Well. I said I would take it slowly, but I reneged on my own promise. This is worse than Fuuka. Why do I do these things to myself? 😭
Oh no! I can’t believe you blazed through this whole series in a couple days. Now you have to wait for the final chapter with the rest of us.
You mentioned Akane in the other thread, and I think that she has become the most interesting character to me (my favorite will always be Miyako, mom of my heart). In this chapter, Akane literally became the narrator for us. I think it is interesting that she is criticizing Aqua’s plan, essentially criticizing the author’s plot at a meta level.
Now you can start watching the anime! It has been an excellent adaptation. The second season ended roughly halfway through the story (chapter 80).
Don’t know why I was sure it was completed, that’s why I went through with it.
About Akane, as you mentioned I thought she was a meta character. The difference is that for me she was the reader insertion in the story. Not sure if you understand what I mean.
This is the type of stuff I really appreciate and was looking for - a lot of emotion and closure without much unneccessary words.
“Detective” Akane being the narrator as the great Kamiki mystery is solved and how she explained how Aqua might have thought leaving nothing behind gave some insight in how he really wanted to separate and remove everyone he cared about away from any kind of rumour or suspicion for them to have the best life.
Kana crying genuinely and having her show her true emotions, Miyako showing indignation and rage when she thought Kana disrespected Aqua’s corpse with a slap to breakdown when she saw Kana’s heartfelt and painful confession.
Seeing Taiki, who is shown as so stoic, showing some real emotion and even Frill seems to show sadness
With what Akane said in the final scenes I am sure at least Ruby is going to perform at the Dome, now with both her brother-Aqua/ person she loved -Garou and mother in mind.
I like how “Dark” Ruby is on scene when thinking why everyone leaves her and on the last page has her revert to “Bright” Ruby
Kana is probably studying a movie script but who knows what the final chapter will bring with showing Ruby and Kana’s resolve
I am really curious to see how the last chapter shakes out. I wasn’t expecting that note of optimism at the end. I was fully expecting Ruby/Aqua to go the Romeo/Juliet tragic deaths route.
A part of me feels that Ruby understands the difference in the deaths, like Garou and Ai were killed and there was no justice, she wanted to punish the ones that took away the most important people in her life.
But now she is still upset and grieving, but maybe she feels like she got that justice she was looking for, but it cost her someone really dear to her.
So she is grieving her love, but sort of understands how much he loved her when she probably got told of the assassination attempt and him putting a stop to it once and for all
I know Aqua said from the very beginning that he intended to get revenge no matter the cost to himself, but it’s still a little surprising to see it end like this.
As the expression goes, paraphrased: “When plotting revenge against your enemy - dig two graves; one for your enemy and one for yourself.”
Edit: I do feel Aqua/Garou is the kind of guy that doesn’t believe in half measures and when he fully commits to something when he puts his all to it.
On reflection, he fell in love with Ai, because Sarena loved her.
His stand-out performance in the play comes from having to torment himself into method acting.
And he spent I would think almost all his income on DNA tests - which in hindsight is a bit of a weakness in Aqua’s plan if that type of information became public knowledge, but I guess the movie being released helps distract people from looking too deeply into his past and focus more on Kamiki instead.
Both Aqua and Kamiki being dead now also means that there is little reason to dig all that deep into Aqua’s actions to find Kamiki. Ruby and Akane know that he was looking for their father and maybe the director, but I don’t think the police are going to step away from their serial killer case to think too much about it.
True, especially since they have a confession with a list of suspects that are not connected to the incident but to murders related to Kamiki and it probably looks like a case of the one murder he decides to get involved in to finish off Aqua as he is his son, but Aqua could have been prepared because of the movie research - kind of line of investigating
Looks like the last chapter will be the Ruby chapter. I had thought that it might end up with a Ruby suicide, but the tease at the end gives me some hope. It was nice to see more of Kana’s grieving process. Also, it seems like Akane kind of became the main character this chapter.
Just one more chapter left.