The following contains spoilers for all four episodes of Housing Complex C, which aired on Adult Swim, as well as brief discussion of suicide.
The Housing Complex C anime is admittedly a mixed bag. It starts out promising, with shades of the occult and a psychological thriller vibe to it. But the first three episodes drag along, not capitalizing on the supernatural horror energy it’s evolving into. By doing so, it removes the mind-bending fright from Kimi and the denizens of the complex in Kurosaki, Japan.
However, everything changes in the series finale, “The End of the Line”. That’s because all the myths and fables seeded throughout actually tie into what’s haunting the complex, confirming folks aren’t hallucinating things — a dark god is at play. This leads to a bloody ending connected to the protagonist, Kimi, and why she didn’t want the peaceful paradise they lived in becoming tainted by death.
Housing Complex C’s Protagonist Kimi Is Revealed to Be Iyoyoloki Soyohosu
Early on, Housing Complex C focused on Kimi loving a folk song. This revolved around the sky-god, Iyoyoloki Soyohosu, who was worshiped by the people in Kurosaki. However, the deity ascended and left the region wanting it to return. The being was said to have offspring, though, with one of them being the sea-god, Kuzululu. The shocking thing is, no one expected any of these gods to use a human vessel.
Well, when Koba gets hold of Taka’s diary, he learns from his anthropologist friend that Iyoyoloki Soyohosu is actually Kimi. She’s been trapping them in a bubble for 20 years, keeping them in the year 2000 as part of an experiment. Kimi just wants to perfect her utopia and believes this circle of people in Japan is the ideal one to tinker with. Her reality-bending powers are why no one questions the absence of her mother, why no one’s keen on investigating deaths, and why everyone adores her. She’s been manipulating them all this time, making them prisoners.
The Koshide Clan Wants to Revive Kuzululu
However, the Koshide clan has been secretly pulling off all the kills after moving in, hoping to use them as sacrifices to summon Kuzululu back. Kimi, though, kept turning the corpses to moss, not wanting folks to get panicked, and not wanting the Koshides’ daughter, Yuri, to be scared. After all, she loved having Yuri around as a best friend. Sadly, the father, Seichi, tries to kill Kimi, only to be stopped by Yuri.
The girls scamper off, leaving Seichi and his wounded wife, Keiko, to try to kill the Middle-Eastern immigrant, Kan. They want to add him to the sacrifice list after slaughtering a bunch of old folks around. Luckily, Kan’s able to knock both of them out and flee; he uses Kimi’s letter and a sacred stone to get away, realizing Kimi’s looking out for him since he was so kind to her.
Taka’s Fate Is Heartbreaking
As Housing Complex C’s finale does its non-linear storytelling, Koba ends up getting killed. He never wanted to view Kimi as a monster, but he pays the price as the Koshide clan takes him out, too. This tragedy compounds Taka’s words: Kimi’s experiment would always end in disaster, as she couldn’t predict how the complex would react to outsiders — especially Kan and his Muslim tribe.
Unfortunately, while many thought the haunting entity killed Taka in Episode 3, it’s now revealed he took his own life. He just couldn’t live with this dark truth, and how they were all puppets. It again links to how, while Kimi has good intentions, her puppet mastering took away their agency and mired the land in tragedy. Thus, this was Taka’s only way of feeling free and in control of his own destiny. However, Kan wasn’t subscribing to this, opting to help Kimi when she runs off into the cave.
The Dark God Kimi Remakes All of Kurosaki
Kimi didn’t like how religion, politics and war washed over the land and divided people for centuries — so much so that human sacrifices back then had become the norm, ergo why the Koshides embraced that bloodshed again. As such, when Yuri turns on Kimi after Kan’s knocked out in the holy cave, she reveals she just wants to murder her herself. At this point, Kimi loses faith; laughing, because she can’t help but find Yuri’s gamble amusing. Kimi then opens a portal, dropping Yuri’s parents in.
However, it’s all blood and guts as she basks in the glory. At this point, Yuri learns who Kimi really is, but even after pledging fealty to Kimi, the dark god doesn’t care. She minces Yuri up too, and decides to finally end the project. She remakes the land a la The Matrix, rebooting Kurosaki into Shirosaki — connecting to how the ritualistic Kurokado gates should have been called the Shirokado gates. These ritualistic relics were white and filled with hope, not black and filled with despair, so it’s a shame the natives got the names wrong. Now, to Kimi, this reset is her righting history and returning the place to its true, intended identity.
Kan Survives Kimi’s Recreation of Kurosaki
Kan ends up surviving the reboot, witnessing how the region has now become a mossy wasteland. It indicates that Kimi has removed them from the space-time bubble. However, it seems like everyone else, including the immigrants who wanted to betray Kan and make him a scapegoat for the murders, are all dead. He then spots a white-haired Kimi blowing bubbles, but he can tell it’s time to exit this supernatural fiasco.
He’s got his faith in any case, having prayed through the drama and survived when Kimi hit the reset button and sent the changing energy-wave out. Housing Complex C ends with Kimi lapping up the new era, and Kan getting a text that a tsunami is coming. As he leaves, the anime concludes by having viewers ponder if Kimi has created this tsunami to wash the place away, or if she’ll rework another iteration with new folks. Either way, she’s given the region of Shirosaki a new start as the ocean breeds life — and ultimately, rebirth.