Why Spoiling a Series’ Ending for Yourself Can Be a Good Thing

Let’s be honest—reading manga and light novels is an expensive hobby. Even if you’re a digital reader, or somehow lucky enough to have a well-stocked library, making your way through an entire series can be an exhausting experience. And Anime watchers dedicate dozens of hours (maybe hundreds, if we’re talking about a big series) to watching a single show. Wouldn’t you prefer to save yourself time and money?

Take, for example, the classic harem or love triangle series. The trials of love can take many a volume (or season) to complete, but the outcome might not always be satisfying. Whether you’re hoping for a particular love rival to win, or just praying there’s a decent resolution to a harem, rom-com series (or just series with heavy romance elements) can be a gamble.

Earlier this year, we started on Hataraku Maou-sama! (The Devil Is a Part-Timer!)’s light novels. But with a very obvious love triangle forming, a bad feeling in our gut told us to scope things out. We learned that the 21-volume series ends with (according to fans) a highly unsatisfactory conclusion to the love triangle that doesn’t match up with the character growth.

Considering the time—and financial—investment, we decided that this spoiler was worth learning so we could read another series instead!

Conversely, spoiling yourself for the end of a series might help you push through a rough patch in the story. Throughout the manga serialization of Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan), it was almost impossible to avoid spoilers thanks to the nature of the internet.

Although learning about some plot twists lessened their impact, many of the spoilers actually convinced us to keep pushing through the series. At the time we were sorely disappointed with Season 3 of the anime, but spoilers from the manga interested us, so we pushed on through. In the end, Attack on Titan has become one of our favorite shows—but we’d never know that if we’d bailed out early.

Similarly, we’ve started reading Re:Zero Kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu (Re:Zero -Starting Life In Another World-), and we’re loving the early volumes. That said, the fandom has already warned us that the fourth and fifth volumes are rough to push through—but the reward is going to be worth it. This way, we can temper our expectations and know not to give up if the series hits a speed bump.

Advance knowledge—big or small—can help you decide to continue with an amazing series that you might otherwise have put down!

Not all spoilers are necessarily bad, even if they can be frustrating at times. We accidentally learned about a major character’s death in Chainsaw Man and we were certainly annoyed. But at the same time, the question “How does that happen?!” came to mind, and made us want to read the series even faster.

In the same manner, there have been plenty of One-Punch Man leaks recently, highlighting some of the spectacular artwork from mangaka Murata Yuusuke. Sure, it takes the surprise away, but at the same time, we can’t wait to finally read those volumes and see the artwork for ourselves!

Of course, we have to take the time to remind readers that spoiling others deliberately is wrong. Sometimes accidents happen, and you accidentally let something slip. But make sure, where you can, that you keep spoilers to yourself!