The task of taking a hard stance on Rikka's future then falls to Take on Me, the film that puts a bow on these conflicts once and for all. Spoilers aside, I think Take on Me handles its resolution in about the best way we could realistically hope; personally, I wish that Chuunibyou had taken itself a lot more seriously in the end (which may seem like a stupid thing to say on its face), but the ending with which Take on Me leaves the series is likely the most substantial and satisfying that could have been achieved without Kyoto Animation bending over backwards to give us another Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (for a franchise that, all things considered, might not have been able to sustain such a dramatic scaling up). There are times when the film veers dangerously close to various other endings that would have left the series in a much different place - some for better, some for worse - but it winds up with a solution that feels like a promise of maturation. Even if I don't see it in front of me, as much as I would have liked to, the knowledge that things will, in fact, work out serves as enough of an ending in this particular case. As for Rikka's and Yuuta's actual relationship, the conceit that Yuuta has barely found himself capable of h*lding hands with his live-in moe-blob girlfriend of 6+ months is outrageous; perhaps not unrealistic, given the fact that Yuuta is an awkward teenager and both parties are shown to be particularly shy, but I wish this franchise had picked much more satisfying places to play at verisimilitude. Yuuta's stalling and blushing verge on the intolerable.
Take on Me doesn't do a whole lot to advance that relationship, at least in the conventional sense. With a typically unsatisfying romantic angle eating up most of the time and a plot that's otherwise fairly predictable, underpinned by animation that lacks the characteristic gif-ability of the series and writing that matches, it's the slapstick antics of Dekomori and Nibutani that make much of the film worth watching. Really, this was Beating Around the Bush: The Anime. I felt I was watching people mess around while waiting for the real development to happen - development that would only be implied in the final minutes, of course - and even if that assessment comes off in a harsher way than I intend it (I still give this straight 7s across the board, after all), I do feel that in the end Chuunibyou never lived up to its full potential, and that's frustrating to me as someone who wanted very badly to get something out of this similar to what I've gotten out of so many Kyoto Animation shows. This finale is passable, acceptable, but not ideal.
Side note: I award 5,000 bonus points for the scene where Yuuta decides that Rikka does not make for a good little sister and that, as someone who actually has two little sisters, there's no way he could have any interest in that sort of thing anyway. Once again, KyoAni goes above and beyond the call of duty in making other anime look like garbage.
