87 Clockers

Now that you mention it, Kanade does kinda come off like the "second guy" in a normal shoujo manga. He even has the light colored hair vs. Mike's black hair (because for some reason like 90% of shoujo love interests have black hair with the secondary love interest usually having lighter hair). The "second guy" in a shoujo story is also often a guy who is more explicitly in love with the heroine, whereas the main love interest usually resists admitting his feelings until the very ending, which is also pretty true of Kanade/Mike.

Maybe shojo from the perspective of Mike and Hana?

Spoiler

The girl who sticks by an unrepentant jerkass because she substitutes actual care and mutual respect in their relationship with raw admiration for his talents, and can't forget about him even when offered a conventionally "better" relationship with a rival love interest from a higher social class who expresses his love for her with genuine affection instead of begrudging acknowledgment? Her feelings being so strong that the rival love interest finally relents and gives her a push to go back to the jerkass, now that the jerkass has reached some minor and ultimately inconsequential degree of appreciation for what she did for him? Even the part where the forlorn rival gets together with another side character who was interested in him and/or goes to study abroad?

I'd say that's a pretty standard story arc for low-tier shojo. The big difference here is that the protagonist we follow in this is ultimately just a side character in someone else's story.

Just finish the entire thing in one run and holy crap Hana is like the worst type of woman possible.

I thought Chiaki/reader getting stockholm syndrome from Nodame was pretty bad with how annoying and clingy nodame was at the first sections but Hana takes all the cakes and then stomp on them.

Kanade was just waaaaaay too good for Hana so really this is the best ending possible.

And who knows. Maybe when Kanade gets to Europe to study music he'll meet a ditzy Japanese piano playing girl and it'll start all over again. (Gabon!

At least Julia-shippers should be happy. And Lerner & Loewe fans.

Um, no. This ending may have been a lot of things, but shoujo it was not. No shoujo romance ever ends with the main girl & guy not getting together. What kind of girl romantic wish fulfillment would that be? This ending is almost the anti-shoujo.

Spoiler

Disclaimer: All genres are very wide and have thousands upon thousands of examples. There probably do exist one or two shoujo where the main couple don't get together; I expect if I thought hard I could dredge one or two up from my memory. But really, doesn't happen.

Such a shojo ending.

Um, no.  This ending may have been a lot of things, but shoujo it was not.  No shoujo romance ever ends with the main girl & guy not getting together.  What kind of girl romantic wish fulfillment would that be?  This ending is almost the anti-shoujo.

eh... could've been better. i feel like the whole 'kanade learned he really had passions' thing would've been more moving and thus satisfying if the mangaka actually showed it rather than telling--maybe he wins a competition, maybe he's shown actually studying rather than saying "oh yeah guys im going to england:) bye"... ??? 

like the concept is a good way to wrap up a story and i don't have any problems with what actually happened but... it just wasn't done very well.

showing vs. telling is one of the basic tenets of storytelling! you can't just dump exposition and call it an ending. weeeeaaaak

i've still read worse though. 

hana goes back to being mike slave? omg

Actually like this ending cause it shows that even if you lose or fail, that doesn't mean that you don't gain anything or learn something new.

Yeah not a bad ending but still a disappointing ending. 

Kanade was just waaaaaay too good for Hana so really this is the best ending possible.

And Hana goes back to Mike the bum. The only characters who are better off now than in the beginning of the story are Kanade and Bocchan. I'm happy for the both of them. Not every series has to end with the main character getting the girl.

And Best Girl Julia?! MC got best girl again ~.~

Such a shojo ending. Despite that, it was still a good read. I like this ending about 1000X better than the last series ending I read the other week -- Shimabukuro really let me down.

And Hana goes back to Mike the bum. The only characters who are better off now than in the beginning of the story are Kanade and Bocchan. I'm happy for the both of them. Not every series has to end with the main character getting the girl.

I am getting fed up with Hana. Legit she is taking advantage of people's good will. I mean yeah, her situation is not ideal, but the way that she handles it is super aggravating. She literally uses everything to avoid the problem of a "supposed" arranged marriage where she could have easily and bluntly said to her family that she doesn't want to marry Bossan. I mean the other side pretty much only said that they would like to have her as a daughter in law and it be nice. They didn't demand it or anything. Though, I guess you could blame that on just one side not willing to listen to the other. I hate how she keeps going back into the arms of Mike. Mike is a giant fucking asshole. The author tries to make him seem regretful at times (pretty much every time something doesn't go his way with OC) and tries to make him seem like a good, selfless person with the whole argument of "she would be better off with someone else."I have to ask, why keep her around for so long to grow pretty much dependent on her to only then tell her to fuck off and then finally think "oh, man everything was a lot easier when she was around, but still fuck her." Hana reasoning on loving Mike is also retarded. "I love him because he ignores me" and then gets angry when she ignores her and treats her like some mook. I mean that is so retarded that the author even made Kanade comment on that. Whether it was done on purpose or not, just isn't enough to excuse that thought process. It is the kind of writing that would make you back yourself into the corner. Hana and Mike are just unsympathetic as characters. Literally every other character is good, but the two of the main characters are just pieces of shit. It is like those stereotypical stories where the girl is like "I can't help but love, even though he is an asshole." Legit, I want to punch Mike in the face and tell Hana to her face that she is a cunt. It's a good manga, it's just that these two characters I have a lot of gripe over.

1 more chapter?

Eek cheated. He loaded up a computer with two different BIOS. The company insisted that only the latest updates be installed. That means they could've uploaded a slower "latest BIOS" on the internet, sabotaged Mike on purpose and gave Eek the unreleased patch (to be uploaded after the tourney).

what a waste of time, decided to look up the raws and the ending is bullshit.

Of all the manga of Ninomiya I've read, by far the most satisfying ending is Tensai Family Company. (Hopefully that scanlation project will make some progress.) It has the craziest plot too.
 
But that said, if you only looked at the raws for the end of Clockers, and you don't read Japanese, there are probably some important features you missed. (Remembering that Ninomiya almost never shows scenes of intimacy directly.)

Kanade got cucked. smh. boo hana, although it was expected but still

what a waste of time, decided to look up the raws and the ending is bullshit.