episode was disappointing. It even soured the whole experience for me.
Summary of the second half marked as spoilers, I swear none of this is made up.
A couple of dimension portals made by Tondekeman's children appear, Aladdin falls into one of them and the group of heroes is forced to split up. Unknown to them, most of them will never meet again as all of them lead into alternative realities.
Hayato, Yumi (our protagonists)and Leonardo return, together, to their timeline. Due to a time paradox, all of them are cloned multiple times. Hayato and his clones become a soccer team only made up of Hayatos. Yumi and her clones form a band. Leonardo and his clones form a company but they are so bad with money that they all get arrested due to excessive debt. That’s the last we see of them. (there were excess clones of all three of them but those weren't taken into account by the staff)
Princess Shalala and her lover Dandan get their own timeline on earth starting in the stone age. They reproduce like crazy. Both of them are airheads, and so are their kids. All seem to be happy with it though... so I guess this is an ok ending for them (let’s just ignore this would never work in real life, gene pool issues and all that)
Aladdin, his pet dragon Doramusuko and Abdullah, characters that were enemies before but somehow get along now, are stuck in a world with Dinosaurs., Normaly they would freeze to death, but Aladdin, Doramusuko and Abdullah prevent that. The dinosaurs form a human-like society and their three rescuers are worshiped as gods to this day, long after their death. Poor guys, stuck in a world without humans, without any chance for love... sounds depressing. Especially Aladdin and Doramusuko didn't deserve this.
Evil head honcho Oratoru just gets mentioned once and a still-frame of him. He's shown as an old man, said to be living out his life a a bachelor. A fitting punishment for the only real bad guy in the show, but very poor writing. This part seems to have been rushed
The spirit of the lamp apparently lives on as a kind of Superman (comic hero) He was flying out of a phone booth two episodes prior to the finale, and during Leonardo's arrest, he is working as a reporter. This actually sounds fine, considering he is his own master now, not Abdullah's toy anymore.
Time Travel Machine Tondekeman himself got broken due to overuse in the previous episode, but is then revived by an alien machine species that looks just like him, now living happily with his newfound wife (female kettle) and children, and causing all of the above mentioned chaos.
The final scene of the anime is him, his wife and children traveling to a different dimension, swearing to make everyone there happy.
I'm aware I'm taking this show too seriously but there's a limit on how far and comedy can go before the audience feels uncomfortable. For me, and looking at the few Japanese comments I found regarding the show's finale, that was the case with this ending.
The characters were separated without getting a chance to say goodbye. living in mostly objectively terrible situations. While Tondekeman explicitly states everyone on earth is happy now, what we were shown on screen doesn't correspond with that.
Just send Hayato and Yumi home, arrest Oratoru, redeem Abdullah (guy was the true protagonist anyway, he had all the best scenes) and let him live with Aladdin & his pet, Shalala and Dandan in their hometown in their era. Not everything was bad though. The idea with Tondekeman’s wife and the spirit of the lamp, finally free at last, was great.
I'd be delighted if this helps anyone understand the ending. Please still give this anime a chance. Despite my negative impressions, I find it worth watching.
