So, I really liked the the ending of the anime. It was original, actually made me excited because it was totally unexpected for me, and I really do not think it broke the time line.
Manga had this weird part where I couldn't for the life of me figure out why did Clair and Shuichi go after Kaito alone, but the way its handled in ep.13 makes it more reasonable. This chapter catches up to the memory fuckery plot that was revealed in ep.13. But since at the end of it, those memories were erased again, this moment can happen again in anime, but not as a climax of a story arc, but rather re-affirmation for the hero. Maybe anime will make Clair re-trigger those memories in the anime re-telling? We'll see. Cover page basically announced the 2nd season, so that's awesome!
Otherwise... I did not like this chapter very much. Everything shown here was already implied and scattered around previous chapters. The characters may have need for this, but an attentive reader should not. I see comments here about this story still being confusing. If this chapter does not clear it up, then the author did not manage to transfer the character's newly gained clarity to the readers.
Lemme try to summarize the plot, chronologically:
[ul]
[li]OG gang (Clair, Elena, Kaito, Honoka, Aiko, et al) meet at cram school[/li]
[li]Alien comes around, meets Honoka, starts the coins for mutations business[/li]
[li]Aiko and Honoka "merge" (one dies, the other gets super advanced plastic surgery to replace the dead one). [/li]
[li]This is the start of a spiritual anime mumbo jumbo that could be behind the series title. It might be the most confusing thing besides Elena's memory jumbling. Basically, Aiko was depressed, but had a good life. Honoka had a shitty life, but just a bit more will to live. Aiko committed suicide. Honoka saw a chance to restart her life AND continue the awesome adventures of Aiko. SOMEHOW this means that Aiko's public life (as a concept perceived by others) overwrote Honoka's personal life (as a concept perceived by Honoka). Public + personal... Honoka gave up her damaged public life, and willingly let go of her personal life. This is what she had meant with her last words to Kaito. "There's barely anything left of her."[/li]
[li]Kaito gets the wrong idea and ruins everything by killing the Aiko/Honoka entity. Communication is important you guys. Now all public and personal facets of Honoka's and Aiko's lives have been destroyed.[/li]
[li]Kaito turns into an immortal necromancer god and revives Honoka. It gets real tricky here. If the alien can be viewed as a scientific metaphor (needed DNA samples and raw material to recreate Honoka), the humanity can become a spiritual metaphor. The alien could make a Honoka-like body, but he could not remake her soul. He's from a race that equates a soul to "information" which can be turned to semi-physical objects - coins (they cannot be seen by cameras implying their spiritual nature). What was created was a person with a void for a soul/life/something metaphysical because the alien could not fill it, and Kaito made sure there's nothing to put there.[/li]
[li]Honoka 2.0 hates the world and inexplicably has a power of localized Thanos Snaps.[/li]
[li]Honoka 2.0 starts snapping people with "connections" (referenced in manga and anime)[/li]
[li]Rest of the gang get coins to fight against Kaito and Honoka 2.0[/li]
[li]Honoka 2.0 kills Clair and Elena's and Shuichi's parents (implied in manga, shown in anime)[/li]
[li]Elena and some others splinter off from the gang to keep collateral damage to aminimum in their fight. Oh the hubris of that solution...[/li]
[li]Memory fuckery[/li]
[li]Shuichi rescues Clair (chapter 1)[/li]
[/ul]