If anything the message is simply, "it's not worth stressing over your dreams if they're getting in the way of what's truly important." And that you're going to have to work and suffer a little for the things you love. So yes tearing up the marriage certificate was a symbolic gesture of throwing away the dream of making a living on the island and getting married there, because it wasn't feasible. It turned out to be more stressful than returning to the city. Which isn't presented as something inherent to the countryside or city—it mirrors Haru putting herself through the same needless pressure as in chapter 1—but them simply making poor decisions and weathering out a rough patch in their lives through commitment to each other. They aren't rejecting the idea of ever getting married at all either.

Really it's just a story about love persevering. In the end they're just as in love as they were in the beginning. The stress couldn't break them. They never wanted to change society or escape working, they only wanted to be happy together.

Now it's hard to say if that's the story Keyyan always wanted to tell, and it certainly wasn't meant to run through all these plot points in a single chapter. But that's the story we got. The only other endings I could imagine on such a short notice would be serious downers.

From what I heard of what was going on with the author, I feel like the author’s personal life just made this series too painful to keep writing so they just wanted it to end because it was starting to affect them personally too.

Entirely possible. I can't imagine what it must be like to write a story like this while also going through the same pressures yourself. Worse if you're going through them alone.

It's not uncommon for authors to fail miserably at trying to get their message across and I think this is one of those cases. I want to believe the author intended to say "No matter how shitty life gets, as long as you are with the person you love, you will get by one way or another" or something along those lines. But unfortunately, most of us agrees that the ending just ultimately came off as "just stick to the status quo and do what society demands of you."

Even though they didn't die or separate and become het, it still reminds me of early yuri stories where the overall message is "you will eventually have to grow up and fall in line with everyone else in society"

I beleive people are looking at this the wrong way. This manga is a piece of realism, and it expresses that realism beautifully and emotionally. However, that dosen't mean the author supports what they are depicting. When realist artists of the past painted picture of impoverished families, or men coming home from the war with a thousand yard stare, they weren't in support of their subjects condition, they wanted to show people the reality of their situation in hopes of invoking change.

Now, do I think this author planned on making this a realism piece? No. What I think happened is that they tried to make an escapism story, but accidently created a narrative that was too similar to their own. And overtime, the parallel between their real life and the story caused a pessimism which seeped into their work. However, I do think this manga has a lot of value if you view it through the realist lense, and look at this outside of the perspective of just a narrative: this is the overall narrative about how a happy story of escaping an abusive system based upon the authors own situation, was slowly corrupted as the reality set upon the author that the abusive system was inescapable, even in fiction.

last edited at Aug 5, 2023 6:00AM

Actually, I think the message is "gay sex can get you through tough times"

moral: "give up on your dreams because dreams never come true." that was quite a depressing ending but a realistic one.
like every one said they just had to submite to the statut quo.

last edited at Aug 5, 2023 5:50AM

Happy ending I would say.

They are still together, still trying their best and live a happy while modest live. They are young so there's plenty of time to find succes. They can throw away their suit again when their resume and savings look better, makes it easier to adapt to any situation.

This is a good example of decent writing and I will definitely buy the official release, I enjoyed this alot. To some extent its even pretty relatable, I think most of us struggled at their age.

last edited at Aug 5, 2023 6:41AM

i am gonna cri

Besides how obviously rushed it was, I was actually pretty satisfied with this ending, though that's probably because I usually like realistic or bittersweet endings.

Some have already talked about this, but I think the message here is not really "dreams don't come true" or "submit to the capitalist machine" or anything like that. I think the message is more "life has ups and downs, and if you're in a relationship with someone, you need to work together and support each other through it all." I like how Haru and Hinoto stayed together even after this awful rough patch. I like how they're still each other's rock. And I like how the ending implies they'll try again in the future once they're more financially and professionally stable (which I headcanon that they do).

Most of all, I like how they don't blame each other for their problems or failures. Even during their own individual breakdowns, their primary concern was the other person's happiness. Haru felt like she failed Hinoto because she wouldn't be able to support their new life on the island, and Hinoto felt marriage put pressure on Haru. At the end of the day, they wanted each other to be happy, and they're happy with each other.

On that note, Haru and Hinoto seem to already be married. In sickness and in health and all that. No matter what problems they face, they'll face them together. And I think that's just beautiful.

On that note, Haru and Hinoto seem to already be married. In sickness and in health and all that. No matter what problems they face, they'll face them together. And I think that's just beautiful.

Definitely, you already won in life when you find a better half like this. What they have is beautiful and believe me its amazing how much hardship and shit thrown at you one can handle in a relationship like this.

And like I said before they are still so young and ending on this note I'm sure they will do great.

Honestly, this is such a huge letdown. "Just keep putting up with things" is the absolutely worst thing you could tell people.

Lots of people have repeated this sentiment but I really don’t think that this story has a message, at least I did not interpret it that way. This story, overall, is intended to depict failure — it’s a story about failure. There’s no moral communicated, it’s just two people who made decisions that seemed reasonable at the time but turned out to have bad consequences. But that’s fine, since it’s made quite clear by the story that they had no way of knowing.

Another way of putting it, it’s art without hope. I will acknowledge that this genre is controversial in and of itself, but personally I think that it can be very enjoyable and empowering to read in its own way.

The sense of betrayal is justified. I do think it’s funny though.

Well the author might not have intended to leave a message, but there's nothing in the story that challenges the "you can't just do what you love" line and the ending is still supposed to be positive, since after their return to Tokyo all the problems just stop being problems for no reason whatsoever, like the agony is mysteriously gone and all that's left is a decision to keep grinding and passively accept the current state of things. They're portrayed as being happier at the end of the story and no longer struggling, just regularly getting tired at most. This story focuses on interpersonal drama, while ignoring larger factors as if the hardship they had to go through in an attempt to survive was just a fact of life that magically happened itself into existence for no reason and couldn't be challenged. And besides, the real issue is unrelated to their character flaws or any decision they made, since they were forced to respond to an environment they did not create and then implicitly blamed for consequences that were to some degree imposed on them by the economical and political reality of the world they live in, so it's quite shitty that the author just destroys their life and then we're supposed to think that it was their fault or mistake somehow when they did no wrong and were never given a proper chance to build their life how they wanted it to be. "Do something else 90% of the time so that you can maybe spend the rest on what you love" is absolutely a statement that is made and followed by the two of them, which then leads to the aforementioned positive outcome where the anxiety and stress is basically over and the two are somehow no longer affected by the same issues that prompted them to leave Tokyo. Even the "it's a story about failure" point is invalid, because Magia Record is also a story about failure and it absolutely does have a solid message in it. So I don't know how this can be called anything but a politically and morally compromised failure to write a story worth engaging with. I know the author has experiences and reasons and so on, but there are better things to do with writing than bringing people down with you and drowning them in the exact same thing they likely already had to suffer since forever

I wouldn't judge the ending too harshly considering how rushed it is in terms of storytelling. It feels like there were a lot more ups-and-downs to be had where one has a job, the other doesn't, etc. But with both of them not having one it's easier to go back to square one and say "we tried, but life isn't fair."

Feels like if anything the message isn't about giving up or not trying, but that it's really fucking hard to be happy in this hell world of interviews and arbitrary requirements.

Oof. "Not as bad as I feared and expected" is the best I can say about this ending. -__-

and seems depressingly like Keyyan speaking through the characters. A lot of this chapter felt like that.

Yup, that's what I felt, too. I have no idea of how and why this manga got axed, so I am talking right out of my ass here, but if I had to spin a narrative about a mangaka receiving an offer to draw a story they've always wanted to tell in a popular magazine, before getting pounded by external setbacks until the manga is finally axed before getting anywhere near a proper resolution, that mangaka's emotional arc would go very much like Haru an Hii-chan's.

Some have already talked about this, but I think the message here is not really "dreams don't come true" or "submit to the capitalist machine" or anything like that. I think the message is more "life has ups and downs, and if you're in a relationship with someone, you need to work together and support each other through it all." I like how Haru and Hinoto stayed together even after this awful rough patch. I like how they're still each other's rock. And I like how the ending implies they'll try again in the future once they're more financially and professionally stable (which I headcanon that they do).

Most of all, I like how they don't blame each other for their problems or failures. Even during their own individual breakdowns, their primary concern was the other person's happiness. Haru felt like she failed Hinoto because she wouldn't be able to support their new life on the island, and Hinoto felt marriage put pressure on Haru. At the end of the day, they wanted each other to be happy, and they're happy with each other.

Well put. It would have been "nice" for everything to just fall into place, as is typical, and the author lulled us to sleep with that expectation based on how most manga go. But instead they didn't just magically get new jobs in brand new places. She didn't just magically change careers all before the deadline. They "failed," which happens and wasn't their fault (nor was it made to seem like their fault). I don't see it as bleak. I see them as strong. They weathered the storm.

It's refreshing to see a manga in this genre that even attempts storytelling like this (even considering it's likely axing and rushing to the end). It's not a foreign idea in other genres. The author just needed that extra volume (they likely would have had) to spread the ending out but it felt like this was the heart of the series from early on. Their relationship standing the test of life. Their relationship is so strong and though so many things happened that were beyond their control and not their fault, they stayed true to one another and never let those events truly break them. They struggled and failed but kept the light burning and still have enough fight at the end. The situation they put themselves in was dire and a bit reckless and they've learned from it. Towards the end one of them says something like "after we find work do you want to..." As though she's still got the desire to try for more but having had their experiences, wants to wait just a bit until they're in a stronger place. The desires still seem to be there. One of them then says "I'm going to keep trying..." I think that's a fine place to leave off at.

last edited at Aug 5, 2023 7:46AM

I was actually really enjoying how a series called "Throw Away the Suit Together" had turned into "Uhhh Turns Out You Might Want to Hang Onto That Suit After All So You Don't Starve and Such". It was a refreshing twist.

Didn't expect it to END on that note, though. No time for a rebound. Bummer.

So basically the excursion was a giant waste of time, burned away all their savings and made them miserable only to end up right back where they started, with our main character still not finding a good job.

If there’s a lesson here other than “life sucks and you’ll make mistakes” I’m not seeing it lol, but at least it’s a bittersweet than outright cruel ending

Volume 3 releases in September, and the usual bonus chapter might be quite a bit longer to make up for the shortened page count. It's no guarantee, but there's possibly a still happier ending on the horizon. Though in the greater context of Keyyan's situation I think this was about the best ending we could hope for.

If you don't mind sharing, what is Keyyan's situation? I feel like if this manga was a financial success and she didn't want to continue writing more of a popular manga it must be pretty rough :(

shame, started good. but wow what a shit ending

I really like the ending... Real life is full of unfairness... Something that we wish that to happen did not going well as expected... But some part of me still believe maybe there will be better future than what we expect to happen

As a depiction of what happens in real life, meh, maybe.

As a constructed story with a coherent thematic arc that develops from a beginning through a middle to an end, I’m not seeing it.

jesus what a bummer of an ending. yeah theyre together but christ almighty for the final theme to be "escaping soul-sucking work in the current economic environment is impossible and to attempt to do so is admirable but ultimately foolhardy" is. wow man

As someone who has attempted to move from my hometown and kept having to come back due to economic and societal presssures (it's been four attempts so far) this manga kinda speaks to me.

And I don't want it to speak to me lol

The more I think of it, the more this ending reminds me of 'Goodnight Punpun', except that with Punpun it was all more bittersweet or melancholic, while the last few pages of this manga feel to me as if they are trying very hard bend it all into some sort of happy ending. I think that's really the part that bugs me about it. If it had ended with them being miserable, I actually believe I'd have liked this all a whole lot better.

I think this story is amazing in so many ways

The story we ended up getting doesn't feel like the story the author first set out to tell, for multiple reasons. Kind of a shame.

just because it was futile doesn't mean it was meaningless