AKA The After-School Bullying Trial is Now in Session!
I had just finished reading this manga, that just released its final chapter. I’d like to hear your thoughts and opinions about this.
For those who don’t know: This manga is about a boy named Shinya Kitami who is the class representative of his class in elementary school. Long story short, a girl named Himari Tojo transfers in with Kitami looking after her being a new student and all. But another classmate’s (Takei’s) rare trading card worth ¥100,000 goes missing, with Tojo being falsely accused by Takei and Kanzaki (Kitami’s female friend) of being the thief. As a result, she is horribly bullied while Kitami tries and fails to defend her and even their teacher Ono refuses to help and even encourages the bullying.
Kitami is pulled out of school by his mother, which leaves Tojo alone to be horribly bullied, the other students beat, cut, and even prevent her from using the bathroom. Over a decade later, the now teenage Kitami is invited to an online video chat class reunion of his elementary school class. However, when he joins the video chat, he is mocked by everyone who hasn’t changed since elementary school and are still a-holes. However, an avatar appears and the person hiding behind it claims to be Tojo, who organized this reunion to get revenge. Their former teacher Ono joins the reunion as well, Tojo reveals that he was the thief that stole Takei’s trading card as Tojo had witnessed this. They become afraid of her after learning that Tojo is now a popular idol and has a huge amount of social influence. Later on, Kitami works with some of his classmates to get Ono to confess that he stole the card and records him attacking Kitami and uploads it online which ruins his entire life.
But Tojo decides to continue their after school meetings, where she systematically destroys their lives one by one and apparently kills Takei after starving him to death. Furukawa another classmate had recorded videos of the bullying on her smartphone and used them to get on Tojo’s good side. But she is soon taken down as well by being pushed off a building, with the mastermind revealed to be Kitami as he was still haunted by the bullying and abuse he was subjected to in elementary school. He sets up Kanzaki to be r*ped after learning that she had accidentally got Tojo assaulted after a prank went horribly wrong. But she is ironically saved by Tojo who reveals that she wasn’t assaulted back then as the man who found her trapped in the public bathroom stall had only helped her out, it was all a misunderstanding.
Despite learning the truth, Kitami pushes Kanzaki down some stairs after she tried to kill Tojo and as a form of retaliation for Kanzaki bullying him for simply being jealous of him helping Tojo back in elementary school. Kitami meets up with Tojo, who tells him to come clean and redeem himself after doing something so horrible after using her name and face to hurt her classmates. Kitami confesses everything he did to his older brother and decides to turn himself in, but not before watching Tojo’s concert for the last time. Meanwhile, Ono having blamed Tojo for his downfall decides to get revenge on her. He sneaks into her concert and holds Tojo at knifepoint, before Kitami reveals that he was responsible for the after school meetings and Ono’s downfall.
In the end, Kitami sacrifices himself and is fatally stabbed protecting Tojo and dies in her arms. Another after school meeting is organized by Tojo and she tells her former classmates that she has all the bullying videos given to her by Kitami and makes it clear that while they may regret their actions now. In the future, they might forget all about it, but she tells them that she may expose them at the height of their happiness to get them to remember what they did and tells them to tread very carefully for the rest of their lives. Years later, the characters are all shown as grown adults, some of them are married and have jobs as well. But they see a grown up Tojo who is now an actress and continue to live in fear of her as she can expose them at any time as their lives go on.