takes the oshis no kos and runs into the night

what the actual Hell is this ending and why is it simultaneously a huge nothingburger while also serving as the final nail in the coffin to ruby's character. and not just ruby's but also knocking everything else off the table

who cares about kana's acting career. she's a bodyguard now

at least akane is shown doing SomeThing career-related

even if its a variety show(?)

aqua died. and people were sad. anyway,

pulls my hair out

AQUA DIED??

what happened to this series

anyway,

god.

there has truly never been a more Nothing ending

what the fuck

I'm so sorry

anyway grab your characters and run

ovals: it was so good. SO SO SO GOOD. for about half of it. the server i'm in has come to the general agreement that it's around ch80, aka around the end of the second anime season, that things start to get shaky

and then for like 40+ chapters we were going "where is aka taking this?" with initial curiousity that started to become worried

and after 123, it became "WHERE IS HE TAKING THIS?" as we're promptly shut out of characters' heads, including aqua's, when its been close POV for the entire series until then

for another forty agonziing chapters we're doing this shit

note that this was intended to be a weekly manga but there were lots of breaks

including like a very long one after 123 wherein demons moved into my home (combative fans took over the fandom)

and once we're shut out of most characters' heads, it starts being a lot of telling us how they feel, what their arcs are doing, etc instead of like... letting us experience them properly

the mystery, yknow, the driving force of the plot, is thoroughly penised by a bad and inconsistent timeline

the main antagonist in the end has his characterization thrown so all over the place that we're like ?????????????????????? about what we were supposed to take away about him

yeah the double triple fakeout there was so

what

ruby's characterization has been THOROUGHLY tenderized with a hammer until its in pieces

YEAH THERE WERE SO MANY FAKEOUTS ALSO. IT WAS VERY TIRING

rip

and then when we got into the final stretch of the last confrontation, it became very like. "are you so for real right now"

it felt like akasaka couldn't decide which bad guy was the real bad guy

the themes were taken out back and shot by big idol <- this is a joke but i'm wondering

so like. did we ever find out...anything ider what the main mystery was I tapped out around the point where Aqua thought he'd gotten his revenge and was sorta brightening up or smth

yeah like. we're supposed to believe he's had this ending planned for a year????

ovals: ohhhhhhhhhh no. you stopped at no hoshigan aqua didnt you. oh no

also like.

the speedrun explanation is this:

aqua found out that the timeline didnt match up for taiki's dad to have killed ai, because he died before she did, and aqua realized that his revenge wasnt actually over and had a big meltdown about it and went back into revenge mode

genuinely. what was the point of crow girl. among everyone else getting character assassinated
what... purpose did she actually serve other than trying to justify the reincarnation.

skip forward a lot and we get it confirmed that the stalker who killed ai got her address from the twins' dad. (taiki and the twins do share a bio dad but it isnt the adult taiki told aqua about)

we get yanked around really bad about what their dad, hikaru, is actually like

and whether he actually did it or if someone else did it and etc

and then in the end we find out that hikaru was being a super duper mastermind genius manipulator guy getting other people to kill for him while being able to plausibly deny thats what he was doing

and he tries to get ruby killed (shes fine. akane played decoy in a wig and stabproof vest. yes this is a real plot point) and so aqua goes to confront him

at which point hikaru's like you cant kill me itll ruin her career and aqua goes WELL ACTUALLY and fucking STABS HIMSELF AND THROWS THEM BOTH OFF A CLIFF INTO THE OCEAN AND THEY BOTH DIE

in order to make it look like hikaru attacked him

and then the ending chapters fucking speedrun everyone's reactions, as narrated by akane for some godforsaken reason, instead of spending any time in anyone's heads about it

oh

oh and btw KANA NEVER GOT TO TELL HIM SHE LOVED HIM, NEVER GOT ANY RESPONSE FROM HIM, AND IS THE ONLY ROMANTIC INTEREST WHO DIDNT KISS HIM

i think i'll go back to when Aqua thought he got his revenge and pretend he did and it's all good

i could add something else onto that but i need to . adjust the content warnings on this plurk

so i'll save it for later instead

ovals: this is for the best

it's seriously so tear my hair out like literally

lastbastion: LITERALLY THO. crow girl didnt amount to anything at all!!!

what was the POINT AUGHURHHRH

how did kana manage to come out of this the most unscathed in terms of character assassination. and even then. the last chapter with bodyguard kana is like. what the hell

drags hands down face

this is why this shit is gonna get fanfic rewrites out the wazoo

there are so many details. btw. that i did not go into. that make all of this worse

i will say that despite everything. i refuse to let go of the series and i'm going to run directly towards RP and transformative fiction for it

i am very glad i got into it, and even more glad i joined the server that i did

i'm just. so frustrated with all this ending

and i cant recommend it as glowingly as i did before

i have to be like "okay BUT [list of issues]"

and there are some people i would never recommend it to due to how they handle aqua's death in the end

I don’t think I can recommend it to anyone now bc of how they handled Aqua’s death.

its SO AWFUL

where's that one panel where the mangaka characters were talking about authors having responsibility in how they tell their stories. what the Fuck happened to that

I will never touch anything written by Aka again because of it. It makes me so unbearably angry.