After Kobato disappears, Ushagi erases Kobato from the world, including from everyone’s memories and even from pictures. However, Even after a couple months have passed, Fujimoto keeps having a nagging feeling that something isn’t right, and has flashbacks to memories where children are playing with someone who isn’t there.

Back in his apartment, Fujimoto organizes his closet when he finds a candy on one of his jackets. The candy then causes him to completely remember Kobato. Fujimoto grabs a picture which clearly seems to show someone missing and shows it to Sayaka amd various other people, but they don’t know what he’s talking about.

He then suddenly remembers about Kohaku, and she does remember Kobato. Fujimoto asks Kohaku what Kobato meant when she said she’s going to the place she should be at. Kohaku then tells him: A long time ago, there was an incident that involved the human world, and Kobato was killed. Her wish was to return back to that time.

Kohaku further explains that she and Shuichiro have had several sad partings, but every time that he is reborn, their hearts call to each other and they eventually find each other again, and this is because they share the same soul.

Several more years pass, and Fujimoto is now working at a law firm, and he is assigned a case to clear up an inheritance issue with someone’s will, but they need to asses the true boundaries of the person’s property first. Fujimoto arrives, and finds a piano and starts playing on it. When he’s done, he hears a girl singing the same song outside. When the girl arrives it’s…the reborn Kobato. After Fujimoto finishes his work, he gives the candy to Kobato, and it returns all of the memories from the Kobato Fujimoto knew to the new reborn Kobato, and Ushagi returns the memories of Kobato to everyone else.

Whaaaaaa! Gotta love endings that have you reaching for the tissues.

So Kobato left behind her own candy (either incidentally or perhaps by design by Ushagi as a way to “make things OK” without breaking the contract). I have to admit, this series ended a lot differently than I was expecting, but it was still a great ending.

So we find out where Kobato wanted to go – back into the past where she apparently lived with the prior carnation of Fujimoto (thus, her memories of a Fujimoto-like person) and why she was so drawn to him in the first place.

We never do really find out precisely what the ‘incident’ was that caused all this. From what I recall, Ioryogi, Genko, etc. from the Spirit World attacked the Heavenly World to get…something. The resulting battle somehow affected the Human World, killing Kobato, leaving her in some sort of state of limbo. To make up for this, Ioryogi took it upon himself to help Kobato return, but she had to fulfill her contract with God, which is, of course, what much of the series was about.

Having fulfilled this contract with Fujimoto’s candy (and the fact that the two are soul-mates may be why his was so powerful) sent her back, where that Kobato of course lived and died, and as born again as the new Kobato.

We also got to see a glimpse of everyone else too. Ioryogi apparently figured out what was going on (or knew all along) and found the reborn Kobato and watched her from the shadows. Meanwhile, Sayaka reopened the nursery once again.

In any case, I thought this was a very nice ending to a pretty good series.

Kobato wakes up Fujimoto early in the morning, asking if she can help him out that day (and apparently this has now been occurring for a while). While they’re talking, Chihiro shows up and tells Kobato to keep helping Fujimoto out or else he’d overwork himself. Kobato decides to drag Fujimoto around for a walk, saying that she wants him to enjoy himself. All of this agitates Fujimoto, because he’s annoyed by being followed around, and Ioryogi because Kobato isn’t filling her jar.

Finally, Fujimoto just tells her to leave him alone, since he can’t calm down whenever she’s around, and walks off. Soon he finds that he’s walked to where the nursery was, but Kobato catches back up to him. Fujimoto asks her why she keeps concerning herself with him, and so Kobato tells him it’s because he’s an important person to her. When the pair arrive back at the apartment, Ushagi sends Kobato a flower signaling that she has one day left, and Kobato tells Fujimoto that she won’t be able to see him tomorrow. The next day, Kobato moves out of Chihiro’s apartment.

When Fujimoto finally returns, Chihiro tells him that Kobato has moved out, which alarms him, and he runs out to chase after her. Meanwhile, Kobato is waiting in the playground where she arrived, where Ushagi comes for them. Ushagi is about to take Kobato away, but he has to hide himself because Fujimoto has arrived to demand from Kobato what she’s doing. Kobato can’t really explain why she’s going away so finally….Ioryogi speaks up.

He tells Fujimoto (who is obviously alarmed at seeing a stuffed animal speak) that Kobato has to leave because of her contract. Ioryogi tells Kobato to take off her hat, so Kobato does, revealing a ghostly crown above her head. Ioryogi explains that Kobato is dead, and her soul doesn’t belong to any world. However, she made a contract with someone in heaven (presumably God) that gave her a chance to relive her life. However, Kobato decided to spend her time with Fujimoto instead, and thus broke her contract.

At that point, Ushagi arrives and puts up a barrier around Kobato to prepare to take her away, and Kobato tells Fujimoto that she loves him. Then, something activates within Fujimoto, and he unwittingly breaks Ushagi’s barrier. That something turns into a candy that enters Kobato’s jar, but is powerful enough to fill the jar and complete her contract.

However, now there is a new problem: the contract calls for Kobato to be taken to “the place she wants to go” as specified in her contract, not stay on earth. Kobato disappears, leaving Ioryogi and Fujimoto.

Wow…just wow. I’m not sure what to make of Fujimoto breaking Ushagi’s barrier. I don’t know if it was the fact that his candy was so powerful that it filled her bottle (and why was it so powerful?) or if he has some sort of power that he doesn’t know about (there has been some suggestion that he knew Kobato in the past too).

Also, I guess this explains why Kobato is always wearing a hat.  I didn’t even really notice until a few episodes ago when Ioryogi warned Kobato when her hat was about to fly off.

So we have one more episode to go. Kobato is gone to…wherever. Ioryogi is still left behind, as far as I can tell, so I guess we may get to hear more from him, explaining to Fujimoto, what exactly is going on. And, of course, we have to see if Fujimoto and Kobato can be reunited at the end.

This episode begins Kobato dreaming of someone who looks like Fujimoto playing the piano for her younger self. When Kobato wakes up, Ioryogi asks if she was having a really good dream, since Kobato had a huge smaile on her face. Kobato says yes, but then can’t remember what her dream was about.

Kobato helps Sayaka clean out the nursery, but Fujimoto gets in a bad mood about it closing again, and refuses to return, and instead just works at his other jobs. However, Kobato urges him to come back one more time, and he finally relents. Back at her apartment, Kobato remains all depressed, and Ioryogi asks if it’s about Fujimoto. Kobato asks what he’s talking about, and Ioryogi just responds by asking if she’s unaware of her own feelings.

It’s finally the day that the nursery is being torn down, and Ioryogi decides that he’s going to go out for the day, and Kobato goes to watch them tear down the nursery. Ioryogi goes to Genko’s place and proposes capturing someone called Ushagi and using her as leverage against “him,” but Genko and the others are against the idea. We then see a memory of when Ioryogi first met Kobato. Kobato appeared to be floating in some empty world when Ioryogi appeared before her, but that’s the end of the memory we see.

Back at the nursery, Sayaka asks Kobato to be “Fujimoto’s strength.” Sayaka thinks that the nursery was holding Fujimoto down, making him feel like he had to constantly struggle and overachieve. Meanwhile, Fujimoto has been kind of out of it since the close of the nursery and almost walks ot into traffic, and then gets into an accident on his bike while working. On Kobato’s way back home, Chiho and Chise find her and tell her about the accident, so Kobato goes to the hospital, but Fujimoto is mad that she found out about his injury, and he tells her that if she tries to cheer him up out of pity, to stop because it’s annoying.

This crushes Kobato, but soon Rabbit visits her and gives her a purple flower. Ioryogi then arrives and tells her that the flower means that she has until the next full moon to finishing filling her bottle, or her time is up. Ioryogi then asks Rabbit (who is the Ushagi referenced before) if there is a way to extend the deadline, but Rabbit says there isn’t a way. Back at Genko’s place, they remark that at least Ioryogi feels a sense of responsibility since what he did in the past cause something to happen to Kobato.

Well, Fujimoto is still in a bad mood about the nursery closing (and to my surprise, they did go ahead and demolish it, so so-long to the idea of ultimately saving it), and he ends up taking it out on Kobato by telling her that her trying to cheer him up is annoying, because he thinks she is pitying him.

Meanwhile, Kobato has other problems as she only has one lunar month left to fill her bottle up, and again, and now that the nursery is gone, I’m not sure how she’s going to do it. I presume healing Fujimoto is going to be a big part of that, but surely she can’t fill her entire bottle just by healing him. At least with the nursery, you had the possibility of, if she saved it, getting candies from Sayaka, Fujimoto, and all the children, and perhaps even some of the children’s parents. It would have been like hitting the candy jackpot. I suppose there is still a door for that happening still, but the path to that possibility seems far less clear now.

There are only 2 more episodes left, so things are going to have to come to a head pretty quickly, and we still don’t even know the full history about Ioryogi and Kobato.

Kobato decides to give her “best” chocolate to Fujimoto, but by leaving it at his door. At the nursery the next day, the children keep asking her who she gave it to, Kobato resists telling, but is soon interrupted by the arrival of Okiura. He asks to speak to Sayaka, who lets him in.. Sayaka asks Okiura why he’s changed so much. He just says that this is the real him but Sayaka doesn’t believe him.

Okiura goes on and asks her what’s more important: the nursery, or sticking out till the end and potentially putting the children in danger when they come to bulldoze the nursery. This finally causes Sayaka to relent and say that she’ll close the nursery, but asks Okiura to wait until the graduation ceremony. Kobato decides that she’s going to go to Okiura’s place to try to convince him not to close the nursery, but Fujimoto urges her not to go. Instead, Fujimoto goes to talk to the thug who got sick in front of the nursery. He doesn’t see the big problem since Sayaka decided to close down, but Fujimoto says he’s still going to fight.

The thug tells Fujimoto that “the President,” Okiura’s father, has had his eyes on the nursery for a while. He conned Sayaka’s father into taking out the loan, and if he were really serious bout it, could make life even worse for the nursery than what it already is. That’s why Okiura is dealing with it – playing the “bad guy” to prevent his father from getting involved and to protect Sayaka.

Finally, it’s time for the nursery school graduation, and Kobato sees Okiura in front of the nursery, but before she can run out to talk to him he leaves. That night, she tells Chihiro about it, and says that he looked lonely and sad, even though he was the one who told them to get out. Chihiro remarks that maybe he still loves Sayaka, but Kobato asks why he would do things to make Sayaka sad. Chihiro explains that sometimes, because you love someone…misunderstandings can happen.

The next day, Kobato is out in town and sees the thug again, and decides to follow him. She begs him to let her see Okiura, but she tells her that she should stay out of it. Kobato decides to wait outside until Okiura leaves so she can catch him. Finally Okiura relents and comes out of the building. He thinks she’s there to talk about the nursery, but instead Kobato asks him, if he still loves Sayaka, why is he doing what he’s doing, and making her and everyone else sad. He simply tells Kobato that he can’t restrain his father’s power, so he’s doing this to protect Sayaka.

This answer seems to satisfy Kobato, as it seems to show that he still does love Sayaka, and then out of exhaustion, Kobato faints. The next day at the nursery, Fujimoto tells Sayaka that Okiura was doing what he was doing to protect her, and that she should forgive him, since he’s the only person who can make her happy. Okiura then arrives carrying Kobato. When Kobato wakes up, she tells Sayaka that if she still loves Okiura (who just left), that she should chase after him, which she then does. Kobato then gets two more candies in her jar.

Wow. A lot going on in this episode. Sayaka finally relents and closes down the nursery, and we end up finding out that Okiura decided to take what he saw as the best of two bad roads, and decided to be the bad guy towards Sayaka to prevent the even worse happening of his father getting directly involved.

The debt problem getting solved seems less and less likely, though one would think that is how Kobato is going to finish off her jar of candies. I just hope it isn’t some cheesy Fruits Basket (the anime) ending where Kobato goes to see “The President” and then begs and cries and the President suddenly sees the errors of his ways.

That sort of thing kind of worked in this episode because Okiura was never really “bad” to begin with – he was just playing the part. But now that Sayaka has surrendered the nursery, there really isn’t a reason to play it anymore.

Kobato decides that the nursery should hold a Valentine’s Day party, though Fujimoto thinks it’s an odd idea, and has to explain the purpose of V-Day to Kobato to explain why he thinks so. Undeterred, Kobato still wants to have one, and says that Tirol will give them the chocolate if Kobato will work for it, and Fujimoto finally relents and agrees to the party.

One night at Tirol, Kobato sees a strange light coming from the alley next to Tirol, and then hears voices. When she checks out who it is, she sees that it’s Syaoran, Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona from Tsubasa (where is Sakura? so I haven’t finished with Tsubasa. so sue me.), except Kurogana has the same voice as Ioryogi. Ioryogi sneaks out to see what’s taking Kobato so long, and then sees “the one from the amusement park” (Mokona Land, from episode 17).

Kobato ends up letting the group sleep in her room overnight, and Fai has the idea of sending Syaoran to help at Tirol with Kobato to help pay her back. While they work, Syaoran explains that he keeps traveling, but they don’t really have a destination. Kobato also says that she has a place she wants to go. Syaoran asks if she wants to meet a person she longs to see, which seems to trigger a vision of Fujimoto playing the piano.

Kobato and Syaoran return home, and Fai gives Kobato money from his and Kurogane’s work that day for payment for helping them. Suddenly, Mokona’s earring lights up, which means that they must travel to the next world already.

The next, day, the kids at the nursery make chocolate from the ingredients from Tirol, and Kobato gives Sayaka the money that Fai gave her. While this is going on,
Rabbit, the messenger from heaven arrives and tells Ioryogi that time is running out for Kobato to fill her bottle.

We get another cameo by another group of CLAMP characters – this time by the group from Tsubasa. I’ve only read Tsubasa through the mid-teen numbered manga, so I’m still not even halfway through, I don’t think, so I’m sure I’m behind on what’s going on in that series (thus my questions about Sakura). At least they didn’t say anything that seemed to spoil it for those of us who aren’t finished with it.

Anyway, perhaps the biggest thing at the end of this episode is that it’s perhaps setting us up for a final arc, as Kobato’s time is almost up, and she still hasn’t filled her bottle. I’m sure that healing Fujimoto and helping the nursery is going to be the key to her doing that, but how she goes about doing that, I’m not sure yet.

I’m also beginning to wonder if there Fujimoto has some connection to where Kobato is from as well, based on Kobato’s vision/memory when she was talking with Syaoran.

Oh yeah, and a new ED in this episode (kind of late for a new one I think, but oh well).