Like, its not like i DONT hate her, i hope she eats shit, but its also kind of. Like. Sad. It’s a bit saddening. She was a bad person birthed from bad circumstances, and while it doesn’t excuse her actions, it does make me sympathize a little, seeing all her sisters die, and she herself is to be used in the cutthroat poverty. It really is just sad. If she grew up better, maybe she wouldn’t have turned out like this— that sort of sentiment
i pressed send too early, now i have extra thoughts—
shes kind of like azula from avatar if you think about it. We dont see too much of her outside of tormenting paula, so who knows whether she was truly h thoroughly vile, or if she had her moments of kindness too. But all in all, they both grew up watching horrible things happen to their family, and they both grew into a personality that would help them survive. I think alicias a good villainess in that sense, because while what she did is her evil by her own right, it was the unfortunate history that pushed her to do so. I think its harder for us to sympathize with alicia though, because with azula we saw her in different scenarios that isnt just being evil/working for ozai, but we dont get that with alicia. This isnt an analysis to defend alicia or anything, i just find characters archetypes like hers fascinating, i only wish they were explored more in OI/villainess stories . . .
yeaaaaaah thats the unfortunate part we really dont see her doing anything good AT ALL, like i understand her role in the story (to be the antagonist to our protagonist), so its no wonder that she’s shrewd and selfish— i do wish we couldve seen more of her that ISNT trying to take from Paula though. That’s what I mourn, cause she could’ve turned out to be such a good character like Azula— but naw all we get is one-note selfish villainess
I want to believe that she lived on after Mitsuharu found a doctor, because not all tragedies are, should, end with death. I feel like the tragedy here is the all those years lost, those years that Satoko might've spent recuperating and living healthier yet Shinpei was chained to this notion that she was gone forever. The tragedy that is not being able to see each other until the very last moment. But even then that ending would be the sweetest thing to them.
I also don't think it's a she's-dead or he-died-too situation, because you can clearly see that in the last panel, their hair colors revert to white, and the hand clinging to Shinpei is much skinner with more lines, indicating proper age.
Effectively, I think I've ruined my laptop with how much of my tears have fallen into the crevices of my keyboard (/joke, this is probably unsanitary, don't cry into keyboards) and I'm going to take an entire half a year to recover from the way this manga has changed me. I don't think I'll be commenting more after this one, but maybe in a future reread you'll see me again lol.
たちばな先生、この漫画を描いてくれて、本当に、心から感謝いたします。また逢う日まで、ずっとこれを読み返すつもります!
finally caught up to this and i see people wondering why the chapters are so short like guys those are double pages, that is like 7 double pages in 153 —> which means that those are 14(+1, initial single page) pages for one chapter Bro I have never seen 7 double spreads in a row that is insane linework





ive taken so many screenshots of this episode, oh lucas, my beautiful baby boy , you’re so loved and loving