How Does 'I Became The Villain The Hero Obsessed' End?

What makes this ending so phenomenal is its quietness after all that occurred. The biggest villain in the story and the story’s hero share one last conversation under a blossoming cherry tree. There was no need for battle, for they were merely speaking. The hero reveals that his insane love for the villain was never fueled by hatred, rather an attempt to cure his own emptiness. The villain, spent from the conversation, looks at the hero and in a moment that will be treasured by readers forever, he doesn’t forgive or condemn the hero. Rather, he understands the hero. We are taken away from the present and shown that years have passed. The hero of the story is still gazing at the place of the villain’s residence. But now he looks at it with a softened expression of sad regret instead of yearning. That is it. So very different from how the majority of novels choose to end. This is beautiful and bittersweet.

What really resonated with me about the series, though, was how the ending entirely re-framed my reading of the entire story. At first, I thought it was a really dark comedy that flipped roles on the protagonist, but by the end of the series it was actually a really thoughtful meditation on identity and the consequences of the protagonist’s actions. For so long the villain-protagonist resists the hero’s advances, and in the end he realizes that he has become just as dependent on their rivalry as the hero is. The climax of the story is not about the hero winning or the villain losing, it’s about both of them finally breaking free from each other. The hero’s long monologue in the end tried to explain what had happened to him, but it was also so unreliable that I was left wondering who the real villain of the story was. The art had also shifted to very stark and shadowy panels by the end of the story, which added to my sense of unease and uncertainty. I’m not really sure whether the ending was hopeful or bleak, but it was certainly memorable either way. And finally, a little bit of knowledge about a side character in the story was fun, especially in the epilogue where he has opened a therapy clinic for other fictional antagonists. A really clever ending to a really great series.

I Became the Villain the Hero Obsessed Over just ended and it completely exceeded my expectations in the worst way possible. Rather than an epic battle between good and evil, it was a deeply introspective exploration of the both the hero and the protagonist, culminating in a beautifully in-depth portrayal of the hero’s twisted and desperate love for the villain. In the end, the protagonist of the story is able to finally forgive himself for everything he had been so tormented by and move on from his toxic cycle of violence, but not before a heart-wrenching breakdown from the hero that has left me reeling. It’s a tragedy, but also potentially a brand new beginning for our poor, confused hero, and I’m completely in love with how it has all been explored in this beautiful, and often hauntingly powerful manga.

I also really appreciated how the art changed at the end of the series. There were a lot of really beautiful panels using softer lines and milder colors to emphasize the points that the story was trying to make. There were also a lot of really sweet goodbyes to side characters in the last few chapters, with each of their own little wrap-ups to their story arcs. This was really cool, because it felt like they added so much to the story without distracting from the main hero/villain pair or watering down the emotional impact of their own story. The final panel was a shot of an empty battlefield, and it felt like a huge relief after all the long periods of tension throughout the series.