#mateus

The finale of the anime has Sei and the others going back to the church to put an end to the suspicious activities once and for all. Like they (and the viewers) predicted, Cipriano is the culprit behind the assassination attempt on Sei and is the one doing the embezzlement and storing Yua’s magic behind her back. What is his motive? He’s actually a heretic who believes in a goddess called Melke and ridicules Abran. He hates everything related to Abran, especially anything revolving around the Holy Maiden and purification. It’s to the point that he reveals his purpose of gathering Yua’s magical power—making a magical bomb that he plans to detonate inside the church. Fortunately, Yua’s powers have grown to the point that she’s able to stop the bomb with ease now. It makes me so happy to see her grow into a capable person. While Cipriano is stopped, he isn’t forgiven, so both he and Bishop Mateus, who was his accomplice in a way, got punished.

Other than that, the episode is mostly Aresh swatting away the other men trying to get too close to Sei as Kamil and Siegvold both express fondness towards Seiichiro that Aresh isn’t having; poor Nor for being the third/fourth wheel in the cafeteria scene. Fortunately for him, Sei is falling for Aresh to the point that he initiates a kiss towards him for the first time. It’s also revealed that Sei wrote a reply letter when he got Aresh’s first letter that he never sent, but Aresh received it when Valtom found it in his drawer. His feelings for Aresh is also apparent when he is protected by him as the bomb was about to detonate. Knowing how much Aresh risked his health and safety for him before, he realizes that he wants Aresh to be safe too. It’s definitely a nice conclusion to how he behaved throughout the story—not that it’s bad.

Still, it is unfortunate that the story ends with Sei and Yua still trapped in the isekai world and whether they will return or not is still left ambiguous. I do wonder how the overall story will end since it’s still on-going. Will they really go back? Will Sei leave Aresh behind? I honestly might have to buy the manga going forth… Regardless, I do like that the ending is happy in that the private school is finally in session and Yua and Julius are getting closer.

Regardless, one thing I really like about Bean Counter as a whole is that, while it’s BL, it doesn’t focus just on the romance aspect, but more on the world building and the characterization. It kind of shows that BL has gone a long way from being just a story about two guys falling in love and getting together. Now, there’s entire storytelling in addition to romance, which is what I enjoy most; it used to be uncommon back in the day. As a writer myself, I personally enjoy narratives, hence why Bean Counter was interesting.

Though, I do admit that this adaptation was mediocre in terms of quality, but it was still decent to watch. I know some of my moots on Twitter loathe the quality, but I’m someone who takes what I get and try to find the good side to things. Still, it’s nice to have BL animes in general. However, I do think the manga version is better than the anime. If you want to read the manga after watching this, the anime basically covers six volumes, which are what’s available in English. Basically, it’s incentive that you start the journey over and look at much prettier art as you do. By the way, the story is actually a light novel series, but I don’t think the light novel got licensed in English—please correct me if I’m wrong.

Overall, this wasn’t the best BL anime adaptation, but it’s still a decent watch for those curious about the genre. Hopefully, this will be an opportunity for more BL media to get anime adaptations. Let me know your thoughts on the finale and the anime as a whole!