Well, that wasn't the ending that I wanted but it makes sense for this series...

Everyone complaining here held on though 37 chapters, there must have been something there.

People who complain about this series have said over and over what they see here, as I did just a couple of posts above this one. It’s an interesting situation, some (although by no means all) of the characters are sometimes compelling (Uta, when she wasn’t just put on ice for extended periods or reduced to being an observer of the side characters, was by far the most appealing to me), and the art was intermittently serviceable. (Overall, though, I'd say that visually the author seems most comfortable with the high school comedy.)

What it wasn’t was focused narrative development or consistently skilled serial manga storytelling.

Everyone complaining here held on though 37 chapters, there must have been something there.

Morbid curiosity to see if there would be a last-minut Author Saving Throw to rescue this increasingly dithering mess, probably. (I gave up soon after it became clear the Three Stooges side story, which was actually getting somewhere, had been wrapped up.) Not like it took very long to read new chapters while they came out and it's not like we paid squat for them anyway.

Now if I had been a paying customer OTOH I'd be feeling quite ripped off, and you'll have a hard time indeed arguing that'd be unjustified.

In the end, I guess we really were the Todokanu Ito da to Shite mo.

Well, I guess I'll go fuck myself LMFFAOOO

Judged by the standards of fanfiction I cannot say, since I have fairly limited experience with fanfic.

But judged by the standards of yuri mangaka who get to ply their craft over this many chapters of professional publication, I would call this a botched job by an inattentive author, one with a definite, albeit limited, flair for character conception and some scene construction, but with at best very erratic control over the pacing of chapters, consistency of plot and character detail, and structural proportion (as in lingering for pages over side issues and plot mechanics—getting a character from point A to point B, for example—then rushing through or abruptly ending crucially important scenes).

Doesn't that say as much about the "professional publication" as it does about the mangaka? As far as I know this was tMnR's first large work, so a level of inexperience is to be expected. One would expect an experienced mentor or hands-on editor would have helped but I don't know enough about the industry to know how realistic that is.

Finally, by posing a central narrative conflict and then not resolving it (and if properly developed any of the plausible outcomes would have been fine with me), the series ends with one of the most egregious authorial copouts that I have ever seen (worse even than Citrus, and that’s saying something).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume you mean Uta's love being reciprocated or not. I feel like I'm repeating myself but how is that a central conflict? Before ch36 did Uta ever aspire to be with Kaoru? How can a conflict be something the protagonist doesn't even consider?

For 35 chapters being together romantically wasn't even conceivable for Uta, let alone a possibility. Even as she grew to value them, Uta never believed her feelings would actually lead anywhere. She started the story at war with herself wanting peace and believing she had to get rid her love to have it. At the end (ch 36) she achieved peace with her feelings, looking optimistically towards the future, regardless of how things might turn out with Kaoru, seems a lot like a resolution.

It is true that "will they or won't they?" has been an obsession for some noisy fans, but there are probably others more interested in what sort of underwear they wear, neither should place an obligation on the author to deliver.

As I said in another post a resolution one way or another would have been nice fanservice, but not mandatory. A lifetime of first level show-don't-tell writing has led us to expect that an internal emotional resolution will always be "shown"/embodied though an external one, but that is a convention not a fact.

My Unresolved Love

It is true that "will they or won't they?" has been an obsession for some noisy fans, but there are probably others more interested in what sort of underwear they wear, neither should place an obligation on the author to deliver.

That's a ridiculous comparison.

My Unresolved Love

It is true that "will they or won't they?" has been an obsession for some noisy fans, but there are probably others more interested in what sort of underwear they wear, neither should place an obligation on the author to deliver.

That's a ridiculous comparison.

I was originally going to compare to certain Citrus fans' conviction that the only legitimate development possible for Citrus+ is Yuzu and Mei having sex, but I though it was better to avoid bringing another series into it (particularly one that Blastaar is critical of). The point is fans often project their own preoccupations on to works independent of the actual content.

We're actually allowed to expect a resolution to the central theme of the story more conclusive than a Shrug Of God so thunderously vague and dithering it can be fairly characterised as authorial dereliction of duty.

Though I'll give you it's very consistent with the handling of the story though, or the lack thereof as the case may be.

tmnr has managed to tell a gripping emotional story,

I would say that this assertion—and exponentially so in regard to the ending—requires such a degree of projection by readers onto the story (as opposed to what is actually told on the page of the text itself), and such dedication to explaining away flaws and patching with headcanon gaps in the plot construction, characterization, and narrative structure as to constitute the opposite of “fanservice”: readerly authorservice.

tmnr has managed to tell a gripping emotional story,

I would say that this assertion—and exponentially so in regard to the ending—requires such a degree of projection by readers onto the story (as opposed to what is actually told on the page of the text itself), and such dedication to explaining away flaws and patching with headcanon gaps in the plot construction, characterization, and narrative structure as to constitute the opposite of “fanservice”: readerly authorservice.

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 4:21AM

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

The entire purpose of writing is to communicate with the audience, the idea that writing can be popular but bad is a complete oxymoron, founded in a superiority complex.

edit: eg I may loathe popular reality television, but I'm not going to pretend it isn't an effective implementation of what it is.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 4:36AM

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

The entire purpose of writing is to communicate with the audience, the idea that writing can be popular but bad is a complete oxymoron, founded in a superiority complex.

Ah, finally we come to it. Yes, when you create your own standards out of whole cloth like this, anything can meet them.

Bon appetit.

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

The entire purpose of writing is to communicate with the audience, the idea that writing can be popular but bad is a complete oxymoron, founded in a superiority complex.

Ah, finally we come to it. Yes, when you create your own standards out of whole cloth like this, anything can meet them.

Bon appetit.

The purpose of writing is communication (to an audience), on what other basis could it possibly succeed or fail?

If the purpose of writing is communication, the author did a piss-poor job of delivering that communication, because no one knows exactly what happened at the end of this "story." It doesn't matter how many people purchase a bucket of shit for $9.99, it's still a bucket of shit.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 5:26AM

What an ending, it took a lot of chutzpah to write something like that after putting fans through the whole rest of the story.

This chapter deserves a bruh moment tag

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

The entire purpose of writing is to communicate with the audience, the idea that writing can be popular but bad is a complete oxymoron, founded in a superiority complex.

edit: eg I may loathe popular reality television, but I'm not going to pretend it isn't an effective implementation of what it is.

"A billion fly larva can't be wrong, shit tastes great."

You'll excuse me for insisting on some quality standards. And this one isn't even trashy-but-reasonably-entertaining like most TV fare; it's merely pointlessly and tediously meandering, obtuse and downright confused without ultimately delivering any real payoff in the end. "This is how it ends; not with a bang but a whimper."

The fuck are you all going on about on this page?

What the fuck kind of ending is that? She says she found someone in college that likes her, but she's still going to stick with her unrequited love? And her idea of love broadened, but then she still stuck with Kaoru? Did Kaoru ever feel for Uta back?

Is that Uta's brother that lives across the way from them? What the fuck, I would move away.

What about a few chapters ago with Risako's feelings? Did she love Kaoru romantically or not? Was the series cut short cuz it isn't cost effective to keep printing more?

Betrayed.

circamoore posted:

So the entire editorial staff at Yuri Hime are sado-masochists blowing money on a useless series solely to torture their readership?

What a bizarre strawman. The magazine ultimately only cares about sales ergo audience opinion, and the paying public notoriously happily swallows much worse. like Citrus

The entire purpose of writing is to communicate with the audience, the idea that writing can be popular but bad is a complete oxymoron, founded in a superiority complex.

edit: eg I may loathe popular reality television, but I'm not going to pretend it isn't an effective implementation of what it is.

Rotfl. And here we finally go with "it's popular so it's good". Sorry, but just because something is popular it doesn't mean it's good. People might watch something, but by no means it means it's well executed. People are allowed to like bad things, you know? Most people are not very critical and are happy with very simple stuff. It's very easy to catch audience attention and expectation and you need to work really hard to lose them. The amount of works on dynasty that people come to post hateful comments every time new chapter is updated is proof of that. People get invested in works whatever their quality is good or bad. I bet main reason a lot of readers kept reading MUL was exactly the need for closure and seeing the outcome for themselves. Something that author did not give us. That's why you see dozens of people who didn't take active part in discussion before voicing their disbelief "that's how the series ended?" now. There's plethora of ways to make people want to read next chapter, regardless if the story itself is good or not and MUL often resolved to those tactics (leaving plot threads hanging without resolution, forcing readers to keep on reading if they want to know the outcome) Seriously, if you still don't understand it then you simply how no clue how storytelling works.

Also you're assuming that terrible editors do not exist. Editors are also people and they can make work better as much as they can make it worse. Mangakas having fights and not getting along with their editors is pretty common thing.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 8:53AM

Here is the thing. The ending as it is can actually pretty easily be read as them being together (I am talking about just that scene in a vacuum; then again, that scene literally is in a vacuum since we have no idea how it came about). I suspect this was the outcome most readers wanted (personally, I was in the "hope it stays unrequited" camp, but I suspect I was in the minority). And yet, the overwhelming number of comments have been negative. When you literally give your audience the outcome most of them wanted, and they hate it, I think it is safe to assume you failed pretty hard at basic storytelling.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 9:05AM

And “good” or “successful” isn’t an either/or binary—manga series (or anything else) can do some particular things well enough to satisfy a certain percentage of readers but fall down badly at other aspects of storytelling, failures which may totally alienate some other segment of readers.

Quite a few series, including some of the most well-known and “popular” yuri manga, such as Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto are considered to be only partially successful by many readers (Aoi Hana because of a second half with a choppy structure and some poorly motivated character behavior, and Sasameki Koto for dragging out the plot with too many digressions).

In this case, if a reader is satisfied with the development of the characters’ emotional arcs, well, more power to you. For me, as I’ve said probably ad nauseum, I care about storytelling—I have relatively little shipping investment in most stories, but I’m especially interested in stories where the author seems to set up an apparently unresolvable situation (often these are age-gap stories) because I want to see how the author plans to handle it.

Sometimes the author finds a way out that I think is plausible and interesting enough (for example, Happy Sugar Life and Yuzumori-san). Other times the author just seems to bail at the end because, while they had a starting plan for creating a knotty conflict, they apparently had no real plan for resolving it besides hand-waving the problems away (Citrus and this series). Sometimes, as with stories in progress, the jury remains out (as with 1x1/2).

I do get tired of my analysis of narrative construction and characterization getting dismissed as mere disappointed shipping and a desire for fanservice.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 10:01AM

This ending smells axed, imho.

This ending smells axed, imho.

TBF it would be hard to fault the magazine for starting to get impatient...

Here is the thing. The ending as it is can actually pretty easily be read as them being together (I am talking about just that scene in a vacuum; then again, that scene literally is in a vacuum since we have no idea how it came about). I suspect this was the outcome most readers wanted (personally, I was in the "hope it stays unrequited" camp, but I suspect I was in the minority). And yet, the overwhelming number of comments have been negative. When you literally give your audience the outcome most of them wanted, and they hate it, I think it is safe to assume you failed pretty hard at basic storytelling.

Honestly the ending wasn't even the problem, it was the fact that it didn't match the story that we had been reading since past chapter nine or ten. I think you're right, those weird time skips aside, and the fact that the three of them live in the same apartment building, the ending is pretty much fine in a vacuum. It becomes disappointing when the ending completely disregards the rest of the story, which, as you said, is failing at basic storytelling, and being able to properly conclude that storytelling in general.