It's not even a case of a side character growing faster than the MCs, Kaede is still behind in dealing with her own issues compared to them and said issues are thematically connected to Koyuki and Konatsu's. I understand some people's frustration in having to wait a month each time only to have to wait longer for what they want to see, but they should know by now that Kaede is the third most important character in the series and every time she receives focus, it's always in the context of her not wanting the MCs to make the same mistakes as her.
Good post. To me, this series is really one of the type that reads much better when completed rather than chapter by chapter in serialization (I mean, when I re-read what’s been been done so far—I know it’s not completed).
That’s because it’s such a slow burn, and because (to me, one of the things that makes it so narratively interesting) the plot doesn’t work by having a character realize something that solves their problem—the “epiphany as resolution” model. Here characters work their way towards tough realizations that then reveal they have further work to do.
If this were using a much more standard approach, Konatsu, because she is lonely herself, would be the only one to realize how lonely Koyuki is, she’d break through Koyuki’s shell—boom, yuri ending.
But here, Koyuki’s realization of her own loneliness opens up a whole new set of things she needs to learn and to change about herself, and the same is true of Konatsu and Kaede as well.
Poor Fuyuki—he’ll never replace Glasses-chan in Kaede’s heart. . .
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