The finale was predictable and fairly by-the-book, but so is the series as a whole so this feels appropriate. I'm glad the manga didn't shit the bed at the very end like some of its contemporaries, though in BC's case the issue is more so with the final arc overall. Given how obviously rushed things were due to Tabata's personal life and the switch to GIGA, I wonder if the anime will end up expanding on this stuff? There is recent precedent to this in the form of the final season of Bleach, which is even animated by the same studio, so it seems like a very realistic possibility and could help fix some of the more glaring problems. Things kinda started slowly falling apart ever since the Lucifero fight.
The final battle between Asta and Yuno was good. I like how it managed to showcase pretty much all of their notable techniques, including some from the early stages of the story. The fight could have been longer, but given the limited number of chapters left that would have meant neglecting other aspects of the ending so I'm willing to let it slide. The timeskip showing how everyone is doing is standard fare for these types of series. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is Yuno staying in Clover as a captain instead of fully embracing his duties as the king of Spade. Ideally I would have also liked to see Fuegoleon become the new king of Clover given that the other kingdoms are all ruled by spirit hosts as well. This could have even been part of removing the corrupt royals and nobles from power seeing how they were the root cause of the discrimination that Asta wanted to eliminate by becoming the Wizard King, but it seems like Tabata either forgot about this problem or decided that it was too late to try to address it at this point.
I'm personally indifferent to the shipping stuff but I know a relatively large segment of the audience cares about it, so it's a little strange that Tabata seemingly left Asta's love life open-ended. I've heard rumors about there being additional pages in the volume release or in some sort of a databook, so perhaps it will be addressed there. The random airship attack at the end may or may not be related to this as well. We've never seen tech like this before and the ship is also aesthetically distinct from something like the walking fortress that appeared in the Spade arc, so I guess these people are supposed to be from a different continent? You could probably write a special chapter about Asta fighting these guys together with his two main love interests and choosing one of them as his wife at the end of it. Alternatively Tabata could be trying to set up an epilogue movie akin to Naruto's 'The Last' featuring ancient illegal aliens.
Overall, I very much enjoyed the series. The beginning was a bit slow for my tastes but things really picked up during the elf arc with all the slow burn buildup finally paying off in a great way. Unfortunately it seems like Tabata hadn't put anywhere near as much thought into the subsequent arcs. The Spade arc was good for the most part but I disliked how the devil conflict was largely skipped by jumping straight to Lucifero. This left a lot of questions unanswered, including some fundamental ones like why the devils exist in a different world separated by magic gates that even they can't destroy, and how humanity managed to push them back after the gates were opened in the distant past in an event that supposedly led to the deaths of 90% of the continent's population according to Loropechka's archives. The final arc is where things took a nosedive with the rushed pacing, abandoned plot threads, new characters being introduced just before the final battle even though they didn't even participate in it, and most importantly Lucius being a very lackluster final villain, as I've complained about in previous threads. I'm hoping that either a databook or the anime will answer some of the questions I raised and wrap up the unresolved plot points, as that would significantly improve my opinion of the final third of the series.
To wrap things up, it's been fun following the manga but I'm also glad to move on at last. The quarterly release schedule just killed most of the momentum and made it difficult to even keep track of recent developments. If Tabata has it in him to come back with another series after this he should probably aim for a biweekly magazine or maybe even a weekly one with regularly scheduled breaks since it seems like the manga industry is more lenient towards that kind of thing these days.