Aitsu no Kanojo

[Litreara]

If the author wanted the end being Riku coming to terms with what happened with Shizuku and Takt and choosing to move on without them and look to Umimi and, less so to Yako, as the future that's fine - I don't agree but that's fine I can live with that...what bothers me is to not even let the reader know what happened to Shizuku. I figure most readers don't care too much about Takt - at least he's shown going off to better himself. Shizuku just vanishes which is just such an odd choice.

And just as Riku is finally starting to move on, he gets a call from an anonymous number. It’s just a lazy open ending.

 

[Faint15]

Man that ending pissed me off lol. All that for an open ending? Like come on man

 

[HellJester]

Part of me wants to hold out some hope that maybe volume 8 will include the 1st draft of Chapter 73 or that the bonus content will be Shizuku coming back to Riku. However, the author himself said the bonus content was stuff that couldn't be published online which means it's spicy so it's unlikely to be a reunion. It'll either be what happened between Shizuku and Riku after the game center date and before she left or future Riku and future Umimi (and maybe Yako why not).

 

[MrPP118]

Part of me wants to hold out some hope that maybe volume 8 will include the 1st draft of Chapter 73 or that the bonus content will be Shizuku coming back to Riku. However, the author himself said the bonus content was stuff that couldn't be published online which means it's spicy so it's unlikely to be a reunion. It'll either be what happened between Shizuku and Riku after the game center date and before she left or future Riku and future Umimi (and maybe Yako why not).

I want to believe as well but I have this gut feeling it's gonna be NTR stuff.

 

[kingbeifwhistle]

If the author wanted the end being Riku coming to terms with what happened with Shizuku and Takt and choosing to move on without them and look to Umimi and, less so to Yako, as the future that's fine - I don't agree but that's fine I can live with that...what bothers me is to not even let the reader know what happened to Shizuku. I figure most readers don't care too much about Takt - at least he's shown going off to better himself. Shizuku just vanishes which is just such an odd choice.

The happiest interpretation is that she was the unlisted number calling him, except it means the moment he finally resolved to move on with his life she ripped that scab open fresh again, but at least she didn't die of her mystery bullshit. The worst is Takt because fuck that guy. It's possible the last tank will give something along with whatever lewds the other has planned, you can't just dangle that phone call at the end and be all 'lol the end fuck you.' Well you can, but that's just a surefire way to piss a bunch of already pissed off readers even more. That twitter link up there has even more "what was that ending" replies now. I don't understand the people thinking it will be Shizuku/Takt content. He was practically forcing himself to do what little he did and she has zero reason to reciprocate now that the guy finally came clear, unless it's just more what-ifs/delusions

 

[HellJester]

The happiest interpretation is that she was the unlisted number calling him, except it means the moment he finally resolved to move on with his life she ripped that scab open fresh again, but at least she didn't die of her mystery bullshit. The worst is Takt because fuck that guy. It's possible the last tank will give something along with whatever lewds the other has planned, you can't just dangle that phone call at the end and be all 'lol the end fuck you.' Well you can, but that's just a surefire way to piss a bunch of already pissed off readers even more. That twitter link up there has even more "what was that ending" replies now. I don't understand the people thinking it will be Shizuku/Takt content. He was practically forcing himself to do what little he did and she has zero reason to reciprocate now that the guy finally came clear, unless it's just more what-ifs/delusions

I think the people asking for Shizuku/Takt content like to watch the world burn lol. Or maybe they want more NTR...who knows.

I think if the author wanted one more fuck you he'd have Shizuku show up married to Takt and they have a little kid and he never establishes if it's Riku's kid or Takt's....and someone gets hit by a truck.

 

[rluka]

Is there even chance for Shizuku and Takuto steamy content?
The best I can imagine for the case is Shizuku and Takuto both stay together but both never expect anything romantic, just a fellow who went through failure together.

 

[HellJester]

Is there even chance for Shizuku and Takuto steamy content?
The best I can imagine for the case is Shizuku and Takuto both stay together but both never expect anything romantic, just a fellow who went through failure together.

There are still people out there that believe Takt isn't gay - I don't fully blame them because the majority of the manga was written in a way where it wasn't crystal clear. Only at the end did Takt actually come out and admit he loved Riku. So they assumed Takt was dating Shizuku sincerely and wonder why they didn't do more than the make out scene near the end.

 

[larissamura]

I considered many possible endings for this work, but the Schrödinger's Shizuko ending was definitely not one of them. Congratulations to the author for surprising me.
I could even accept this ending, which doesn't give us explanations and only shows that the protagonist overcame everything, if this were a manga that focused on the protagonist's personal development (like Hoshino me wo Tsubatte, which many people hated the ending of, but I liked), which it clearly isn't. The protagonist barely has any development; his conflict in the story is basically a "I won't date, I will date, I won't date, I will date, I won't date" (quoting the Brazilian philosopher Seu Jorge). Even the development he could have had by discovering everything that happened (Takuto being in love with him and having a fake relationship with Shizuko, and Shizuko being sick and possibly dying) doesn't happen because he doesn't discover any of that. He gets over the fact that his crush and his best friend disappeared, but he doesn't even know why. There was no development whatsoever. The same goes for Shizuko, who is the female protagonist and the great mystery of the work; we never see her point of view. Everything we discover about her is at the end from Takuto's point of view, but we never actually see her perspective on everything that happened, what she thought when making the decisions she made. The big revelation that she is ill is made in a dialogue between her mother and Takuto, without her present. Surprisingly, the only characters with a cohesive arc in this work are Umimi and Takuto. Not necessarily good arcs, but they exist. We actually see Umimi's point of view and understand what led her to act as she did, and we see her accepting her feelings for the protagonist and how that relates to all the craziness with her mother and stepfather (I found her stepfather's arc awful, but that's beside the point). Her arc has a beginning, middle, and end. As for Takuto, we see what motivated his decisions, his regret, him confronting his father and seeking redemption; he has a complete development arc. Unlike Riku, who knows nothing of what happened and we only know he overcame everything because there's a two-year time jump stating that he overcame everything, and in Shizuko's case it's even worse, we have no conclusion regarding her, we don't know her thoughts about everything that happened, and we don't even know if she's alive or dead. The story simply ended abruptly without developing its two protagonists. This manga could easily have 4 or 5 volumes and it would have been much better, because there's a lot of filler in the middle. Yako, despite being charismatic, is a completely unnecessary character. The whole story about Umimi's stepfather could have been cut (I would have appreciated not having to see that scene of her masturbating with the protagonist's hand), and they could have developed the ending and the main trio more, given a conclusion and development to Riku and Shizuko, and given more importance to Takuto throughout the story instead of sidelining him the whole time only to have him appear at the end and reveal all the mysteries of the manga before going on a journey of self-discovery. Besides the fact that the author pretended that many things didn't exist, like the hospital card that Shizuko's mother lost and Riku found, the mark on Shizuko's neck, and that countdown to graduation that at a certain point the author simply pretended never happened. By the end, it's clear that the author got fed up with the work and gave up.

Having said all that, I found this manga very fun to follow. I was eager for each chapter, I read comments about the work from everywhere possible, I saw the version in various languages—Spanish, English, Portuguese, and even Japanese—this manga drove me crazy. Is it a good manga? Definitely not, but art is about feeling, and this manga definitely made me feel things.