Usotsuki Satsuki wa Shi ga Mieru - Vol. 8 Ch. 72 - Back and Forward

[Angoldd]

Seocchi is best gi-

No wait, she isn't.

I think, even if Seo was always a bad bitch, that her development in these last chapters has been rushed.

We've had hints that Komachi is evil since the first chapters. Like truly evil. But from Seo we had only "yeah, she's a school bully and bitch" but not "she wants to murder everyone for the lulz".

 

[Piamette]

Author is flip-flopping between "continuing to reject someone who is trying to do better makes them want to do even more bad things" and "bad people are inherently bad and irredeemable." Make up your mind man, are you trying to make a statement about the punitive "justice" system or are you trying to be an authoritarian

Deciphering which is which is the reader's job, though. Authors don't need to make up their minds about which opposing subjects he's trying to defend because, for one, writers are not (at least, not all) acting as politicians who want to convince you of rights and wrongs, and second, blaming the author for proposing dilemmas is like blaming the messenger for delivering an ill report. The mangaka is telling us a story through different characters with opposing, convergent, parallel lines of thought, ideals and procedures, which will draw different reactions, proposals, hypothesis, etc. from all his readers. Asking any author, not just Ryouko, to "make up his mind" isn't just asking to be spoonfed, but basically asking the author to quit making art and instead write a report or an essay on the matter. It would kill the point.

 

[VariousThrenodies]

Series took a nose dive with the introduction of the Prez.

For real, makes it hard to root against Seo for trying to kill him haha.

 

[Beregorn]

Next chapter she will pull out a monocle, a top hat and grow a pair of mustaches... 🙄

 

[reomino]

i just miss akira man

 

[210astat]

This is sorta past the 'Ok she's a bitch but I can fix her' and now in any other manga it should be 'call the fking police'. But of course the protags have to resolve everything in their own hands huh.

And what Usotski will tell them? I saw corpses in the classroom and soon "kaboom"? xD

 

[Diana_Lunari]

We've had hints that Komachi is evil since the first chapters. Like truly evil.

Calling Komachi evil is still farfecth for me. I thinks she isn't evil, she just amoral 🔱

 

[Guyincognitus]

Deciphering which is which is the reader's job, though. Authors don't need to make up their minds about which opposing subjects he's trying to defend because, for one, writers are not (at least, not all) acting as politicians who want to convince you of rights and wrongs, and second, blaming the author for proposing dilemmas is like blaming the messenger for delivering an ill report. The mangaka is telling us a story through different characters with opposing, convergent, parallel lines of thought, ideals and procedures, which will draw different reactions, proposals, hypothesis, etc. from all his readers. Asking any author, not just Ryouko, to "make up his mind" isn't just asking to be spoonfed, but basically asking the author to quit making art and instead write a report or an essay on the matter. It would kill the point.

lmao what in the goddamn hell are you talking about
Writers and artists love making statements about which things are right and wrong. What do you think themes are? Having a point to make isn't asking to turn a work of fiction into an essay it's a way to express something they feel is of value through the lens of an emotionally evocative lesson or hard-fought journey blah blah blah art. Go read the Hobbit or something.

 

[SleepyDemon]

I'm guessing opening the windows and allowing large quantities of oxygen to rush into the saturated vapors is what provides the spark, thus providing an instant fuse towards the explosive payload.

 

[Shinkutsuki]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[Suben]

Author is flip-flopping between "continuing to reject someone who is trying to do better makes them want to do even more bad things" and "bad people are inherently bad and irredeemable." Make up your mind man, are you trying to make a statement about the punitive "justice" system or are you trying to be an authoritarian

It's not a binary thing. Seo turned out to be a violent psychopath and in the end Satsuki was wrong and Prez was right about her. But Prez's (and the bullied girls') actions are what made her decide to abandon everything in favor of going kill 'em all.

I don't think it's going to turn out that Satsuki is totally wrong though. I could see something happening like Miho actually attempting to do something selfless to help Satsuki and/or stop Seo which would fly in the face of what Prez thought about her and shows that she has the capacity to change. Both Satsuki and Prez view the world in stark black and white terms but things and people are much more complicated than that. Satsuki thinks everyone should live and everyone has the capacity to be good but some don't and Satsuki's likely about to hit a point where she has to weigh one person's life against the lives of many others and let or ensure one person dies to prevent more deaths.

Likewise Prez believed that bad people are bad and irredeemable and should be killed. He gives them the chance change but does it under the belief that they're not going to and can thus justify his actions when they do slip up. But again, it's a black and white view and this belief led to his actions against Seo that pushed her over the edge.

 

[Piamette]

lmao what in the goddamn hell are you talking about
Writers and artists love making statements about which things are right and wrong. What do you think themes are? Having a point to make isn't asking to turn a work of fiction into an essay it's a way to express something they feel is of value through the lens of an emotionally evocative lesson or hard-fought journey blah blah blah art. Go read the Hobbit or something.

Point taken, I didn't think it through. I had one intention in mind (it's not about "x is right/y is wrong" due to nuance) and ended up spouting nonsense. Woops.

 

[deathpigeon]

Calling Komachi evil is still farfecth for me. I thinks she isn't evil, she just amoral 🔱

Like, what's been communicated about her is that she doesn't put a particular value to preserving life, seeing death as something that happens eventually for everyone so when it happens isn't really important, she isn't someone who puts any value on herself, and she struggles with lacking strong emotions, all of which are things she shares with Tokiko from Walk to Death and Ryōko never made Tokiko out to be evil.

It frankly wouldn't be all that surprising if Komachi and Tokiko got to the place they're at in the same way, that, somehow, both of them are lacking in a soul because of some sort of ritual that brought their bodies back, something which would not make Komachi evil even a little.

In a lot of ways, Satsuki and Komachi are like Natsuki and Tokiko, just with which one is the protagonist and which one is the love interest reversed.

 

[dmgorm]

The only thing I won't be able to understand, assuming Komachi is really the BBEG orchestrating all this, would be how convoluted the entire thing has been. Even Seo's decision to (re?)turn around and bite couldn't have been a sudden event. There are too many uncertainties involved in here for a Big Bad Plan™ to even remotely work, and unlike a very few number of Big Bad Plans™, there doesn't seem to be any fallback or even any guarantee for any of the uncertainties.

I don't think we've seen any indication that Komachi has any particular master plan. I think it's been implied that she wants to die but doesn't want to risk surviving a suicide attempt, but she seems to be engaging in opportunistic manipulation rather than some kind of grand scheme so far.

I felt like the manga was just dragging out without any real goal for a long time now, if it finally ends that's fine.

I was figuring the endgoal here was Satsuki being forgiven by or somehow otherwise resolving her conflict with her dad? With a side of no longer being hated by most of the student body, and dealing with everybody's abusive/neglectful parents. Though I suppose Prez's Whack-y Ride has become a bit of an extended digression from that at this point.

 

[deathpigeon]

Komachi doesn't want to die. She just doesn't care if she lives or dies. The thing that's unsettling about Komachi is her indifference, the way she accepts anything that comes her way, the way she goes along with anything others put on her. She's like Tokiko before her dad dies.

 

[caitsith]

Did seocchis Manchuria candidate code phrase get activated or something lmao

WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN, SEO

 

[zokoi19]

I was figuring the endgoal here was Satsuki being forgiven by or somehow otherwise resolving her conflict with her dad?

I fucking wish that was true, but from the author previous work, I doubt they will do that. The author just seems to add more and more stuff to push drama up, and then nothing really resolves by the end, even when everybody fucking dies in the previous work.

 

[Connoisseur_Ryan]

Honestly i'd smash seo 😩

 

[kl-ai]

I think I missed the part where it was revealed (or implied?) that it was Seo that set Michiru up bc all this time i was under the impression that it was the President - could someone point me to that chapter?