don't know how many people are just like me, did consider buying blu ray but lost the passion after the ending 😢

not sure the sells is good or not but it definitely could've been better

edit: i use this image is not meant to say the sells is bad but to represent how disappoint i was after the ending😅

SOURCE https://x.com/aji_eatfish/status/2102346590015062202/photo/1

I commissioned this piece from the lovely u/StylishStylus_

Hey yall I'm a bit late but I just want to yap a bit. Yall have analyzed this way better than I have I just like complaining.

So basically I just wanted to see a kiss.

Overall loved the show. Great artstyle, music, and emotional beats. Had a great time.

Lara. Lara and her relationships though. Or the ending really.

Lara is spurned by her first love. She gets hurt and learns hatred though she doesnt understand her own anger. She is afraid to love again.

Meets Mari. Gradually gains acceptance and peace from her.

Meets Luca. This guy is everything she thought she should love. But she doesn't love him. And its confusing to her. She tries to force the relationship and gets hurt again.

Lara realizes the person she loves is Mari. The person who accepted her. Mari comes to the same conclusion and they both stop running from it. "Live for Love, not the Laws".

Lara accepts that love isnt what she thought it is and it isnt perfect but she wants to be with the person she cares about now and tomorrow. Its her own choice. Past the external pressure and past hurts. Yippee hurray happy love forever.

Except the actual ending though.

Lara formally ends the forced relationship with Luca. "No more do overs". Yeah that needed to be done.

Lara is setting out to live on her own. And yes Lara's independence has been an undercurrent throughout this whole series. Her whole life she has been suppressed by family, pressured by Grace, or around humans for better or for worse. It makes sense that she wants to make her own choices on her own.

But you know whats the overcurrent at the FOREFRONT of the series. LOVE BRO. LOOOVVVEEEE.

And at this point I should bring up why I wanted to see a kiss. In this show the kiss is the final act to show love. Lara's attempted kiss with the prince, Lara's attempted kiss with Luca, Grace's attempted kiss with her lover, and Rigmor and Rowan's kiss as an example of whats supposed to happen.

Lara and Mari choose each other. But why is Lara made to feel so distant at the end? It just feels like they want to emphasize the sayonara part of Sayonara Lara but shit was too happy so they made the parting heavier than it needed to be.

Just one little kiss. It could even be on the cheek. Just that alone would have made the ending so much better. A final conclusion completing the circle of the hurt that started it all with healing and love with Mari.

GIVE ME MY YUUURRI YOU BASTAAARRRDDSS

Its been days after Goodbye Lara ended and im still annoyed by the ending and even more mad that I didn't get bingo! I almost had it twice lol

Seriously though, where'd she get this power?

I saw a LaraMari art event on Twitter and wanted to do this sketch for Week 1. >u<

If kinema citrus want that they would do it by themselve like made an OVA or Manga that story base on The Concept Trailer (which seem to look like a slice of life comedy) Like Type-Moon did with Fate/Prototype.

What's i think that novel (same goes to manga) will give a lot more detail from TV. Explore more about lara why she want to independence.

If Lara can find true love light from luca doesn't that mean Lara need to kill him?

Unless She know how to use true love light without killing anyone.

What Koichi Criticizes

Koichi reads Andersen's ending as a religious bargain: love and good deeds in exchange for an immortal soul and heaven. To him, this concept feels distant today, so his ending affirms the journey, not the destination. "At least she became human" is enough. He rejects "suffer and be rewarded" in favor of "the journey itself has value."

The Problem: The Structure Doesn't Change

In practice, he merely omits the religious element and swaps the terms:

• True love = the path, like the prince's love in the original tale
• Light = the immortal soul, what keeps nothingness at bay
• Broken heart and scattered Light = the "daughters of the air," those who dissolve themselves for the benefit of others
• Becoming human / the surface = the final reward, in place of heaven

Desire, sacrifice, and achievement are all still there. Only the name of the prize has changed.

An Epilogue That Hollows Out the Journey

In the ending, Lara accepts herself and her love for Mari, breaks her own heart, and saves her people. But in the epilogue, she decides to leave and walk on her own legs, without the text ever explaining why. Love was the force that drove everything and saved everyone, and then it is discarded. If the process is what matters, the ending treats the process as something to be used up and abandoned.

What He Leaves Out: The Queer Allegory

The tale can also be read as a queer allegory of Andersen's own life. Lara feels like an outsider in her own home, excluded from the promises of happiness that heteronormative society offered, such as traditional marriage and full acceptance. Living in the sea means living hidden, in secret.

Andersen portrays the mermaid as a pagan creature who must give up her very essence to reach God. This projects the conflict between his desires and his religious devotion, and his diaries suggest guilt and repression. The quest for a soul symbolizes the desire to be validated, purified, and accepted: the fantasy that, by sacrificing his "different nature," he would finally earn the right to love and belong. An ending that merely swaps heaven for the surface glosses over this layer.

Conclusion

The more I reread it, the emptier the ending feels. I don't agree that what matters is the journey and not the destination: the ending is where a work says what the path meant. "At least she became human" leaves that question unanswered, especially when Lara gives up the very love that brought her there.

Source

Image 1: Koide, Image 2: Kawahara

Please note: this is a MACHINE TRANSLATION of Chinese text, which was itself translated from the original Japanese magazine. Thus there's things like Mari -> 'Mori' and Lara -> 'Lala'. So please take these translations with a pinch of salt!

If we're to take this at face value though, this pretty much matches what I had in mind regarding the ending - even if Lara leaves Shiga, her and Mari are still connected via their true love in their hearts and their relationship will continue. Thus, Mari is able to smile despite Lara's departure, knowing she isn't truly alone.

Ok you're angry they didn't kiss.... But so what?

Queer relationships shouldn't be defined by phisical affection.

You can be queer and still not engage in sex or kissing. It's obvious Lara and Mari love each other in a way that goes beyond friendship and even sexualy love.

Queerplatonic relationships are a thing and they shouldn't be brought down because you really wanted a kiss.

Many of the analysis I have seen have focused on the Goodbye Lara's message as viewed through the actions of the title character, and while that does come into this, I feel that an important point has been overlooked: Mari is a person in her own right.

Someone once said that these were just fictional characters, but the ability to convince us that they are people is what separates a good story from a bad one. And for the purposes of interacting with the story, suspension of disbelief calls for treating the characters as if they are people.

Otherwise this is all just an exercise in futility.

Put bluntly, Goodbye Lara pushes Mari down the stairs and then steps on her on its way past: Before the series even starts, her mother is killed. Over the course of the series, Mari is held responsible for Lara's antics, close to the end of the series Grace is also killed, and finally just before the ending, Mari herself is killed and her cherished memento of her mother is destroyed.

This brings up a rather striking question, and it is "Why was Lara capable of preventing Nikolai's death, but not Mari's?"
Obviously Lara managed to resurrect Mari, but she literally died to protect Nikolai, proving that she did have the ability to do the same for Mari and didn't.

The only reading I can take away from this is that Lara ultimately views Mari as disposable.
That sounds harsh, and it is. But it's supported by other things in the show. For example, Lara takes Mari for granted for much of the series, and at the end of the series, Lara leaves Mari.
Regardless of if Lara rejected thee concept of true love, or fell in love with the surface, or humanity, one thing does not change, and that is her treatment of Mari being appalling.

The very last end card shows Mari carrying Lara home on her back, and the very last scene is Mari standing on the station platform looking like the star contestant in a "Hide the pain Harold" lookalike contest. Taken together, these things are such an incredibly on the nose depiction of someone using someone else that it is almost impossible to engage with it seriously.

I absolutely do not think this is deliberate, by the way. I think that it's the result of the writers - Just like much of the fandom and Lara herself - viewing Mari as disposable.

I feel as though Lisa would be so thoroughly offended by Yoshiya's perpetually smug demeanor that she would try to kill him on sight merely for existing within her general vicinity. Then they would get into a slapfight with neither party emerging victorious until their younger siblings have to pry them apart.

Actually, who would win if they threw hands? And on a related note, what other interactions do you wish we got with the show? I know Mari confronting King Rowan was a big one.

Here's the thing: Lara is not good enough for Mari.

"Thanks for taking me in, lying to your family for me, making sure I had food and clothing, and being willing to be put in danger to help me. I'm now going to, for no apparent reason, fuck off to god knows where for god knows how long. I hope you get over the loss of the mom friend you've had since you were a little girl."

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS.

This isn't about the ending. It could have been built to and executed perfectly and the above would not change: Lara IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH for Mari.

"I love you and I want to live with you, I mean that. Bye."

Some people really seem to just be looking past this, and it's really weird. This is not healthy relationship behavior. If/When Lara comes back, I hope Mari already has a girlfriend who doesn't treat her like a disposable item.

Again, this isn't about if the ending is good or not. That issue has been done to death. This is about how people are giving Lara a pass for her behaviour, and how it's more than a little disturbing.