This week's poll was suggested by Afiaki. Do you prefer clear clear foreshadowing of the ending or an endless void of the unknown?

You can submit poll ideas here https://www.mangaupdates.com/topic/kilkdnn/site-manga-poll-suggestions

Previous Poll Results:

Question: Would you drop a series if the art quality dropped drastically?

Choices:

• Yes - votes: 1516 (65%)
• No - votes: 818 (35%)

There were 2334 total votes. The poll ended: February 8, 2025

I guess they don't deserve a chance

A just ruler amongst tyrants

It depends on the genre. If I am reading a romance or some generic office plotline and suddenly, the ending takes a left turn, I am going to be upset. If the story is known for twists or the author is known to be leftfield about their endings, I don't mind.

Internet Lurker At Heart

It depends/neither?

Ideally, I like a combination of twists and turns and unpredictability with a proper amount of foreshadowing. Without any foreshadowing at all, it tends to feel like an asspull rather than an ending that makes sense and that the author planned.

With this binary choice we're presented with, I was forced to choose "Ending clearly in sight" because stories with absolutely zero foreshadowing tend to suck and are usually poorly written, whereas a story that has an obvious ending (or even an ending you know from the very beginning, like it was shown in the prologue or it's based on historical events) can still be well written and enjoyable because it's about the journey, not just the destination.

Also, while I like a certain amount of surprises, surprises and unpredictability aren't always good, sometimes I'm surprised and it makes me angry because it's bullshit. If 3 chapters from the ending in a romance out of nowhere the FL breaks up with the great ML and goes back to her shitty ex-husband, I might be surprised, but I wouldn't be happy about it.

Sure, at the beginning and middle of the story it's nice to genuinely not know where this is going, but near the very end of the story, I should have an idea of where the story is going for the most part. Rarely am I happy about a true twist ending that comes out of nowhere.

I like more or less clear ending, and then side stories after, with marriage and kids...

I am envoy from nowhere in nowhere. Nobody and nothing have sent me. And though it is impossible I exist. © Trimutius

Neither. As long as the ending makes sense it doesn't matter if it's clearly foreshadowed or not.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.

To this day, I still love reading fanfiction from time to time.. especially fanfics of manga that has open ending. But unfortunately, those fanfictions are just fanfictions. They're not official.

So, no, I don't like open ending. But what can I do if the author made it that way? All it will do was leaving me waking up in the middle of the night after I finished reading it, wondering about the possible endings.. And looking up for discussions in reddits comment section. 🥲

Wolf's Rain, in its original English television run, had an open ending with a message at the end that said something to the effect of, "Due to everyone having their own culture and preferences, we leave the ending up to you, the viewer, to come up with what happens next and acknowledge that as canon."

Therefore, any continuation fanfiction of the Wolf's Rain anime, is technically canon.

Granted, even though I write Bleach fanfiction, I still am not a fan of how they handled it, but I don't hate it, either since we were given permission to make our own official ending.

I'm a jack of all trades but master of none. Too many jars and not enough hands.

For me it depends on the genre and also on the plot itself

Sometimes foreshadowing is great, but sometimes stories are better with mysteries

In romance, for example, most of the time you know who is the main couple from the start, but even then, sometimes mystery can be better, like in "Villains are destinied to die", when we cant know who is the ML for over half of the series, and the mystery is actually part of the plot

Exactly!!!

And even in the romance genre, there are some series that you go with the mystery, like "Villains Are Destinied to Die"

The vote isnt about open and close endings, but about if you prefer to be able to know the ending from the start (like in most romance series), or you prefer to folllow the story without knowing how its going to end (like many adventure series)

When I think of "unknown" endings, what first comes to mind are series which were closed off with ad-hoc finales that were not well planned out, if planned at all. On the flip side, "clear" endings bring to mind generic and overdone cliche endings.

If just speaking to foreshadowing, what I really enjoy is the kind of foreshadowing that's only noticeable after the fact. It should neither reveal anything on it's own, nor be so obvious that I look at it and think "that's foreshadowing". Rather, it should evoke an "aha" kind of moment when the relevant event transpires, or on a subsequent re-read.

As for whether I like to know the ending in advance, that's entirely dependent on the story being told and why I can see the ending in advance. Take AoT for instance. I was certain the ending would go down exactly as it did the moment the protagonist had his little switch. This was entirely due to it being a ridiculously overdone cliche, and everything between that switch and the finale was highly devalued because of this.

On the flip side, take something like Cowboy Bebop (I know, not a manga). The tone of the series very clearly defines it as a tragedy, and I knew where the series would end long before it got there. It's been decades now since I first watched it, and that experience still remains with me because of how much that knowledge played into the character development and tone.

I default to Ending clearly in sight mainly on the basis of satisfaction and fulfilling promises to the reader.

I think the writer can keep a secret and have an ending where you don’t know the specifics of what’s gonna happen. If you know the vibe—i.e. this story has plot twists and will have some mindf@ckery, that’s fine.

But I’m more cautious of the kinds of situations where it’s clear the writer is trying to ‘outdo’ the readers on any predictions and pull an ending out of their backend.

The ending doesn’t need to be the most unpredictable thing; a well-executed and predicted ending is fine too.

If it’s a happy romance story, I don’t want a random switch in love interest near the end. Otherwise I very much enjoy a good twist, but it needs to be a planned twist that makes sense.