Boy's Abyss - Vol. 18 Ch. 183 - They Were the Boys and Girls of That Town

[Absent666]

What even happened to his mother? What happened to the other characters??? this shit was so rushed.. enjoyed reading this manga though

Yuuko was arrested.

Just came here to say there weren't many additions in the final vol. other than
-Making it more explicit Yuuko and Yuri let go of Reiji (1st as a symbolical scene where mom looses her hand and kid Reiji runs free and 2nd with Yuri hallucinating with Nagi and Reiji trying to kill themselves by entering to the river, but then realizing nobody was there, by throwing the knife, she's letting her feelings for Reiji go with the river)
-Reiji being a bit wary, thinking he was also hallucinating Nagi (as how he hallucinated his childhood friends and mom when trying to off himself) before seeing her bloodstained hand and after seeing his own hand, realizing she's real, pulling Nagi's hand and asking her name.
-Gen's line where he says Reiji was a fool for choosing the mountains to live has a punchline where he says that's what he chose.
-A kinospread with a couple holding hands in front of the ocean (the twitter illustration when ch 183 was released, but from another angle, so those hands are Rei and Nagi's).

Those who expected more of Reiji's adult life will be disappointed. Chapter only gave a definite closure and severance to his relationships with Yuuko and Yuri.

 

[CookieMonster]

There is this line between being dark and depressing work of art and being ridiculous pile of disastrous events and tragedies that keep multiplying with every chapter. And this manga crossed this line half way through or even earlier. It transformed into something akin to slasher B-move, where you don't really care about characters or plot and just watching it to see what kind of tortures creators came up with. Someone should tell author, that more doesn't mean better, often it's vice versa.

Same with endless mysteries and revelations. When characters reveal another secret, you know there is no way it can be the full truth. Once again, everything is good in moderation. Also shit tons of unbelievably continent events and meetings. This is minor issue in comparison, but it too doesn't help with believability.

Best parts of the manga was Yuko\Esemori flashback. Mostly cause it was relatively short, completed and has only few characters, thus author wasn't able to keep adding endless layers of "shit got worse" to this arc. And yeah, first 1\3 of main plot was good too for same reasons, but after this point it just felt repetitive and dragging except for few good moments.

 

[KimKowabunga]

Maybe the boys abyss was the friends we made along the way.

 

[MoonMoonEN]

It was a story, but I feel like the author didn't know how to end it because that was just completely short, random and bad 😭 I waited over a year for the next few dozen chapters only to stumble upon it and get such a dumb conclusion.

Part of me wished it was a bittersweet suicide but part of me also wanted a happy ending, However it was the worst of the happy ending by no closure no detail and basically like the story being covered in a fog and we were shown only a shape that we can't make out lmao. It's not a mysterious ending it's plain and bold but at the same time we don't see literally anything.

 

[nxneil13]

is there 2 epilouge chapters left or nah?

 

[abyssSeeker]

What even happened to his mother? What happened to the other characters??? this shit was so rushed.. enjoyed reading this manga though

So from what I'm understanding, it seems Yuko ended up being taken to jail for her crimes I guess (I don't know, to me that doesn't make much sense but anyways...). Rei and Aoi apparently stayed in the mountains with that lady (forget her name), now working with her. No idea what the feck happened to Yuri and Mao, and only Esemori died.
I personally thought Rei and Aoi they ended up doing the suicide because it didn't seem like they were just thinking of anything else other than dying at that point. Aoi even thanked Mao for "tainting" Rei which to be was like her saying that they were finally ready to leave the world behind together. Kinda lame fakeout because it makes no sense at all.
Anyways, am just glad I'm done with this, ain't never coming back.

 

[Absent666]

I personally thought Rei and Aoi they ended up doing the suicide because it didn't seem like they were just thinking of anything else other than dying at that point. Aoi even thanked Mao for "tainting" Rei which to be was like her saying that they were finally ready to leave the world behind together.

Beng tainted, dirtied, corrupted or stained has another meaning. It's about how far and low could you go to be with the person you love and avoid rejection. It was always mentioned in the series by various people, when Chako called Esemori out, she said people fear rejection more than being tainted (in japanese she said people fear being hurt (in the sense of being rejected) more than being tainted), we had Yuri's oddisey where she fell lower and lower simply because she wanted Reiji's acceptance (even though in the end she couldn't accept Reiji staining his hands, so she rejected Reiji's true self), Reiji called Esemori out for disowning Yuuko instead of understanding her better, Shino'oka told Reiji how far Yuuko went only to be with Akira (she killed Uryuu).

Reiji chose to reject being hurt and stain his hands for a person who was basically a disposable being and accept her instead (something more evident in the additional panels from the final tankoubon. It was a decision he took during Tokyo after having rejected the idea of Nagi's true self not being his angel of death in the end of the hospital arc. His decision to ask her real name (AKA acceptance of Nagi's true self) came after he saw her hurt hand for having stopped his spiteful suicide attempt in ch180 and realized, by seeing his own scarred hand she did the same thing he did to stop Gen and Chako from murder-suicide (ch129) and khs (ch140) respectively, Nagi only wanted to save Reiji from himself, yet she was grateful to Mao for making Reiji go that low for her.

For all the shitburgers Boy's Abyss is eating after the end, the topic of choosing to be tainted over being rejected was always consistent alongside the story.

 

[abyssSeeker]

Beng tainted, dirtied, corrupted or stained has another meaning. It's about how far and low could you go to be with the person you love and avoid rejection. It was always mentioned in the series by various people, when Chako called Esemori out, she said people fear rejection more than being tainted (in japanese she said people fear being hurt (in the sense of being rejected) more than being tainted), we had Yuri's oddisey where she fell lower and lower simply because she wanted Reiji's acceptance (even though in the end she couldn't accept Reiji staining his hands, so she rejected Reiji's true self), Reiji called Esemori out for disowning Yuuko instead of understanding her better, Shino'oka told Reiji how far Yuuko went only to be with Akira (she killed Uryuu).

Reiji chose to reject being hurt and stain his hands for a person who was basically a disposable being and accept her instead (something more evident in the additional panels from the final tankoubon. It was a decision he took during Tokyo after having rejected the idea of Nagi's true self not being his angel of death in the end of the hospital arc. His decision to ask her real name (AKA acceptance of Nagi's true self) came after he saw her hurt hand for having stopped his spiteful suicide attempt in ch180 and realized, by seeing his own scarred hand she did the same thing he did to stop Gen and Chako from murder-suicide (ch129) and khs (ch140) respectively, Nagi only wanted to save Reiji from himself, yet she was grateful to Mao for making Reiji go that low for her.

For all the shitburgers Boy's Abyss is eating after the end, the topic of choosing to be tainted over being rejected was always consistent alongside the story.

Really insightful and interesting, I had not thought of it like that so I clearly missed the nuanced meaning to what she said. Thank you for taking the time to explain and clarify it for me.

 

[Pleppie]

Geez.. why does everyone hate a happy ending? Yall are so thirsty for misery and bloodshed that you refuse to understand this simple happy ending for an absurd string of suffering? Sure i wish there was a bit of a longer omake style ending showing everyone finally moving on with their lives and free from the curses, but that also doesn’t fit the overall style. The ending is clear, all the curses were cleared intentionally or not. Every character in the story was under one or several spells cast by some sense of guilt or responsibility for family or people they were supposed to care about creating a kafkaeque hell. I think the fault in the story is undoing the major ones at once and so quickly, but every node that chained them to the city was resolved. Chako’s hell was the family controlled by her dad, that cared more about appearances above his own family and her passive mother that showed no resistance and even obeyed. That was dispelled when her mother finally destroyed that family construct. Gen was haunted by his fascination for yuko and his guilt for killing his best friend’s father and keeping it from him, that was dispelled when he finally accepted he envied yuko and that him murdering was not in order to save reiji, so no one owed anything to anyone. Esemori died finally being able to be honest with yuko and getting some of his mistakes straight. Yuri was a lost person because she couldn’t fulfill the dream she borrowed from her grandpa and clinged to the first person that could make her feel needed. She’s a pitiable one, I don’t think her conclusion was on the happy side, she kinda shifts between being an adult and being very needy. In the end she takes the adult position again and accepts she can’t be a real support for reiji, i think she always knows that she’s always doing everything for herself deep inside while saying she’ll do anything for reiji, she just felt like she’d never have anything else in her life. Yuko is also another unfortunate person, i think her story was already over before the start of this manga, so she already had lost any chance for salvation, like reiji and probably nagi would be if they had killed the piece of shit mao. She didn’t deserve what she got until she embraced it and became as evil as the rest of her family. In the end she might have been partially freed with esemori’s saying that the boy in the hospital was actually him(truth or not) and in turn freed reiji by finally saying she’s always hated him, or maybe she was just lashing out because she was the only one condemned in the end. Reiji had to be freed from multiple curses, by gen, her mom, yuri and having someone he wanted to save in nagi. Nagi just needed someone to love her and show how insignificant her uncle was. I’d say for all of this to pass they were all very “lucky”, so that convenience might be criticized, but i like it ending in a way that says even characters this deep in shit can turn a new page if they can identify what matters above all is living they way they want and that anything weighting in their conscience that chains them to a miserable situation is just an illusion

 

[Absent666]

Chako’s hell was the family controlled by her dad, that cared more about appearances above his own family and her passive mother that showed no resistance and even obeyed. That was dispelled when her mother finally destroyed that family construct. Gen was haunted by his fascination for yuko and his guilt for killing his best friend’s father and keeping it from him, that was dispelled when he finally accepted he envied yuko and that him murdering was not in order to save reiji, so no one owed anything to anyone.

In the end, it was Chako who stabbed her dad to protect her own mom, her line in ch 176 basically has her admitting not having any clear memory, but ended with her mom's version to save her because in the end, it didn't matter, they were gonna divorce after all.

And yeah, Gen stabbed Reiji's stepdad, but he could have been saved if not for a certain woman, and Gen could have saved him if not for Yuuko who told him to not look at his agonizing yet alive body and told him to go. He also kind of placed a burden on Reiji by telling him at the very beginning of the story Yuuko whored herself out because of him all to make him be stuck in town hell.

 

[HAt_Sauce234]

With how dragged out this manga (cough cough considering the long dialogue two panels) this ending feels cut..... short? The loose ends were barely tied up and I felt we didn't get any proper send offs. It feels barely conclusive and a bit disjointed to the rest of the manga.

Tbf If I was in a more clear headed headspace I wouldn't have read this past the third chapter so that does muddle my perspective.

With regards to the characters:
Nagi really grew on me near the end (I had disliked her at the start and didn't think much of her), in a similar vein to Makima from CSM, possibly due to the parallel of grooming the respective MC in their first appearances. I probably instinctually disliked them but as the story got actually in their character they weren't half bad.
Chako went from best (or at least honorary best) girl to pretty middle of the road since I felt like I ended up disliking her actions in the story the most. It seemed like when she meddled it was at a point where it made the most difference. Not saying this ruins her character and it sure was interesting to say the least
Admittedly I liked Miss Shiba, too bad she was probably the most irredeemable if things don't go her way.
Yuko was a mixed bag throughout, ranging from 'aw she cares' , to 'oh she's a monster', oh 'she's very much a monster' to 'what happened to her was tragic'. Overall I don't hate her nearly as much as I did and I really have an itch of her being happy in at least another timeline.
I also liked Mister Esotori but this may be an overcompensation of the ambiguity of whether he was an awful man presented in the start. I felt like for someone who ultimately was a weak coward who kept trying to pick up the crumbs, compared to similar characters to him, he was done rather well.
I'm comparing him to the Male MC's of the oneshot Linda and

Spoiler

Hanamura Kindergarten

who have similar character dilemmas to his with Yuko's and he feels like he did the most.
Finally the last character of note, Gen. Not much to say other than I did like his character but that doesn't really forgive his violent outbursts. Ultimately another character groomed (by both unfortunate circumstance and a another character).

 

[nonexistent696969]

Been couple months since ended, need epilogue 😢

 

[yukiisan]

i finished reading this in less than a week. def underatted, it was pretty peak tbh but the ending was kinda rushed and weird...? what the sigma happened to my boy rei?

 

[zoro8444]

I guess that Chako is just going to start the cycle one again by writing another fucked up story with this cursed town as its source material. The thing that kicked off the events of this manga was Nagi and Reiji reading a book made by someone who was inflicted pain by the town he grew up in, causing them both to see it as a way out of their current situations, so now that Chako is (presumably) going to write a story based on her own experiences in this town, she'll just pass that down to another generation once again.

I'd find this likely given that this manga has themes of guilt and suffering being passed on from one generation to the next, so in essence Chako is going to take the role of Esemori for the new generation and the entire cycle will start once again. Nothing has been solved, this was not a good ending, the cycle continues until the world is annihilated at the end of the current age.

 

[basicrace]

you’ve got to be fucking kidding me