[Kiwami]

The ending makes sense to me personally. Is it the ending I wanted? No. But it works. Sadly.

It was said multiple times that Kotaro and Nobuhiko's struggle and fate would never bring immediate change. It only paved the way for decisions to be made in the future, good or bad.

Which makes sense, killing the Creation King and making the origin of the Kaijin public has no positive effect on the general racism debate. In fact it makes it worse, because humans now know Kaijin were created as living weapons. Your average citizen will not try to understand Kaijin after learning their inherited fate; they will fear them more because now they know Kaijin were bred to kill.

Meanwhile, nothing changes in politics because the corrupt asshole politician is just followed up by another who will sweep all of this scandal in its entirety under the rug. And Bishum is still there with her own agenda.

So what is Aoi to do? She's not a heroine; she is very much a scarred individual now. She learned the hard way that holding up signs and chanting words changes nothing in her world. She organizes an armed force to fight what she deems "evil" and thus the wheel continues to turn. To what outcome? We don't know. She is however different from Nobuhiko in the sense that she doesn't deem Kaijin as superior; she brings humans and Kaijin together in an organized effort to stand up as she thinks they are one and the same.

Could they potentially have made some sort of "flashback into the future Aoi is president now we're all happy"-kind of ending? Sure. But that would've pissed me off royally because then I would've felt cheated out of seeing how they got there.

Personally I wanted Aoi to "free" Kotaro out of the Creation King's shell, walk home with him and end the series in a way that they live happily as a family and organize another stand against the Kaijin hate together with the remaining survivors. End it on a positive note while acknowledging that there is work to be done still. But that's the ending I as an old softy want, it doesn't thematically fit this world.

And about the Creation King-thing specifically, I believe what they said could've come true, that someone could keep their free will as Creation King, and Black Sun could've pulled it off, but it was the old Creation King's heart that meddled with the sequence and ruined it. Obviously an attempt to bring back the heart as the final boss from the OG Black. So it's the old Creation King who somehow usurped the process and created another incarnation of himself. If not for the heart, maybe Black Sun, Shadow Moon or Aoi could've been a Creation King with free will.

Aoi getting a belt without changing her form was weird, yeah, I expected her to have a Rider form, but Black Sun and Shadow Moon also had belts without Rider forms, they emerged later through their intense feelings, so I just assume they wanted to visualize the concept that Aoi follows Kotaro's footsteps so she magically has a belt now too and will someday get her own Rider form. Weird but I get the idea.

But I agree on multiple of your points, some things like the Kingstones made no real sense whatsoever.