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Friday, March 3, 2017

To Love ru Darkness Ends without any conclusion:

Just like the original To Love ru manga, To Love ru Darkness ends without anything being resolved.  Now, there's a slight possibility that a whole new manga sequel will continue the story forward from here, but I doubt it will.

After all, the only thing that needs to happen from here is for Rito to reject or accept the harem plan, and then, if he accepts, sign up all the various girls to it who want in.  This is not enough material for a whole new series, it could be handled in a single chapter.  The fact that the author studiously avoided writing this sort of conclusive ending implies that he prefers keeping it open-ended.  This way everyone can imagine their favorite girl gets with Rito in the end, or doesn't, according to their own wishes.  The author is basically giving up and calling it quits before he offends anybody, thinking that leaving everything unresolved at this point is the best option.

I disagree.  I think the point of stories is for characters to make hard decisions and thus inspire people in the real world to do the same.  When you just fob off your most important responsibility as an author you lose a lot of respect from me, and your masterpiece becomes far less masterful than it could have been.

There are still two bangai-hen chapters left to be written, but bangai-hen chapters have always traditionally been frivolous, ecchi things with no real relation to the plot.  It would be rather crazy to have them do all the heavy lifting when the supposed last chapter of the real manga ends in such a wishy-washy manner.  Instead I suspect the coming chapters will just be silly jokes like always, and that will be that.  To Love ru will well and truly end with absolutely nothing resolved.

If To Love ru had rejected every single girl but Haruna or accepted a wide plethora of girls including Haruna, I would have totally respected this series.  But this ending, where no choice is made at all, and everything remains as before, is pathetic.  There's no way the series gets away with a crap ending like that and stays ranked as highly as before, so down from 14th to 48th best manga it goes.

There's also no point wishing for more To Love ru to be animated, since it doesn't lead anywhere anyway even if it were, so I think I'll replace that section of my wishlist for a Naruto Kai, with all the filler and flashback cut out, instead.

Meanwhile, the latest blu-ray volume of Vivid Strike has come out subtitled thanks to [Ron], including a whole new chapter of Nanoha manga and a whole new episode of Nanoha anime.  This jewel is a must-have, so everyone should hurry and grab it now, while the seeding is still hot.

Meanwhile, I've reached episode 451 of Naruto Shippuuden in my rewatch project.  Unfortunately, all that awaits me is a desert of semi-filler focused on Itachi and Kaguya's past, as well as a dumb joke episode about trying to see Kakashi's face.  *sigh*  I wish I could just watch the Naruto-Sasuke fight already.  Too.  Much.  Filler.

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