i know it sounds basic but the ending Goodnight Punpun felt like just a tryhard attempt at doing a switchup and subversion of expectations which the story had already done a billion times up to that point, but ends up coming out of left field and makes for a really lame ending.
i tend to enjoy bittersweet endings, even bad endings. i enjoyed the ending for "Cube" because it was a bad ending, i enjoyed the ending of "All Quiet on the Western Front" because it was a bad ending. but i DESPISED the ending of goodnight punpun because it was a bad ending.
the thing about
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the stories i brought up, as well as many other stories with bad or bittersweet endings, is that they build up to the bad ending, its not some nihilist pseudo-intellectual last moment gut punch. take All Quiet on the Western Front; (spoilers for the film) the ending serves into the anti-war message of how the "war hero" is just in really just another number in a death toll, and the deaths of the characters we grow to love are just the reality of war.
a more similar example perhaps is Forrest Gump in how the plot plays out: two lovers connect and reconnect throughout life and are ultimately only truly separated by death. while the death of Jenny in Forrest Gump can definitely feel like a cheap attempt at getting tears from the audience, it does wind up tying up many lose ends and Forrest's character arc does feel like by the end of the story has reached a conclusion.
in Punpun, you don't get that. there's no one character who has a truly tied up lose end. some may say that's just intelligent, subversive writing; i just think its pretentious. yes, people like a sad story. yes, sad stories with bittersweet of bad endings can be good, but for fuck's sake give some amount of closure.
this also opens the can of worms that are open-ended endings; my favorite story game ever, OMORI, (again, spoilers) has an open-ended true ending, but its open ended in a way that directly serves the theme of the story and actually leaves you with something to pick up afterwards. the ending leaves you thinking about what could've come next. this is not present with Punpun, where the ending is unfinished enough to be unsatisfying but definitive enough to not leave any room for interpretation. another example that also fits into the bittersweet category is Lain.
the rest of the manga i did enjoy, and the whole theme of how Punpun never seemed to get things to go his way worked well for most of it, but jesus did it get tiring by the last quarter or so and outright frustrating by the end, where it just felt like the author isn't trying to challenge the reader, but instead just make them angry for no other reason than some sadistic sense of pleasure from causing dread.
stories that are about characters getting dragged through the mud but making it in the end (the aforementioned Forrest Gump and OMORI, as well Chainsaw Man (well, the story isn't quite done yet so we don't know Denji's fate but my point still stands) come to mind) are pretty great; not many stories have the 2nd out of the 3 structures be most of the story, and in a case like OMORI you could even say in a metaphorical sense that the story ends right before the 2nd act, but there really doesn't feel like there's a 3rd act here. there's act 1, act 2 and act 3; that's the basic structure of a story. Punpun only has act 1 and act 2.
the ending doesn't feel like its actually a risk taking forward thinking leap but just a tryhard attempt at making the story seem deeper than it is (if the ending had played out differently it would've been a lot deeper in fact) just so neckbeard redditor weebs could congratulate themselves for appreciating such a Genius Work of Fiction(tm) and so that Inio Asama could pat himself on the back for going against the norm. hey man, there's a reason the 3 act structure is the norm.
i have to say though, right up until the final stretch i was having one hell of a time, so i can't give it anything less than a 7 because, even if the ending fucking blows, the beautiful artwork, detailed and striking artstyle, and iconic character designs (and memorable characters in general) and great characterization (even in the home stretch) redeem it from being a waste of time. i still sorta think it was a waste slightly because it isn't something that leaves me deep in thought due to the ending.
also did i mention i didn't like the ending?
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Aug 29, 2023
Oyasumi Punpun
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i know it sounds basic but the ending Goodnight Punpun felt like just a tryhard attempt at doing a switchup and subversion of expectations which the story had already done a billion times up to that point, but ends up coming out of left field and makes for a really lame ending.
i tend to enjoy bittersweet endings, even bad endings. i enjoyed the ending for "Cube" because it was a bad ending, i enjoyed the ending of "All Quiet on the Western Front" because it was a bad ending. but i DESPISED the ending of goodnight punpun because it was a bad ending. the thing about ... |
