The end?

*spoiler*

I found the ending dissapointing unless they plan on doing a part two. I felt as if they were saying Akira loved his new friend more then his new first love and I friendship is important but being that new he would have chosen love in the real world.

Unless it was a love story of two youthful boys discovering their sexuality and realized they were gay. Then it had a perfect ending and explain why Akira was always physically touching Shujji and hanging on him...let us not forget the part where they were trying to show Nabuta how a girl and boy act during a date?...lol.

However, I think the gist of it all was that Nabuta (Who reminded me of the Ring girl too, by the way...LOL) realized that Shuuji needed support and a real friend more then she did because otherwise he would go to the new school and get back into trying to be everthing to everyone and not just let people like him for being himself.

I just think it would have been a better ending if Shujji had decided to stay and finish school as his father suggested. His baby brother didn't seem that needy to me for him to decide to leave his best friends behind because they weren't even in the same school and once he got there and found friends he won't even have time for his much older brother, not to mention what would happen to his brother if he chose to go to college, he was only a year away.

All in all, this is one of my favorites and they need to do another one that continues the story and I will forgive them for the iffy ending.


Ree

I suggest you all watch the series all over again.

Pay special attention to the end of episode one, the scene where the tree got shipped away. Nobuta said then, that she wanted to be someone who was strong enough to not get kicked around by other people, unlike the poor tree. Therefore, at the end, Nobuta was left by her lonesome, at the same old cruel high school, but unlike at the start, this time she was smiling and enjoying life and being strong, even without Shuji and Akira. That's the growth of her character, completed.

Shuji and Akira, on the other hand, were strong people in their own ways. As Shuji emphasized at the very end of the beach scene, they were people who 'can live wherever we are'. It was a reference to the tree conversation. Nobuta would understand. All of them managed to find peace at the end, although apart and in different places.

The resolution showed Shuji's personal growth too. Shuji left his old life for his family, willingly, and understood the value of his sacrifice (classroom discussion with Akira in episode ten). What a change from his old isolated selfish cowardly self!

The drama was about friendship, family and personal growth, rather than the subtle romantic interplays lying underneath those themes. Thus, it wouldn't do for Nobuta to end up with either Akira/Shuji. It would spoil the balance. It would spoil the wistful heartwarming, heartaching and heartwrenching aspects of the show. And it's the bittersweetness that gets to you.

The three of them might meet again when they grow older, or they might not. It doesn't change whatever happened between them and whatever they had learnt from it all.

I loved this drama. It was so mature the ending was satisifing enough. It was real. Not some perfect happy ending. You could see the character development, it all just felt complete to me and it all came together in the end. Besides te purpose of them "producing" her was so that in the end she would be able to smile and enjoy life and her own and by herself and she accomplishes that.

I knew I wasn't the only one that thought see looked like she was from the Ring!