How Does The Buffalo Hunter Hunter End?

Question

Seen different spoilers online, but wanting an actual fan's take on the Buffalo Hunter Hunter finale and if that final scene resolved all the character arcs.

Angela Lankston · Answer

I’ve never read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, which I take to be a title given to a web novel by a fan translator, working from a book that might be of small circulation in its original language. In any case, that title makes me think of The Hunted Hunter, which I recommended some time back. The story of that novel concludes with a veteran tracker becoming the target of a very intelligent, ferocious beast, pursued across much of a forest in a highly dramatic hunt. The prey is eventually snared in a clever trap, and in the process of being eaten, the hunter is turned into prey. The ending is surprisingly good, and it is also very consistent with the ideas expressed in the rest of the book, about roles of predator and prey being turned about. If you are looking for stories of this kind, you might enjoy The Hunted Hunter.

Vanessa · Answer

I just read through ‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’ by Jiro Taniguchi, which was one of those totally unexpected reads as it came to me via the rather obscure listings on m*anga for a random title that happened to interest me. It turns out to be a totally engrossing book of some length, finally arriving at a totally unexpected and surprising climax that surprises in quite a deeply emotional and earth shattering way. The anger-driven, revenge-seeking protagonist of the story finally finds the legendary buffalo hunters he’s been after to destroy. But in a totally unexpected twist, he discovers his father was one of them.

It’s a very melancholy ending but fitting in a poetic sense. It leaves you feeling kind of hollow wondering why things had to have played out that way. The kind of story that will keep you up at 3 AM wondering about morality. It’s a really great story if that’s your kind of thing.

Quinn · Answer

Ohhh, this ending is chef’s kiss for bittersweet storytelling! The Buffalo Hunter Hunter manga ends with an unraveling of the last remaining target of the protagonist in a rather unexpected twist: instead of a powerful villain, there’s just an old frail man who is already dying. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter story becomes a vigil. Then the manga slows down to a crawl detailing the tiny things: the sound of the wind, the smell of the sand, etc. The ending of the story is like the story exhaling all the tension in it and letting go.

And then on the last page, in total contrast to the rest of the story, a buffalo silently wanders into the scene, unaware of the drama going on among the humans. I have re-read the page three times now, and each time I notice more details and therefore more layers of symbolism. It’s a very deep and lingering ending, just like the smell of a campfire.

Lila · Answer

The conclusion of Buffalo Hunter is shockingly beautiful. After his long, grueling journey the Hunter arrives at the end of a canyon surrounded by the skulls of countless buffalo. It is not a triumphant end to his search for the perfect hunt, but rather a realization of the absurdity of his quest. The sparse dialogue and stark imagery of the final chapter has left a lasting impression upon me. It is haunting in a way that few stories are, and I find myself remembering it months after finishing the book.

Flynn · Answer

This manga was incredibly satisfying in its climax, for completely psychological reasons. The last Buffalo Hunter Hunter tracks down his last target, only to find a shrine dedicated to killing buffalo. He was under the impression that the ‘Hunters’ were just brutally slaying masses of animals to no end. No, the ritualistic Hunters are preserving balance. The beautiful art transitions to watercolor-like washes for a lenient, forgiving depiction of the world.

‘The hunt was never yours to begin with.’ That line killed me. That is not only how to subvert your reader’s expectations, it’s how to bring far more depth and emotion to a scene than you would have had you done it the typical way and then added a bunch of gratuitous violence to it.

Ivy · Answer

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter ends up being a twist on what you thought the book was about. The protagonist, all along intent on killing the Buffalo Hunters, finds out in the final chapters that they were indeed protecting their tribes from starvation. The final sections of the book are a contemplative exploration of guilt, set against the backdrop of stunning landscapes. There are no battles, just a man coming to terms with what he has done in a huge, empty space. Powerful, and not easily forgotten.

My Battle by Nurse Riezl · Answer

This is cleverly structured as what appears to be a thrilling adventure hunt story, but what is really dismantling page by page is the decreasing grip on reality of the main character. We are told in the end that he was alone for the entire story, that the so called “Hunter’s signs” he finds along the way were actually scrawled by him in his blackouts, and the final confrontation is nothing more than a deranged man in a cave having a terrible fight with his own reflection. He’s found weeks later unable to communicate. The whole book ends with a note from a doctor in an asylum years later who says he had “frontier madness”. The most terrifying thing is that everything horrible along the way could have been explained in a completely, tragically different way and that is more frightening than any monster.

LouAnn Horrison · Answer

This is a really great audiobook. The narrator's voice cracks at all of the right places in this final monologue.

Tamie Wyatt · Answer

It was a fantastic twist on the narrative that I wasn’t expecting. The whole book has been portraying the Buffalo Hunter as some sort of legendary and almost supernatural figure. In reality, he was a late-19th century corporation that was trying to keep settlers and trappers away from a highly valuable valley by fostering this myth. The actual ‘killings’ were carried out by paid agents of the corporation, and it was up to the protagonist to uncover the truth. In a very dark twist for the protagonist though, he was offered a very high salary to become the new Buffalo Hunter and carry on the legend. And so the book ends with him agreeing to do so, staring out across the valley that he is now commissioned to protect for his new corporate employers. It was a very powerful and saddening commentary on how the capitalistic greed of the corporations of the time had corrupted the spirit of the American frontier. It wasn’t a horror story, more of a historical thriller set in the wilderness, and revealed that every single strange occurrence that had been described throughout the rest of the book had all been cleverly manipulated by the corporation to maintain the myth of the Buffalo Hunter. A wonderful and thought-provoking read.

@JeielYozama · Answer

This books really makes you wonder if the protagonist was actually the Buffalo Hunter suffering from dissociative identity disorder. All of the fragmented memories of the Buffalo Hunter could have been the protagonists’ way of trying to remember who he was before he lost his memories. The tracking of the buffalo could have been the protagonist trying to retrace his steps and find the rest of his memories. The last scene with the protagonist on a cliff looking into a pool of water and seeing the Buffalo Hunter’s face all smeared with paint would have to be one of the most powerful scenes I’ve read in a long time. After that the book really falls apart and all we are left with is a series of police reports and witness statements. They find a confused guy miles from anywhere. It makes you question everything that the protagonist has told you and really makes you think that the legend of the Buffalo Hunter was just the protagonists’ psychotic episodes that he had projected onto the wilderness. A very dark but very compelling psychological read that really matches the mood of the book. Not your typical adventure ending.

Mary E. Evans · Answer

It’s told in a circular fashion as the old protagonist recounts his youthful adventures to his grandson with the conclusion of the story revealing that yes, he did become the legendary Buffalo Hunter, and his quest to protect the last secret valley on earth from humans who would most certainly exploit it in a matter of seconds was his life’s work. His young-wide eyed grandson will no doubt be convinced to carry on the family tradition and the old man’s parting words to him are “So, what do you think? Should I show you the trail?” Thus we see that what was once considered to be a great huntsman of legendary feats actually became a hero – The ‘monster’ has been transformed into a protector of the valley and its wildlife and a necessary force for the preservation of the valley and its natural inhabitants.

Patricia Payne · Answer

The ending of the book is a perfect example of building up suspense without giving the reader any cheap jump-scares. The protagonist travels to the Hunter’s lair, a very narrow canyon. He is sure he is being watched. He finds evidence of strange acts, but he never sees any people. The tension just keeps on building and building until finally he comes to the center of the canyon and finds a source of water. He decides to wait there. Days go by. No food. The ending of the book is the protagonist waiting. The reader is left wondering if the Hunter is a ghost, if he is just a predator playing with his prey, or if he is just a product of the protagonist’s starving mind. The final sentence of the book is the protagonist noticing a new scratch on his rifle stock that he cannot remember getting. It is very ambiguous, but the building up of psychological horror to a sustain point of tension is perfect. The reader is left feeling watched long after he finishes the book.

How Does The Buffalo Hunter Hunter End?

12 Answers

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