Okuru Kotoba - Vol. 3 Ch. 16

[Arkhalis]

Ngl, the twist wherein both Mit-tan and Sahara were in a coma and the parents lying that he was dead is similar to when you have a best friend saying he is leaving the country after this school year, you throw a big farewell party for him for it, only to find out in the first day of the next school year, he is there just chilling in the corner of the classroom.

 

[Coldlight]

The parents now look like assholes for lying about their children. The intention may have been nice, to not "set expectations", but that just led to a lot of pain for the friends of their children involved. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Michi's mother in particular is a nasty one, for emotionally scarring Chiaki like that when she was still a child. She didn't have to do it that way, but I guess she just wanted to lash out at somebody, even a child.

I understand that some are frustrated that this didn't really turn out to be a "murder" mystery. This wasn't so bad for me though.

even though it was never hinted at before.

Two things hinted at it for me:

1) When Kenta violently wrecked the "memorial" to Sahara on the ground in one of the early chapters. He mentioned it again this chapter. There's no reason to do that unless he either hated Sahara or thought it was an insult to a friend who's still alive. I knew that had to mean something.

2) Sahara turned out to be an unreliable narrator as you point out. This is a writing technique I don't see often, but could backfire badly if not handled well. Much of the early things in this manga was from his POV, but when he started having flashbacks inconsistent with what we saw at first, that was when I realized it and stopped trusting what we saw from his POV.

 

[jasty]

I thought it was pretty clear Sahara was still alive when he started feeling pain from his injuries again. Dead people don't feel pain. Still it is unbelievable that his parents would lie about him being dead. That's just a poorly executed plot device.

 

[MerlinD]

I enjoy happy endings.
I like this.

 

[BlackHarrier]

Could someone please translate the text on Mei's phone in Panel 21? Thanks

 

[Gravitypull]

Idk, I liked this ending. Maybe I'm just not one for the tragedy endings, but I really enjoyed this story. What the parents did was def shitty, but also I don't think michi waking up was an ass pull? I mean, Sahara basically helped her come back, right? She needed someone to help her in order to wake up. It is just some supernatural storytelling. At least, that's how I interpreted it.

 

[comeonnow0]

The parents now look like assholes for lying about their children. The intention may have been nice, to not "set expectations", but that just led to a lot of pain for the friends of their children involved. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Michi's mother in particular is a nasty one, for emotionally scarring Chiaki like that when she was still a child. She didn't have to do it that way, but I guess she just wanted to lash out at somebody, even a child.

I understand that some are frustrated that this didn't really turn out to be a "murder" mystery. This wasn't so bad for me though.

Two things hinted at it for me:

1) When Kenta violently wrecked the "memorial" to Sahara on the ground in one of the early chapters. He mentioned it again this chapter. There's no reason to do that unless he either hated Sahara or thought it was an insult to a friend who's still alive. I knew that had to mean something.

2) Sahara turned out to be an unreliable narrator as you point out. This is a writing technique I don't see often, but could backfire badly if not handled well. Much of the early things in this manga was from his POV, but when he started having flashbacks inconsistent with what we saw at first, that was when I realized it and stopped trusting what we saw from his POV.

I mean, I know what an unreliable narrator is. That's why I used the term. If you're just linking to Wikipedia for other people, I guess that's fine, but it would be strange if you're linking for my sake. I've seen it a couple times in other works, both manga and non-manga.

But I strongly disagree with him being an unreliable narrator being the reason for him...being alive. That's a huge leap.

Kenta violently wrecking the memorial could've easily been due to something else, namely his dislike of Sahara. The other suggestion was that he blamed Sahara for Mit-tan's condition. We know that's not true and that he never knew about Sahara's role, but that was the suggestion the author had made.

So... Let me get this straight, though. We are supposed to feel like...it's okay for Kenta to kick memorial flowers when he knows Sahara was grievously injured and barely alive, that he could die at any time? All while others thought he was actually dead? So with all those feelings in mind, he just got pissed at the "farce" of memorial flowers for a barely alive/possibly dying soon person?

I think that EVEN WITH that explanation, that's a crap reason.

@jasty I can understand that view. In response, still alive people aren't supposed to be able to astral project their consciousnesses and have a gyaru girl be able to communicate with them while they roam the mortal world.

I mean, the alternative interpretation is literally what the author was trying to get readers to believe, that Sahara was feeling the effects of his "death".

 

[Jakan1904]

One thing I still don't understand is, why did Sahara just walk into traffic in the first place?
If he thought Chiaki pushed him, he can't have done it on purpose. Or was that his level of denial, that even when he accidentally killed himself he didn't want to take responsibility for his actions and subconsciously blamed it on the next best person, Chiaki?

 

[comeonnow0]

One thing I still don't understand is, why did Sahara just walk into traffic in the first place?
If he thought Chiaki pushed him, he can't have done it on purpose. Or was that his level of denial, that even when he accidentally killed himself he didn't want to take responsibility for his actions and subconsciously blamed it on the next best person, Chiaki?

The second one. He saw Mit-tan's "ghost", so he walked out into traffic towards the "ghost", not noticing the oncoming vehicle.

In line with not taking responsibility for Mit-tan's "death", he didn't take responsibility for this and blamed it on Chiaki, who he saw "smiling" and had her arm reached out. She was apparently only smiling because her grandmother said to always smile instead of being sad.

 

[M0NSTRR]

Jesus fucking Christ why tf do i see a bunch of whiny bitches saying “oH WhAt a sHitTy eNdiNg” like y’all take this shit way too serious like talk some fucking 5 star critic or sum, it was honestly a very good story and bitches who hate on it for no reason can keep living your sad life not enjoying good stories

 

[Highorse]

tbh I thought that the mc being an unreliable narrator was actually a decent twist, just, again, as others have said, it could have been executed MUCH better, character and plot inconsistencies aside. oh well.

 

[khalvsphs]

Wow. For someone like me who’s known to say a lot about something, all I can say to this is “Why did I bother…”

 

[Connoisseur_Ryan]

I like it. A good ending like this isn't so bad once in a while even with the weird flow this manga took to get there

 

[comeonnow0]

Jesus fucking Christ why tf do i see a bunch of whiny bitches saying “oH WhAt a sHitTy eNdiNg” like y’all take this shit way too serious like talk some fucking 5 star critic or sum, it was honestly a very good story and bitches who hate on it for no reason can keep living your sad life not enjoying good stories

JFC, why do I see a whiny bitch complaining about other people?

Herp derp, no reason to hate on this, I can't read all the comments that explain exactly why this was bad, herp derp. You can go live your sad life thinking this was good. You can be a whiny bitch if you want to.

 

[WalrusNine]

As others have said, this was crap.

There's a comment above that says they liked the ending and that this was better than another work. It's fine if you like the ending. But saying this is better than another story doesn't mean anything. Both can be bad, even if this is just less worse.

Let's go over the ass pulls.

There's the obvious Mit-tan still being alive and her parents lying about it.

There's the obvious Sahara still being alive and his parents just conveniently doing the same thing and also lying about it, even though it was never hinted at before.

There's the teachers going along with the lies too.

But let's go even further and explain more. Mit-tan has finally woken up from her coma after like...a decade? Just conveniently waking up now, of all times. A month after Sahara woke up.

Also, it was a hit and run, and the driver was never caught? I honestly don't remember if it did ever say hit and run specifically before, but I don't think it did. I thought it had said accident. So the author just tries to shove the responsiblity on this nameless, faceless figure.

Then there's Chiaki. In the span of one single chapter with a flashback exposition dump, we get her whole backstory. Her grandmother told her to always smile. Herp derp, that's why she also smiles at Sahara's "death".

Anyways, there were a lot of problems. The author tried to make Sahara the main viewpoint, and he's also an unreliable narrator/viewpoint. He has flaws in his memory and couldn't accept his own actions. That's understandable. But the author went too far into bullcrap and just made him...pointless. He even says it in this chapter. If not for him, none of this would've happened.

This series was pointless.

No thesis from me. Just liked it, I feel sympathy for MC's situation of thinking he had to take care of people, stop them from doing stupid shit, at one point I had same thoughts about some relatives. And I thought the "Fight me" I said clearly put my comment in a serious but light/joking mode but looks like I failed my people. I do like both stories but felt Clannad's ass pull pulled more ass than this by

Spoiler: Clannad After Story

basically forgiving the MC for treating his kid like shit for so long

. That's it.

 

[lucidnyxx]

This was complete bullshit.

 

[enustaHukiM]

Could someone please translate the text on Mei's phone in Panel 21? Thanks

It was just one of her friends inviting her to karaoke.

 

[Koshin_127]

I should've known. There was no tragedy tag 🙄
The fact that the parents lied about their kids being dead left such a bad taste in my mouth, how is it any different than wishing them to die?

 

[IK_Prince]

I LIKED THIS MANGA YALL CAN COME FIGHT ME!!!!!!!!
in all seriousness though, the part about the parents faking Sahara and Mit-tan's death is kinda a shit thing to do.


Ig a better way of doing it would be to leave it as undisclosed? and let everyone in the school just infer they were dead with time. I mean kids wouldn't necessarily have a notion of life and death and HS kids get all info from either a teacher or a parent... so just saying the family of the bereaved doesn't want to comment would be a better setup, which lead to everyone (at least in the school) thinking they were dead.

I mean there is still plenty of flaws with this setup but it makes the parents seem less like douchebags. But that's my two sens and I'm in no way a writer.

(would still reread though)

 

[IAmBruh]

All the "they were in a coma the whole time" and the fact that they all ended up okay seems a bit contrived, but I did like the story. I haven't read any true "happy endings" in a while. And I really liked the twist that Sahara was the real "bad guy", even though repressed memories seems like a cop-out.