I feel like the mangaka set up this whole twisted no-win situation because it seemed really cool and then . . . realized they'd plotted themselves into a corner and had neglected to come up with a way out.

. . . realized they'd plotted themselves into a corner and had neglected to come up with a way out.

Honestly it doesn't feel like they planned ahead much or thought too deeply about anything.

I mean, at some point they make a point of explaining the background of the archbishop and babylon as both being invested into the well-being of the refugees and working towards a common goal with their respective organizations - only to then find their differences causing them to become enemies that can't reconcile over the question of "how".

But at the end babylon-woman just goes "that's childish" instead of some sort "hey look, we tried that, it didn't work, what makes you think it'll go better now?" or aaaanyyything else that'd even remotely connect back to this obvious parallel development ^^;

Yup, underwhelming. The ending tries to be profound, but does not really say anything about anything. My guess is that it got abruptly axed like so many action yuri series, and the author wrote the first ending that came to their mind...

Benika is a saint

It's hard to say if the end is underwhelming because the author wrote themselves into a corner or if the manga was cancelled and they only had a few chapters to wrap it up. I hope we'll get a look at things a few years down the line in those upcoming extras.

. . . realized they'd plotted themselves into a corner and had neglected to come up with a way out.

Honestly it doesn't feel like they planned ahead much or thought too deeply about anything.

I mean, at some point they make a point of explaining the background of the archbishop and babylon as both being invested into the well-being of the refugees and working towards a common goal with their respective organizations - only to then find their differences causing them to become enemies that can't reconcile over the question of "how".

But at the end babylon-woman just goes "that's childish" instead of some sort "hey look, we tried that, it didn't work, what makes you think it'll go better now?" or aaaanyyything else that'd even remotely connect back to this obvious parallel development ^^;

I agree, if you read the story from beginning to end, I doubt you'd find a consistent story flow, it certainly didn't feel that way reading chapter by chapter. Remember when it started as some romantic comedy between Rose and Benika. And then it had that randomly long action sequence of protect the Dad. And then it introduced the 2 new hitmen doing an idiot duo routine. The tone of the story was everywhere, it really does feel like story beats were written week by week.

Where is my mind? Wheeeere is my mind?

WHAT DO U MEAN "FIN"?! FUCK

underwhelming end

Well, I thought it was pretty good overall.

I agree, if you read the story from beginning to end, I doubt you'd find a consistent story flow, it certainly didn't feel that way reading chapter by chapter. Remember when it started as some romantic comedy between Rose and Benika. And then it had that randomly long action sequence of protect the Dad. And then it introduced the 2 new hitmen doing an idiot duo routine. The tone of the story was everywhere, it really does feel like story beats were written week by week.

I think how the scans were released did have an effect on my enjoyment. Because of how wacky and whiplashy the chapters were, it was fun keeping up with it as the english translation was released almost daily. It was easy to just go with the flow and wonder what was gonna happen next without having to wait a month for minimal payoff. Also because of how fast it was released, there wasn't a sense of time sunk cost fallacy you would get if you had to wait a long time for chapters or if you binged it in one go. Short daily/weekly chapters were easy to digest and then move on with the rest of the day.

Also knowing it was gonna end in 43 chapters helped lower my expectations for the ending so this open ended end wasn't the worst end ever. There was no possible way it would have been able to wrap everything that was dumped on us in the last 10 chapters neatly so imo it ended as well as it could have.

I’m GLAD i’m not the only one that has issues with the ending for I really really dislikes this ending……what a bloody let down!!!

last edited at Aug 16, 2023 10:31PM

WHAT

felt like it got canned. if it was your traditional shonen it would have gone for 150 chapters for sure

Just want to give kudos to the translators that managed to so consistently get chapters out. A chapter out every two days for months is no easy feat.

Thats it?

Well, thanks for the hard work on the tl.

Kinda underwhelming, to be honest.

cool truck

Ending felt abrupt, and it really does feel like they could do way more with this setting, but I dunno I actually kinda liked the ending. I've seen way worse.

Just want to give kudos to the translators that managed to so consistently get chapters out. A chapter out every two days for months is no easy feat.

Seconding this! You people rock!

last edited at Aug 17, 2023 9:55AM

WHAT a manga. It’s fair to say I’ve never read anything like this before.

But yeah, it could have been longer. It could have been SO much longer. Can you imagine? What if Rose and Benika had somehow taken it down from the inside, like they were talking about?

Also, I don’t really get what happened with the rosary and all that. The church and Babylon, they’re just gonna keep on fighting over… something…? It was too convoluted for me to keep track of anything important.

author-san speaking the reader's thoughts on pg 184-185 lol

Everyone's always jumping to "axed" when they don't like an ending, even though this ending was basically locked in four chapters prior. Pacing an ending and ending a long form piece of media is just a difficult task lol. For manga they have to end on a chapter that rounds out a complete volume for example, if they go over, if they're allowed to go over, they need to go over for an entire extra volume, like what happened with Dorohedoro.
Given how things did feel a bit deflated by the end, I would guess this ending is the author going "I don't have enough good ideas to keep this story going but I might one day".

For manga they have to end on a chapter that rounds out a complete volume for example, if they go over, if they're allowed to go over, they need to go over for an entire extra volume, like what happened with Dorohedoro.

I have quite a few series on my bookshelf where the last volume is notably thicker than the others because the ending chapter(s) doesn't fit neatly into a normal volume, there's no way this is a given practice.

last edited at Aug 17, 2023 6:34PM

I swear this has to be one of the most unsatisfying ending of manga history. I mean it literally end in the middle of the story directly at the start of what should be the final arc.