Ayana was a good main character. Her classmates are pretty horrible, plus i was intrigued if she was going to go through a change of heart by the end.
The problem with the story is that it's so fast paced. Since it's really fast paced, the big reveals just seem too ridiculous.
Yuuya, the closed-eyed model student guy, being the real mastermind??? That was literally out of the blue. We as an audience weren't given any hints that might make us feel that he was the bad guy. Ren was also "redeemed" by the end, but...that guy's a rapist. Like, no.
They even had this little moment before the whole action took place, where he and Ayana have a heart-to-heart about what she feels for him (in which she basically says she doesn't want him to die despite the fact that he RAPED her, and that she'd save Miho because she thinks he likes Miho. But he doesn't, he likes Ayana.
...This is seriously messed up. It isn't funny, and the narrative tries to write him as if we've forgiven him & he's a good guy...but he's not. He himself knows that, and he wanted to kill himself.
I'm not saying he should, because of course he shouldn't, but if even this horrible character knows his sins, why doesn't the author??
Also, I felt that Ryou was kind of forgotten by the story, in a sense? His and Ren's fight was hyped up so much that when they actually met, it was insanely
anticlimatic and boring.
I liked the part of the ending, where Ayana realizes the futility of her revenge by understanding that sins are just that, sins. By retaliating, she sins also. The whole 'it creates a chain of hatred' was also adressed, which was nice.
The whole part about Yuuya being the real menace COULD work, but the author wasn't able to convey it in a good way. It surprised me, sure, but not in a good way.
So in the end:
- Everyone except Ryou's friends group, Ren, and Ayana dies,
- Ayana is unconscious in the hospital,
- Yuuya is apparently evil
- Miho is apparently not evil & was a true good friend all along (except she did nothing when Ayana was hurt
- Ren was apparently not evil (plot's opinion, not mine)
- Ryou is thrown aside by plot
- Mari was apparently also on a crazed revenge killing spree, just like MC
- Yuuya was the one to orchestrate it
- Ren has a change of heart and wants to repent for his sins, he presumably wants to be with Ayana
The story was interesting in the beginning, but as soon as Emi and Yuuko die, so does MC's rationale. She begins to hurt her classmates worse than they did her, making her question if she's no better than them.
The ending, and by that i mean the last couple pages of the chapter, were actually pretty good. It was an open ending, where Ren confronts Yuuya about his evil deeds (Yuuya's, not Ren's) and Yuuya explains that he was bored. He wanted to not be bored so he did this.
I can't really explain why i love the ending, but Yuuya's explanation is so devoid of feeling, empathy and comion that it matches the mindset of all the horrible classmates. it illustrates that all the MC's revenge plans were for naught, and that the human mind (in this manga, at least...) is horrible and cruel.
The main character might stay unconscious in a coma, and she might not. Whatever may happen, she's the one who won, though. This way, she'll be able to repent her sins. So in a way, Ren and Ayana did beat the system, in my opinion. Yuuya's plan failed since he still found their drama boring...
