Yofukashi no Uta - Vol. 20 Ch. 199 - A Fascinating Tale. You Should Become a Writer.

[Donutlie]

WHY IS HE A VAMPIRE MAN HAVE THEY EVER EXPLAINED THAT ????

 

[MangaMonger]

High school detective, still a thing.

dang...

And Yofukashi comes out in the same magazine as Detective Conan, so it's hard not to see this as a reference.

 

[Mordeurmine]

 

[TUN27]

He can still shift to vampire? Then why didn't he fully turn then? WTF. I don't understand. Too many things not explained. This is underwhelming. Is he going to be like araragi or smth.

 

[zqchh]

Mannn I cant wait to see this end, not in a bad way but like in a damn i know imma miss this when its gone type shi. I really liked this series, dont know why jus sum bout it. I fr be appreciating the night more😭 that sound corny

 

[twinklecake]

I don't really understand why people don't find this a happy, poignant and satisfying end. Did motherfuckers really want this to devolve into yet another case of hollow escapist shōnen? smh.

 

[EMJzero]

I still wish we would've gotten a bit more on Nazuna being a special case and there being a chance that she's not affected by the whole "drink the blood of the one you love and die" thingy. However, it seems the author completely forgot about that and went for a melancholic ending instead of a happy one.

Agreed 100%. Either the final chapter is 50 pages or there is still too much unexplained stuff:
1) wtf does the half vampire imply, even more so now that the deadline passed for Kou
2) wasn’t Nazuna weird as the daughter of a vampire (as you pointed out)
3) what killed Nazuna’s mother exactly and who is Nazuna’s father

At this point we can only hope for an unexplained ending and a sequel…

 

[Xetermine]

in the end, nazuna's the girl you all wanted in this series. best of luck for the last chapter. whether it's the bad or the good end, it was a ride.

 

[Chuggoth]

Kou starts hunting vampires
and Nazuna... goes to Vietnam to work for at a massage parlour

 

[DLRevan]

So many words to clumsily express that you think of yourself as some kind of literature connoisseur authority while also revealing your inability to grasp anything but the surface level of a work.

Actually, I said almost nothing about my views of the work itself in that post, and noting that others are using highly subjective, pre-disposed and sometimes outright non-factual views doesn't require me to. There are already others doing so, and with much less disgust than I can manage.

I think that's a great example of what you people are doing. Are you even bothering to grasp what I'm saying? No, you've literally repainted my post as talking about something else. And so it's the same when it comes to this series. We're not even at the point where you can only grasp the surface level of the work. We're at the point where the work itself might as well not matter, because you are repainting the work with your own themes and assumptions, and evaluating it based on that.

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[Eighty-six]

It really depends on Kotoyama's approach to worldbuilding and Chekhov's gun. Kotoyama has shown a predilection for being a very detail oriented writer who did a lot of planning in advance. The repetition of various motifs, the appearance of characters in the background well before they showed up in the story, the significance of framing and other details - those have generally always been plot relevant, especially during the sleuthing portions of this story.

I heavily doubt that a sequel is intended. This is pretty complete-feeling. There aren't really any loose ends-- at least, so I'm considering, despite my words in previous chapters.

Spoiler: Let me explain.

When I was expecting (and hoping) for a concrete answer to the ambiguity of the vampire-sucking-the-blood-of-their-beloved matter that's now cleanly separated Kou and Nazuna for a year, my mindset was that it had to be answered because it was an ambiguity-- more so, a conspicuous ambiguity whose unclearness was drawn to attention multiple times. However, looking back at Hatsuka expressing how vampires hardly understand themselves (ch. 44, p.11-12), I think I may have been misguided.

The mechanics behind any of the abilities and circumstances of vampires are never explored extensively because Kotoyama made it a point to only explore them through the characters; not only are the characters only able to attest to what they experience and understand, they don't have much means to explore for an answer. Hatsuka doesn't know why they the blood of failed candidates tastes bad to them (similarly, there's a lack of clarity of the meaning of Nazuna finding Kou's blood "especially tasty", especially since he's not the first person she's fed from). Nobody can explain why treasured objects from one's human life can immobilize and kill vampires; in fact, they only seem to become definitively aware of it because of Kyouko, but even Kyouko-- who's extensively explored the nature of vampires through her hunting of them-- wasn't aware that they could become intangible (cf. ch. 55), so it's not like she knows a lot. Nazuna knows how to phase through things, but needs Susuki (a fighter) to explain how said intangibility can be strategically used (ch. 128, p. 8-12). Especially, neither Susuki or Asami can attest to why vampires are so averse to sucking the blood of a subject they love, or why vampires are prone to interacting with humans as if they're playing a game of seduction-- they can only attest to it being so counter to a vampire's instinct, that there's a rumor that sucking the blood of a beloved subject would kill the human (ch. 121, p.14-15).

They have zero idea about the nature of Kou's vampire shifting beyond Kyouko's admittedly reliable conjecture-- nothing like it has happened in their present memory. If it happened because Nazuna is a dhamphir, or because Kou himself is unusual, they can't test that and there's nothing to compare their case to. More pertinently, they have no means to safely test whether the aforementioned rumor is true in any capacity. All they know is that they (normally) have an instinctive aversion to sucking the blood of humans they love, and the last vampire to do that (assuming she truly loved Mahiru) seemingly died because of it. Because of those two factors, and because Kou and Nazuna truly care about each other and actually just want to be with each other at this point, there's no value in even risking one of them dying.

In short: there isn't a narrative device that the author has shown herself willing to use that's also consistent with the characters and their MOs, that would answer any of the remaining ambiguities. Meanwhile, Kou's definitively conquered the malaise within him that started this narrative, and everybody else's character arcs (if they had any) are complete. Nazuna is almost certainly showing up in the final chapter, and what becomes of the two of them will be revealed.

Upon a partial re-read, I think what we're getting is by far the best possible outcome-- not even remotely downer. Particularly: even before Kabura revealed that Nazuna was born a vampire, the prospect that Nazuna fell in love with someone that she forgot when she was turned was something that really bugged Kou (ch.56, p.11). Even if neither of them died, if Kou became a vampire, it would have caused him to forget the treasured times he had with Nazuna-- on top of thoroughly effacing his character development. I think that was part of the value of the montage of memories at the end of chapter 197-- they're making sure to meet again, and Kou gets to keep everything he gained as well as already had.

And yes he said that he wants to become an helper for the detective, but why? Wants to help vampires to get along better with humans? Wants to hunt the bad ones? Wants to do it to have another chance to see FMC? Or he feels an "obligation" to do it because of his powers?

Pages 11 through 13.

 

[b0n3t0u3]

I will remain mad until it's over, at which point I'll be occasionally mad.

 

[Eighty-six]

1) wtf does the half vampire imply, even more so now that the deadline passed for Kou
2) wasn’t Nazuna weird as the daughter of a vampire (as you pointed out)
3) what killed Nazuna’s mother exactly and who is Nazuna’s father

1) It implies that he can temporarily vampirize at will (that is, with a wound and a strong emotional stimulus), and is apparently still able to do so after the deadline. Don't expect more details-- nobody in the narrative even knew this was a thing until it happened to him.

2) She's weird inasmuch as she's half-human. I suppose you mean to ask what value this detail had, in the grand scheme of the narrative.

3) See chapter 68, p. 7-9. Haru abstained from drinking blood after marrying, and died between that and being pregnant while lacking nutrients. Nazuna's father died soon after informing Kabura of Haru's death.

 

[Sjshgbduuxjnd]

Hapf Vampire High School Detective!

 

[BadmanBlues]

In short: there isn't a narrative device that the author has shown herself willing to use that's also consistent with the characters and their MOs, that would answer any of the remaining ambiguities.

There is one, which is why I bring up the possibility, and that is kotoyama's habit of framing the story as a mystery. So many of the arcs have almost been treated in a conventionally "detective story" fashion. In that the protagonists were trying to deduce what happened, and the motivations of actors at play. This featured in the detective arc of course, and in Mahiru's arc, and so on. The characters were trying to solve a mystery. The mystery of who the detective was and what she was trying to do, the mystery of how Mahiru was being manipulated and what was going to happen to him, the mystery of Nazuna's past and what happens to vampires who fall in love. Kotoyama gives us clues through witness testimony, and physical evidence, and if we are clever we can solve the mystery in advance sometimes.

But not all of the mysteries have been solved. Though not all mysteries get solved necessarily.

But the detective themes throughout the story, coupled with Kotoyama's obsession with detail - those certainly make me wonder. There's definitely enough meat, enough mystery, to write another 200 chapter story exploring those mysteries and the implications of the answers they'd find.

I think the final chapter will shed a lot of light on this possibility. For now, I think you're right. The story if it ended now would be self-contained and fine. But some small part of me wonders... It all depends on Kotoyama's philosophy of writing.

 

[Liver]

he's blade now

 

[SonicDisgaea98]

They better meet and actually get back together.

 

[Outflanks10]

One more left then most likely heart brake.

Thanks everyone that worked on this translation

 

[Nihmandra]

honestly I don’t care about the ending anymore. The story’s been dragging for too long imo

 

[dejaman]

AND THEN EVERYONE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER TUNE IN NEXT MONTH FOR NEW SERIES DETECTIVE KOU