My Hero Academia reached its final chapter not long ago and…well, I have to admit, I found it a little disappointing. It’s hard to explain why without going into spoilers, but say that I thought the epilogue generally focused on the wrong things and left too many of the really interesting points rushed or unsettled. It wasn’t bad, but after such an excellent overall series the ending was distinctly unsatisfying for me.

Though it occurred to me, thinking about it, that this has been a bit of a pattern with the anime and manga I’ve experienced. Of the ones I’ve read to completion, I want to say more than half have had endings that I thought fell at least a little flat.

Let’s see, so far the ones I’ve completed are (if I remember right):
My Hero Academia
Death Note
Fullmetal Alchemist
Silver Spoon
Fruits Basket (and the sequel, Another)
Super Cub
Cowboy Beebop

Other ones I’ve started, but haven’t finished include:
Spy x Family (still ongoing)
Naruto (got bogged down about the hundred-and-somethingth episode years back and am daunted by the prospect of starting over, given how darn long the thing is)
Bofuri (I… think it’s ongoing? Kind of started losing steam toward the end of the second season, though)
Little Witch Academia (couldn’t get into it: decided wasn’t for me)
One Punch Man (First Season was fun, not really interested in continuing)
One Piece (started it, but…see the Naruto issue above and multiply it several times)
Love is War (I still haven’t gotten through the finale! I keep dropping out just before the climax, since I think the ‘evil family’ element is the weakest part of that series. Oh, well; one day).

Anyway, of the ones I’ve completed, I’d say the endings break down like this:

My Hero Academia
-As I say, not terrible (and really could be fixed by just a few added scenes when the anime gets around to it), but kind of unsatisfying given what came before.
Death Note
-Should have ended long before, and the cosmological revelation at the end was a disastrous miscalculation. Textbook example of a story outliving its natural lifespan (ironically enough, given the premise).
Fullmetal Alchemist
-A pretty thoroughly satisfying ending. I wasn’t as invested in the story as I was with some others, but I thought it ended on exactly the right notes for the characters: the classic ‘hero’s journey’ ending where the dead are buried and the survivors get married.
Silver Spoon
-Had a pretty solid and satisfying ending…about ten chapters or so before the real ending, which left the characters in a disappointingly unsettled position. With this as with Death Note, I think significant time skips should be avoided!
Fruits Basket
-Legitimately one of the best endings I’ve seen to any long form piece of content. The final chapter gives us a brisk recap of where everyone is, and they’re pretty much all left in suitably satisfying places, and then the final touch ties it all together perfectly. Amazingly enough, the brief sequel series only serves to make the ending even stronger (but that’s a topic for another time).
Super Cub
-The story in this one is very light and meditative, but it was a moderately satisfying ending, leaving the characters definitely better off than they were when we met them, so we’ll call this one a “good, not spectacular” ending.
Cowboy Beebop
-I found this ending very unsatisfying, to the point where it felt as though the story was genuinely incomplete (since the future of two of the main cast depends in large part on the fate of a third, and that fate is left ambiguous). It was overall a very experimental series, but I don’t think the final experiment paid off.

That’s seven works, four of which I think have more or less disappointing endings.

So, what are some really good long-form endings (I mean, discounting obvious classics like Lord of the Rings)? Not limited to anime or manga, some of my favorites would be:

Phineas and Ferb: for a mostly non-serialized show, this has a spectacularly satisfying finale, tying up several major character arcs (most of the others of which were settled in preceding episodes) while giving a high-stakes climax slyly imitating the format of the show itself.

Narbonic: the mad-scientist-centric webcomic ends on a remarkably sweet and fitting note where the main romance is settled and the future is bright, but suitably uncertain (given that these are technically villains we’re talking about).

Harry Potter: I know some people hate the epilogue, but I think it’s pretty much exactly what I wanted to see: the main characters settled into comfortable, happy, stable lives, each one’s arcs completed and the world they fought to save humming along smoothly.

Really, it’s no easy thing bringing a long-form story of dozens or potentially hundreds of chapters to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion that wraps everything up and leaves the reader feeling like the whole ride has lead up to this final, earned payoff. It has to leave us with the core ‘problem’ of the series resolved and our characters settled at the end of their arcs. Basically, confident that “We can leave things here; there’s not really more that needs to be said.”

The best are when you find yourself reading the final page or watching the credits of the final episode and asking yourself how long you ought to wait this time before doing it again.