Feb 16 2009 09:49 PM I think the later episodes of Air were very confusing, that was the main mnus point of the series. I too was baffled about Yukito's actions.
It seems that you need to have played the original game/visual novel to really understand the story, all the explanations I have seen were courtesy of people who were familiar with the game.
As I understand it, Yukito's presence is what was accelerating Misuzu's decline, just as his presence brought Kano's and Minagi's issues to a head, which was probably the same psychic power which animated the doll he possessed. Recall how Misuzu only started having dreams about the past after she met Yukito. Those dreams are important, she is remembering her past life as a winged girl, a thousand years earlier.
Anyhow, it seems that Yukito bought Misuzu some time by disappearing from the scene, and perhaps he gave her his life force or something when he lost his human form, I'm not sure. In the end she dies anyway, but perhaps that extra time was crucial to letting her complete her goal of having a happy summer and being with loving people?
Whatever, it is said by the game players that the events have been sufficient to break the curse on the winged girl, all the happy memories that are brought to her by the various people. I do wish they had explained it better in the TV series though, because I think most of us watching it saw it as an unhappy ending in which she died and was condemned to continue her failed reincarnations, whereas the message was supposed to be that the curse was broken in its 1000th year.
Despite all that, Air is one of my all time favourites in that it had an incredible emotional impact on me. I've even heard people say it's sadder than Grave of the Fireflies, which is usually held up as the emofest of all time. I would certainly put it in my all time top ten along with Lain, Nausicaa, Haibane Renmei, etc.
