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| Topic | Jeff Zero & Leonhart in Different Houses: Trails of Arcadia Edition [JZLF] |
| LeonhartFour 10/09/17 3:05:00 AM #188: | Hmmm...So I ended up just binge-reading the rest of that manga (whoops), partly because it took a turn I wasn't expecting (and didn't totally care for), and I wanted to see if they actually managed to correct it by the end (because manga and anime tend to be bad about this sort of thing). Well, it wasn't a totally satisfying ending, but they did manage to salvage it from being an outright bad one. The last few chapters were really good. However, overall, the last third of the manga wasn't as good as the rest, mostly because the focus drifted away from the three best girls (including a second rival, who had been a pretty minor but very good character up to that point, who ended up completely supplanting the first, who barely showed up ever in the last third). It was kinda weird because they showed the results of a popularity poll at one point during the manga, and the original rival ranked second overall, and she literally almost never appeared again after that. The weakness of the rest of the supporting cast was made pretty evident by the fact that they had to carry a lot of weight with the three girls only sporadically appearing. The protagonist was still really good, at least, so it wasn't a complete loss. He was just as determined to make sure the manga didn't have a trainwreck of an ending as I was, so I felt a sense of kinship there. Still, why are anime and manga so bad about not having satisfying, happy endings, especially when it comes to slice of life stuff? Even when they have happy endings, they're not totally satisfying (like Toradora; actually, the ending of "My Wife is Wagatsuma-san" sorta reminds me of the ending of Toradora, especially since they both gave me the same dissatisfied feeling despite technically being happy endings). Argh, now this has me paranoid about ReLIFE (although that one is still trending in the right direction this late in the game, which is encouraging). Is this just a difference between American and Japanese sensibilities? Or maybe I'm just expecting the wrong things out of it. I dunno. I'm still glad I read it and I enjoyed it overall, but I'm feeling a bit conflicted. Anyway, my brain is mush now from all that binge reading, so I should probably just go to bed and think on it again when I've had some sleep. --- ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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