Quote Originally Posted by Darknodin
it ends in a way that could easily mean a second season should they want to. and about tying it to the manga story, no matter what the story, it would only take an ep or two to completely turn it around
Umm...if people were dead in the anime but not the manga and they're important in the later manga story you'd have a bit of a problem. But in this case you're probably right, they could pull it together and get back on the manga plot even with where they left it, but it would take a few fairly large leaps.