IceQueen4U

I've seen a few ppl say that, while the ending was mostly satisfying, they were left a little disappointed with the feeling that everything was erased. I want to disagree.

When you think about it, nothing was really erased. Not completely. Marina was still abused and left scarred in every way by her mom and became a parent to her parent; Shizuka was still neglected by her mother, was forgotten by her father, and presumably lived through depression; And Azuma still lived under the thumb of an overbearing mother where nothing he did was ever good enough when held in comparison to his brother. All are combating their own forms of loneliness.

Azuma talks to his brother. Shizuka manipulating a potentially obsessive Azuma disappeared (thankfully we avoided that train wreck!). And Shizuka + Marina wanting to kill each other disappeared too after the final return, but the events that ultimately had the biggest impacts on them and made them the scarred people they are still exist.

The Ending Itself + Meaning:

I think the whole point of the ending, from my perspective, is that there's just some things that can't be fixed no matter how much you try and wish for it. Bad s— will always happen and sometimes struggling to fix or avoid it can make it all the worse. Sometimes you just have to weather the f—g storm, as turbulent as it is, and wait for it to pass.
There is no magic to make things go away, no savior that can erase it all, but you can reach out and talk to someone and hope you can connect with them enough that you understand a portion of each other. Bawl your eyes out for hours, maybe even days, and then talk to someone about the stuff you're going through and feel just a little less lonely... Which is so much more realistic and, to me, helpful.

So I'm fully satisfied with the ending.

I'm not reading yet because I wanted it to be close to ending, but I've kept tabs since the beginning chapters AND I'M SO CONFUSED AND WORRIED!!

The last time I checked in on this, every comment was filled with praise that Dan was putting his foot down, and looking forward to the other guy suffering and maybe realizing how much of a red flag he is and needing to change, blah blah, you know the drill... But now, I see we're back to square one???? What the f happened?