Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~

[Yukimura]

I know what the terms mean I just don't see where your belief that Reiji's death was a morality lesson stems from. As Everon said, Inferno remains, it seems like being bad only leads to punishment if you were good first. If I learned anything from the final scene it would be that you can't escape from the past if you are unwilling to let it go and live in the future.

[shinta|hikari]

Poetic justice does not have to affect all characters or groups in the show.

The moral lesson is that even if you are "good", killing is a bad thing, and will come back to bite you in the ass.

If those two actually managed to get away and live happily ever after, that would be like saying that killing women, children and tons of other people is okay, and you can still be happy. I personally think that the creators did not want to send out a message like this so they killed Reiji off in the end, ironically via assassination. Of course, I could be wrong, since there really is no way to tell what the creators were thinking. That is just my take on their decision to do such an ending.