It's hilarious in a Fridge Brilliance way that Aku died believing he only sent Jack 10 seconds into the future. Question is, did going back in time refer Jack's status as The Ageless, or do we get a Flying Dutchman scenario?
The finale makes no sense anyway, because Ashi was the portal. Erasing Ashi makes Jack's presence in the past a Grandfather Paradox. So yeah, I would hardly be surprised that Jack is immortal as a byproduct of reality correcting itself around his existence. The only logical resolution would have been that even the sword can't permanently destroy Aku, as suggested by the prequel where Jack's father defeats Aku with the sword when Aku first emerged, but Aku eventually regenerated from that. In that case, Jack and Ashi would fight Aku for eternity-not the best outcome, but at least it's self-consistent and doesn't paradox Ashi and all of Jack's friends out of existence.
Jack's quest was always going to be a Temporal Paradox if he succeeded, because if he did the Bad Future would never motivate him in a way that let him go back in the first place. Any attempt to Set Right What Once Went Wrong will inevitably end in a paradox if its both successful and we're following the "one re writable history" model most time travel does. It's just more obvious since the paradox directly affects the conduit for time travel, instead of merely getting there
To wit, quantum general relativity solutions permitting time travel into the past also hold that the past is immutable (i.e. it is physically impossible to create a paradox, because a Stable Time Loop is the only physically permitted outcome). Of course, said solutions are also violently unstable in permitting time travel in the first place, so it's not clear that time travel is actually possible in the real universe, even though the math permits it in an idealized universe.
The ending is pointless edginess for edginess sake, but imagining The Scotsman being a Drunken Master type samurai is fun.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I wonder, if Jack is indeed immortal, will he be acting as a sort of guardian throughout history? Like will he be fighting during World War II for example? (Though I have to say Jack fighting Nazis would be pretty badass. Maybe he'll befriend Captain America along the way.)
Edited by superboy313 on Feb 23rd 2020 at 12:41:52 AM
I liked the ending. The people coming to help Jack was a nice way of hitting home all the good he's done. Ashi's death was more of a bittersweet ending. When you see her face as they fall through the portal she looks sad. She KNOWS what's gonna happen but accepts it.
Aku's final breakdown was also a nice touch. He's not ranting or screaming it's more of a silent "no." No hamminess. He KNOWS he's fucked.
Someone else did a storyboard ending where Ashi fades away right after the battle, and when Jack sees the people he sees all those he met on his journey.
I admit, Aku's very quiet oh no when Jack goes through the Portal was pretty beautiful. All the ham just left him as he realized he was done.
Keeping Jack from going home (and eventually killing him) was always his only win condition. He knew if Jack ever set foot within one portal, it was checkmate.
It's no wonder he fell into a depression when he Jack just didn't die of natural causes. He can't beat him in a fight, and just letting him die was taken off the table as well. How do you win a game that's stacked against you and refuses to stop until YOU and you alone lose?
One Strip! One Strip!Although i do admit to being confused how Aku can't get more creative with his powers, because from what we seen he can annihilate armies and populations of people with ease (with everyone being basically helpless against him), yet one well trained dude apparently too much for him. In theory, Aku should be able to be more of a threat to Jack with a sword than as it presented in the series (with basically all Aku's battles with Jack with a sword ended being Curb Stomb battles).
It is kind of curious how Aku seems to stop using most of his powerset compared to what he uses in the pilot in the past. When we see him take over Jack's land he does neat tricks like redirecting projectiles to his enemies and shooting laser out of his eyes. When he's up against Jack he seems to always get less creative and fall back on brute force by way of his shape-shifting abilities with the occasional laser eye blast, at best.
PS: When I complained about the ending, I was talking about the Knight Jack vid posted, not the actual ending. I liked that more than fine, even if I had some problems with it.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Yeah. It seems like Jack is just Super Effective against Aku. If you're skilled enough, you might be able to not die against him, but only Jack's sword seems to be able to hurt him.
Conversely, just because Jack and his sword seem to be able to put a dent against Aku and others can't doesn't mean those others can't theoretically beat Jack, even if his sword is as effective against them as it is against Aku.
One Strip! One Strip!

The fact Aku didn't realize Jack lost his sword for decades is hilarious.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."