Aahana Swrup
Netflix’s ‘My Daemon,’ a Japanese/Thai animated show, delves into the fantastical adventure of a young boy and his lifelong companion within a society designed to ensure their downfall. The show is set in a dystopian future where a nuclear disaster has introduced a new powered species, “Daemons,” into the human world. While the creatures are unanimously considered abominations at worst and weapons of destruction at best, a young boy, Kento Tachibana, comes across a tiny daemon, Anna, and instantly forms a lifelong connection with her. Yet, the duo ends up on the wrong people’s radar once they embark on a journey across the country to save Kento’s mother.
Throughout their journey, Kento and Anna’s story intertwines with humans and daemons alike, bringing them a more nuanced understanding of their world. While some, like Kaede Houjou and her daemon, Isugi, prove themselves as reliable friends, others, such as The powerful Chairman and a mysterious time-bending daemon, promise catastrophic outcomes. Thus, much like their grand adventures, Kento and Anna’s story also unfolds in a grand ending. SPOILERS AHEAD!
My Daemon Plot Recap
Kento discovers a mysterious red Demonium particle at a young age and watches it grow into a young daemon under his care. Although people are scandalized by the same, Kento’s kind mother allows him to keep the daemon, Anna, as his companion. Over the years, the two grow closer and closer together, forming a special bond. Yet, their neighbors grow weary of Anna’s presence in the Tachibana household and report her to the authorities at Peace Organization.
The company’s Chairman, Houjou, takes an interest in Anna and instantly delegates a sizeable bounty on her head. As a result, a bounty hunter rolls into town armed with his deadly daemon. However, the altercation ends horribly and leads to Kento’s mother’s death at the human hunter’s hands. Nevertheless, Kento, only eleven, refuses to accept the reality of his mother’s death. A while ago, Kento realized Anna is a powered daemon with the ability to store things in and out of her through a timeless, boundless space.
Consequently, at his mother’s funeral, Kento asks Anna to absorb his mother’s body. Afterward, Kento and Anna undertake a trip to Kyushu, where a rumored daemon lives with the ability to rewind time. Thus begins Kento and Anna’s brave and perilous mission. While many people extend a helping hand toward the young kid traveling all alone, taking kindly to his close relationship with Anna, the looming gargantuan bounty over Anna’s head of 100 million yen also puts a target on their back.
At the truck stop, Shizouka Suburbs, the duo ran into another daemon user, Kaede Houjou. Even though the woman, like other daemon users, keeps her companion, Isugi, collared, she seems to care more about the other species. Furthermore, after the two pair up for a rescue mission together against a particularly lethal adversary, Kento, and Anna’s relationship inspires Kaede to wonder if humans and daemons can co-exist.
Additionally, these missions also reveal another peek into Anna’s abilities and a more powerful form. However, the Organization soon catches up to them after siccing the Head daemon Capturer, Kokonoe, after Anna. As a result, Kaede helps Kento sneak into her grandfather’s Peace Organization facility. Although their rescue mission is a success, the Chairman convinces Anna that she only endangers Kento’s life by being a part of it. Therefore, Anna abandons her closest companion shortly after reuniting with him.
While Kento is put under the surveillance of Kokonoe, he continues to look for ways to track Anna. Eventually, the Demonium particle scar on his head, discolored red from the infection, helps the young boy connect with his daemon and reunite with her. Although Kokonoe attempts to use Kento to track Anna back, the pair manage to evade his capture with the help of other smaller daemons.
As such, overcoming numerous hurdles in their path, Kento and Anna finally arrive in Kyushu. Still, at the riverbank, the pair runs into even more trouble, but a strange student, Mr. Kiriko, rescues them. As it would turn out, Mr. Kiriko is the fabled time daemon Kento has been searching for all this time. However, the creature doesn’t actually have the ability to rewind time. Instead, he is a restoration daemon that can restore anything to its original state in one piece.
Ultimately, Kiriko agrees to try and bring Kento’s mother back to life. Nonetheless, at the last moment, Kokone and his men surround his apartment, carrying out a big-scale attack to capture Anna, whom the chairman considers a deadly force to reckon with.
My Daemon Ending: Does Kento Revive His Mother?
Kento’s primary motive remains the same throughout his and Anna’s tumultuous journey. After his mother’s horrible death, wherein she sacrificed himself to save her son from the hands of a brutal Daemon user/Bounty hunter, Kento has been unable to make peace with her death. At such a young age, Kento can’t fathom the idea of losing one of the most significant people in his life. Therefore, at her funeral, he refuses to say goodbye to his mother and embarks on a wild journey to rewind time and bring her back.
Despite the grueling journey ahead, Kento’s mother’s body remains safe and preserved inside Anna’s storage space. Therefore, at the end of their adventure, Anna deposits the woman’s body back in near-perfect condition when Kiriko agrees to use his powers on her. Nevertheless, Kokonoe’s attack ensures the advanced daemon never gets a chance to heal the mother. Instead, their attacks force the trio to flee from the apartment, leaving the mother’s body behind.
Still, Kiriko manages to swipe a drop of Kento’s mother’s blood in the chaos. Although the daemon pretends to help Kento out of the goodness of his own heart, he has a much more sinister plan in mind. Having lived under the guise of a human for a year, Kiriko has watched the species hunt his own kind mindlessly and often without provocation. Therefore, he wants to punish every human who has ever mistreated daemons.
Years ago, Pandemonium, the most powerful daemon in recorded history, attacked the American west coast, killing millions of humans. Nevertheless, the humans defeated the creature through nuclear power, leaving only his claw behind in the rubble. Kiriko plans to use his abilities to restore Pandemonium’s body through the claw and wreak havoc upon human civilization. For the same reason, he needs Anna’s powers since she can help him get past the protective glass that surrounds the claw at the central Kyushu museum.
As such, even after Kiriko, Kento, and Anna flee from his apartment without the body of the boy’s mother, Kiriko uses her blood to restore her body and take control of it. While the Daemon pretends to be Kento’s mother, the kid plays along because of his crippling desperation. Nevertheless, Kaede soon finds Kento again and manages to shake him out of Kiriko’s spell.
Yet, the daemon ends up using Kaede against Kento by fatally wounding her body and giving Kento an ultimatum: if Anna helps him break into the museum, he will repair the woman’s body. Despite having only shared a few days with Kaede, Kento has come to care for her deeply. Furthermore, the kid is incapable of letting others suffer on his behalf. Therefore, he agrees to Kiriko’s deal, finally accepting that the mask that the daemon wears of his mother is only a mask and not the reality.
Kento’s mother never returns to life in the end since it goes against nature. The kid has no choice but to accept the loss and realize that regardless of his mother’s mortality, she will always remain with him in spirit. Besides, by then, Kento’s world expands, bringing a more pressing problem: Kiriko’s non-negotiable plan to destroy humanity.
What Happens To Kiriko?
While Kiriko’s philosophy of protecting daemons against the brutalities that humans continue to impart upon them is based on sound reason, his final plan to carry out justice for the same remains flawed. In Kiriko’s mind, the world is divided in an “us vs. them” narrative forever that robs people of the nuance of the space to change. Even though Kiriko acknowledges the good within Kento, he refuses to afford other humans the same treatment. Furthermore, the second Kento stops being of use to him, Kiriko drops all pretense of caring about him as well.
At the museum, Kiriko uses Kento to goad Anna into unlocking her full potential. Using collars made by the Peace Organization for prisoner daemons, Kiriko imprisons Kento. However, the collar’s punishing shockwaves negatively impact the kid’s Demonium infection. The doctors already only gave Kento a few years to live since they understood that the kid would die the minute the demonium inside of his head hatches.
Even though the same infection affords Kento the power to communicate with other daemons, it also renders him incapacitated when the hatching process becomes fast-paced due to the electrocution. Kiriko uses the charged infection’s inflicted agony on Kento to compel Anna to take her higher form and destroy the museum display, granting the daemon access to Pandemonium’s claw.
Nevertheless, soon after, Kaede and her team of humans worried for Kento’s well-being arrive at the museum. Despite Kiriko’s offer, Anna sides with Kaede and the others, putting a target on her back. Kiriko decides not to waste any further time and restores Pandemonium’s gigantic body, using himself as the brain as it takes over all of Hakata.
As a result, Kaede and the others have no choice but to flee the scene. Furthermore, the Japanese government realizes they must use their nuclear missiles against the threat and sacrifice their own region to save the world. Nonetheless, once Kento comes back to consciousness after Kiriko splits his head open and restores it, he refuses to accept that countless people would have to die to stop Kiriko.
As such, Kento takes matters into his own hands. After Kiriko’s attack on the boy, the Demonium inside his head hatches, giving birth to Shumimeen. The daemon has a close emotional connection to Kento and her own unnamed special powers. Kento realizes that the bond between him and his daemons might be able to convince Kiriko of the error of his ways. Thus, while everyone flees from Pandemonium, Kento and his friends run towards it.
Kento confronts Kiriko with his and Shumimeen’s telepathic powers and urges him to consider that Kento and Anna can change the world to accommodate the coexistence between humans and daemons. Nevertheless, Kiriko refuses to accept the same. Moreover, the Japanese missiles enter the scene, further proving Kiriko’s point about humanity’s unempathetic violence.
At that moment, Kento’s daemons decide to make a big sacrifice. With Shumimeen’s help, Anna achieves an even better transformation that allows her to transport everyone on the scene, including Kento, his friends, Pandemonium/Kiriko, and the missiles, into her storage space. Within the timeless and boundless universe, Anna uses her power to destroy Pandemonium with the missiles, shielding herself and the others from the impact.
As a result, Pandemonium dies again without ruining thousands of lives, and Kiriko remains in his own body. Although Kento promises to change the world for the better, and Kiriko affords him the time to do it, he disappears with the promise of return should the kid fail in his task. Afterward, Anna opens a portal to allow everyone access out of her storage space. Nonetheless, the Daemon herself has to stay behind.
Despite the heart-wrenching separation from Anna, Kento goes on to fulfill his promise to Kiriko and advocates for a better relationship between daemons and humans. Eventually, things change, such as the inhuman killing of daemons. Instead, in this new world, daemons help humans in everyday life, and research on other species is much more empathetic and cooperative.
Kento helms this change, routinely giving motivational speeches about coexistence at his young age. Additionally, in a crowded room, the kid still catches glimpses of Kiriko in the human form he likes to adapt, keeping an eye on him and his promised progress. Ultimately, Kiriko remains satisfied with Kento’s work and doesn’t return to bring about humanity’s end.
Does Anna Die?
Even though the show’s finale brings a satisfying and conclusive ending to the overarching narrative of coexistence, it leaves the crucial relationship between Anna and Kento up in the air. The series focuses on the duo’s partnership, with the two forming one strong unit. Therefore, when Anna has to stay behind in her storage space, it makes for a heartbreaking end.
By the end, Anna has exhausted her energy by absorbing numerous living people inside of he. If the same isn’t taxing enough, the daemon fought Kiriko and his superior power. Consequently, Anna runs out of energy to escape into the human world. Thus, Kento has to bid his friend an ill-timed goodbye and go on to live without her. Despite learning to live without Anna and his mother, Kento continues to feel their absence and confesses it to the latter’s grave upon his latest visit.
During the same, Kento overhears Anna’s endearing yips, which pull him deeper into the forest, where he witnesses a scene that brings a grin to his face. From Anna’s voice and the unbridled joy on Kento’s face, we can interpret that the boy runs back into his old friend. Furthermore, moments before escaping Anna’s void, Kaede notices the Seori Island inside the storage space.
Another storage daemon consumed the island along with its residents, including Kaede’s mother, before disappearing. Therefore, it is likely that all storage daemons share the same void. For the same reason, narratively, Anna is yet to serve another purpose in bringing closure to Kaede’s storyline. Therefore, it’s safe to assume the daemon is alive and reunites with Kento at the end, with more of her story to expand in a potential season two.
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