First off, this is my first review, so I bet it'll be pretty bad. also i'm not writing this to form a review, i kind of want to give my thoughts AND share some of my own thoughts about the ending. If your want a better review than read one of the 2 above me.
Secondly, if you haven't read this masterpiece then LEAVE rn and read it
I heavily apoligise that this is a boring review and prolly not visually interesting. lwk title bait btw.
THIS IS A SPOILER FOR ALL OF THE MANGA
I finished 'Bokutachi ga Yarimashita' (also known as 'We did it') in approximately 2 days. Those 2 days were 2 days of a constant roller-coaster, back and forth. 2 days of PEAK.
The manga addresses guilt and how different people deal with guilt, However, in the process of addressing those topics, it inadvertently prompts the reader to ask themselves the question, 'How would I deal with guilt?'. Well, how would you? Many people deal with guilt in many different ways, the manga provides us with 4 strong examples, in the form of 4 Characters, of how other people deal guilt (idk if Paisen really did, mb). These 4 characters are Maru, Isami, Ichihashi and Tobio.
Frankly, I hate Maru. His character is greedy, annoying, hypocritical and self-centred, but that same self-centeredness achieves his purpose of embodying bad things. After the incident, Maru felt no guilt because he thought he was right. His messed-up mind is FULL of hypocrisy. He believes that the deaths of those people are atonement for their sins against him and that he is completely correct. So much so that he believed that he must get compensation, which he achieves by robbing his friends right under their noses. I don't wanna talk about this b*tch anymore so imma wrap it up here. Maru deals with guilt by not having any empathy because he has NO guilt for killing those kids.
Isami was an interesting character who I found both annoying and funny. Isami deals with the guilt of the incident with sexual pleasure. To take his mind off the guilt, First, he attempted suicide, then when saved by his hard on, he goes crazy with his girl, and when the guilt finally grows bigger than his libido, he no longer grows bigger (see what i did there). Isami is struck with erectile dysfunction and the only way he can deal with it is by apologizing to everyone's families. Only then, he is able to go back to his sexual tendencies. He ends up a family man, so good on him and thus, Isami deals with guilt by overwhelming it with his sexual drive and with his family.
This one’ll be short since it’s not the best example and because it pains me to think about this. Ichihashi (THE GOAT) doesn't exactly deal with guilt, for he was a victim. As said in the manga, a depressed person views suicide as freedom, and that freedom was achieved by Ichihashi (also Tobio but i won’t touch that, also this was a bad example on my part). Okay, that pains me too much to talk about.
Finally, we reach our protagonist himself, Tobio. Tobio was to me the most interesting and deep character in this whole manga because unlike everyone else in this manga, Tobio suffers from his guilt the most. After the Incident, Tobio felt extremely guilty, so he tried to run away from that guilt, both metaphorically and physically. Tobio ran away from home and in no order, then tried to solve his guilt with sex and love, none of which worked. The sex and love never filled that void in his heart. In total, Tobio tried 5 ways to deal with his guilt (Running away, sex, suicide, love and confession). As seen in the time skip, Tobio still suffers with his guilt in his adulthood, so much so that he’s waiting for someone to come and kill him. Also, fun little detail, Tobio’s job as an idol manager symbolises how he's hiding his real self (cause Idols regularly lie about how they are on camera [OSHI NO KO REF???]). Overall, Tobio never got over his guilt about killing those people…
Because he never felt guilty for that to begin with...
The last panel of this manga flips it on its head, it displays Tobio during the explosion, and he’s smiling????? WTH. Essentially, Tobio never felt guilty of killing or hurting those people, he felt guilty that he enjoyed it. That's why Tobio is so different from the rest of the cast, they don’t share that same guilt. After i heard that it all came together, earlier in the manga we are shown a flashback of Tobio punching his classmate, showing how Tobio was NEVER afraid of hurting anyone. Its crazy honestly, and best put by this random guy on YouTube.
“The explosion was a red herring this whole time—it was not the death of the delinquents that really bothered him, but the fact that he enjoyed watching them die, and had a confrontation of his true self.”
WELL SAID my man. And with that, I pull the curtain a close. I really hope I haven't wasted your time and that someone gained something from this. I'm sure there are better examples and explanations, but you’ll have to find those yourselves. Think hard and you’ll find your answer. G bye.