History Main / GainaxEnding

* ''Series/TheHills''. Yes, a RealityShow managed to have a Gainax Ending. The finale ends with Brody saying his goodbyes to Kristin, who gets in the limo and heads off, with a SofterAndSlowerCover version of [[RealSongThemeTune "Unwritten"]] playing in the background... and then the camera pulls back to reveal that the entire scene was shot on a soundstage. Kristin's limo is sitting right nearby, and had not driven off like we had been led to believe. The question as to how much of the show was just as fake goes unanswered. The best estimate would probably be [[Series/TheSoup Joel's]]: EVERYTHING!

* The ''WebVideo/RealTimeFandub Games'' parody of ''VideoGame/SonicRiders'' does this. Although bizarre to begin with, most of the video is nothing more than an improvised GagDub of cutscenes from ''Sonic Riders'' and its sequel ''Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity''. Unfortunately, one important sequence at the end of the latter happens entirely in gameplay - which the dubbers have no footage of - rather than than in a cutscene. This missing scene is substituted with completely new footage, wherin the characters are transported to ''VideoGame/GarrysMod'', and their 3D models are flung around haphazardly as they meet Music/HatsuneMiku and fight a [[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Strider]]. The voice actors are as baffled as anyone else by this turn of events.

And, as a last word for this entry, we'd just like to say that the parrot has been squawking for hours and it is annoying the neighbors, so please feed him his cracker and be done with.

* Every WebAnimation/YouTubePoop '''ever!''' It makes sense, considering the videos themselves in turn aren't even supposed to make sense to begin with. In fact, WebAnimation/WalrusGuy's supposedly-final ''[=YouTube=] Poop'' was titled [[https://youtu.be/_OVCpD-7nI4 "One More Final: I Need You(Tube Poop)"]], which is a reference to the ''original'' Gainax Ending of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''.

* Brazilian sitcom ''Toma Lá Dá Cá'' last episode: the cast are about to be killed by an invasion. But since one of the main actors is the main writer of the show, [[PostModernism they hand him a laptop and order him to write an ending that saves them]]... involving the arrival of an alien ship, which had previously "rescued" a character PutOnABus.

For whatever reason, after watching a Gainax Ending, you won't have any idea what happened. After rewatching it, rewatching the entire series, discussing it with other fans, looking up the meaning of the symbolism, and subjecting the entire thing to a comprehensive literary analysis, you still might not have any idea what happened. If you're lucky, then there will be some kind of emotional or symbolic resolution even if it doesn't actually explain what happened to the characters, and you'll be left with the sense that the series as a whole was more deeply thought out than it seemed before. If you're unlucky, then you'll be left with more questions than when you started and the sense that the series as a whole has been voided of the meaning you once read in it.

* Any ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' session ever played. ''Ever''.

* ''Series/DeadLikeMe'' suffers from a series finale that drops all its established character arcs and eventually peters out with a strange, sitcom-like Halloween story. None of the conflicts or arcs are resolved. It was as if the writers, knowing the show was over, simply spat out a non-sequitur. The story was resolved somewhat in the movie. Rube moves on, and George becomes the new boss.

* The, admittedly already pretty weird, MLP fanfic ''Fanfic/TheManySecretOriginsOfScootaloo'' at first seems to end on a relatively normal note that more or less raps up the story... then for no reason what so ever, we cut to an ''alternate universe'' where the whole story was a dream Nightmare Moon was having, she's married to Discord, Twilight is their infant daughter, and Scootaloo is Twilight's doll.

* Any ''TabletopGame/{Paranoia}'' session ever played. ''Ever''.

* DarkerAndEdgier Disney fanfic ''[[http://hypermegatailsfan.deviantart.com/art/Her-Haunted-Mansion-Emily-s-Journey-1-294069005 Her Haunted Mansion: Emily's Journey]]'' (a {{prequel}} of sorts to a previous fanfic by the same author, ''Her Haunted Mansion'') has four chapters be totally believable backstories for the character we met in ''Her Haunted Mansion''. Our main character is Emily (the name commonly assigned to the Haunted Mansion Attic Bride ghost, although she doesn't become a bride until Chapter 5), who had all the characters in question as love ones before Master Mickey apparently took them away from her (although we know… or are supposed to know… from ''Her Haunted Mansion'' that he's actually saving them); she always tries to stop him, and always he enigmatically replies 'You're a little early, Emily' with a wide grin. When Chapter 5 came, everyone expected all these mysteries would be solved and Emily would understand her mistakes about Master Mickey. But no. Ooooh, no. Emily wakes up after having been murdered, and goes inside Mickey's mansion. In the attic, she meets a doppelgänger of herself, ready to be married, whom she [[AnAxeToGrind brutally murders with an axe]]. She then climbs down into the ballroom where Minnie and Mickey's wedding is about to be celebrated. Everyone calls Narrator!Emily "Constance" (the name of another, axe-wielding ghost bride character in ''The Haunted Mansion''). The whole chapter is told ThroughTheEyesOfMadness (specifically, those of Constance), and she's getting battier and battier as the chapter progresses; from the mess of the last paragraphs, it appears Emily murdered everyone in the ballroom (even her best friends) because they [[DisproportionateRetribution wouldn't call her Emily]]. ''All that had been foreshadowed is never explained (Mickey flat-out denies having ever said 'You're a little early, Emily!' in the first place) and why Emily-going-mad/Constance-believing-herself-to-be-Emily/whatever-the-heck-happened happened is never explained.

* The original ''Creature Commandos'' had a respectable run in the anthology comic ''Weird War Tales.'' It ended abruptly with a one-page story, in which they (and the writer!) are condemned to execution for being too human, the execution is stayed so they can be stuffed into a rocket headed to Berlin instead, and the rocket malfunctions and zooms into outer space.
* ''{{ComicBook/Crimson}}'' is a straightforward story that ends on a [[BittersweetEnding bitter-sweet note]] with TheHero [[ButNowIMustGo departing on a new quest]]. But then the final pages reveal that the hero's best friend Joe [[AndThatLittleGirlWasMe was telling the story to another friend in a bar]]. What makes it confusing is that said friend interrupts Joe because he doesn't buy his story is real or vampires, demons and monsters don't exist, despite the many catastrophic events that happened around the world beforehand that confirmed the existence of supernatural creatures, the fact that the Apocalypse nearly happened and that ''Joe himself is obviously a vampire!'' Or maybe not, since Joe and his friend walk out of the bar in the daytime with no serious effects. They even pass by a homeless man that looks like one of the main villains who seemingly died during the final battle, which Joe briefly pauses to comment on. These things make it unclear whether or not the series' events were made up or really happened.
* The Italian ''WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck'' stories of the series ''ComicBook/DoubleDuck'' have our protagonist as a secret agent, with the first story arc full of plot twists. Of course, the story arc ends by revealing the identity of the leader of The Agency that Donald works for: [[spoiler:a hologram of Donald]]. [[MindScrewdriver Thankfully, it gets explained throughout the second story arc]] ([[spoiler:the leader, for example, is actually an AI The Agency based on Donald's thought processes, as it turns out he has an uncanny talent for dealing with the unexpected, executing [[OutsideTheBoxTactic Outside-the-Box Tactics]] and playing XanatosSpeedChess, and uses the hologram as an interface]]).
* The ending of ''ComicBook/TheFilth'' made no sense ''at all''. [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} That Other Wiki]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Filth_%28comics%29#Synopsis has an explanation of how it works]], but that seems to be an interpretation rather than a definitive answer.
* ''[[ComicBook/{{Hellboy}} Hellboy In Hell]]'': Hellboy takes on his OneWingedAngel form, wrecks Hell's capital, ends up on a beach, makes his way to an empty mansion there, comes across three glowing geometric shapes, and presumably AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. TheEnd.

* ''ComicBook/{{Ronin}}'' seems like a fairly straight-forward comic until the end where you find out that everything you knew was a lie. It all ends with most of the story wrapped up with a couple of mild questions still lingering... and then the very last page throws everything out the window and raises several more.

* The ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'' adventure "Flight 714" starts with Tintin and friends meeting his nemesis Rastapopoulos, who wants the wealth of a billionaire, and for some reason it ends with aliens who come and brainwash everybody into [[LaserGuidedAmnesia forgetting the whole thing ever happened]] (except Snowy, who [[AsideComment laments to the audience]] that no one would believe him even if they could understand what he's saying).

* The ending to ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheCapedCrusader.'' Granted, the series was intended to close the character of Franchise/{{Batman}} with a metaphysical look at the character, but the ending grabs metaphysics and goes straight into the surreal, passing by {{Elseworld}}s, multiple universes, and the Golden, Silver, and Dark Ages of comics along the way. The general point of it was that there is no such thing as a definitive Batman story, and that the happy ending to Batman's story is that he gets to be Batman. Because who doesn't want to be Batman?
* ''ComicBook/XMen: The End'': After seventeen issues of wrapping up forty years worth of loose ends, and providing a conclusive ending to the story of the X-Men in a big battle royal, the series randomly ends with several X-Men [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence gaining godhood]] without any forewarning. Oh, and Kitty Pryde becoming President of the US and giving a speech to the surviving X-Men, but that one ''was'' foreshadowed, with her narration having been present from the start.
* ''ComicBook/{{Zero}}'' ends with the titular character being comforted by his father while in a fungus-induced haze, while also being confronted (and possibly killed) by his son in the future. He is then allowed to "choose" a multiverse to live in by a cosmic being. Also, William Burroughs is featured.

-> ''[[https://youtu.be/oyFQVZ2h0V8 Congratulations!!]]''[[note]]If you don't want to go through several dozens of pages of Website/YouTube comments, [[MemeticMutation they all say]] "Congratulations". Yes, even [[TeamPet Pen Pen]].[[/note]]

* The ending of ''ComicBook/TheFilth'' made no sense ''at all''. [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} That Other Wiki]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Filth_%28comics%29#Synopsis has an explanation of how it works]], but that seems to be an interpretation rather than a definitive answer.

* ''Literature/ThePendragonAdventure'': A mild example, but the contradictions within it make it fall under this trope. Though told every person displaced through time and space must stay on the ruined worlds they're currently on and can't go back home, and after most of the Travelers return to Solara, Bobby expresses regret that he won't be able to live a normal life. Uncle Press considers this. Suddenly, a flashback of Bobby's "normal" life plays, where he married Courtney and Mark [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dies of cancer]]. Bobby is lying on his deathbed when a strange man in a long coat comes in and gives him a clutter of papers- his old journals. End book. Many fans believe Bobby was being given his happy ending through [[InsideAComputerSystem Lifelight,]] but DJ [=MacHale=] never confirmed or denied this.

* Fredrick Pohl seems to like this. In the penultimate chapter of ''Jem'' the POV protagonist gets knocked out at the start of a war involving everyone on the eponymous planet. The next chapter is set in a radically different society several generations into the future with no real mention of how we went from one to the other, and nothing by tantalising glimpse of how this new civilization came about, or how it works. In ''Gateway'', the protagonist is undergoing psychiatric care to resolve the issues in his life. At the conclusion, we discover the reason he's come to the (robot) psychiatrist in the first place, and the story ends without a real attempt at closure.

* ''Friday the 13th. ft. Eugene'' by [[WebVideo/MatthewSantoro Matt Santoro]] ends with [[{{Nerd}} Eugene]], Matt's clone, doing the weird face that Matt does [[EveryEpisodeEnding at the end of every vlog]], implying that Eugene and Matt are the same person. What makes this even weirder is that, earlier in the vlog, Matt briefly talks to Eugene.

* ''Series/TheSopranos'' famously ended with a mid-scene cut to black. This may or may not have signified the main character's death.
** The explanation of the showrunners has it make a lot more sense. Since he is unable to bring himself to leave his life of crime, every day brings the uncertainty of being mundane or the day he is whacked. The audience does not know whether he experiences a routine day or finally meets his fate, and that's how he's going to have to live the rest of his life.

As this is an EndingTrope, expect '''unmarked major spoilers''' from here on but '''don't''' expect them to make any sense!

* Norwegian children's series ''Series/{{Uhu}}'', about a group of "retired" ghosts who lived in a HauntedHouse, had a fairly standard happy ending at the last episode... but the final couple of minutes took a turn for the surreal. After the ghosts all get their happy endings, the character of the Oracle (a FlyingFace who speaks in a Trondheim accent and RhymesOnADime) goes out to grocery store and hides in a can of tomato soup. Which is then bought, cooked and eaten by a random human family (who manage to not notice that the soup is giggling as they eat it). Then, all three of them starts talking in the Oracle's voice, complete with Trondheim dialect and bad rhymes. They take the voice change surprisingly well, their reaction being essentially "We all sound like we're from Trondheim, that's hilarious!"

* Norwegian children's series ''Series/{{Uhu}}'', about a group of "retired" ghosts who lived in a HauntedHouse, had a fairly standard happy ending at the last episode... but the final couple of minutes took a turn for the surreal. After the ghosts all get their happy endings, the character of the Oracle (a FloatingFace who speaks in a Trondheim accent and RhymesOnADime) goes out to grocery store and hides in a can of tomato soup. Which is then bought, cooked and eaten by a random human family (who manage to not notice that the soup is giggling as they eat it). Then, all three of them starts talking in the Oracle's voice, complete with Trondheim dialect and bad rhymes. They take the voice change surprisingly well, their reaction being essentially "We all sound like we're from Trondheim, that's hilarious!"

* [[GainaxEnding/{{Film}} Live-Action Film]]

** GainaxEnding/AdventureTime
** GainaxEnding/SpongeBobSquarePants

** In Bad End Night, Miku suddenly goes insane and [[KillEmAll murders everyone.]] Then, the screen goes black, a mysterious hooded figure walks in, and crying, picks up the letter she brought in with her. [[TheUnReveal Without explaining what's in said letter]].

* Most ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' episodes have no clear ending, unless [[KillEmAll everyone dies]]. The grand finale actually ''dissolves into random gibberish as the entire show comes to a crashing halt'', and it doesn't seem atypical. As the announcer often observed, "It's all in the mind, you know." This is mainly seen in later episodes, probably because Creator/SpikeMilligan himself had no idea how to end them. Earlier surviving episodes tend to have fairly logical plot resolutions, for a certain definition of logic.

* The ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' adventure "Flight 714" starts with Tintin and friends meeting his nemesis Rastapopoulos, who wants the wealth of a billionaire, and for some reason it ends with aliens who come and brainwash everybody into [[LaserGuidedAmnesia forgetting the whole thing ever happened]] (except Snowy, who [[AsideComment laments to the audience]] that no one would believe him even if they could understand what he's saying).

* DarkerAndEdgier Disney fanfic [[http://hypermegatailsfan.deviantart.com/art/Her-Haunted-Mansion-Emily-s-Journey-1-294069005 Her Haunted Mansion: Emily's Journey]] (a {{prequel}} of sorts to a previous fanfic by the same author, ''Her Haunted Mansion'') has four chapters be totally believable backstories for the character we met in ''Her Haunted Mansion''. Our main character is Emily (the name commonly assigned to the Haunted Mansion Attic Bride ghost, although she doesn't become a bride until Chapter 5), who had all the characters in question as love ones before Master Mickey apparently took them away from her (although we know… or are supposed to know… from ''Her Haunted Mansion'' that he's actually saving them); she always tries to stop him, and always he enigmatically replies 'You're a little early, Emily' with a wide grin. When Chapter 5 came, everyone expected all these mysteries would be solved and Emily would understand her mistakes about Master Mickey. But no. Ooooh, no. Emily wakes up after having been murdered, and goes inside Mickey's mansion. In the attic, she meets a doppelgänger of herself, ready to be married, whom she [[AnAxeToGrind brutally murders with an axe]]. She then climbs down into the ballroom where Minnie and Mickey's wedding is about to be celebrated. Everyone calls Narrator!Emily "Constance" (the name of another, axe-wielding ghost bride character in ''The Haunted Mansion''). The whole chapter is told ThroughTheEyesOfMadness (specifically, those of Constance), and she's getting battier and battier as the chapter progresses; from the mess of the last paragraphs, it appears Emily murdered everyone in the ballroom (even her best friends) because they [[DisproportionateRetribution wouldn't call her Emily]]. ''All that had been foreshadowed is never explained (Mickey flat-out denies having ever said 'You're a little early, Emily!' in the first place) and why Emily-going-mad/Constance-believing-herself-to-be-Emily/whatever-the-heck-happened happened is never explained.

* The, admittedly already pretty weird, MLP fanfic ''FanFic/TheManySecretOriginsOfScootaloo'' at first seems to end on a relatively normal note that more or less raps up the story... then for no reason what so ever, we cut to an ''alternate universe'' where the whole story was a dream Nightmare Moon was having, she's married to Discord, Twilight is their infant daughter, and Scootaloo is Twilight's doll.

* WebOriginal/{{Chrontendo}} Episode 39 ended with him saying that he could not take anymore games in the ''Family Trainer'' series, so he said that he would immediately skip to Episode 183 to play VideoGame/SuperMetroid. Considering that the main goal is to play the games in chronological order, you could imagine how shocked viewers were.