Or who is Phrynne?
Fractale was an interesting and underrated anime series that finished this past Thursday. I’m not going to give a comprehensive review, but I am going to write about the final scene because I’ve seen a great many misinterpretations of it on the Net. So if you don’t want spoilers on this complex and flawed series that fell short of being a masterpiece, don’t read this post!
Series home page on Hulu. Warning, not for kids. Older teens and adults only due to mature themes.
SPOILER SPACE
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The last scene is of Phrynne awakening after being in a coma for one year after merging with Nessa, the regressed mind of the original Phrynne who lived 1000 years before. Her immediate dialogue, tone of voice, and expressions seem to indicate that the Phrynne we followed in the series is dead and her mind replaced with Nessa’s. Clain’s reaction to her is the same as the viewer’s and while showing relief that he hasn’t lost both Phrynne and Nessa, there is a tinge of disappointment in his face and actions. When he addresses her as Nessa and she responds with something like an affirmative, the boy starts going down the stairs to fix breakfast.
That’s where downloading the fansub to double check made a huge difference for me, as the clearer audio showed a distinct change in Phrynne’s tone as she urgently calls out to Clain to thank him -- then tells him she loves him too and had from the moment they met. That wasn’t Nessa speaking, folks, that was the poor tortured soul of the girl we met in the first episode finally feeling able to confess her heart to the boy she loved.
Clain’s reaction of dropping his MP3 player and rushing to embrace her was another big indication that he recognized the girl he loved wasn’t gone. The tears that he hadn’t been able to shed as he watched Phrynne sacrifice herself to restart the Fractale system flooded out as he embraced the surprised girl. Watch how she slowly returns the embrace and a smile crosses her face. Nessa would have been exuberant and childish in response, but this isn’t what happens.
It took a third viewing and a fansubtitled version for me to clear up what I feel was a bad translation by Funimation. In it, Phrynne essentially calls Clain a baby in a softly affectionate barb, showing some of the prickliness of the difficult girl we had followed for eleven episodes. In the streamed translation, it was translated more as an astonished reaction to his crying, but the voice actress’ tone doesn’t correspond. That did not help with such a complicated resolution! As the show ends, Clain is beginning to laugh between sobs as the camera pans over the the group photo while zooming on the two.
To me that clinches that Phrynne is still Phrynne with a heavy dash of Nessa now in her personality. Instead of Nessa replacing her like she feared so greatly, Phrynne is instead completed by the ten year old’s mind. All the wounds to her soul have been healed between the fusing with Nessa and the love she had found. Clain hasn’t lost the love of his life after all and the promise that the three would be together forever was fulfilled.
In fact, all three wishes by the main characters were granted. The first was Phrynne’s wish that Clain would regain his smile and smile forever. The second was Clain’s wish that he wouldn’t be lonely anymore. The final one was Nessa’s wish that the three would live together forever.
In the end, Nessa was the catalyst that allowed both Phrynne and Clain to be healed and completed. The possibility that the original sexually abused sixteen year old Phrynne is finally getting her chance at a life is there too, since Nessa was her regressed mind recorded a millennia ago.
To my relief, this was a kind and good ending for Phrynne when it was looking like a tragic outcome was guaranteed. She turned out to be the main character of the series as I had suspected from episode one. The opening sequence and a translation of the main theme contained major clues to that as the theme is about a prickly and untrusting girl, a hedgehog.
Unlike most people in online forums discussing the show, I’d picked up that Phrynne had been sexually abused from the very beginning. Having been around women that had that happen to them, the telltales were obvious in the girl’s behavior and statements. I found myself worrying over this fictional character a great deal, which is a credit to the makers of this series. Maybe it was that or the anniversary of my mother’s death which that caused me to shed tears at the ending, but this flawed series will always be a favorite of mine.
While the series wandered a bit in the middle, I loved it, especially after that ending. I wrote this on the fly, so I hope it is coherent enough for those who watched the series and if you haven’t…
… Why did you just read this?
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