I watched the final episode of an anime because an acquaintance told me it was interesting. It wasn't really my cup of tea, so I was only half-paying attention while doing other things. It's a brutal world where people die easily, and the protagonist, a young boy, and the heroine, a young girl, continue to fight painful and bitter battles to protect people. The young heroine is head-over-heels for the older protagonist and acts like an uninvited wife, while he just shrugs and brushes her off with a "good grief" attitude.
In the final episode, having overcome the deaths of many people, the protagonist and heroine achieve a great feat and are scheduled to be commended for their contributions. As they are riding a train to the award ceremony, the train suddenly stops, and an announcement says, "A person has been hit by the train." The protagonist shrugs and mutters, "Looks like we're going to be late for the ceremony." The heroine looks down and thinks about the victim of the accident (probably a suicide), wondering, "Was it painful? Was it hard for them?"
Witnessing the heroine like that makes the protagonist snap back to reality. Flashes of people who died miserably and comrades who perished in battle race through his mind. Suddenly, the protagonist clings to the heroine's lap as if begging for support, starts sobbing like a child, and utters a heartbreaking plea: "I'm terrified that I'm becoming numb to human death. Stay by my side forever. Don't abandon me." The heroine weeds tears, hugs the protagonist's shoulder, and says, "It's going to be alright," and the story ends.
I had been watching it absentmindedly, thinking it was a shallow piece of work, but this ending was unexpected and bittersweet.
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No, that's not VOTOMS. VOTOMS is a masterpiece. It's a crappy anime called Black Bullet. The original work is probably a light novel. My impression of it was that it was just another cliché "good-grief" protagonist building a harem and dominating everything with "I'm-so-strong" overpowered nonsense, a pedophilic anime, so I was half-watching it while playing a game.
Set in a worldview similar to Attack on Titan, the protagonist, who has been steadily losing his humanity while fighting through numerous tragedies, realizes how messed up he is through the contrast with the young, pure heroine, and breaks down crying, clinging to her. That very last scene of the final episode felt almost like a masterpiece. Up until then, I had mostly just been listening to the audio, but it made me involuntarily turn my eyes to the screen.
Combined with the voice acting, the direction, and the ending song, I'm embarrassed to admit it actually brought a tear to my eye. The ending song sung by Nagi Yanagi is also really good.