In the manga drugs played a central role in all this degeneracy.
Snorting random powders, taking ephedrine and caffeine (with a baby aspirin, but they didn't add that part), sniffing glue, heck even his old Senpai popping pills like it's Pez (from amphetamines to tranquilizers).
The drug consumption leading the protagonist to paranoid ideations, outbursts of inappropriately intimate speech, strong feelings of envy and rage, apathy, procrastination, inappropriate sexual fantasies, emotional dysregulation and covert narcissistic traits.
NONE OF THIS WAS IN THE ANIME, there was zero drug abuse except for Hitomi pills, general alcohol use and cigarette smoking.
This isn't some minor insignificance. The manga shows the effects of drugs exasperating a difficult situation. The anime shows someone who just suffers from some form of schizophrenia and/or social anxiety disorder or has been poorly socialized that he doesn't know when to filter himself.
These are two different stories....
There are lots of things I cannot understand.
In the manga Sato doesn't even sleep with Hitomi after getting three-five free passes. There is no man in his position that wouldn't tap that so hard and deep that when he pulled out he'd be the god damn King of England. Especially if he's riddled up on everything.
NONE OF THIS OVERTLY SEXUAL HITOMI WAS IN THE ANIME, she was just a drugged zombie in the anime. Her constant drivel about "conspiracies".... I just assumed Sato turned down her "let's have an affair" because of some remnant of dignity left in him. In the manga he's just a coward that even courage juice (booze) and snorting crushed Viagra (assuming off screen from Hitomi no doubt) couldn't overcome.
Like I said 2 different stories....
Coming to Misaki talk about two totally different people.
In the manga she is manipulative, bipolar, unbalanced, a covert narcissist, confused, sadistic, opportunistic and high in anxiety.
In the anime she's traumatized, naive, arrogant, codependent, over ingratiating, has low self esteem and is somewhat desperate.
Clearly they should have just made her a hallucination..... You could have had ALL those things with a hallucination that leads you to your suicide!
At the beginning I was kinda excited, I was under the wrong impression that Misaki was going to turn out to be a very intricate drug induced hallucination that was eventually going to lead to the protagonists suicide (like a Fight Club Tyler Durden thing but actually depressing).
No 17-19 year old girl, no matter how abused, uneducated, low self-esteem, naive, manipulative, bi-polar manic delusional, or high anxiety, would waste time on some degenerate sub-beta pornographer with zero financial, emotional or social prospects (especially if she knows he's a loser). This is why I assumed she was a hallucination at first.
But this didn't happen.... a missed opportunity.
And then there is the ending of the manga, which was... bad. The ending of the anime was better but they should have concluded with a successful suicide as opposed to this "I'm 23 with a high school girlfriend" nonsense.
