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Old 02-25-2016, 07:48 PM   #51
Doppleganger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Spoiler: show

I'll be brief for lack of time: Kenya's conversation with Satoru in the stairwell, his following Satoru throughout town, along with a few other signs, it all seems to point to the fans being correct that Kenya is a fellow Revivalist. The test he applies with the "lent book" to determine that Satoru isn't really who he claims to be, that's the sort of thing that only a super-brilliant child could think of ... or else it's the sort of test we'd totally expect a time traveler to hatch, to sniff out a fellow time traveler. We'll have to see whether the fans prove correct or incorrect, but I'm definitely starting to wonder now if Kenya is going back in time just as Satoru is.


What is this? How on earth did you arrive at that conclusion?

/hands Talon a slightly used Occam's Razor
/"slightly" because I used it to shave this morning
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Old 02-25-2016, 09:55 PM   #52
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Lil' Bluey

Haven't had time/much to say on the past few eps, but may as well address a couple points I've been meaning to clarify:

Quote:
Originally Posted by big bad birtha View Post
I'll probably read the manga when the show ends. I doubt the anime will have a conclusive ending.
It's confirmed that the animé will have the same ending as the manga, which is concluding in March.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Episode 06:

Spoiler: show
So now wait a second. How is that Satoru knows to call this guy's number ... but he doesn't know the guy's name?

And that was when it hit me -- THE SLIP OF PAPER. ^^;;;;; Satoru called the number his mother left on the slip of paper. Once I realized this, it all made sense how their meeting and pre-meeting went down. But until I made this realization, I was just lost. All the episode needed to do was to show Satoru pulling the paper out of his wallet in the previous scene and I would've been fine.
Pretty sure Satoru himself stated he forgot about the paper within the episode.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Episode 07:

Spoiler: show
I didn't get Satoru's line to his mother about the train. Was he trying to plant a seed in her head so that when she got to 2006 and Adult Satoru told her a similar thing it would clue 2006 Sachiko in to the fact that her son in 1988 was actually her son in 2006 traveling back in time? Or what? Because it felt like the sort of line you'd tell someone to help them avoid their cause of death, and yet I don't recall her cause of death having anything to do with train lines.
Spoiler: show
I don't think he was trying to give her a clue/advice to escape her death or anything, more like an apology for lying to her in the future out of gladness to see her again. In the first episode she asked him whether it was possible to get to Ueno without changing trains and he answered "no", thinking she just came for sightseeing rather than caring for her son.


Episode 08 was really cute.

Spoiler: show
The part where Kayo starts crying at breakfast hit me pretty hard especially since it almost exactly mirrors a scene I have planned for a Batfic I'm writing. I thought it was really effective how they showed her silently flashing back to the "meals" her mother prepared for her, growing progressively meager. Great use of emotional cinematography. (Now that I think about it, maybe in a way eating cup noodles in the hideout reminded her of when her mom used to at least give some semblance of caring...)

Man, between this, the red eyes, scarf symbolism and talk of "heroes", BokuMachi sure likes to press a lot of my personal buttons... >.>


Edit-

On Kenya:

Spoiler: show
If anything I thought the book ploy + conversation on the stairwell lent more credence to Kenya being a good, smart kid but ultimately lacking courage. I actually suspected at the beginning of 08 that the intruder might be Kenya who kicked the box out of jealousy and frustration that Satoru is getting to be the "hero" and hogging all the glory/Kayo's affection.

Last edited by lilboocorsola; 02-25-2016 at 10:12 PM.
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Old 02-25-2016, 10:57 PM   #53
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What hit me with the breakfast scene was different from you two.

Spoiler: show
The scene showed to me not that Kayo's mother treated Kayo poorly, but that she at least made some effort to care for her daughter. Pretend that the mother is mentally retarded or something, incapable of raising her daughter properly. There's one tragedy in how she physically abuses Kayo, but the other tragedy is perhaps deep down she is trying to make some effort at being a parent, but can't for whatever reason.


Musings -

Spoiler: show
While the anime is really trying to hammer home that Yashiro was the villain (even having his face under the mask of Satoru's imagined killer) the telephone scene likely suggests that he's talking to someone important, possibly Nishizono. Talon identified that the killer might have a connection to the cops, and given Yashiro actually sortied with the Child Protection Agency (witnesses and whistleblowers don't deploy in an FBI raid), I have to wonder if he's a retired member of theirs, or an undercover cop. Either way, close proximity with children would be a good place for a predator to start.

I assumed Kayo was raped by the killer, as it's kind of weird to just see a guy murder girls or get close to girls just to murder them. It happens, but the vast majority of the cases to me would be because the guy is a pedophile. So Satoru's hypothesis of the crime time-line was either censored, or it tells of an atypical killer.

Satoru's disappointed me in how dumb he is. He's perceptive about some things like the boot, and the heater to induce asphyxiation, but ignored stuff like what the girl said in class about not moving the money, not thinking about Hiro or Nakanishi Aya, and being too trusting of authority figures like Yashiro.

I'm pretty sure 29-year old Satoru is pretty close in age to most of the people watching this anime. Sure, we have the advantage of collaboration and genre-savvy, but it's frustrating to see Satoru make a lot of easy mistakes like this on his third playthrough.
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Old 02-26-2016, 01:11 AM   #54
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
What hit me with the breakfast scene was different from you two.

Spoiler: show
The scene showed to me not that Kayo's mother treated Kayo poorly, but that she at least made some effort to care for her daughter. Pretend that the mother is mentally retarded or something, incapable of raising her daughter properly. There's one tragedy in how she physically abuses Kayo, but the other tragedy is perhaps deep down she is trying to make some effort at being a parent, but can't for whatever reason.
I edited my previous post with some musing on this actually.

Spoiler: show
It also struck me how it showed Kayo's mom did "try" to an extent in the beginning. It did make me wonder what might've happened to make her become such a shitty parent...
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Old 03-03-2016, 01:05 PM   #55
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Episode 08:

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While the episode opens with the tense cliffhanger that Episode 07 ended on the previous week, that scene aside this was an incredibly calm, adorable episode filled with lots of touching moments with Kayo, the two most notable for me being the gift-giving scene and the breakfast scene. Anyone who enjoys SatoKayo had a lot to enjoy this episode. And while the episode only teased the development of the mystery's plot whilst delivering scarcely anything concrete, it did deliver a number of clues that will doubtless prove useful in the coming weeks.


I was amazed that Kayo wasn't murdered. I'm glad she wasn't! But it was amazing that she was not. When the mystery man kicked the box like that, a) I thought he was trying to kick in the door, to get to Kayo, and b) I thought for sure that Kayo would give herself away. The latter I had to suspend my disbelief for a little bit, but that's okay. The former was a case of a "Gotcha! ;D" moment by the writer -- the culprit didn't kick the door but instead one of the cardboard boxes in the other partition on the school bus.


I thought it was slightly strange that the serial killings stopped after "only" three deaths, and I think I'm starting to piece together why this happened. I don't think the killer originally intended to be a serial killer or had the proclivities of one so inclined. I think he had a single-minded fascination with Kayo. He was using the school bus, far away from Kayo's elementary school, to store the tools he was planning to use to kill her. (This way they're not in his home during an eventual police inspection, nor are they near her home, nor are they near her school.) The fact that he would even know about Izumi Elementary's abandoned school bus suggests that this is a person who knows a little something about the town, whether Yashiro (because teacher at neighboring school) or Yuuki-san (because wanderer with ample free time) or someone else. The reason Nakanishi Aya gets roped up in this string of murders is because she just so happens to witness the killer entering or exiting the school bus. So he feels he has to silence her as ultimately as possible. The reason Hiromi gets roped up in the murders was just to throw the police off the scent, nothing more -- like Satoru notes, on the surface it seems like the killer mistook Hiromi for a cute little girl and then killed him upon discovering that Hiromi's a boy, but in reality this is probably a stunt pulled by a killer who already knew that Hiromi was a boy. Again, this leaves our prime suspects as Yashiro and Yuuki.

Why did the killer angrily kick the box? My guess is, he was frustrated by Kayo's absence. He lugs that heavy box around hoping to kill her, risking that people will spot him with it or ask him what's inside. It's fucking heavy, it's a pain in the ass to carry all the time, and he's really frustrated that his desire to kill Kayo is being denied release. So he drops the box back off at the school bus for the third or fourth time this week and he's so angry he kicks it.


The presence of the charcoal is really throwing me off though. Satoru concludes that the killer intended to suffocate Kayo with smoke inhalation and/or carbon monoxide poisoning, but here's the thing ...
  1. I thought we soft concluded just now that the killer didn't know Kayo was there? Otherwise why wouldn't he have just let himself inside her alcove and murdered her?
  2. Why would the killer need two ways to murder Kayo? Weren't the temperature-lowering chemicals good enough?
  3. I don't remember any fire in 1988 in any of the timelines ...
So like, who put the charcoal there? And what was their intention? Perhaps the killer intends to burn down the school bus to destroy the evidence of his chemicals. Perhaps the killer intends to use the charcoal to stay warm while he's camped out at the school bus and Satoru leapt to conclusions. Who knows. But one thing that seems fairly certain to me is, this is probably another consequence of an altered timeline. I doubt charcoal much factored in the first time. If you figure Kenya's an antagonist and fellow time traveler, perhaps he planted the charcoal there -- and perhaps he did so to send a sick message to Satoru that connects Kayo's death with the attempt on Airi's life. If you figure the charcoal was placed there instead by Yashiro or Yuuki or whomever else you believe killed Kayo, then we'll have to see why they put it there.


Kenya is still mysterious and, in my view, still suspicious. I still think this path is going to end unfortunately for Satoru, and that we're going to have to visit the Bad End future one final time before we rewind for the last time, win, and arrive at a Good End future. And I think Kenya is going to prove important in this. We'll have to wait and see.


The giving of the gloves was one of the most touching scenes in the episode. They're pale blue, not pale yellow :') , but they're there: the gloves that, in another timeline, Satoru found in the trash ten days after Kayo's murder. Adorable mittens that Satoru receives with overwhelming appreciation, choking back tears. "This moment ... It feels like I've waited forever."


Damn this girl is in love with him.


I was surprised by Satoru's Plan B being his apartment with his mother. I totally, 100% expected it to be the secret base. (Argh! >.< ) Pretty surprising that he'd bring Kayo back here -- especially knowing that his mom was on the suspects list. Like, I'm not even saying she's the killer here -- I'm saying, say she's an innocent woman and you know her to have been on the '88 suspects list even when she didn't house a runaway? Why would you bring the runaway there with the killer still on the loose!? Aren't you concerned that Kayo's still going to die and now this time your mom's gonna wind up on Death Row instead of Yuuki-san? What the fuck, man. What's wrong with you, Satoru?

This is the part of the story, these past few episodes, where one of my friends IRL has been getting really frustrated. Satoru's stupidity. I keep telling him that while it's no excuse, it's clearly the author padding for time before delivering his intended finish. But it drives my friend crazy, and I can't lie that at this point (thru Episode 0 it's starting to feel a little too shameless even to me. The obvious course of action for a 29-year old to do is not what Satoru's doing here. He's leaving all of the CPS decisions up to Yashiro even though Yashiro's a prime suspect. He's leaving the defense of Kayo up to his mother and friends even though that could place them in danger too. He broadcasts every action he's taking to Kenya, his mom, and/or Yashiro ... It's like, dude ... even if I don't know the future myself and I can't promise I'd reach the Good End with Kayo, I sure as hell wouldn't be stumbling into the same Bad Ends you are.


That stated, having Kayo over at the Fujinumas made for many wonderful scenes. Some were touching, like the breakfast scene. Some were funny, like the "Am I in the way?" scene. And some were just plain adorable, like the shower scene and a couple of others.


The bedtime scene was pretty cute and funny, I felt. So long as you conveniently ignore the elephant in the room, SatoKayo is too cool adorbs for school s'borbs *tomatoed* and I absolutely love seeing the cute interplays that this guy has with a girl who was never on his radar in 1988 originally. If nothing else, it's a wonderful message to men and women everywhere about being more open-minded and, if not looking for love in all places, at least being receptive to love coming from all odd manner of places. Satoru originally rejected Kayo along with the rest of his classmates as being a gloomy, weird child. Now that he's actually interacted with her these past few weeks, he's found that she's a sweet child, intelligent, caring, compassionate, just all around great. Deleting the age barrier and talking about this as though the two were both the same age, I feel like it sends a good message.

Of course, the elephant is in the room. *sigh* ^^; orz And the author keeps dancing around it with comedy, such as with the shower scene ("Come on, me! You're 29 years old!") or the bedtime scene ("Yes[, you're in the way] -- crap, did I say that out loud?"). Still waiting, still hoping the author's going to deliver a satisfying ending for all. We'll see.


The breakfast scene was perhaps the most touching scene in all the episode. I didn't get the same impression that you guys did, of Kayo's breakfast diminishing over the years. I took it to be her closing and opening her eyes all on the same day and seeing a Cup Ramen, two slices of bread, and two Ľ100 coins all on the same morning. Either way, though, I took the scene much the same way you two did otherwise. I was touched by Kayo's being overwhelmed by everything about this scene. And I also noted, as you two did, that Kayo's mother seemed to at least be making some effort, even if a poor one, to make sure her daughter got breakfast. I was reminded by this scene of a similar scene in Hyoten, but even there the girl's cruel foster mother is refusing to give her daughter lunch money (and thus robbing her of any lunch) in totality. Even Kayo's mother wasn't that cruel. Even Kayo's mother at least spared her daughter $2 and said, "Go get something" with it. $2 ain't much, but it'll get you a couple of donuts with tax or a couple of Sausage McMuffins without. And that's in 2016. In 1988? You bet it'd get you breakfast! So yeah, I don't exactly know what we were supposed to get from that scene. Maybe all of it? Maybe that Kayo's mother is just a fucked-up individual who occasionally means well but can't escape her cruel nature and impoverished circumstances in life? Maybe that, no, fuck Kayo's mother, the breakfast Kayo had been getting at home makes Satoru's regular breakfast seem like a banquet fit for kings by comparison?


I don't really understand the scene this episode ended on. It was weird to see Satoru and his mother confront Kayo's mother like this, so soon, so without backup from Yashiro and CPS. It just seems like a move that can only inflame the situation further, not make it better. How do they plan to remove Kayo from her mother now? It's not like they have a legal leg to stand on to say, "C'mon, Kayo. We're going home," and to take Kayo with them! They've just dropped her back off home. Technically speaking Kayo's mom is the one with the legal recourse here, to call the cops and file abduction charges against Satoru's mother. Why would Satoru and his mother have done this!? I just don't get it. Guess we'll see next episode!
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Old 03-04-2016, 02:21 PM   #56
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Just finished Episode 09. Brief thoughts:

Spoiler: show
Muh Kayo ;.; ... *sniff*

Trying to get us to feel sorry for the mom, while a more human/real life approach, sure was awwwkwaaaard. Especially since she's not 100% a great person suddenly. She's still every bit as flawed as before and the story knows it.

Lots of little signs Yashiro may be the killer, all dressed up in costume. Two biggest examples are the candy in his car and the cleaned-out bus after Satoru blabs to Yashiro that the kids hid out there. It's all or none with this one, either Obvious Villain Is Obvious or else All The Red Herrings.

Hooray for focus turned to Aya and Hiromi now?

What's up with Class Bitch at the end there?
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Old 03-04-2016, 03:45 PM   #57
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Just finished Episode 09. Brief thoughts:

Spoiler: show
Muh Kayo ;.; ... *sniff*

Trying to get us to feel sorry for the mom, while a more human/real life approach, sure was awwwkwaaaard. Especially since she's not 100% a great person suddenly. She's still every bit as flawed as before and the story knows it.
In response...
Spoiler: show
I actually liked the fact that the story didn't leave Kayo's mom as a one-sided purely bad guy. The child abuse is unforgivable and indeed bringing the grandma in felt a little forced but there is the fact that even selfish child abusers come from somewhere. The characters and the viewer can tell the mom's breaking down over self-pity, not because she's actually sorry about what she's done (or only in the process of understanding it), but I personally lost track for a minute whether the flashbacks to the mother character abusing a child was actually Kayo and her mom - or her mom and the grandmother, showing how the spiral of abuse moves from one generation to the next: maybe Kayo's mom and her daughter looked similar at the same age? was she seeing herself in Kayo, or her mother in herself? (I'm sure there's a clear-cut they're this-and-that-person but artistically speaking the person-melding is interesting.)

At the moment I really want to see if they bring in an adult Kayo into the present-day story. I'm gonna go down with this ship.
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Old 03-05-2016, 02:56 AM   #58
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If Satoru lived in the 2016 of today, he'd be much more versed in paranoia.

Crackers, I'm too afraid to Google "Islamic State". Blabbing to anyone when you don't know the murderer is just...
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Old 03-06-2016, 11:50 PM   #59
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Lil' Bluey

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Originally Posted by kaisap112 View Post
In response...
Spoiler: show
I personally lost track for a minute whether the flashbacks to the mother character abusing a child was actually Kayo and her mom - or her mom and the grandmother, showing how the spiral of abuse moves from one generation to the next: maybe Kayo's mom and her daughter looked similar at the same age? was she seeing herself in Kayo, or her mother in herself? (I'm sure there's a clear-cut they're this-and-that-person but artistically speaking the person-melding is interesting.)
I'm pretty sure abuser was...

Spoiler: show
Male, so I'm assuming it was the first husband, and Kayo was protecting her mom from her dad.
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Old 03-09-2016, 07:52 PM   #60
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I'm pretty sure abuser was...

Spoiler: show
Male, so I'm assuming it was the first husband, and Kayo was protecting her mom from her dad.
I should've cleared up, I meant the female abuser. Sorry. (The male one was obvious.)
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Old 03-11-2016, 01:10 AM   #61
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Watched episode 10 and (episode 10 spoilers)
Spoiler: show
I'm kind of disappointed. I kept hoping the teacher wouldn't end up being the killer, or atleast he'd have some cool detail about him. Sadly obvious killer is obvious.

Also it's kind of frustrating how many dumb mistakes Satoru makes. You would think he would be more aware when there's a future killer on the loose.
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Old 03-11-2016, 11:21 AM   #62
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Episode 09:

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Last week's episode was quite enjoyable. ... I don't have much of a prelude this time, so let's dive right into it!


Easily the most emotional scene in the episode for me was Kayo's good-bye. I teared up throughout this one for sure. Very noticeable that her recitation of the lines from her essay was much happier in tone this time. I adore these two mitten-kids so much. Can't wait for the reunion in 2006. (Don't you dare disappoint, Sanbe Kei!)


One of the episode's most memorable shots. The animation studio really shines with cels like this one. Kayo looks so not just happy but also relieved. Like a huge burden's been taken off her shoulders and she can finally exhale for the first time in five years. It's all so perfectly communicated through the subtle animation details in her face, hair, and posture. I would have loved to have used this cel as the header image for this post but meh, didn't want to rob newcomers of the experience of discovering it in-episode for the first time themselves. Really great shot.


So the author, Mr. Sanbe Kei, decides to lend an extra large portion of humanity to Kayo's mother. Starting with her name. We have a name now. Akemi. Kayo's mother is revealed in this episode to have suffered pretty terribly with her ex-husband, Kayo's father. After suffering enough abuse at his hands, she eventually files for divorce and runs away with Kayo. But the frustration with her lot in life builds up and ... Well, I can't really rationalize it from this point forward. I'm still disgusted by everything she did to Kayo, and I didn't see anything that would really explain to me why 99% of people in Akemi's position would wind up doing the same things to Kayo that Akemi did. I guess that's why Akemi's in the 1%. She may not be Satan incarnate, but it takes a real piece of work to beat your precious daughter like that.

The scene is as visceral as BokuMachi gets. It's hard to for me to describe it any better than to say, "It feels human." It's a very human scene. All of the beauty and the ugliness, all of the sympathy and the condemnation, it's all there rolled into one mewling mass.


And continuing with the realism, Sanbe throws us a bone here and says, "You don't have to feel sorry for Akemi. Kayo doesn't." As a viewer you're torn between pitying Akemi and rejecting her, but Sanbe makes clear that this isn't some rosy-colored kids show where all is going to be forgiven and Kayo and Akemi are going to live happily ever after. Nooooo, Kayo is still leaving with her grandma and CPS, Akemi is still probably going to face criminal charges of neglect and battery, and Kayo very clearly does not forgive her mother for all that's happened nor does she wish to take her mother with her on this new journey to a new life with Grandma. It may seem "cruel" or "dark" in a way; as readers/viewers, we often want to see these nicely tied-up happy endings where people who repent meet with the ultimate in salvation. But that's just not realistic. And Sanbe Kei isn't interested in telling a supreme fantasy tale. BokuMachi's got loads of fantasy in it, sure, what with the time travel and whatnot. But at the end of the day it's right at home with other stories that are set in the real world and play by the real world's rules.


I don't think you can deny that Satoru has fallen in love with Kayo at this point. The guy is the spitting image of "heartbroken" the day after Kayo's left.


SATORU IN TRUSTING YASHIRO WITH EVERYTHING CONTINUES! ^^; This time, he decides to let Yashiro in on the little secret of the kids using the Izumi Elementary abandoned school bus as their secret hiding spot for Kayo these past few days. So now not only does 1988 Yashiro know this, but if you assume there's an antagonist in 2006 who also possesses the power of Revival like Satoru does then there's the possibility that the culprit in the future is going to know this too -- and use this knowledge to rewrite the past in a bad way when he goes back in time. Even if there isn't an antagonist Revival user, the point still remains that in 1988 Yashiro Gaku is one of the audience's primary suspects for the serial killings -- and yet Satoru just somehow doesn't realize this and keeps spilling the beans to Yashiro about anything and everything. It's just ... ugh. ^^;

That stated, BokuMachi does a wonderful job of obfuscating whether Yashiro is friend or foe. There are so many hints that are dropped that he might be a bad guy but that are then either soft defused or else brushed under the carpet. At the end of the day we will either have oodles and oodles of evidence that he was the villain all along or else we'll have a textbook case of laying red herrings along the path to throw the readers/viewers off the scent.


Chief amongst these was the candy in the glove compartment. Hooooooly shit, when Satoru opened the glove compartment and all that candy spilled out, I thought, "HERE IT COMES!", here it is, the moment of truth, the big reveal that Yashiro is actually a pedophile who lures children to his car with candy and abducts them, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu--

And then the episode goes and has Yashiro tell Satoru that he's an ex-smoker who uses lollipops as a psychological replacement for cigarettes. Something to put in his mouth and keep his mouth busy while he's suffering the cravings for a cigarette. It ... makes sense. It's ... something I've heard of people doing in real life before. But ... ... that sheer look of terror on his face as Satoru reaches for the glove compartment ... It calls to mind the similarly-animated look of terror on Yuuki-san's face when Satoru brought up Kayo several episodes ago.

That's the beauty of this roller coaster. A hilarious number of signs that Yashiro is the culprit that are then explained away (as with the candy) or else brushed under the carpet. We're really not going to know what the hell he is to this story until the story is over. Until then, we get to play the exciting guessing game as to whether Yashiro Gaku is or is not a) the serial killer from 1988, b) involved with the serial killer from 1988, c) the murderer from 2006, or d) involved with the murderer from 2006.


So the boys visit the bus, and sure enough they find that everything's been taken out. The freezing chemicals, the charcoal, all of it. It's all gone. It's possible that a different person is the killer and that he independently discovered that someone else was visiting this school bus and he decided to move his murder accessories to a new location ... but as far as the audience knows, the only change between last episode and this episode is that Yashiro's been let in on the secret about the school bus. And no sooner is he informed than do the murder tools disappear. It looks really bad for Yashiro, but eh, we'll see.

Kenya demands an explanation from Satoru, and Satoru all but spills the beans that he's a time traveler from the future who has come back in time to prevent a string of serial killings. (He doesn't quite say it like this! But Kenya's a smart lad and he's going to piece together that the only way Satoru could have such strong convictions about Hinazuki, and now Hiromi, being in danger is because of something like this.) While Kenya writes off Satoru's claims as 99% likely to be unbelievable, he says that 1% of him is able to believe in Satoru. And the boys agree to work together to ...

... To what, exactly? I'm not exactly clear what Hiromi is doing, for starters. Hiromi doesn't seem to have been made aware that he originally died in 1988, that there's someone after him, etc. He just seems to be tagging along with Satoru and Kenya. Are they just hoping to nab a child predator, and the boys' understanding is that this child predator was only after Kayo?


But Hiromi is happy to tag along. There's a scene in this episode where he takes hold of Satoru's hand and it makes Satoru blush just the same as if Hinazuki had done so. It's hard to deny that Hiromi is quite the trap , but Episode 09 also raises the possibility that Hiromi sees Satoru as more than just a friend. We'll have to stay tuned for more before I can really weigh in one way or another on this one.


Speaking of Hiromi, Satoru's focus now shifts from saving Hinazuki (whom he declares saved) to saving Nakanishi Aya and Hiromi. You guys must be relieved! Some of you were distressed by Satoru's attention being placed squarely on Kayo, ignoring the two other children. But Episode 09 now shows that he cares about saving them, too, and it's just the same as with Kayo: a, he wants to save them because he believes it will help to avert his mother's death in 2006; and b, he wants to save them because it's just plain the right thing to do.

I enjoyed how Satoru struggled with how to approach Aya. I feel like the author handled this pretty well, and that it was the responsible thing of him to do as a writer to tackle. You can't just ... have Satoru save Aya the same way he's saved Kayo or plans to save Hiromi. Those two were classmates. Aya is a complete stranger. It'd be really frickin' weird if this boy you'd never met before suddenly showed up in your life and aggressively demanded that you spend time with him, do what he wants to do, go where he wants to go, be where he wants to be ...

The episode ends without Satoru having gotten a chance to introduce himself to Aya, but I'm looking forward to it in the next episode. It'll be interesting to see how he prevents the murder of this complete stranger, and what this complete stranger might mean to him come New 2006.


The episode ends in a surprising way. Osamu and Kazu, not wanting to be left out, decide to tail Satoru, Kenya, and Hiromi to see what they're up to. That's fine. ... But then the class bitch, what's-her-face, she seems to decide to want to tail the boys ... or to report their activities to someone ... or something. It's really vague and really surprising. I never imagined she'd get involved in the story again at this point, and the look on her face ... this mix of determination and anger-fueled vengeance ... it's just so weird and I don't know where we're going with it and--!

And that's the end of the episode. On to Episode 10!
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Old 03-11-2016, 11:45 AM   #63
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On traps: Until this year, I never found someone who could be a convincing trap in real-life. Girls looking like men is easier than men looking like girls. You can't get shorter. You can't round your shoulders or round your hips, even if you could bind the waist like a girl binds the chest. So when I see Hiromi part of me can't suspend disbelief because it's something that doesn't happen IRL.

But there's a caveat, until this year! I have on more than one occasion seen very young children (<5 years old) who are male, and I have mistaken for female. And I wasn't the only one. Still, those are kids who might not be old enough to get to elementary school. And the default - you can't tell with babies unless they're un-clothed - is much the same as well.
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Old 03-11-2016, 12:10 PM   #64
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Just watched Episode 10 and

Spoiler: show
MAAAAAAAAAN! >D<

Just demoted the show to 8/10 when updating my MAL earlier today, but this episode earns it the bump back up to a 9. Wonderfully tense episode, holy shit.

More thoughts hopefully in the next day or two.
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Old 03-12-2016, 05:44 PM   #65
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FOR FUDGE'S SAKE.

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Old 03-17-2016, 02:30 PM   #66
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Episode 11

THIS EPISODE. THIS GODDAMN EPISODE.
Spoiler: show
SO MUCH TENSION THIS WEEK. I was actually half-screaming when Yashiro showed up again - a politician at that. Christ. AND THAT CLIFFHANGER ENDING! Not quite as excruciating as Episode 10's but nevertheless.

I got my wish: Kayo-baby all grown up. Didn't think she'd have HER OWN BABY though, with Girly Boy Hiromi of all people. And the rest of the "lost boys" all grown up, man.

The hamster story at the beginning was almost classic sociopath spotting: animal cruelty, lack of empathy, seeing oneself above the law and norms and qualified to end lives at his own whim, considering fellow humans on the same level as some experimentation rodents - that's some seriously inattentive parenting if your kid has seven dead hamsters in a bottle and NO ONE NOTICES ANYTHING. Knowing what we know about Yashiro this most likely wasn't some isolated incident. But since sociopaths climb to positions of power in the real world as we speak...maybe Yashiro's case would be closer to common than I'd like to think.


The finish line is right around the corner. Can the story wrap up in a satisfactory manner?! I have had a sorta-lazy theory about this since the first episode, but I really hope we don't have to see it occur.
Spoiler: show
Butterfly Effect all over again and somehow Satoru wiping himself out of existence ends up saving everybody else. With the title of the show/novel being what it is, it'd be disappointingly low-hanging-fruit writing to do so (at least in my opinion). Hopefully it'll remain as a reference to Kayo's essay and not "the twist was in the title all along".
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Old 03-17-2016, 08:58 PM   #67
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Muv-Luv Alternative feels, man.

Edit: Watching the episode now:

Spoiler: show
The only way this could get better, or really cuck the heck out of everything, is if Hinazuki married Yashiro. Then, the 20th Century Boys parallels would be complete.
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Old 03-18-2016, 11:18 AM   #68
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Episode 10:

Spoiler: show
Let me start off by saying: this was one of the tensest chapters of any story I've seen in a long time. We've suspected the killer's identity going as far back as his introduction in Episode 02, and the story has sprinkled breadcrumb after breadcrumb of evidence along the trail to his big reveal. So the usual suspenseful moment in most murder mystery stories, the killer's identity, wasn't perhaps as big as it could have been. But none of that affected one unaswered question: what was going to happen now that Satoru was locked in the car with Kayo's killer?


Not since last spring's Death Parade have I had the pleasure of watching for so long with such bated breath as I did the entire second half of Episode 10 of BokuMachi. That entire car ride was just t-e-n-s-e tense. I've watched the entire episode twice already and I would have watched the second half alone for a third time but for running out of free time this week. It's just so good!


But let's rewind to the start of the episode, shall we? :'D I feel like BokuMachi Episode 10 is divided into two halves: the Nakanishi Aya half and the Revealing The Killer half. The entire episode taken as a whole felt really information dense to me. A friend of mine disagrees, but whether he's right or I'm right -- which a quick look at the manga later can confirm for us -- I felt like this episode bore a lot in common directorially with Episode 01, which we know covered an entire tankoubon's worth of ground in just twenty minutes. I'm not sure how much of this has to do with what Yuki wrote in an earlier post, stating that the anime is confirmed to end the same way the manga will, and how much of it was just the way the material adapts to television. Regardless, the first half of the episode felt like it could've easily been stretched to two or even three episodes in some other programs.


Aya's scene with the boys at the gazebo was pretty cute and entertaining. I loved all of their reactions. Kenya's reaction to learning that Aya is ahead of him academically, even though he's the class genius ... Satoru's reaction to Aya's off-hand dismissal of heroes ... Aya's reaction to Kazu's declaration that secret bases are "A MAN'S ROMANCE!" ... the entire scene was great. Aya had felt like a probable sixth or a seventh wheel up until this point, but this one scene did wonders for introducing her to the children's lives.


I thought Kazu x Aya was a pretty cute, pretty unexpected development. Characters like Kazu, the class clowns, are usually destined to be single in stories like this one. It was interesting for the Kazu character to get the girl for once. Not really sure how else to put this one into words. You just have to watch the scene. And then I can simply say, "I enjoyed it. "


We finally see the children's secret base! Aaaaaand it's revealed to have pretty much zero relevance to the Kayo plot. ^^; haha Welp, count me down for the Animation Team Fooled Me squad. I put too much stock in that pretty website picture. Not only does Kayo not factor into the story at this point, but the kids' secret base doesn't even look anything like what is pictured in that artwork!


Aya the tsundere. I was listening for KugiRie's voice but couldn't discern who this was. Regardless, classic tsundere.


As we start to transition from the Aya half of the episode to the killer half of the episode, the writer and production team both do a good job of sprinkling yet more breadcrumbs identifying Yashiro as the culprit. This I credit to starting to build the tension. Because when they're making it this obvious that he's the killer but they're refraining from confirming it, all you can keep wondering is, "IS HE THE KILLER OR ISN'T HE!?" It creates tension. You're not going to be surprised either way whether he proves to be the killer or proves to be a red herring. But the excitement is in the uncertainty. You want to know which of the two he is, and they keep teasing the reveal without delivering it.


Take this, for example. You see this while watching and you start laughing to yourself, thinking, "OH COME ON! XD" They're getting super heavy-handed with the "reveal" ... and yet not, because you still don't know whether this is hinting towards a Yashiro reveal or whether it's one enormous trap.


Kudos to the team for making us feel sorry for Class Bitch. It just goes to show that at ten years old pretty much all kids are kids, they're all innocent-like, and even the class bitches and bullies you can really feel sorry for looking at them through the lenses adulthood equips us with.

~*~*~*~

So let's jump ahead now to the car ride. The tension continues to build. You see Yashiro again at the hockey rink. And you witness Satoru trusting him with everything. Yes, let's tell Yashiro all we're doing. Yes, let's buckle up in Yashiro's car. You're watching with bated breath wondering when they're going to reveal the deal with Yashiro ...






And then they go and have Yashiro say this. And it sends up the red flag. It sets off the siren in your brain so, so loud. But Satoru still doesn't get it! And we still are denied our confirmation! It's all but revealed, and yet still not revealed! THE SUSPENSE! >_<


And they return to Yashiro's habit of tapping hsi finger on the steering wheel. And your eyes are naturally drawn to the black leather gloves we so associate with murderers in our entertainment media.

And as the two continue to talk, they cut back to him tapping his finger again.

And again.

And again.

TENSION RISING.


And then Satoru goes for the candy. Only there's no candy.

And Yashiro tells him there won't be any candy.

Because this isn't his car.


And Satoru looks up, and ...


SHYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! >D<

So we get our first climax, our first emotional outlet for relief. Is Yashiro the killer or isn't he? He is. Alright, cool. But like bbb's already pointed out: wasn't that really obvious? I mean, sure, I've made the case for how tense it was for me personally, but that's only because I felt the case was as strong for Yashiro being the killer as it was for Yashiro being a lol-obvious red herring and I couldn't discern which he was. Not everyone is going to feel the same way. Some people might not be experienced enough to suspect the red herrings. And others might be even more experienced and could've discerned that this was just a story that broadcasts its killer early and often and isn't toying around with misdirection. For such viewers, it might not have been such a tense deal getting to the revelation that Yashiro is the '88 killer and also confirmed to be the person who killed Satoru's mother in 2006.

But we're only at the halfway point of the episode. There's still an entire second half to explore. And it's amazing. The tension doesn't stop. It partially abates with the reveal that Yashiro's the killer, but then it sets its sights on a new question -- "How will Satoru survive now that he's trapped in the car with the killer?" He's buckled in. They're driving at 40+ miles per hour. And most importantly -- he's in his 10-year old body, absolutely no match for the adult man that is Yashiro.

Buckle up, kids, 'cause we're going for a thrilling ride to the countryside.


The story wastes no time winking at readers/viewers that it was obvious Yashiro was the killer and that Satoru should feel like an idiot for not seeing it. We spend the next couple of minutes witnessing exactly this: Satorus berates himself for not realizing Yashiro might be the killer, for confiding in Yashiro all of the important information that he did, etc.

If we step back a moment, I think we're perhaps being a little unfair to Satoru. Our criticisms still largely hold, but we have to remember: he's coming at this experience as someone living it in the real world, whereas we're coming at it as story-listeners poring over a mystery for entertainment. We look for meta clues that Satoru isn't privy to. It's a common feature of murder mysteries that the killer is someone the audience already knows prior to the killer's reveal, but in a real life situation similar to Satoru's you usually wouldn't know the killer personally. Normally you'd expect it to be a deranged member of the community, or a drifter who arrived uninvited, whom you never knew.


But yeah. It was really obvious to the viewers. Poor Satoru. ^^;


The entire car ride to the lake was super tense. Evil Yashiro is for all his obviousness a captivating villain. You're so horrified and at the same time so transfixed. You have to wonder what he's going to say next, what he's going to do next. And you are! You're wondering what he is literally going to do now that they've driven all the way out here. Once you see the lake, it becomes obvious -- drive the car into the lake and kill the boy -- but even then you have to wonder how it's going to go down, whether he's going to slit Satoru's throat before dumping the vehicle in the lake or not, etc.


Tense. Satoru's buckled in and can't get out. Once the water starts flooding in he won't be able to escape, unlike what they show in 99% of movies where someone's in a submerged vehicle. Even an adult can't kick in the glass, much less a child, and there's no way to roll the windows down either due to all of that water pressure applying against the pane of glass. He's screwed. How is he going to get out of this one?


Aha. Whether he had a flash of brilliance and hatched this plan to entice Yashiro to save him, or whether he was just spitting insults and had no intention of getting Yashiro to save him, it's pretty clear that these words of Satoru's are going to be what ends up saving him. Yashiro is too intrigued by how Satoru managed to outmaneuver him, and even put forward the crazy theory that Satoru has seen the future. So to have the boy actually claim to have seen the future ... I think Yashiro will be too intrigued to let this one go.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Satoru's going to Revival again to an earlier time, return to this time, and do things differently. But I think that would feel like too cheap an escape to most readers, so I doubt the manga author did that. We'll see.

~*~*~*~

And finally, with almost no relevance to the entire rest of the episode ...


HOLY SHIT I WAS NOT READY FOR THIS. There's a semi-random shot of Kayo running home to Grandma's and she just looks so healthy and happy and cute! HRRRRRRNGH. >.< This has to be the most adorable shot we've had of Kayo the entire program.

BRING ON EPISODE 11! I can't wait.
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Old 03-19-2016, 04:06 AM   #69
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Spoiler: show
I guess you can give major kudors to the author, the studio, or both for managing to cast enough doubt on an obvious villain in a closed-cast story. That is the only way that perfectly logical folks can not zone in on the right culprit once closed-cast status is established.

The major problem I have - which I already vocalized way earlier in this topic - is there wasn't sufficient evidence given by Satoru to explain why he blindly trusted Yashiro, it was only given in segments and left for the audience to fill the gaps.

Things such as, "I never knew my father" (Yashiro is like a father figure) and how Satoru internalized Yashiro's speech at the end of the 6th Grade. This isn't reflected on and connected, so it makes Satoru look like a complete idiot instead of someone who could be deceived by someone perceived as close to himself, closer than what the audience sees.
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Old 03-24-2016, 06:54 PM   #70
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I don't have much to add right now because I found this series pretty late into the ballgame, but it was very, very good. I could spend a super long time writing up why it's so good and what makes it so good, but I won't, because it is an experience, and an experience worth having at that.

Anime only fans may want to consider checking out the last several chapters of the Manga after finishing up, (spoiler? Not really but..?)
Spoiler: show
as the two do take different directions, almost like separate routes in a VN.


Boku dake ga inai machi is a rarity and the kind of story that will stick with you for years.

9/10 from me.
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Old 03-25-2016, 01:04 AM   #71
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I like the ending a lot. I felt it was a rather mature way to handle things.

Spoiler: show
I dare someone to call it a cop-out.
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Old 03-26-2016, 07:47 AM   #72
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Ending Spoilers:
Spoiler: show
Lets get my Nitpicks out the way before I get to the good stuff.

I think an issue I had with this series is the way they try to interpret Satoru's power. It has strayed so far from what it originally was that it makes the first episode pretty much irrelevant to anything. In fact the show does this pretty much throughout; forgetting the initial motive for going back in time and even how the power works. It just sort of seems to flip flop between narratives whenever the director feels like it should.

In relation to the first episode being irrelevant, it's a small nitpick but I'm a little disappointed that when the fire in Airi's flat was happening there was no throwback to his power. I think this would have been a nice addition to bring the audience back to his initial knowledge of the power.

Right, good stuff. I was hooked throughout; this series constantly had me wanting to know what goes on every week through cliffhangers and mystery. As mentioned by others, it has done a great job on casting doubt on an obvious character through small red herrings like Satoru's eyes turning red, the stuff with Yuuki, etc. Music was great, Animation was great, the main story was fantastic, the small details like Satoru's inner monologue's were great, it was mature, it had very likeable main characters. However I think this anime needed 24 episodes to be TRULY fantastic. I think the switching between narratives would've been completely fine if it had more time to explore certain parts of it. I really did like how it ended but when I look back at the first episode, the whole thing is entirely different. Sure, maybe the series is supposed to forget itself considering Satoru had altered the course of time, but I don't think it works when particular plot points and episodes become irrelevant.

Like, in the last episode it talks about Revival having not happened again since. And I'm like 'OH YEAH he used to just revive to save people from dying...'. Completely forgot about it because the series doesn't even seem to remember it.

Other than those points I thought it was brilliant, and it gets an 8/10 from me.
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Old 03-26-2016, 01:21 PM   #73
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I'm pretty satisfied with the ending.

Spoiler: show
While I was disappointed with the villain's reveal in episode 10 (and Satoru's stupidity - particularly when it came to saving himself; just pull the seatbelt forward, c'mon), I liked the way the series concluded with everyone essentially achieving a "Good End". (No comment on the "NTR", as it doesn't bother me.) Surprisingly I didn't find Satoru's confrontation with the killer on the roof to be too overblown, and I thought his gambit of calling Yashiro out on his gayness dependency to be pretty clever. (I don't buy that he doesn't hate the guy either, I think he was just spouting words to mess with Yashiro.)

Especially enjoyed the scene with his mom in the hospital. The voice-acting was well-done and nearly made me tear up.

I was happy to see the whole gang back together, including the lunch money girl. Was half-expecting her to end up with Satoru (still hold that she had a crush on him), but I don't mind the Airi ending either. Apparently they cut out a lot of her role in the story, but I think saving the random Steins;Gate coincidental/fateful reencounter for the final moment works too. Figured they wouldn't explain Revival though.


Overall, BokuMachi did fairly well IMO. There were some ups and downs, but the good parts were solid. Even if it wasn't much of a mystery, it had some nice feels and characters. 7/10 from me, with 6 and 8 moments in between.
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Old 03-26-2016, 03:44 PM   #74
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To echo what Midge says, I think that there are a several incidents in the story that feel ridiculous enough to break suspension-of-disbelief, but they happen frequently enough to, on the aggregate, create a story where you feel there's some advanced writing mixed in with amateurish mistakes typical of a rough draft.

Spoiler: show
The fire thing in Airi's house, along with Yashiro's ridiculous control of information, connections, and resources are a good one. Yashiro is very smart and methodical about his killings, and does a ton of research, but the multiple cars, deploying with Child Protection agents, managing to avoid detection despite violent murders happening in every town he lives regardless of size, make it seem like Japan is too retarded to sniff out the weasel in a hen-house.

Satoru's idiocy regarding Yashiro, hinted at but not spelled out so the viewers can see and understand it, is another clear example. If we can't relate to Satoru's feelings, we're going to get mad at him rather than be horrified with him.


In the manga,

Spoiler: show
Apparently Satoru goes back to school and is classmates with Kumi-chan, since she's the same age as him when he went comatose. So Satoru's harem, now that Kayo is gone, consists of

-Sachiko
-Misato
-Airi
-Kumi-chan

And here I was saying the story walked away from the self-insert manga-ka dream.
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Old 03-27-2016, 02:11 AM   #75
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I'm fairly sure you were misinformed Doppel, because I went and read through and

Spoiler: show
Satoru doesn't go back to school, and logically he can't be the same age as Kumi-chan since the age gap still remains no matter how long Satoru hibernates. Also, iirc, Satoru is surprisingly literate and can draw after the coma, probably due to Revival. In the manga, Airi becomes the key to Satoru unlocking his memories (her punching the photographers at the hospital rather than Sensei chasing them out). I think Satoru had another mini-coma sometime, can't remember exactly, but after he woke up the second time Kumi-chan already finished her surgery. Then that's where Sensei shows up and starts to kill Satoru/Kumi-chan. He organises (as a politican) a trip for a primary school student to bring hospitalised people out and gets Kumi-chan to go with Satoru to a lake. There Sensei attempts to kill Kumi-chan and Satoru, but then his plans were foiled and they lived happily ever after. Well, the last-last part of the ending was Satoru becoming a mangaka and then chancing upon Airi below the bridge (like the anime).

Basically, the ending for the manga is more stretched out compared to the anime, but in no way is Satoru implied to have feelings for Kumi-chan (since the age gap between them is enormous). I think end-game for the manga was strongly hinted to be Satoru x Airi though.


Speaking of which, about the anime ending...

Spoiler: show
During the little movie sequence towards the end, I think Nakanishi Aya showed up as the woman sitting across Kayo!
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