what’s your opinion of the last few chapters of ao no flag and how they fit in with the rest of the manga? 👀 (like do you think the ending was well set-up and satisfying?)
Sorry it took me so long to reply to this!!!!!!! I absolutely flipped of happiness when I got this ask, so thank you so much for sending it!!!! I love talking about things I love, and this manga is so criminally underrated imo, but I have SO MANY THOUGHTS!!! It’s nice having an excuse to rant about it, lol. Also, feel more than free to rant about this question, too, I would love to hear your opinion!!!
Here goes my way-too-long reply under the cut:
To be honest, I have a lot of thoughts about this manga but I’m too bad at expressing myself and articulating my opinions in a coherent way, so this is probably going to be pretty incoherent ajsdlashfldsf, my apologies in advance.
First of all, I have to state that I really like the ending!!!!!!! I totally understand that some people say it was rushed, but it wasn’t like that for me. At least, not in a way that made me feel like I wasted my time reading it.
As for the whole Futaba/Taichi breaking up and Touma/Taichi being endgame, I absolutely loved it. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to have more context and background about how Taichi and Touma got together (and if the author decided to do a short spin-off about some moments between that time skip, I’d read it in a flash), but I also like the myriad of possibilities you can play with in your mind of how that happened. I like the open aspect of it. Also, I really, really, really, really loved Futaba and Taichi’s relationship, and I have to admit that when I read that “two years later... I broke up with Futaba” line, my jaw dropped LOL. I had to pause my reading for a couple of minutes to fully process it, if I’m honest. Not to say I hated it, but it did hurt me that they broke up LOOL. However, I also found it... realistic? It’s not like Futaba and Taichi’s relationship was bad or that at some point I thought “this is due to end at some point, I don’t think they’re going to last forever together”... it’s just that I liked... how it was handled? If that makes sense. Yeah, it was pretty simplistic, and I know some people say that it was out of nowhere and that the author didn’t even care to explain why it happened with that “sorry explanation”, but I really liked it.
I checked up the exact lines in my translation so i wouldn’t mess it up, lol, and here it is: “There wasn’t an interesting story behind it. People might ask why... or say what they would’ve done in our place... not understanding the little decisions we made. But... we decided to go our own ways... not to match the shapes set forth by others, but for our own shapes of happiness.”
I love it. All the manga is a wholesome, pretty realistic (in my opinion) way to show the teenage years, the coming-on-age, the “have to take/make decisions that will affect your future” and the whole mess that is... feelings and the complexity of relationships. I like how, when Taichi is explaining it, he says that there isn’t something dramatic or big that lead to it. It probably was a bunch of things, and maybe the outcome wouldn’t be what other people would have done, but it was their decision, it was what made them happy. He makes it clear. I especially love it because:
1) It’s pretty normal. Relationships don’t always work. It doesn’t have to be because of something big, either. People change over time, take different decisions that, in consequence, lead to change in dynamics/relationships. That’s life. It’s always, constantly changing. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, and I doubt I will be exactly the same five years from now pn to the future. That doesn’t mean that if you’re in a relationship now and you both start changing that it won’t work, it’s just that sometimes it doesn’t. And that’s normal. It’s pretty simple but also real, in my opinion. He clearly states that other people probably wouldn’t understand the little decisions they made, but it happened. Which, again, realistic imo.
2) I love how he says “we decided to go our own ways, not to match the shapes set forth by others, but for our own shapes of happiness”. Why? Because it leads back to the repeated theme of the story of “what is your happiness right now”. Basically, I think the main topic/message by the end was how Taichi took the decisions--and how people in general irl make decisions--because that’s what made him happy in that moment. You don’t always know if you’re making the right decisions, but at the end of the day, you’re always chasing your happiness. So, I like how that theme played there as well. They took that decision to chase after their own shapes of happiness, not wanting to chase after what someone else think that would made them happy, but what they themselves thought that did.
I also love how he states that it wasn’t easy. Futaba was an important person in his life. She helped him change, she shaped a lot of who he was by the end of the time-skip, so of course it would be hard to break up. It wasn’t like she would die or something, but it was a big change. Even if it was a decision that was took for the best (at least for them), of course it was going to be hard for him, and I like that it was stated. I also love how Touma was the one who made them connect again, really an amazing touch and, again, one of the things I loved about Ao No Flag, and how the main love triangle wasn’t toxic at all. He knew both of them were important for the other, and I love that he was the one who helped them get in touch again. I also love how Touma was still in touch with Futaba and Masumi and that Futaba and Taichi reconnect again.
So all in all, I think Futaba and Taichi’s broke up was realistic. It’s true that just because you have a relationship in your teenage years it doesn’t have to end when you grow older, but a lot of times, it happens. That’s the complexity of liking/loving someone over the years and relationships/feelings in general. So I don’t think it was that out of place? As much as people like to complain, because, true, you usually have this endgame pairing at the end of the story and you, of course, assume everything is going to be happily ever after for them (or, like, as happy as it can get with its highs and lows) and they will stick together... this is also a realistic possiblity/outcome? It’s pretty uncommon in a story, and I understand that people thought that the manga took the route of focusing “way too much on Futaba/Taichi’s romantic development to just throw it by the end” but I don’t think the story itself was just that. The story, for me, was more than just Futaba and Taichi’s “romantic development”. And everything that happened, and how each other changed the other’s life was so meaningful for me even if they didn’t end up together. I love how they breaking up doesn’t change any of that.
Also, I don’t think Taichi’s romantic feelings for Touma were “our of nowhere”? OF COURSE, I would have loved to have a Taichi’s explicit realization of “oh, I love Touma like that” or “oh, he’s more than just a best friend for me/this is more than just platonic love”. But... Idk, this is probably just because I’m bi, so I’m probably biased (LOL), but I never thought of Taichi as other than bisexual? This is just my perspective, but I feel like there were hints everywhere in the manga that he felt strongly about Touma, and yeah, you can say that it was just platonic love, but even if he didn’t feel romantic feelings for him in his teenage years (which, I personally think he kind of had a crush on him when they were younger), he very well could have had developed them later. I know a lot of people irl that have known each other for years and never felt any slight romantic attraction to each other and then years later they started talking more, etc. and started liking each other. It can happen. More so if you’re already close? Of course I would have loved to have more explicit moments, but I feel like the author A) decided that Taichi would develop romantic attraction/feelings only later (in that time skip) or B) did want to include more but wasn’t allowed to because shounen genre. This is just my opinion, of course. But, yeah. I think it was already hard to make that ending happen (main reason of why I think it wasn’t THAT explicit either that it was Touma/Taichi and why the author didn’t show Touma’s face), and that they showed a lot of subtle moments of Taichi’s deep feelings respecting Touma around the story. I really, really, really, absolutely loved Taichi’s turmoil/conflict by the end after Touma confessed to him. Raw, realistic, emotional, deep... I love everything about it. I always cry like a baby when he reads the message inside the charm of “best friend power”, I tell you. I have that panel of him crying and smiling saved in my phone because I’m a fucking masochist aksdjlsdfjk. IT BREAKS ME. Everything about him breaking down, too, with that dream, throwing things in his room, EVERYTHING about his turmoil felt incredibly crude and real to me. Never ever fails to make me cry. And I really liked how he did thought a lot about his feelings and what he wanted and what Touma felt, instead of just going “no, I accept his feelings and I love him, but not in that way. Not like Futaba”. Of course, by the end (before the time-skip), that’s basically what he tells him, but I liked how it didn’t only went with that without showing all of Taichi’s inner conflict.
As a bonus, two more things about the final final chapter:
1) I’m assuming this, but I think I’m right, haha: I really, seriously love how the author knew the ending was going to be controversial and threw some lines that made it seem like (for me, at least) “I get it, most of you won’t get it but I’m fine with this ending myself”. With the whole “Friend or lover? Which will it be?” poster thing, Taichi’s comment about the ending like “the characters’ final decisions didn’t sit well with me”, the “oh, but then again... form someone’s else point of view, my decisions might also seem...” (ASJDLDSFJ it’s like the author is saying, ‘ahaha, yeah, ik, you might not get this, ik’, and I find it so incredibly endearing and satisfying and funny? I absolutely love it when authors make subtle mentions to their [probably] controversial/uncommon/or even cliché decisions in their own story).
2) I absolutely love the final panels of the chapters because they always manage to make me cry my eyes out? The simple but oh so realistic that I absolutely die for line of “life is a series of choices. Even if you pick, hoping for the best... You might hurt someone, or yourself, and regret it. And even if, you do gain happiness, you might be afraid of the next choice that comes, because you don’t want to lose it. Nevertheless, we continue to make choices forever. That’s why I pray that... the future that lies beyond this myriad of choices...” GAH, I LOVE IT. It’s so painfully real; and just... the underlying beauty of the hopeful open ending of the line, too? -- Also, the “hey, if it were you...” followed by the “haha, you’re so annoying!” panel of TAICHI SMILING AND LAUGHING SO FREAKING HAPPY, LIKE THAT’S EVERYTHING I WANTED FOR HIM, Y E AH. IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMN EMOTIONAL. AND TH EN, THE FOLLOWING PANELS, FUTABA BEING SO HAPPY WITH HER HUSBAND, MASUMI AND HER PARTNER, AGHHHHHHH, MY GODDAMN HEART, THEY’RE SO HAPPY AS WELL AND THAT’S EVERYTHING I NEEDED, AND AND AND THEIR CLASSMATES ALL HAPPY AND GOING ON WITH THEIR LIFES, AND THE FUCKING. ENDEARING, LOVELY DOMESTICY OF THAT LAST DIALOGUE OF TAICHI BEFORE THE “let’s go home”, thE FUCKI N G R I N G, I SCR E AMED (like i knew they were married, or i THOUGHT so before -- buT BU TT B UUU T AAAAAAAA), AND ALSO THAT PANEL OF TAICHI IS ONE OF THE BEST, MOST BEAUTIFUL, HEARTWARMING PANELS I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE?????????????????????????? The way he looks so goddamn SOFT and SO FOND and the way he’s just in the middle and focus on the panel, like it’s everything Touma sees, and and and just how HAPPY TAICHI LOOKS, and the way the hand kind of... “goes out” of the panel, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WHEN AUTHORS DO THAT IN IMPORTANT SCENES, AND THEN THE LINKED HANDS????????????????? BR O. I seriously was crying my eyes out. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful for me.
SO YEAH. All in all, I was satisfied! Of course, I would’ve loved more of Touma and Taichi’s explicit romantic development, and I understand that people felt the ending was rushed. But for me, the manga was more than just... couples and endgames, you know? The manga itself was so beautiful and wholesome and it had so many good points that the ending just felt like a beautiful closure and, at the same time, a hopeful, amazingly beautiful and touching opening for more of this heartwarming, real, so beautiful coming-of-age story. I think it matches with the tone of the rest of the manga of chasing your happiness and making the decisions that sit best for you and for what you want, even if others don’t understand. I think it matches with the theme of how complex and beautifully amazing relationships and feelings are. I think it suits with the beauty of the manga in general.
And in conclusion, I’m going to show you a pic of this comment on reddit (of a discussion of the ending) that pretty much sums up what I think and said in this:
