[Magnugiga]

Ryuki's was the first time ever I saw a Reset Ending I believe, which at the time was a cool and novel idea to me. Over the years, I can totally see though how this sort of ending could act as a cop-out/get out of the jail free card writers use to do whatever the hell they want with the plot and characters, instead of picking between the tough choices of uncompromisingly bleak ending or unrealistically happy one.

I had an argument when someone told me "you loved that ending in Ryuki, which doesn't make sense that you hate similar kind of ending in [insert show/comic name here]", but yeah, context and execution matter. A couple others in this thread already conveyed how I feel about this ending really well, but I'll just add that it's just really nice to see Tezuka, Ren, Kitaoka (tho I guess he's still going to die soon in any case), and most importantly, a happy, not bleeding and not dying Shinji, going about their regular lives, to cap off the series. Sometimes it's just really about how invested you are in the characters.