I just finished watching episode 22 as well. I can see what you are trying to say, though if they ended the series with episode 21, they'd really leave a lot of people going nuts to find out why Hild was with Keichi. I thought episode 22 wasnt a bad way to end the series, as there was the whole grand gesture of love thing going on. The ending with the date 5 years later was pretty sweet, if not slightly cliched. I do think there could be better ways to end the series however. In the 1st season, there was some huge chain of events that occured that the last couple of episodes in the 2nd seasoned lacked (not that that is a bad thing though...just saying).
I do however, question the wisdom of introducing this whole time-traveling story at the end, just because of the paradoxes that always occur in time travel movies. For example, the predictable questions of how come Keichi did not already know Belldandy when he first met her, seeing as how they met in the past, etc etc. Though it was a nice story, I do think they could've resolved this whole time traveling thing MUCH better and avoid too many loose ends. Maybe some kind of memory wipe or some way to justify Keichi not knowing them from before. Though that would render the entire trip to the past redundant if they were just going to wipe all his memory of dealing with the Goddesses and Hild anyway. I don't know...time travel stories always leave too many loopholes but I guess they can get away with it, seeing as how this is the last episode.
20-Oct-2006