I haven’t talked about my recent (former?) favorite manga, Jujutsu Kaisen. Honestly, it was an absolute letdown how Gege Akutami ended the series. It felt like he had hit his peak earlier on, with nowhere to go from there. Those last few bits were a complete mess. Aside from the lore, fans loved the characters, and the utter disregard for giving them a proper conclusion is what upset me the most. I get it—when you have such a wide cast, not everyone is going to get a satisfying ending. But for the majority of them? It was so disappointing.

I didn’t get into Oshi no Ko as much as others did, but I read it on and off. Honestly, the first part (the anime arc, to be precise) was the strongest, and it just went downhill from there. It’s not a roller-coaster of emotions in a good way. For me, it felt like every shocking twist was a cheap play to keep the audience engaged. The writing became a mess, and at some points, it didn’t even make sense. My interest just never revived. So, when I finally read the lackluster conclusion, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was dreadful! I couldn’t believe it ended that badly! Honestly, I was kind of relieved, I hadn’t invested too much in the series. When the anime first came out, it felt fresh, but there were no arcs after that that truly recaptured its initial charm. It totally lost me.

But the main point of this post is: how do I cope with unsatisfactory endings? Honestly, I vent—like I’m doing right now. I remember my golden age of book reviewing, how deeply I immersed myself in reading and then pouring my thoughts into reviews. It was oddly therapeutic, if that makes sense. Just word-vomiting all my frustrations and disappointment into a review felt so relieving.

That said, I’ve stopped doing reviews. And honestly, there are so many webtoon series that ended this year alone, and while they were okay, endings like Jujutsu Kaisen—where I was really invested in the characters—left me feeling so defeated and unsatisfied. The ending felt lacking—incomplete. So, here I am, back on my blog to pour my guts out. That’s what I’m good at, I guess. Thankfully, I have this space to air my frustrations. Blogging has its perks, right? In this era of short-form videos, I’m happy to stick to the old-school way of typing my thoughts out. Of course, there are other platforms, like Twitter (and no, I refuse to call it by any other name, thank you very much), but blogging remains my personal space—a place where I have complete freedom to write what I want.

I digress. But yeah, it’s sad when stories you fall in love with just fall short at the conclusion. You hope for the best—not necessarily a happily-ever-after, but at least something satisfying, something that makes all the time and emotions you poured into the journey feel worth it. Readers know. Readers can feel when a story ends on a good note and when the author truly felt confident about their conclusion. We just know!