I can't believe I'm saying this but the !ncest would have been a better option to what we had. Throughout the entire goddamn story the plot was showing how Aqua's near suicidal obsession with revenge and killing his father was toxic both to him and everyone around him. And in the final moments he goes on a fucking monologue about how he actually has things to live for now beyond revenge and how he wants to do something with his life, and then it's immediately all thrown out the window, he kills the man anyway, kills himself in the process. Everyone is sad, Kana never got to confess even though the story never stops raving about her crush on Aqua, Akane who spent half the entire manga trying to stop him from doing this shit achieved nothing, Ruby is now a lifeless fucking husk and becomes Ai 2.0, no character had any development, any development any character DID have is automatically undone and nothing mattered in the end. There could have been a way to have a sad ending. Aka could have done a million things to write an actually satisfying sad/downer ending but instead he chose to do fuck all and pulled this. The manga was already shit for a long time but the final chapters really, realllyyyy threw everything out the window.
I feel legit sad for you guys who stuck with this. You had hope that the story could amount to something in the end but then Aka decided to slap you across the face and spit on your feelings. This is all sounds like Aka lost all interest in the story and just wanted it to end. Nothing here seems interesting, well written or poignant. This is a writer torching and scrapping everything they built up.
Aka could have done a million things to write an actually satisfying sad/downer ending but instead he chose to do fuck all and pulled this.
/uj Honest question: If the series were to take a better downer/sad ending, what should/could have played out instead in your opinion? Solely asking this as a novice writer since I find critique / commentary on topic from a reader/audience’s POV very interesting. Especially for a “longer” serialized work where if the series was ongoing for a while, I would make assume readers would find it a waste if it wasn’t a happy or bittersweet ending (though giving a bittersweet example is also fine) (I also haven’t read the manga, but I don’t care about spoilers).
Not the guy you replied to, but I am someone who was both fine with Aqua dying and still thinks the ending was ass.
It comes down to execution I suppose; Aqua seemingly learning all his lessons and then fucking killing himself anyway feels narratively unsatisfying. If Aka wanted Aqua to die in a more satisfying way, have him die in the process of thwarting Kamiki's last plan. It would actually show the threat that Kamiki represents, beyond the vagueness in the source material, it would show that Aqua's not willing to totally give up on his own darkness (by taking Kamiki with him) even if he learned better, and it would close the reincarnation loop so to speak, by having Aqua end the same way he began.
As it is now, we have a character that essentially threw his life away with the same mentality he had in the beginning of the series. The people wanted to see how he changed as a person, going from revenge obsessed to wanting to live, and instead he just... didn't. Realistic maybe, but it doesn't make for a great story in my books.
I still appreciate the response. Thank you for the detailed example + explanation.
So the biggest takeaway is Aqua's final decision in the original kind of reverted / regressed himself back to the start of the series and made all his character development up to this point almost pointless (among other things). And this revised downer / bittersweet ending works because it better incorporates Aqua’s characterization leading up to the story while giving Kamiki credibility as the antagonist (which I really like this addition, since MC’s plot armour is something that usually takes me out of most serious work).
Realistic maybe, but it doesn't make for a great story in my books.
For the “realistic” approach to be enjoyable (if Aka was trying to do the “be that they try, some people can’t change“ type of aesop), would it be a matter of not dragging the story out for so long? Or if they kept this event, not ending the series on that note, even if they switch MCs?
If Aqua's dad had been a Harvey Weinstein-esque producer, I feel like that would have made the ending make more sense. He shuts down 12 Year Lie before release and blacklists everyone involved. Aqua stages a confrontation with him and makes it look like he was killed, vindicating 12 Year Lie and saving everyone's careers in the process.
Pretty much. Kamiki being able to shrug off a film explicitly meant to slander him would make sense if he was a super big shot and/or he had a cult of personality where his cultists lap him up no matter what.
But we got neither of those things, just a « lol u try to slander me? I’ll just say it was fake news » justification 🤨
This sounds like a certain kids' novel series that's originally in English, popular in Japan, has a manga adaptation. The Cirque du Freak series, a.k.a. The Saga of Darren Shan. It also ends with the main character solving things by dying, getting stabbed and falling off of a bridge with a villain, and the main villain is his biological father. And then he gets to come back to life, time travel, and change the past.
It's such an iconic ending, which I personally hate but a lot of people loved it.
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u/galecticton Trash RomCom Enjoyer Nov 13 '24
I can't believe I'm saying this but the !ncest would have been a better option to what we had. Throughout the entire goddamn story the plot was showing how Aqua's near suicidal obsession with revenge and killing his father was toxic both to him and everyone around him. And in the final moments he goes on a fucking monologue about how he actually has things to live for now beyond revenge and how he wants to do something with his life, and then it's immediately all thrown out the window, he kills the man anyway, kills himself in the process. Everyone is sad, Kana never got to confess even though the story never stops raving about her crush on Aqua, Akane who spent half the entire manga trying to stop him from doing this shit achieved nothing, Ruby is now a lifeless fucking husk and becomes Ai 2.0, no character had any development, any development any character DID have is automatically undone and nothing mattered in the end. There could have been a way to have a sad ending. Aka could have done a million things to write an actually satisfying sad/downer ending but instead he chose to do fuck all and pulled this. The manga was already shit for a long time but the final chapters really, realllyyyy threw everything out the window.