How did Menma fulfill her wish?

Question

In Ano Hana, if I understood correctly, Menma's wish was to help Jinta's dying mother fulfill her wish, and that was to make Jinta cry. If it was, then why did Menma start to vanish on the last episode when Jinta cried again for the first time after Menma appeared before him in the episode when he joked that he remembered something (a movie perhaps) to hide the real reason he was crying from Menma?

Would the wish just take effect if Menma clearly remembered what it is? Or making Jinta cry was just put in that way by his mother for the young Menma to understand and what it really meant was for Jinta to generally open himself up again to different emotions like enjoying himself with his friends, to laugh when he's happy, to get angry when he is, to cry when he's lonely, etc?

And the day Menma died, Menma called for the Super Peace Buster to fulfill that wish but unfortunately, due to Yukiatsu and Anaru's plan to tell everyone what Jinta feels about Menma, (which apparently Menma and Tsuruko knew about) it failed and led to Menma's death. How did she plan to fulfill that promise that day?

Was it explained or not? Or is it overlooking on my part?

Answer 1

I don't think it was explained in the series but one of the things most people assume is that Menma returns because she wants her wish fulfilled. This, in turn, could mean that once her wish is fulfilled, she leaves. So the assumption is that she disappears because her wish was fulfilled, but what if her return didn't have anything to do with her wish (or specifically here, the "make Jinta cry since his mother thinks he shouldn’t hold back anymore"). So it's possible either she has returned for some reason unrelated to her wish or she lied about what her wish actually was. Note that these two things are not mutually exclusive.

So the scenarios here are:

• Menma lied about her wish, and she returned to have her wish fulfilled and at the end, it was fulfilled and she disappeared. All this time, the audience (and the rest of the cast) doesn't know what the wish is and thus don't know why she returned and why she disappeared.

• Menma's wish was actually to make Jintan cry, but that's not why she returned. Thus perhaps even fulfilling the Jintan-cry-wish, she doesn't disappear because the reason for her return is something else, which was completed at the end of the series.

• Menma's lied about her wish, but her return was irrelevant to that wish to begin with, leaving her disappearance a mystery. It's possible in this scenario, that the wish facilitated whatever it was that allowed her to leave.

As for what the wish was and why she left, it's probably all speculation. There's a blogpost that speculates about the possibilities of Menma's wish and her reasons for returning. Note that this was written before the ending of the series, but if we are to assume that the final wish (or the reason she came back) isn't what she claims, then a lot of it is still applicable.

It's completely reasonable to assume that the extension of her wish was meant for "Jintan to generally open himself up again to different emotions like enjoying himself with his friends, to laugh when he's happy, to get angry when he is, to cry when he's lonely", and the entire journey of finding what it was the Menma had originally wished for accomplished this. And that sort of mean her original wish wasn't what brought her back and not why she left at the end.

As for how she planned on accomplishing her original wish if she had not died, I don't know.

Answer 2

It's easy, her wish was to spend more time with the Super Peace Busters.

She reunited them and made them honest to each other that's why in the very last episode she was slowly disappearing, because all of them knew what everyone was hiding from each other.

Menma's wish was to reunite the Super Peace Busters, to really hear what Jinta has to say, before she died to grant the wish of Jinta's mother and to have proper goodbyes. It said that they won't have proper goodbyes if they don't find Menma, thats why Menma appeared again to properly say goodbye.

If you watch the series more than once you would know. I watched it 33 times, then just now it hit me.

Answer 3

From what I understand, Menma did come back in order to fulfill the wish of Jinta's mom, but it's not specifically about "crying". It's about being honest with one's emotions and the first time Jinta cried, he's still in conflict about what he felt about letting Menma go, that's why it didn't work.

Plus, Menma said that it can only be fulfilled with all of the Peace Busters together. So aside from Jinta's mom's wish, Menma also has a wish of her own, that all of the Peace Busters would finally be able to let their true feelings out, not just Jinta.

Answer 4

Well, I'm gonna put it up in three points of view. Menma's wish was:

• God's point of view: to make up among the rest of six friends, to rebuild the old peace busters. That's why in the 11th episode you would see that just after the friends started revealing what was on their mind, Menma's hand got a little ash in color meaning her journey to heaven, her peace in mind was already on act.

• Menma's point of view: As Menma herself mentioned in the anime, she wanted to keep the promise with Jintan's mother to make junta wide open in mind once again and she also wanted to see the Peace Busters for one last time together to say a proper goodbye, to erase the self-made sins in their mind from which they were hiding since Menma's death.

• My point of view: including the two opinions given up here, I'd add that she just wanted to bring herself inner peace from her sudden death via bringing peace to her friends, especially Jintan who was totally uprooted after two sudden deaths, one of his mother and the other of Menma's.