Why do I hate the end of Tokyo Revengers so much?

A leak reported that Ken Wakui, author of the popular "Tokyo Revengers" franchise, will start a new manga about gangs and supernatural powers now in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, titled "Negai no Astro." While this should be a positive announcement, it seems that netizens haven't forgotten the gruesome ending that Ken Wakui's signature work had.

What happened with the ending of "Tokyo Revengers"? In addition to being rushed and anticlimactic, the series finale also serves as a sort of excuse for everything else that happened during the rest of the story. It all unravels with the sudden introduction of a MacGuffin (a plot excuse that motivates the characters and the development of a story, and which actually lacks relevance on its own), and all the characters and development they undertook throughout the rest of the story are erased in favor of accelerating towards an inexplicable happy ending.

The reason for this sudden acceleration towards the end is unknown. It is unlikely that the series was at risk of being cancelled, as it was still one of the best-selling manga series of all time at the time of its conclusion. Likewise, the author of the series, Ken Wakui, did not make any public announcements or mention that he had any problems with the publication of the series, either due to stress or other health-related factors.

However, if we look at the latest story arc of "Tokyo Revengers" as a whole, we realize that the series was quickly losing its footing. The first problem, and the most obvious, is that the final arc of the series never managed to reach the same height as the penultimate one. In the penultimate arc, the series' most prominent antagonist, Tetta Kisaki, was finally defeated and the central conflict of the rest of the story was brought to an end. As a result, almost all of the characters reached some sort of conclusion in their story arcs, save for Mikey and other characters who hadn't been given much attention up to that point.

As a result of this, the final arc introduced several new characters and conflicts, all of which would have to be covered and wrapped up by the conclusion of the arc. Although they had decent narrative weight and importance, these new stories and characters could not build the same kind of story as the one crafted over the course of several arcs and over the course of several years.

This also touches on another fundamental issue: The final arc of "Tokyo Revengers" is very rushed compared to the rest of the series. While other arcs took much more time to introduce the characters' stories and show their potential conflicts with each other, in several sections of the final arc of "Tokyo Revengers" the characters' stories, flashbacks and major plot points are covered in one or two chapters. This makes for some very messy major revelations and less impactful story arcs overall.

Finally, there's the question of new additions to the story world and lore in the final arc. In addition to several story overhauls to allow for the introduction of new characters, the core concept of protagonist Takemichi's time-traveling abilities becomes much more of a MacGuffin. These skills begin to work in whatever way the author needs, resulting in sloppy writing and a loss of interest in everything the characters do.

Will Ken Wakui be able to regain readers' trust?

Source: WSJ_Manga