I seem to be going through a cycle where the end is nowhere in sight for most of the manga series I’m reading. There’s the occasional done-in-one story, but generally, conclusions are in fairly short supply.
That isn’t a problem, as most of these stories have plenty of potential plot and character developments still in play. But a little closure never hurts anyone, and a lot of the completed series I’ve read have ended quite beautifully (Paradise Kiss, Antique Bakery, Imadoki!, Chikyu Misaki).
So I was sort of pleased to hear that Anne Freaks (ADV) would be ending with its fourth volume. Much as I’ve enjoyed the series, it hasn’t given off the impression that this particular length would be shorter than necessary. It’s always seemed fairly tight in its narrative aims.
Having read the concluding volume, I think that all still applies. The story is complete in all the ways that matter and are possible, but there’s an element to the conclusion that really threw me.
(Spoilers below the cut.)
It’s the revelation about the priest. It isn’t that the twist is improbable or unfair, but it does strike me as unnecessary in the story’s larger context. It’s too tidy a summation of the books themes – that violence is ultimately pointless, adults will use children for their own ends, and, despite the occasional, accidental nobility of her motives, Anna will always find someone that she needs to kill simply because it’s her nature to do so.
It’s a theme hammer, and it’s unfortunate, because Yua Kotegawa has already conveyed these ideas much more organically.
There’s a lot to admire in the concluding volume. The switch from a propulsive, conventional narrative in the third to a more fragmented, asynchronous approach in the fourth is terrifically effective. Interspersing bits of the final confrontation with the Kakusei Group with subsequent fallout from the events is handled with real skill. And it’s not like anyone could have reasonably expected a happy ending to the story, so the places Kotegawa left the characters seem apt.
But that twist with the priest undermines the ultimate integrity of the storytelling. It reframes the story’s events in a way that doesn’t support the themes that they’ve evoked, because it overstates them. It’s a distressingly superfluous and simplistic element in a story that had consistently managed to avoid them.