Warning: Spoilers for the finale of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics!!

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics is an anime that’s been living up to its title since episode #1, so fans have always expected a completely random ending, and although the season finale is indeed strange, it’s bizarre because it’s almost too normal in how it ties everything together nicely. The final episode also completely fails to revisit the one incredible twist it gave to the overall isekai genre earlier in the season, but this should also have come as no surprise to viewers, since it was initially treated as an afterthought, regardless of how massive it was at the time.

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics’ defining quality that understandably comes at the expense of some viewers’ enjoyment is the separate stories of the two characters who get transported to modern-day Earth. More viewers are more drawn to the struggles of Livia Do Udis as she experiences many of Earth’s most brutal qualities than to princess Sara Da Odin, since everything just seems to fall into place for her.

While the two of them cross paths at various points in the show, these moments have always been brief before they go their separate ways. However, season one ends with their stories intertwining in a massive way that could easily last for numerous more episodes should the anime ever get renewed. Essentially, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics ends very conventionally to the point that viewers would have been left quite satisfied if this were a regular anime. But this series isn’t that.

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics Ends Normally After a Massively Chaotic 12 Episodes

Produced by SynergySP & Studio Comet; based on the original light novel by Yomi Hirasaka

The random events that happen in each character’s new life are so frequent that they have become ingrained in the overall tone of A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics, and the fact that they always transpire separately from each other just adds to the confusion. The act of bringing them together at the end seems so incongruous with the overall flow of the series, especially since just a few minutes earlier, the story underwent a significant time skip that completely altered Livia’s life. This initially left viewers in an even more bewildered state than usual.

So when things took yet another drastic turn after the time skip, past precedent dictated that viewers should expect more chaos to ensue. This obviously didn’t happen when the series ended so conventionally. Ironically, the aforementioned drastic turn does, coincidentally, follow a major disheartening theme in that something bad happens to Livia because, unwittingly, her success is predicated on some shady business or scheme. A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics does keep to its own formula despite the fact that the immediate remedy to Livia’s misfortune involves Sara’s uncharacteristic involvement.

No Other Series Has Gone Out Of Its Way To Hide What Makes It an Isekai

Despite an interesting premise, A Salad Bowl Of Eccentrics guards too much of its lore

Just as notably, all this comes at the expense of the actual part of the story that directly pertains to the “isekai” part of the series. This is what makes sense, since the everyday events in both characters’ lives have always conspicuously ignored their past world, to the point that A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics can paradoxically be referred to as an almost overly eventful slice of life. Although an unconventional isekai, A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics surprisingly tackled and subverted a massively overused trope by directly connecting both worlds with an actual figure of human history. The fact that this connection also gave more context to Sara’s interest in a historical fiction manga series involving this real life figure’s character further solidified its importance.

However, true to form, the series has never revisited this intriguing plot point and maintains this disconnect throughout the season finale. The fact that the ending credits actually scroll over that figure’s statue feels more like a massive troll than anything else, just like everything else about A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics.