Who at this point thinks that Uta getting together with Kaoru is a good idea, and, whether they get together or not, does the story actually seem to be moving toward the two of them resolving their relationship one way or the other?

I think I mentioned this a loooong time ago (somehow talks about the writing have long since usurped opinions on where the plot will actually go), but I don't think Kaoru and Uta becoming a couple is a good idea. I also never believed that was the conclusion we were headed for. The title has long since become universally applicable, but once upon a time, everyone reading this had already started out knowing Uta would not get her way.

If anything the plot has since evolved so far that some people can actually doubt that truth we thought unshakable at first. Because Uta is perhaps Kaoru's only true savior, the possibility of a romantic involvement suddenly is more than 0%. As for whether the story is heading for a resolution between these two, that's a given. We are currently figuring out how we got here. The next step is to see where we go from here and from all the plot points that were set up, Uta is the key, naturally.

As weird as it may seem, at this point she is sort of the outsider in the cluster of relationships around her. She is the wildcard. She is not involved with Reiichi/Risako and she is only passive on her friends and mother's side. The only thing that anchors her is Kaoru... and the reverse seems to be painfully true as well. Uta's main theme is indepedence and Kaoru's main theme is dependence. So they gravitate towards each other as they lose hold on everything else.

Who at this point thinks that Uta getting together with Kaoru is a good idea

Me but that's mostly because i'm a sucker for good ending so i'm not really objective on that. Well, i also consider Kaoru/Risako ending but not before i know what is Risako's deal as it's not very clear what her true intentions are.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 10:42AM

This writing technique of withholding information for the sake of tension is double-edged for sure and sort of lazy, but in this particular case... we see how the characters act and feel nontheless. Uta and Kaoru are our eyes and ears, both of which are not aware of why Reiichi and Risako act the way they do.

There's actually a writing technique about that. I don't remember the name, but there are three styles of who knows what regarding the readers and the characters.
One is when the reader knows more than the characters (the most common). Second is the reader and characters know the same, and third the characters know more than the reader and it's not that common.
But I find that style interesting, since it kinda feels like it messes with the fourth wall too.

Anyway, the author has clearly shown the style they are following. Complaining about it for months won't change it.

I’m well aware of the differing levels of information flow between characters and readers—the third type is a basic element in many genres, most obviously mystery stories, but certainly also in many adventure, thriller, and horror genres, among others. When it’s executed skillfully it can be a source of real delight, as readers come to perceive that they’ve been in the hands of a master storyteller.

The complaint here is not that it’s being done, but that it’s not being done well, leading to a herky-jerky story structure and a lack of narrative focus.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 10:54AM

I don't think there's a chance for Kaoru to end up with any girl. Now that would be a bad move imo, because the author has strayed away from adding any hints of her sexuality not being straight all throughout the story.
The story is about exploring the feelings of unrequited love. And we can see that not only from Uta, but basically from all of the important characters here. Reiichi, Kaoru and possibly Risako.
That's why the diverge from Uta's pov to Kaoru and her back-story now is not bad writing or loss of focus. The main "character" here is Unrequited Love itself.

So Kaoru was sisterzoned since day one and Reiichi always liked Risako and Risako was always a frigging psycho and yet Kaoru, who knew everything, still decided to marry the guy? I'm sorry, I can't feel sorry for any of them at this point. What a bunch of shitty people.

true, love this opinion. it also happens a lot in real life.

Some people are truly self destructive like that, yeah.

I don't think there's a chance for Kaoru to end up with any girl. Now that would be a bad move imo, because the author has strayed away from adding any hints of her sexuality not being straight all throughout the story.
The story is about exploring the feelings of unrequited love. And we can see that not only from Uta, but basically from all of the important characters here. Reiichi, Kaoru and possibly Risako.
That's why the diverge from Uta's pov to Kaoru and her back-story now is not bad writing or loss of focus. The main "character" here is Unrequited Love itself.

Right now I think you're right (Kaoru shows no clear signs of being bi or gay, so far the only directly romantic thing from her is her relationship with Reiichi). If speculation about it is true this is a true hell triangle, with Reiichi being in love with Risako who loves Kaoru who loves Reiichi, with Uta pining away on the side. Which would be 4 people spending all their love for no return, and tripping all over each other (and likely sabotaging each other) in the process.

Which is pretty depressing to think about. I do hope some light shows up at the end of this tunnel soonish, but I suspect it would be a train if it did.

Never forget.

That reaction is still out of the ordinary. Even if excitement/shame can make people blush something fierce, I still hold that this reaction was way overboard if Kaoru was not at least a bit interested.

It’s possible to imagine a telling of a story involving these or similar characters in which the author deftly shifts the narrative center of gravity from one character to another, so that a person who once seemed simply like a negative source of conflict is revealed to be much more sympathetic once their motivations are revealed; I know that there have been other stories that have done that to an extent, (although I can’t think of any specific titles offhand).

It might be argued that the marketing of the series, which places the Uta/Kaoru romantic dilemma at the center, has impeded the perception that it’s really an ensemble piece about unrequited love generally. If so, that’s not entirely the author’s fault.

But if that was indeed the intent, it has been very awkwardly and ham-handedly executed, so much so that I find it implausible that it’s been planned from the start, and that is the author’s doing. Reiichi has been a cypher for most of the story, and Risako has been entirely missing for long stretches. Meanwhile, even the most sympathetic readers have been generally unwilling, and certainly unable, to defend the Kuro-Miyabe-Konatsu interludes as being integral parts of the main story; insofar as those episodes are related, they only connect to Uta rather than to any of the other characters.

The arguments here all along have primarily been between those who maintain that we see a master plan unfolding in which all will eventually be revealed, and those who see an author mostly floundering along, dropping and adding plot points and going off on tangents in a more-or-less ad hoc manner. By definition we won’t know who’s more correct until the end of the story. For me, this has never been that well-planned ensemble story with the deftly shifting points of narrative focus, nor do I believe it will ever be revealed to be.

I do miss the Uta-taking-care-of-her-kind-but-ditzy-sister-in-law moments, because they were sweet and cute.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 1:03PM

[snip for space]

Then the only thing we need to figure out the puzzle is Risako's intention and whether Reiichi did cheat. That's the only thing we need to complete the puzzle. But even after we complete that puzzle, the actual final arc of the plot revolves entirely around Uta's and Kaoru's decisions, which they will make regardless of what the whole finished puzzle tells us.

That’s a very rational and plausible reading. But as you indicate, if the final arc really will be about Uta and Kaoru’s feelings for each other and where they end up, the whole Reiichi/Risako business is, while not irrelevant, just background plot infrastructure to that relationship.

The information-flow problem I’ve been harping on is really only a byproduct of my real main complaint about this story—a lack of narrative focus and structural proportion. Things get lots of attention that ultimately don’t seem to be important (the antics of the Three Stooges of Adolescent Lesbian Love being the prime example). Meanwhile, Uta seems so removed from the current story that her reappearance would be nearly as surprising as when the toxic Mom came sweeping in out of nowhere.

Who at this point thinks that Uta getting together with Kaoru is a good idea, and, whether they get together or not, does the story actually seem to be moving toward the two of them resolving their relationship one way or the other?

But I think this is due to people's main misunderstanding of the story: that Uta is the protagonist and her crush on Kaoru is the main driver of conflict. If you look at it through that lens, then of course all this Kaoru stuff is bafflingly off-topic. But if you look at it such that it's an ensemble (or Kaoru's actually the main character) then the structure makes a lot more sense (Kaoru's been in unrequited love her whole life too.) And since Kaoru's like a billion times more interesting than Uta is, that's a relief, too. I'll laugh at how silly it is if Uta ends up with the spare single lesbian whose name I can't even remember, but I don't think we're supposed to be reading this story as shippers, hoping for the central couple to get together.

The other thing is, people way overstate the importance of these supposed mysteries, because of the way we're getting the chapters. But am I misunderstanding what "volume" means in the presentation, here? Aren't we supposed to get Chapter 26-chapter 30 all at once, instead of spread months apart? So this speculation about Risako's motives is supposed to just be happening for a few minutes in our head before it gets resolved in the next couple of chapters. It's not some big mystery meant to bring us back.

"Secret sad stoic lesbian who will fall on her own sword to protect the heart of the straight girl she loves" is a yuri trope

I doubt she had Reiichi confess to her to "protect Kaoru". This actually would hurt Kaoru more, because Reiichi dating Risako is not only Kaoru basically getting rejected, but also getting betrayed by her friend. I mean, dating someone your friend has expressed she likes for a long time is even worse than getting rejected. Also, if Kaoru had the chance to properly get rejected back then, maybe that would help her get over Reiichi.

Kaoru gets hurt more, but NOT because Reiichi never loved her... because her stone-hearted evil friend stole him for no reason. Risako wants to spare Kaoru the specific pain of Reiichi saying he never loved her.

This obviously backfired, as we know in the present. It could be ironic that Risako was annoyed by Kaoru never taking a stand, but then at the last second she couldn't bear to see the band-aid get ripped off. Or, she actually DIDN'T mean for Kaoru to overhear, and she just wanted Reiichi to distance himself from Kaoru so Kaoru could get over him. The staging of the scene is ambiguous: it seems weird Kaoru was in a position to overhear just by chance (especially when Risako is shown as having SOMETHING up her sleeve about this) but I guess it's possible.

The alternative is that she really IS just a cold-hearted bitch who stole the guy her friend was in love with and then openly admitted she doesn't even like him, but again, I just don't think it's very believable to have someone so black-and-white in a story that's about character nuance.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 2:54PM

But I think this is due to people's main misunderstanding of the story: that Uta is the protagonist and her crush on Kaoru is the main driver of conflict. If you look at it through that lens, then of course all this Kaoru stuff is bafflingly off-topic. But if you look at it such that it's an ensemble (or Kaoru's actually the main character) then the structure makes a lot more sense (Kaoru's been in unrequited love her whole life too.)

The fact that 28 chapters into the story readers can’t agree on who, if anyone, the protagonist might be and what the underlying principle of the story structure is intended to communicate strongly suggests that, at best, this is not an author who is control of their material.

I think it’s preposterous to claim that a belief that the character of Uta and her relationship with Kaoru was supposed to be central to the story is some sort of “misunderstanding” on the part of the audience. Of the covers to the four volumes so far, two feature Uta alone, one features Kaoru, and one has the two of them embracing. Until she was put on a bus a couple of chapters ago, Uta was obviously the central character of the story—even Chapter 26 is entitled “The Girl Who Wasn’t There.”

I also note that once again defenders of the so-called big picture of this series have nothing to say about the high-schooler side characters, since even if you can hypothetically stretch a point to the breaking point and beyond to say that the themes of those episodes echo those of the main story, I haven’t heard anyone make a coherent argument that they amount to more than a distraction and occasional comic relief.

I also note that once again defenders of the so-called big picture of this series have nothing to say about the high-schooler side characters, since even if you can hypothetically stretch a point to the breaking point and beyond to say that the themes of those episodes echo those of the main story, I haven’t heard anyone make a coherent argument that they amount to more than a distraction and occasional comic relief.

And I will uselessly chime in once again to tell you that those parts don't need to be anything more than what they are. It is your preconception that they need to fulfill a bigger purpose when they don't. Or rather your strawman of what "people defending the so-called bigger picture" want to see. I have only seen one person claim that and that's hardly representitive.

Your "nothing to say" accusation only would serve a point if it was an inherent requirement. That's all on you.

At least you didn't go back to your "these characters are pointless and don't contribute" thing again. I think I at least disproved that one back when Kuro and Miyabi gave Uta the push she needed to come to her conclusions. Even Konatsu's cautionary tale helped Uta. There are two sides to this story, the adult and the teenage side, both connected though Uta and Kaoru.

I also note that once again defenders of the so-called big picture of this series have nothing to say about the high-schooler side characters, since even if you can hypothetically stretch a point to the breaking point and beyond to say that the themes of those episodes echo those of the main story, I haven’t heard anyone make a coherent argument that they amount to more than a distraction and occasional comic relief.

And I will uselessly chime in once again to tell you that those parts don't need to be anything more than what they are. It is your preconception that they need to fulfill a bigger purpose when they don't. Or rather your strawman of what "people defending the so-called bigger picture" want to see. I have only seen one person claim that and that's hardly representitive.

Right—the defense of the side characters rests on the centrality of the Uta/Kaoru relationship to the overall story. From the POV of the “this is an ensemble story about unrequited love, with Uta at the periphery” argument, the amount of time and space devoted to those characters is grossly disproportionate—they connect only to Uta.

Sympathetic readers have been incredibly ingenious and industrious about spinning out theories and hypotheses about the individual pieces of this series so that every separate thing becomes defensible, even laudable from some particular point of view on the story. Having all those separate arguments cohere into a unified work art has yet to manifest itself on the printed page.

I also note that once again defenders of the so-called big picture of this series have nothing to say about the high-schooler side characters, since even if you can hypothetically stretch a point to the breaking point and beyond to say that the themes of those episodes echo those of the main story, I haven’t heard anyone make a coherent argument that they amount to more than a distraction and occasional comic relief.

I think it's clear Uta is the main character, but the main theme is unrequired love, so it makes sense to develop some chapters regarding that theme around the other important characters as well. We're only like three chapters into the back story of Kaoru anyway.
Getting obsessed over two details mentioned in the beginning and missing the whole point of the story is not very logical.
Also I agree that about the secondary characters being completely unnecessary. It's not black and white. You can see the bigger picture but also be able to recognize the bad details/parts.
Maybe the author was trying to use these side characters as some relief from the rest of the depression going on with the main story. Either way it was bad, but that doesn't cancel out the rest.

Kaoru gets hurt more, but NOT because Reiichi never loved her... because her stone-hearted evil friend stole him for no reason. Risako wants to spare Kaoru the specific pain of Reiichi saying he never loved her.

The alternative is that she really IS just a cold-hearted bitch who stole the guy her friend was in love with and then openly admitted she doesn't even like him, but again, I just don't think it's very believable to have someone so black-and-white in a story that's about character nuance.

This makes absolute no sense. Risako dating Reiichi is far from her wanting to protect Kaoru.
It's not black and white. As the story has pointed, Risako is an ice queen. That side of her made her date Reiichi on the first place. But that doesn't mean she's completely emotionless and a sociopath. There's a middle ground.
If she had a crush on Kaoru and she knew Kaoru would never date her, she would rather "betray" Kaoru than watching her date someone else. The extreme lack of emotions you're talking about would be Risako dating Reichi only to mess with Kaoru and make her suffer. I don't think she wanted Kaoru to suffer, but she was also selfish and didn't want to see Kaoru dating someone else.
The fact that she was hinting that Reiichi was forgetful on purpose, could be her trying to discourage Kaoru from pursuing Reiichi more.

That's just the most possible theory imo anyway. The other one of her trying to protect Kaoru seems too stretched but who knows.

Sympathetic readers have been incredibly ingenious and industrious about spinning out theories and hypotheses about the individual pieces of this series so that every separate thing becomes defensible, even laudable from some particular point of view on the story. Having all those separate arguments cohere into a unified work art has yet to manifest itself on the printed page.

One may wonder why you still read this story? From your comments it really sounds like you suffer reading this.
Criticizing is one thing, but vehemently hating the whole story because of two insignificant parts that no one else here gaf and has moved on is something to think about.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 5:57PM

Risako is big g a y

^ I know it's completely unrelated to topic, but the instant I saw you profile pic I thought, quote: " sigh What could've been...".

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 6:02PM

One may wonder why you still read this story? From your comments it really sounds like you suffer reading this.
Criticizing is one thing, but vehemently hating the whole story because of two insignificant parts that no one else here gaf and has moved on is something to think about.

Your powers of misreading are profound. As I’ve said several times, I once had high hopes for this series, and I still retain some sympathy for the characters, mostly in some isolation from the execution of actual story. It’s the wasted potential, reminders of which resurface in individual scenes from time to time, that keeps me reading and re-considering where it has gone wrong.

Just because I’ve argued against much of the more tendentious excuse-making the readers of this series indulge in doesn’t make me a “hater” nor do I “suffer” (lol) from reading it, even given the flaws in its execution.

As your post suggests, however, one may indeed wonder why I bother responding on this forum.

We still feel that we are approaching a certain denouement with the kaoru-reii-risako trio.
We are coming at a moment where kaoru is practically decided to know what reii thinks. There will inevitably be a conversation between the two of them with questions from kaoru such as : have you seen risako lately ? according to reii's answer, we might get a confession and finally that he's in love with risako and that he married kaoru for the wrong reasons...
Then let's be crazy, once reii clear, an attempt of risako to try in a moment of weakness of kaoru to take advantage of it... and the desperate kaoru is either fooled or she decides to end it and fire risako... then everything is allowed to think at least about a reconciliation with uta and to discuss about their future relationship.I still think kaoru will need uta to rebuild and move forward.
All this will take some time but at the same time uta will normally have solved her family problems especially with her mother.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 7:47PM

As your post suggests, however, one may indeed wonder why I bother responding on this forum.

indeed, i realize a long time ago that most of the people here use their head canon instead of the actual manga to post

Risako is big g a y

x2

I take random breaks from this series and every time I come back I swear everyone keeps getting ‘longer’??

I take random breaks from this series and every time I come back I swear everyone keeps getting ‘longer’??

Reiichi has serious yaoi body syndrome. Long ass limbs, oversized hands and whatever that chin is.

But I think this is due to people's main misunderstanding of the story: that Uta is the protagonist and her crush on Kaoru is the main driver of conflict. If you look at it through that lens, then of course all this Kaoru stuff is bafflingly off-topic. But if you look at it such that it's an ensemble (or Kaoru's actually the main character) then the structure makes a lot more sense (Kaoru's been in unrequited love her whole life too.)

The fact that 28 chapters into the story readers can’t agree on who, if anyone, the protagonist might be and what the underlying principle of the story structure is intended to communicate strongly suggests that, at best, this is not an author who is control of their material.

I mean, I think part of the problem here is that some people just have it in their heads it's Uta, because she was first and she's the one with the tragic love that could get paid off.

It frankly strikes me as bizarre that we go entire volumes where different characters are focused on, and anyone thinks this isn't meant to be an ensemble. You could think it's not done WELL, but I don't get continuing to assume Uta's the sole protagonist when we're currently on a volume that's about Kaoru's backstory.

I think it’s preposterous to claim that a belief that the character of Uta and her relationship with Kaoru was supposed to be central to the story is some sort of “misunderstanding” on the part of the audience. Of the covers to the four volumes so far, two feature Uta alone, one features Kaoru, and one has the two of them embracing. Until she was put on a bus a couple of chapters ago, Uta was obviously the central character of the story—even Chapter 26 is entitled “The Girl Who Wasn’t There.”

See? It's just stuck in your head. Yeah, Uta's obviously AN important character, but the tension is about Kaoru and always has been. Kaoru is the CENTER of the story, the driver of the drama, even as we focus on different perspectives.

I also note that once again defenders of the so-called big picture of this series have nothing to say about the high-schooler side characters, since even if you can hypothetically stretch a point to the breaking point and beyond to say that the themes of those episodes echo those of the main story, I haven’t heard anyone make a coherent argument that they amount to more than a distraction and occasional comic relief.

I personally don't get that pigtail girl either. But your complaints aren't "hey that pigtail girl's thing doesn't fit," it's "this story is a mess and none of the elements add up to anything!" and to do that, you're putting all the Kaoru stuff into the same box as pigtail girl.

(I still think the pigtail girl THEMATICALLY is meant to add something, but I simply don't understand what her deal is; if she's ace or what.)

Also I've mentioned this several times, but I sorta agreed with your "mystery box" criticism until I went back and read the chapters in blocks rather than the way they're coming out. You keep saying info is dangled over us and left hanging, but looking back, that does not appear to be happening across volumes.

Your powers of misreading are profound.

Also, like, you couldn't possibly think it's productive to say things like this, could you?

I don't know if you mean to do this, but you project an attitude where you're some blank slate without preconceptions, and therefore anyone whose interpretation differs from yours is making it up or pushing things onto the story. It comes across like you'd rather declare your own superiority than actually discuss the story and the author's potential intentions, and it makes you blind to the stuff YOU'RE assuming that feeds into YOUR interpretation.

You seem to maintain that if I think your argument is flimsy and unconvincing that I’m somehow “blind” to the truth.

The Uta thing is a case in point: in fact, my “opinion” about whether Uta is (or has been positioned as) the protagonist of this series is completely irrelevant, but when you say that readers are “misunderstanding” the series as being about Uta, that’s at best, condescending. It’s hardly my “opinion” or “interpretation” that the vast bulk of the actual content of series has been (mostly directly but also indirectly) concerned with Uta and her friends, and close to 100% of the marketing of the series has depicted it as Uta’s story, so if poor benighted readers are “bizarrely misinterpreting” the story, they’ve had plenty of assistance in that regard from the series itself.

Obviously, what you see as “different characters being focused on” I see as a story “wandering around without revealing a whole hell of a lot that we didn’t already know or could infer.”

And that “misreading” remark was at least as “productive” as the person speciously claiming to know that I “hated” the series and must “suffer” when I read it. Not a high “productivity” bar, to be sure.

last edited at Jan 9, 2020 5:50PM

The fact that two people over the course of roughly 90 pages that use just about any descriptive word they can conjure can't agree on if this story is at the very least worth reading is a clear indicator that it's probably not.

Thanks guys! Keep it up.

last edited at Jan 9, 2020 7:50PM

The fact that two people over the course of roughly 90 pages that use just about any descriptive word they can conjure can't agree on if this story is at the very least worth reading is a clear indicator that it's probably not.

I would not even say that. I would say that many readers have been making the argument (a number of slightly different arguments, actually) that this series is doing something subtle and unusual that will eventually pay off.

Others (no points for guessing which side I'm on) say that this story has been quite erratic in its plotting and character development, with all the signs of an author making things up as they go along.

It's arguably worth reading if only to eventually find out which side (if any) turns out to be correct.