i’m iffy on the fact that surveillance and police involvement were the systemic solutions at the end (as someone who lives in america lol), especially when you have characters like the principal embodying the potential (arguably innate) corruption of these systems. that said, i understand the story was only partly about bullying as a systemic problem, so trying to have a more nuanced take on that aspect would possibly take away from how phenomenally tight the rest of this deeply character-driven story is paced. plus, this might be a particularly biased nitpick based on my personal politics, which shouldn’t have much (if any) bearing on my thoughts on this story
i was expecting this to be pure catharsis, and by extension, kinda trashy. there definitely was lots of catharsis, and i did love pretty much every second, but the story had so much more to it than that, and it was all SHOCKINGLY well-done. characters were all huge highlights; i adore how many different perspectives are at play here, and how each of them has at least one flaw and one redeeming aspect to it (not to say the character or their motivation as a whole are redeemable), with the possible exceptions of manaka whose only real flaw was being a bit naive (and even then, i would only argue a bit, since i think he was getting at some pretty salient points about the flaws in aizawa's views) and shiori whom i can't help but feel bad for even thinking to criticize. i mentioned it before, but god, the pacing of this is mind-blowingly great, to the point where it might be my favorite part of the whole thing. i aspire to have this level of control of the story i'm writing.
overall, good shit. first time in a while i've actively thought about recommending something to people, since it seems to be a bit obscure.