I just don’t see how this supposedly disengaged and hyper-rational Risako squares with the bulk of what we know about the rest of the story.

But who is it that supposed Risako is a hyper-rational disengaged ice queen?

Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, or did you really not read the chapter?

Kaoru: “[Risako] would always make decisions based of some rational thinking.”

Kaoru: “It seemed like her surroundings couldn’t handle this girl with cold eyes behind her glasses.”

Risako: “Unlike Kaoru, I don’t get serious, or even feel emotional about anything. / I think a lot about how much more fun it would be if I could live like [Kaoru].”

So where does your question come from?

I assumed she was seducing Reiichi there. "Oh, if ONLY someone could help me FEEL THINGS!"

While we're throwing out theories, maybe Risako is a sociopath who doesn't feel anything for others, and plays manipulative games with Reiichi and Kaoru for the sheer fun of it; Kaoru mistook her for a mere "ice queen." That being said, while Kaoru isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, she has been shown to be reasonably perceptive when it comes to people, with the possible exception of Reiichi.

I shant no longer

This story is getting very confusing...
Can somebody explain it?

Ah I see now. Risako's had the hots for Kaoru all this time.

I just don’t see how this supposedly disengaged and hyper-rational Risako squares with the bulk of what we know about the rest of the story.

But who is it that supposed Risako is a hyper-rational disengaged ice queen?

Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, or did you really not read the chapter?

Kaoru: “[Risako] would always make decisions based of some rational thinking.”

Kaoru: “It seemed like her surroundings couldn’t handle this girl with cold eyes behind her glasses.”

Risako: “Unlike Kaoru, I don’t get serious, or even feel emotional about anything. / I think a lot about how much more fun it would be if I could live like [Kaoru].”

So where does your question come from?

I assumed she was seducing Reiichi there. "Oh, if ONLY someone could help me FEEL THINGS!"

While we're throwing out theories, maybe Risako is a sociopath who doesn't feel anything for others, and plays manipulative games with Reiichi and Kaoru for the sheer fun of it; Kaoru mistook her for a mere "ice queen." That being said, while Kaoru isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, she has been shown to be reasonably perceptive when it comes to people, with the possible exception of Reiichi.

I doubt this. While I could be wrong the raws of chapter 29 seem to show she really does care for Kaoru.

Raws for chapter 29 are out here https://m.imgur.com/a/dQC4iit

No one's getting out happy with this one, are they? The pieces are coming together here. I was not on the "Risako is secretly gay for Kaoru" team but this definitely suggests it. Too bad she's such a piece of work.

I just don’t see how this supposedly disengaged and hyper-rational Risako squares with the bulk of what we know about the rest of the story.

But who is it that supposed Risako is a hyper-rational disengaged ice queen?

Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, or did you really not read the chapter?

Kaoru: “[Risako] would always make decisions based of some rational thinking.”

Kaoru: “It seemed like her surroundings couldn’t handle this girl with cold eyes behind her glasses.”

Risako: “Unlike Kaoru, I don’t get serious, or even feel emotional about anything. / I think a lot about how much more fun it would be if I could live like [Kaoru].”

So where does your question come from?

I assumed she was seducing Reiichi there. "Oh, if ONLY someone could help me FEEL THINGS!"

Yet another attempt to compel this story to make sense by assuming that the evidence of the text means something other than what it says.

What scene or statement in this story depicts Risako as being emotional about anything?

As it's clearly tagged from the beginning, this angsty drama of Kaoru-Reiichi-Risako is kind of expected, but it's still tiresome. Anyway, with Uta has been Put on a Bus, when could we come back to Miyabi and best girl Kuroe? Or even Konatsu, for that matter.

Being cold, calculating and unable to relate to other people are signs of psychological illness after all.

Yeah, that's all signs of being a psychopath. I feel like the author is taking this too far with the characters. They seriously made me dislike all of them, even when the characters in question are not bad people. They're all unlikable for different reasons. Seems like Risako is going to be a bad person too.
Kaoru is highly unlikable at this point. Reiichi too. Uta is not bad per se, but her misery and her clinginess to someone like Kaoru just makes her unpleasant to read about.
I actually enjoy angst quite a bit, but this is straight up misery and depression.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 4:07AM

I just don’t see how this supposedly disengaged and hyper-rational Risako squares with the bulk of what we know about the rest of the story.

But who is it that supposed Risako is a hyper-rational disengaged ice queen?

Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, or did you really not read the chapter?

Kaoru: “[Risako] would always make decisions based of some rational thinking.”

Kaoru: “It seemed like her surroundings couldn’t handle this girl with cold eyes behind her glasses.”

Risako: “Unlike Kaoru, I don’t get serious, or even feel emotional about anything. / I think a lot about how much more fun it would be if I could live like [Kaoru].”

So where does your question come from?

I assumed she was seducing Reiichi there. "Oh, if ONLY someone could help me FEEL THINGS!"

Yet another attempt to compel this story to make sense by assuming that the evidence of the text means something other than what it says.

What scene or statement in this story depicts Risako as being emotional about anything?

Why on earth are you phrasing this in such a hostile way?

Anyway, she's emotional about Kaoru plenty, just not high-arousal. She's nothing but meaningful pauses around Kaoru. And she has emotional reactions left and right during this very chapter, just again, not high arousal.

The key to my interpretation is she takes her glasses off. That's a big symbol for her. She has "cold eyes behind her glasses" implying she's hiding something underneath them, and she specifically wears them to make dudes stop paying attention to her pretty face. She knows how hot people think she is. When she pointedly takes them off in front of Reiichi, that suggests she's looking pretty for him on purpose.

So, this dude who her best friend is piningly and stupidly in unreciprocated love with has just insulted that friend and made it clear he doesn't think he'll ever be interested. A little while later, Risako (who's been stringing Reiichi along) hears that Kaoru plans to seriously for real confess to Reiichi and will "be crushed," and Risako arranges a moment where she and Reiichi agree to date while Kaoru watches. Now Kaoru can just be mad at Risako: she avoided being crushed. And as a bonus, Reiichi agreed to distance himself, so even if Kaoru was gonna chicken out, they're separated.

"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. "androidlike cipher who can't feel emotions (except the emotion of jealousy towards people who have emotions) and who goes out of their way to hurt her best friend for no reason" is a possible interpretation, I guess, but it sure doesn't seem plausible to me.

Kaoru better get the shortest masculine lesbian haircut imaginable after she's completed this gauntlet of bull shittery.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 5:00AM

Being cold, calculating and unable to relate to other people are signs of psychological illness after all.

Yeah, that's all signs of being a psychopath. I feel like the author is taking this too far with the characters. They seriously made me dislike all of them, even when the characters in question are not bad people. They're all unlikable for different reasons. Seems like Risako is going to be a bad person too.
Kaoru is highly unlikable at this point. Reiichi too. Uta is not bad per se, but her misery and her clinginess to someone like Kaoru just makes her unpleasant to read about.
I actually enjoy angst quite a bit, but this is straight up misery and depression.

Well I disagree with you quite strongly, but whether someone is sympathetic or horrible to you is ultimately a subjective matter. As much as Blastaar laments it, the lack of concrete information is also why I don't see these characters as terrible people... yet. All of them have their reasons, some not as explicit as others... yet.
Risako is being propped up as some kind of villain, but that seems to be just a red herring to her true motivation.

The psychopath/sociopath thing is just an option I added for the sake of completeness. It is very much an option not uncommon for drama and angst stories, but I doubt it will be used here.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 5:29AM

Now Kaoru can just be mad at Risako: she avoided being crushed. And as a bonus, Reiichi agreed to distance himself, so even if Kaoru was gonna chicken out, they're separated.

"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.

The most possible scenario here imo is, Risako tried preventing Kaoru from dating Reiichi by dating him herself instead.
I do think that she is un emotional and cold, but don't know the degree. At this point anything is possible. She might turn out to just be manipulative because of her unrequited feelings for Kaoru, but she could also be a sociopath.
I think the first is more possible, but to do that manipulation she has to be cold and not attached as well.

As much as Blastaar laments it, the lack of concrete information is also why I don't see these characters as terrible people... yet. All of them have their reasons, some not as explicit as others... yet.
Risako is being propped up as some kind of villain, but that seems to be just a red herring to her true motivation.

I didn't say they are bad people. I said they are unlikable to me because they give me the feeling of misery and hopelessness. Except Risako for now, because we don't have enough information about her. But I don't quite like where this seems to be heading.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 5:42AM

Risako possibly gay and possibly in love with Kaoru, that's welcome.

Personally though, I prefer her to be a true-blue villain designed to mess up Kaoru's life for psychopathic reasons.

I like the Yuri route.... probs a mix of the two theories you have though

Roshi710 posted:

This story is getting very confusing...
Can somebody explain it?

That's the thing. Nobody knows what this story is about anymore. Probably even the author. Last like 90 pages of this thread is people trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the plot.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 7:46AM

This story is getting very confusing...
Can somebody explain it?

As the great cynics of our time don't want to cooperate, let me try to do it.

1. Uta lives with her brother and his wife.
2. Uta has secret feelings for her sister-in-law, Kaoru.
3. Uta tells her the truth after a while and Kaoru rejects her.
4. Kaoru suspects her husband, Reiichi, is cheating on her with her old friend Risako.
5. Risako and Reiichi had been dating in high-school despite Kaoru's one-sided feelings for Reiichi.
6. Kaoru's mother died due to reasons that involve Uta's and Reiichi's mother who is a doctor (possibly medical malpractice).
7. Reiichi and Risako broke up after that death and Kaoru and Reiichi got together instead, then married.
8. Uta's and Reiichi's mother returns from overseas (she went there probably because her medical license was revoked in Japan after probably killing Kaoru's mother)
9. Mother tells Uta to move back in with her. Uta agrees, because Kaoru rejected her and she wants to get away from that.
10. Kaoru is left alone, doubting her husband, doubting her friend and missing Uta.

Bonus: Uta's friends Kuro and Miyabe start dating and are steadily getting a more solid relationship.
Bonus 2: Uta's other acquaintance Konatsu had a lesbian crush on her teacher/nurse in the past, but she rejected her after having sex with her once, because of their social positions. After that Konatsu stopped caring about love and just fills the hole with loveless sex.

That's about it. Some details have been left out.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 8:13AM

The way I see it, is that Risako agreed to date Reiichi only because she saw it as an opportunity for Kaoru to get closure and move on from (from Reiichi). Obviously it didn't work in the end. Whether Risako is (or was) in love with Kaoru remains to be seen, but the signs are pointing towards "yes".

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 8:53AM

Exellent summary ^^ for the moment all went as I expected, the flashback on kaoru which explains why she came today with more major information on : reicchi hardly noticed kaoru, at least not as a good friend.
That risako is a kind of sociopath without too many emotions. She does things in a hyper-pragmatic way without taking into account the emotional consequences. she is manipulative and cold.
The death of kaoru's mother turned the situation upside down.

From all this we can deduce that Risako has feelings towards Kaoru, that after the death of Kaoru's mother, she coldly asked reiichi to be in a relationship with Kaoru again, but that they would remain in a "relationship".
That kaoru has definitively fallen into denial from then on and because of the shock doesn't want to face any more emotional problems.
Reichi love crazy risako and not kaoru...

What might happen, end of the flashback in 2 chapters, then back to uta and we will surely have a flasback on her too.
Kaoru who wakes up little by little doesn't trust neither a reicchi nor a risako anymore, which will forcefully end up provoking a "break".
Return from uta it seems to me now inevitable and the story will end on this final arc, to know how the relationship between uta and kaoru will evolve.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 9:01AM

This story is getting very confusing...
Can somebody explain it?

As the great cynics of our time don't want to cooperate, let me try to do it.

1. Uta lives with her brother and his wife.
2. Uta has secret feelings for her sister-in-law, Kaoru.
3. Uta tells her the truth after a while and Kaoru rejects her.
4. Kaoru suspects her husband, Reiichi, is cheating on her with her old friend Risako.
5. Risako and Reiichi had been dating in high-school despite Kaoru's one-sided feelings for Reiichi.
6. Kaoru's mother died due to reasons that involve Uta's and Reiichi's mother who is a doctor (possibly medical malpractice).
7. Reiichi and Risako broke up after that death and Kaoru and Reiichi got together instead, then married.
8. Uta's and Reiichi's mother returns from overseas (she went there probably because her medical license was revoked in Japan after probably killing Kaoru's mother)
9. Mother tells Uta to move back in with her. Uta agrees, because Kaoru rejected her and she wants to get away from that.
10. Kaoru is left alone, doubting her husband, doubting her friend and missing Uta.

Very good summary. Notice that the vast majority of those facts either pre-date the beginning of the story itself or were made clear relatively early on.

As this latest chapter demonstrates, the more we’re told in this story, the less we know for sure, not like in a developing mystery story but more like a when a person is trying to explain something and getting more muddled as they go along.

As a result, readers are forced into what might be called ”recuperative” or ”rehabilitative” readings in an attempt to reconcile the various elements and inferences of the story, leading to ever more complex theories about the motivations for the characters and their actions and increasingly convoluted explanations for, or dismissals of, what actually is presented in the text.

Meanwhile, fundamental questions posed near the beginning of the story go unaddressed: Is Reiichi actually having an affair with Risako? Why did Reiichi agree to marry Kaoru? What exactly happened between the two families? Etc.

The longer the initial protagonist of the series, Uta, remains missing and irrelevant, the more more plausible becomes the theory that, despite initial appearances, this is not primarily a story about Uta and her ill-fated love for her sister-in-law at all, but an ensemble series about how all love in this storyworld is unrequited.

Except, apparently, the love of and for the only character who explicitly disavows any interest in or capability for love, (i.e., Kuro).

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 9:14AM

Why did Reiichi agree to marry Kaoru?

Well if you combine with that :

Kaoru's mother died due to reasons that involve Uta's and Reiichi's mother who is a doctor (possibly medical malpractice).

Then you have maybe a start of an answer.Reichii might have feel bad for Kaoru and as his neighbor, he know about how Kaoru can get when she is lonely so he probably decide to marry so she never will feel alone with him and Uta here.

Why did Reiichi agree to marry Kaoru?

Well if you combine with that :

Kaoru's mother died due to reasons that involve Uta's and Reiichi's mother who is a doctor (possibly medical malpractice).

Then you have maybe a start of an answer.Reichii might have feel bad for Kaoru and as his neighbor, he know about how Kaoru can get when she is lonely so he probably decide to marry so she never will feel alone with him and Uta here.

Right—ever since the appearance of Uta’s mother we have been given a few pieces of a kit that readers can assemble to get partial answers.

Meanwhile, those answers are well-known to everyone in the story to whom those answers matter (Uta may not know why Reiichi agreed to marry Kaoru, for example), but not to readers, who, if they knew the answers would understand the characters better, but the answers are apparently being withheld for an exciting “reveal” at some later date.

I've never hidden that my impression of the story is by far not as critical as most people's, but I do understand the concerns. I do not at all feel that the story itself is convoluted, but more like a puzzle. We essentially have most of the center pieces, but some of the border pieces only appear bit by bit. Speculation is what keeps stories like this afloat and revealing key details may also spoil other results.

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. They may know a bit more about the death of the mother, but they are just as clueless as us towards the rest. We still see how Reiichi, Kaoru and Uta react to their mother. We can tell exactly what kind of relationship they have and what resulted from the incident back then.

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.

last edited at Jan 8, 2020 9:56AM

[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?

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.

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.