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

[AlthusserStandAccount]

Long text coming, hold on to something:

To put ourselves in context, let's remember this story is that of a boy who dropped out of school, depressed, unable to function in socially acceptable ways, unable to empathetically understand the feelings of others for him and towards him and unable to assertively communicate what he really thinks, feels and wants, which prevents him from understanding what "love" is or what it means, or what it feels like to really love someone.

We start with Kou who felt isolated, uncomfortable with his friends, with his mother, alone, indescribably alone in the middle of the night, and he happens to discover his way out next to a vending machine. Our main character is someone who considers falling in love with Nazuna just to continue escaping his overwhelming days. The love for Nazuna is converted into a bargaining chip to obtain the freedom of the night, to answer its call, on the other hand Nazuna is completely uninterested in the whole love thing, just wanting to be able to suck Kou's particularly tasty blood. We don't know that right away, but like our MC she is also indescribably lonely. Therefore, in the process the matter gets out of hand for borth of our dove heads and the whole deal changes, Nazuna, the means to an end is transformed into an end in itself because Kou has to learn to love before he can become a vampire.

And from there? From there we have chapters upon chapters of personal growth, of rediscovering friendship, loving, of making peace with others and with oneself, of recognizing our own mistakes in the enormous failures of others, thus understanding them and empathizing with others, learning to live with those deeply flawed things that make us human, ironic because it is a lesson that Kou learns with vampires.

It is also a story where the goal of becoming a vampire is truncated halfway, but it seems that Kou does not stay with Nazuna immediately neither, it is never that easy, that is life. Can we say that Kou did not grow up? On the other hand, in this very human vampire love story, even months later Kou continues to love Nazuna and wait for her, without gain involved, without the need to answer the call of the night anymore because the time for that is up. Kou, alone, is going to be the detective's assistant, maybe he has just discovered his calling in life, he has friends, he has the luxury of refusing to hang out with them, he sets boundaries, he is assertive, and he is about to enter the final years of his school life. He faces the night once again, only to find out, in his own words, that he's fine.

Maybe this manga has taught us again something that Camus already told us in Les Justes: “But that's love, giving everything, sacrificing everything without hope of return. […] At certain times I wonder if love is not something else, if it can stop being a monologue, and if there is not sometimes an answer.”

I want to believe that from impossible beings, Kou learned, I think that is also the meaning in the detective's growth arc, recognizing herself in these non-human beings, learning from them, seeing that sometimes they are more human than ourselves. The same goes for the immense act of love between Mahiru and Kiku. I think that will get a complex ending because love is complex, but after all, I think good things await Nazuna and Kou, but what if they don't? Well, as already I've said, there is not sometimes an answer.

Again, it has been a pleasure to share with you all, see you all for the last meeting.

 

[Snerkus]

Ms detective is so cool goddamn

 

[FearlessDawg]

Listening to this classic portuguese banger by chance while reading this chapter. Quite fitting!

Based Ornatos Violeta fan

 

[Frostisss]

those ears are gunna get so infected.

 

[1986ctcel]

Nobody said romance always worked out.

Ahhh, I avoided the comments for this manga for many arcs after it became clear to me that a lot of readers felt 'cheated' because the characters are flawed, make mistakes, things don't work out, and it wasn't the lovey-dovey romcom some thought it was. Then blamed the manga and keep going on about how the series is 'objectively bad'. Quite a hoot.

Nice to see that hasn't changed a bit.

Imagine thinking that an entire manga about two teenagers in love being adorable (and one of them slowly starting to fall in love for the first time) with lots of sweet and funny moments should obviously end with "it doesn't always work out" when everything up till this point was about them slowly falling in love and then we get a bullshit "we need to separate for stupid reasons that we don't even know are true".

There's obviously other stuff in the plot and themes yes but "oh the only point of Kou and Nazuna's romance was for him to mature into a normal and boring human after all that interesting supernatural stuff" is uh a pretty shit ending and dime a dozen for those "coming of age" stories that damn near fetishize being "ordinary".

Oh right, can't forget all the vague and nonsensical worldbuilding and unanswered mysteries the author teased us with about Nazuna and vampires in general that don't look like we'll ever get an answer about in the last chapter (and the god awful Kiku/Mahiru arc that was basically pointless outside of providing something shocking for Kou and Nazuna to think over with regards to their own relationship while none of the assertions like "vampires that bite humans they fell in love with die" have even been proven true).

Reminds me of Kaminomi or Medakabox. It's predictable which series you Philistines end up yapping about....anything that doesn't neatly fit the mold. Good thing this series doesn't depend on you bootleg website parasites. It depends on millions of captivated Japanese readers (who most assuredly largely have the maturity to not read something they don't like, especially when hundreds of manga are at their fingertips) and a manga industry that heaps accolade after accolade on the series. I'm sure you edgy bois have far more elevated tastes, eh?

1. calls complainers "edgy bois"

2. whines about pirates while reading the manga on a pirate site and leaping to defend the "honoru" of the poor author and the "captivated Japanese readers".

3. calls everyone complaining "phillistines" as if the user is so superior for not complaining.

So the manga just happens to be axed at chapter 200 exactly and arrangements made months before, and a western show receiving Emmy's is equated to the Japanese manga industry's awards structure. And we should take the word of someone who thinks they're cool for having a contrarian opinion to millions of viewers of said show, and readers of said manga?

The level of delusion is astounding.


Little for me to say about the series itself at this point. By right it should speak for itself, it's great. By rights at least...

Do you seriously expect people to think you immediately do an about-face on any series you might dislike because "well it won X amount of awards and has Y millions of Japanese readers loving and supporting it so I, an ignorant gaijin pirate, should not dare criticize anything about it no matter if I think the author dropped the ball". Did you say the ending of Naruto and Bleach were works of art because "millions of Japanese fans loved the series and the authors won a bunch of awards" as well?

 

[aboborazi]

I'm going to kill you Kotoyama-sensei, I'm going to kill you

 

[Xmmune]

That’s gotta be the most generic and predictable ending ever, I’m so fuccin glad the critics of this series aren’t the ones writing this story

i never said it was gonna be good lmao i dont write stories. and generic? generic is good! we just want a happy ending all of us are already depressed enough no need to make us more depressed.

 

[Mr.Oblivion]

The author, this story and all the fucking characters are retarded. this deserves a 1

 

[Mr.Oblivion]

Oh boy, the ending is probably gonna be some "up in the air" type shit where he finds her again as the assistant or something. Have to say, the ending is not really resonating with me.

It is literally the same shit ending as Digashi Kashi and no surprise it's the same author.

 

[rodrigoelp]

Can someone help me understand the last 3 panels where something/someone is talking to Kou about how he feels and he replied "I'm fine thanks for asking"?

Was that intentionally left ambiguous for us to understand it as "Kou thinking about what Nazuna may have said to him" or is it just someone really talking to him?

I would like to think it was Nazuna asking him those questions... otherwise it is weird he just imagined it and answered out loud.

 

[stobblecone]

Why introduce new mysteries on the second to last chapter? I won't get my hopes up, but it really just feels like there needs to be a continuation. As long as the story doesn't end with Kou becoming a normal person and vampires disappearing, I can find some little satisfaction. I do hope to god we get a happy ending though

 

[hmkofnorway]

At least it didn’t pull a childhood friend meme, but come on. Last one better be a knockout

 

[Yotomoe]

I really have no idea why everyone hates this so much. This all seems par for the course.

 

[MGColin]

ayo maybe we get a continuation manga in the future?

 

[simkalastoforka]

So turns out that he is still a human with vampire power (half vampire thing). Not a bad deal tbh.

 

[FlowerSlaughter]

Lmao man half these comments are like "its peak" "its mid" bro we aint even done yet

Aren't we? Aren't we really?

 

[FlowerSlaughter]

Because he struggled to understand other people, girls or boys. He recognized that early enough (ch. 45, p. 9-11), and it was the reason he was struggling to come to love Nazuna at that point.

Emphatize, not understand. He understood people well enough thorough the whole manga each time he's shown trying to. Whereas his lack of empathy was shown several times and is only slightly hinted to change thorough the series. It was his problem, but it wasn't his goal however. (probably because it didn't feel important or achieveable anymore)His main goal was chained as follows:
Enjoy the night without care > become a vampire > fall in love with Nezuna > learn to get stronger feelings.
The series feel lacking because the MC solved his problems without achieving any of his goals thorough the series(Even the side ones like saving his best friend, or getting to know more about vampires. The only subplot that seemed important plotwise and was resolved well was Ms. Detective's)
The end of the series offers us another problem for the MC (Nezuna falling in love > fleeing) but the author doesn't give us or him any perspective aim to. (And "Don't call, we're gonna" may work for slice of life series, when you want to continue the slice of life, with the plot on a backburner, but not as a resolution(And it makes sense this way, because You're shown how busy with other important for them stuff the characters are, soit doesn't feel like the story/characters got a stroke on the way there).
At this point in the story it feels like of the things he wanted, Kou has got Fuckall, and of the things he wants now he can get Fuckall.

 

[finickydesert]

Don't be sad that it is ending but be happy it had existed. All things will end someday.

 

[HolyOrdos]

Sorry bros, but it feels like a really sloppy wrap up

 

[Eighty-six]

Emphatize, not understand.

Empathy is itself "understanding of others' emotional states". Regardless, Kou spoke of not being able to understand others, boys or girls (ch. 45, p.11), and that was the reason he was struggling to come to love Nazuna.

Whereas his lack of empathy was shown several times and is only slightly hinted to change thorough the series.

Given the above, I can't be sure of the distinction you want to make, but I can say that the times where he identifies with people are blatant. He identified with Kiyosumi (ch. 17, p. 13), he identified with Kiku (ch. 152, p. 13-14), and-- after his mutual confession-- understood what it took for Asakura to confess to him (ch. 188, p.8).

The series feel lacking because the MC solved his problems without achieving any of his goals thorough the series(Even the side ones like saving his best friend, or getting to know more about vampires.

1) Kou's goal was to make up with Mahiru, not save him per se; he also wants to make sure Kiku isn't "deceiving him and making him miserable" (ch. 111, p. 5-6). He makes up with Mahiru, learning that it was his decision to help Kiku and that Kiku's intentions were to die herself rather than kill Mahiru to prove sometihng.

2) Kou never has "know more about vampires" as an objective. Hatsuka tells him very early on that vampires don't know much about themselves, so he can't readily get such knowledge from them. Not even Kyouko knows everything about vampires despite her active interest in their biology, because her interest is predicated on her desire to kill them. In the course of finding and destroying vampire weakness objects, he learns more about his vampire friends (he must, since these are objects tied to their human pasts, but it's fundamentally a framing device for a battery of fleshings-out of characters). After Kabura's segment, Nazuna comes to want to show Kou more of her past, and Kou is likewise interested in learning more about her. He succeeds in all of this.

That aside: Kou repeatedly sets goals that he achieves throughout this narrative. More than that, he even repairs the relationships he had with his friends and family on top of making new friends. He becomes a functional member of regular society, but he also isn't particularly struggling to maintain his connection with the society in which he interloped during the entire narrative-- he intends to moonlight as a detective alongside Kyouko in order to maintain the aforementioned connection. Not even accounting for the almost certainty of reunion with Nazuna, he's gained more than what he originally sought.

He can still enjoy the night, especially when he can temporarily become a vampire at will-- but it should be noted that Kou's notions of "the night" and vampires as expressed in the beginning of the narrative were naïve, and that his original goal was formulated when he was at his lowest; that's why Akira wants to support him despite finding the prospect of becoming a vampire foolish (ch. 106, p. 6-7), because she values the fact that he's this motivated and happy to do something. Meanwhile, Hatsuka tells him that all vampires do is "live normally". Nazuna tells him that being a vampire is boring, and that all she does is figure out how to kill time. Later in the narrative, she's literally dreaming about being a human student like Kou. We learn that Haru considered a vampire to not even be truly alive, and both her and Kiku sought to become human. Becoming a vampire would confine Kou into the night, despite him seeking a freedom he attributed to it. As things are, with Kou not struggling in his normal life and being able to prance in the night as a vampire shifter, he's possibly the freest third-year middle school student in the world.

Regarding Nazuna, his desire has been to be with her, and he wanted that even when he was well and far away from being romantically invested in her. This became all the more evident in the denouement of the Kiku arc (cf. ch. 171, p. 7, where he reveals he's still laboring under the vague idea that he has to become a vampire to stay with Nazuna even though Kou has proven himself as a confidant and it's been long established that those vampires do NOT have the guts to kill anyone, let alone a kid).

He didn't fail to achieve his original goal-- his goals themselves shifted in light of his evolving character and increasing knowledge. That's why he doesn't lament being unable to "become a vampire" after the mutual confession-- rather, he laments being unable to become Nazuna's kin specifically, and he laments having to separate from her.

But still, that's better than what would have happened if he plainly became a vampire, even supposing that neither him nor Nazuna would die.

The end of the series offers us another problem for the MC (Nezuna falling in love > fleeing) but the author doesn't give us or him any perspective aim to. (And "Don't call, we're gonna" may work for slice of life series, when you want to continue the slice of life, with the plot on a backburner, but not as a resolution(And it makes sense this way, because You're shown how busy with other important for them stuff the characters are, soit doesn't feel like the story/characters got a stroke on the way there).

It's not the resolution, though. It's part of the falling action/resolution, but it isn't the entire phase.