Koe no Katachi

[Exaligatory]

who's the girl with a kid on page 13?

[Nuvi]

I don't really mind the open ending but wished the author gave it a proper closure for satisfaction among the readers. At any rate, one of the good drama I've read. Definitely a memorable story.

[Kopi]

Good job Shouya on grabbing her hand. That's one step forward. Hopefully the anime will expands this ending a little more.

Originally Posted by Exaligatory

who's the girl with a kid on page 13?

This. What's with the special close up view of her face? It's making me curious! ...Well I saw a comment saying that she was actually Shimada and that all along he was a girl But really who's she?

[Sixth]

The ending is kinda lackluster.

I am confused.

I thought that Shouko and her friends got their diploma and went to Tokyo, so what's that "graduation" in the final chapter? College graduation?

[areyoubaka]

Oh my, didn't expect Sahara and Ueno to end up as lovers after going to Tokyo.
Lackluster to some, but I found it fascinating, to be honest. The holding hands bit may Ishida realised his feelings for Nishimiya after graduation and they're now a couple, but that's just my interpretation.

Originally Posted by noobita

I thought that Shouko and her friends got their diploma and went to Tokyo, so what's that "graduation" in the final chapter? College graduation?

I think it was a coming of age ceremony, with some class reunions afterwards.

[Sixth]

This. What's with the special close up view of her face? It's making me curious! ...Well I saw a comment saying that she was actually Shimada and that all along he was a girl But really who's she?

Nobody but you should take a look at her husband. It was Ishida's fat friend that bullied him in the past. It was totally look like him.

I think it was a coming of age ceremony, with some class reunions afterwards.

Yeah, I just realized it by googling it just now. First time of seeing that kind of traditional.

[ACertainStark]

Originally Posted by Nuvi

I don't really mind the open ending but wished the author gave it a proper closure for satisfaction among the readers. At any rate, one of the good drama I've read. Definitely a memorable story.

Yeah. I'm not a fan of open endings, but it didn't kill the manga or anything.

[Rhapsody]

Originally Posted by noobita

Nobody but you should take a look at her husband. It was Ishida's fat friend that bullied him in the past. It was totally look like him.

It was definitely him. She even calls him Kei-chan.

As for whether that woman was really Shimada, I'm not sure. They do share similarities with the faces...

[Haruyasha]

Good manga, but this ending was just rubbish. x.x

Originally Posted by Legendzerox

The ending is left up to interpretation to the reader.

Yeah, lets not go there. An amateur author shouldn't be writing open endings. You can tell she was already struggling with character development through the story's progression, but this latest chapter just completely dumpsters the characters. Some of them don't have their conflicts resolved, while others fall off the face of the planet completely.

I will let her off the hook just because she's new, but damn that was really awful. Her oneshot had a better "open interpretation" ending than this. It seems somewhere along the line she forgot she was writing a romantic series and started tunnel visioning on this "coming of age" concept, but even then did a half-assed job to conclude it.

If you go to the basics of how to write a story,
1. This is how you write a proper story.
2. This is what she did.

Yes, you can say that #2 is an "open ending", but not really... because conflicts are unresolved.

Compare this to the ending of the oneshot.. There, the main conflicts are resolved, and the romantic aspect is just an side effect of the resolution. Thus, it makes for a nice open ending.

[desrtsku]

Originally Posted by Exaligatory

who's the girl with a kid on page 13?

Originally Posted by Kopi

This. What's with the special close up view of her face? It's making me curious! ...Well I saw a comment saying that she was actually Shimada and that all along he was a girl But really who's she?

I was also asking myself this question. Why is no one else bothered by this?

[Haruyasha]

Originally Posted by desrtsku

I was also asking myself this question. Why is no one else bothered by this?

It does bother me too, and I was going to make a point about it, but I think I already got carried away a bit too much.

[desrtsku]

It's all right, people are allowed to let out their frustrations as long it doesn't kill others. That's what this series is for.

[EmperorMan]

It's a great story, I'm struggling to give it a 9 or a 10, since while it had a great description of the facets of like and I can empathize with it, The story didn't have a lot of character development on a few of the characters. The story does deserve to be in my 9-10 list though, I loved the way it was a shojo with a shade of realism and the pillars that made it great:Complex characters, Change of the characters, Redemption of the Characters, and the special bias that each character has that is expressed independently.I did however wish that the POV changes weren't so random.

I was listening to whitesnake "Is this love" foreigner "waiting for a girl like you" and cutting crew " i just died in your arms tonight" while i was reading. GAWD i think Im going to kneel over from the pleasure of reading a fine manga with suitable music.

I'm fine with the ending since it was implied which is suitable because... words said in silence.

[Kopi]

So, we'll be getting a film by Kyoani. Hoping they flesh out the ending a little more.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by Kopi

So, we'll be getting a film by Kyoani. Hoping they flesh out the ending a little more.

Which will either go the way of the Tamako Market or Kyoukai no Kanata films, from best to worst.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Just marathoned the rest of the manga series and boy was it a rollercoaster ride. For the vast majority, I loved it.

The first two volumes were filled with daaaaw bittersweet moments with Ishida progressing from hardcore bully to repenting and developing a heartwarming relationship with shouko. It seems to be the general consensus that these initial volumes were the best parts of the manga.

However I disagree with the notion that the manga series "fell off" in quality in its 2nd half. Although the whole deaf/bullying theme was less significant, the rest of the series then became sort of a commentary on how vindictive teenagers can be and in particular how bloody scary teenage girls can be. For example my favourite character in the series was the controversial Ueno. She to me was most "real" and "human" of the character cast due to her obvious flaws. She was driven by jealousy and the fact she couldn't tolerate what she saw as almost emotional blackmail from constantly playing the victim in shouko and her inability to stand up herself I enticing white knights to take her side by safely which made her snap. Which I totally understand from a psyschological point of view.

Imo, everyone is at fault to some degree. Ishida and Ueno is obvious as is Ishida elementary school friends. But people like shimada and Kawai are also at fault by turning a blind eye. The teachers as well for being not involved outside of the obligatory "stop it" during a bullying moment which doesn't really solve the problem. But shouko also is at fault by selfishly attempting to commit suicide I believing she was the fault of everything once again playing the victim and implicitly emotionally blackmailing others to feel sorry for her despite not realising what she's actually doing. And when Ueno snapped at her, oh boy was I was personally more on Ueno's side than Shoukos despite not agreeing with how Ueno resorted to physical violence. Because of incidents like this it was a fascinating series to read from a psychological point of view in its 2nd half.

Of course the manga isn't without its flaws. Some parts reigned towards being saccharine or over melodramatic and tried too hard to pull hear strings or evoke emotion. Some plot events were way too convenient like how Ueno was reintroduced in the latter half of the manga. But for the most part I was able to ditch my cynical critical side as unlike the majority of other series which don't have the balls to tackle such issues and rather dwell with rainbows and flowers and other "innocence spam" techniques with the goal of feeding you with non stop sugar, this series tackled it and not only that but in a manner that didn't go overboard most of the time.

The ending was also left much to be desired since it didn't really resolve anything nor did it leave it with a good "open" end and more of the kind that seemed like the mangaka ran out of time or quickly had to conclude due to serialization coming to an end. In contrast the one shot open end is a good example of how to do an open ending.

Anyways fantastic manga series.

Hoping for the a team from kyoani for its adaptation.

[Dauerlutscher]

Shouko was not playing the victim, she is or was the victim.

Ueno is just a big bully. There is nothing more to it. I don't get it how some people try to downplay and justify her behavior with basically " poor girl was just jealous off deaf girl so she made her life a living hell"

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by Kopi

So, we'll be getting a film by Kyoani. Hoping they flesh out the ending a little more.

So holding hands end?

Because God save Kyoani from featuring kissing

[Twi]

I wish I knew about this earlier. I just started it, and while I hate bullies, I find the story it trying to tell mature and decent.

Edit: Just finished it. Not bad. I'd like the ending a little more closed, but at least it ended on a positive note.