The empty feeling after finishing a manga/anime

Do you know that sad feeling after finishing a manga or anime? You became really attached to the characters and then you realize that your time with them is up. It's akin to good friends leaving you behind. It's especially bad in my opinion when there is a time skip at the end. It's like you fell into a coma, woke up to see that the people you cared about have become older and detached from you.

I think that's why many of us are so desperate for seqeuls and second seasons. It's not just that we enjoyed the story and want more of it, it's also that we miss the characters we've grown so attached to.

How do you cope with this? Sometimes I'm afraid to continue reading/watching a manga/anime I love because I know that it will come to an end and emotionally devastate me.

Picture related is the latest offender. This one hits especially hard because it's specifically about friendship and it makes it even worse that there is no conclusion of the hinted romance at the end.

I always feel energized and pretty good after finishing something I really like. I never get sad.

No, I can't be attracted to half-assed story shoehorned in less than 2 hours based on 7 volumes of manga.

Koe no Katachi's manga is a dog shit, poorly written melodrama that spoonfeeds you every detail with a shovel. The film was a Fellini story in animated form. Unapologetically realistic and cleverly understated.

I disagree but it was just an example anyway. The purpose of this thread is not to discuss the merits and demerits of this story in particular, but about how to cope with post-manga/anime depression. Surely there are people around here who know that feeling.

(Thou)

Fellow autist here, I know that feeling very well.
There was a time where I wouldn't finish the manga/anime and I would just put it on-hold at the last chapter/episode.
I'm less autistic right now but it's still hard. I feel you.

last night i read aku no hana from start to finish, now i am fucked

Alcohol helps but it's only a temporary solution.

Ayy. I wish the author could have ended on the beach instead of showing the "After Story".

The manga as a whole was fantastic and one of my personal favorites. You really don't see these kinds of controversial themes tackled and addressed with such depth and quality too often.From that perspective, the story was very refreshing and the message that it sent to the readers was quite beautiful and poignant. The ending, however, was underwhelming to say the least. I don't really mind open-ended endings or the lack of romance but almost nothing happened in the final chapter which is my larger complaint. There really wasn't a single development or event of any substance. Shouya isn't shown confronting his past friends, nothing in the rest of the group's future has really developed or changed, and there is little to no progress shown with the Shouya x Shouko relationship.

i think its natural to feel that way. it means you still value friendship and time spent with others.

just dont become the type of person who lets that emotion fester and ruin their desire for human contact.

but yeah, i feel it too. especially if the anime or manga mirrors my friends or experiences.

Did the mangaka barely develop Shouko on purpose? One of my major gripes with the story is that we learn so little about Shouko. By that I don't mean what happens to her (that we do learn) but what kind of person she is. I nEven at the very end, she still feels distant to me, wheras all the other characters were properly fleshed out. I still don't even understand why she bought those flowers things for MC. Was it because she had to take care of the flowers as a kid or does it have a deeper meaning? In any event, could it be that the mangaka kept her in the background on purpose in order to illustrate how hard it is for her to commnicate with others, including the audience itself?

>just dont become the type of person who lets that emotion fester and ruin their desire for human contact.

Too late. It's not that I avoid human contact irl, but I really have no desire for it because of how uninteresting it is. Yep, I'm one of those autists. But it's nice that normies also understand the attachment to fictional characters.

I depressed after steins gate

yea, through the whole ending was fucked up in my opinion, too bad we dont know what happened with sawa

i think its sad to put up a front of fake disinterest to avoid confronting your insecurities. but thats enough blogshit.

i hope the Non Non Biyori news is season three. that show hit me unexpectedly hard since i never lived or cared to live in the countryside before.

I wouldn't say I feel empty but I'm having a hard time enjoying other anime now.

would rather play ks then watch it again

>fake disinterest

Please don't make assertions you have no relevant knowledge to make.

It depends on the characters obviously but I get this with a lot of stuff. I don't think there's a good way to deal with it if you don't have friends you can immediately go hang out with. My friends are all bigger hikkifags than I am so I basically have to fill the void with other shows/manga or by rewatching it or something.
It hits worse when some characters or your favorite character gets a bad end. The Geass s3 announcement gave me some crazy anxiety cause of the possibility of everything going horribly wrong.
I guess another solution is to just get really invested at shit that moves at a glacier's pace and let future you deal with the empty feeling. LN adaptations are good for this.

>I guess another solution is to just get really invested at shit that moves at a glacier's pace and let future you deal with the empty feeling. LN adaptations are good for this.

That's an excellent idea. Any recommendations?

then please dont call me a normie. i only pigeonhole if you do it first.

anyway im downloading koe no katachi. reading your thoughts made me move it up out of the backlog. thanks.