circamoore posted:

Because people have been doing exactly that to any post where I put more than one paragraph, I was restricting my responses.

Ok, now that's just straight bullshit. You kept using as your main argument that the story was never about Uta's unrequited love and so people kept disagreeing with that fact. It's the entire crux of your argument, so if we can't agree on that, talking about anything else is pointless. And even then, you have pages upon pages of history of people trying to explain exactly how and why the story is flawed, even as recently as last pages. People addressed all your arguments. You simply always disagreed and repeated the same exact argument in longer or shorter form.

I have challenged people repeatedly to explain how (other than reader projection) the question of a real concrete relationship (or not) between Kaoru and Uta could be a central theme

I repeatedly said that entire premise is based on the fact that Uta suffers, because she loves Kaoru and knows she can't be together with her. Yes, there's character growth and change of perspective both from Uta and Kaoru, I'm not denying it. But that doesn't change the fact that source of Uta's angst is wanting to be with Kaoru. She tried to distance herself from her, because being together when she knew she'll never be together with her was too painful. As many people said over and over, they finally maturing and growing as a people was first step of the story. We finally got to the point where they can actually work out their feelings together. Something that was completely skipped by the author and they just jumped right to the point where everything was solved and then again to when they live together. The answer to what's their relationship now, the entire reason we read the damn thing, is missing. And if they really just live together again, but Uta is fine simply loving Kaoru and Kaoru still sees her as her younger sister, then fine, that's some conclusion (which again, author did not bother to confirm nor deny), but then it's also not exactly satisfying ending after all this drama. Again, the whole issue people have is that we don't know how exactly they got to the point we see them at the end and what this exactly mean for their relationship. Relationship that was the fucking center focus of entire manga. And if you tell me it was actually about Kaoru's marriage to Reiichi or something, I'll probably lose it.

Not to mention the related point, also repeatedly raised - Uta and Kaoru started the story being tortured by their feelings, and ended the story having come to terms with their own feelings and eachothers - how is that not a resolution?

Going from what I wrote above and what many people said. Actually leaving it at the point where chapter 36 ends or even after first time skip would work out much better as ambiguous, open ending. If author would leave it at that point, it could work without addressing anything. We know at this point they live separately, Uta is still hoping it can work in the future and Kaoru is putting her life together. It leaves future up to interpretation, but on hopeful note. The issue is those last few pages completely shoehorned in, implying that they got together later, but at the point we last saw them, it wasn't a logical leap to assume. Again, the main issue is people wanted to see how they eventually work out their issue and get together or part ways. We kinda got both as well as in the end we don't even know what this ending is supposed to mean. If author ended series on chapter 36, it wouldn't be exactly satisfying, but at least it wouldn't be confusing.

The writing has not been perfect. My central theme over and over again is that it is more useful to see the quality of the work as a nuanced multidimensional whole - an aggregate of strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures of storytelling, rather than to write off a flawed work as "bad writing".

Again, you're being dishonest. Of course that's normal. That's how all critic works. If you criticize entire work, you sum up all that was good and bad. The thing is everyone who is criticizing the ending also criticized the rest of the work and said the ending is the clear outcome of all the work that proceeded it. Most people who only complain about the ending only have issue with the ending. They read rest of the work more or less enjoying it or not finding any too big issues with it. Their only problem is ending. But people like us who are arguing with you right now always talked about other aspects of the work and for us ending is just part of the problem why entire work was badly written. Again, author was clearly setting up for a slow burn and since they introduced the whole Reiichi doesn't love Kaoru and they divorce, was setting up that they'd eventually end up together. And then they never really showed how it happened. If they really just wanted to leave it unrequited and about emotional growth, they why make Reiichi a bad husband? Making him great husband and Kaoru being in loving relationship would only strengthen the drama of Uta's love. Why divorce them giving readers hope to then completely disregard this element?

For many of us the strengths in this work outweigh the weaknesses - it is positive for us, "good", even if not perfectly so. Perhaps for you it isn't. That doesn't mean one person's taste is better than another, it means they are different.

And that's where you finally admit you misunderstood our arguments completely and we talk about 2 entire different things. Nobody ever told you that you're not allowed to enjoy it. Hell, nobody told you liking something bad is wrong. For fuck's sake, I even said in my recent posts that there's nothing wrong with liking something bad. It's you who conflates liking something with that thing being good. You're the one who considers themselves superior, that you couldn't possibly like something bad, therefore it must be good. We never talked about taste. Like whatever you like. We always talked about overall quality of the work. Not the enjoyment you can take from it. It's perfectly normal to enjoy something despite it's flaws. I like many things, while admitting that they're not perfect or have some serious issues. You can disagree that those are flaws, but don't deny them just because you like the work, so there can't be anything wrong with it.

Good, bad, strong, weak, succeed, fail - they can all only be judged in context, with a purpose, and everybody's context is different; some things work broadly, some things fail broadly but nothing is universal. People weight different points differently, have differing assessments of a particular point, and don't even use the same set of set of points.

We got it. Everything is subjective. No need to look down on us and be condescending assuming we're too stupid to understand that.

Popularity/success of a work is a strong indication that it has "worked" for many people, that in their contexts it did something right.

Yea, again something I already explained, but you kindly completely ignored it. You seem to fail to understand that people get invested into works. Good premise or likable characters is really all most people need to read the work till the end. Once you get people hooked you need to work really hard to loose them. Hell, even if your work goes completely to shit, many will keep on reading just because they're invested at this point, want to see how the thing will end for themselves or simply feel that all the time and emotions they put into reading it would go to waste if they dropped it now. Again, something I already addressed in my recent posts and you clearly didn't read or didn't bother to address.

The experience of different people reading the same work is connected, but also unique - that's fandom in all its ugly splendor.

That's the biggest nothing statement of this post so far.

I'm going to risk an analogy, even though they always seem to bite me in the ass. Let's talk about fun.

I expect there are a lot of neurodiverse people here (it is a forum for a web manga site after all; if you aren't, you know someone who is).
As a neurodiverse person Imagine some kind happy party-going extrovert butting in on whatever you are enjoying doing and telling you that you need to get out and have some fun. Imagine that well-intentioned but clueless bastard thinking they have the universal and exclusive definition of what "real" fun is.

Now imagine they are confidently asserting that the thing you enjoy is "bad" because it doesn't meet their expectations of it.

Again, nobody told you you can't have fun. Something being bad doesn't exclude you from enjoying it or having fun with it.

By all means talk about what does and doesn't work for you, but don't presume that people who perceive things differently are wrong or blind.

If you perceive things differently that's fine. We can talk and disagree about that. It's all lost the moment you say stuff like "I liked it so it must have been good" and feel like calling a work you liked bad is somehow a attack on you persona and your enjoyment of the work.

I knew talking to you is a waste of time, but I tried it anyway, but now I see it wasn't worth my time. This is last post from me, if you still don't get it, then it's not my problem.

last edited at Oct 23, 2020 6:56AM

I have challenged people repeatedly to explain how (other than reader projection) the question of a real concrete relationship (or not) between Kaoru and Uta could be a central theme, when the possibility only entered the text in chapter 36,

You mean Chapter 1. Or rather, the title. Or rather, the first fucking marketing blurb for the series before any actual chapters were even published.

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.

But it is probably good shit, if you are growing roses it might be just what you want. If you put it in your sandwich, then complain about it being shit, then that says more about you.

Blatantly refusing to understand the point and making a ridiculous comparison is a sign that you don't even believe your own argument. This isn't a question of whether people liked the ending or agreed that it should end that way. There was no ending to like or dislike in the first place. There was no resolution or explanation for anything that happened after the second time skip. Imagine if "The Usual Suspects" had ended with Verbal walking out of the police station limping and then faded to black to roll the credits. Imagine if "The Sixth Sense" had ended without Dr. Crowe seeing his wedding ring fall out of his wife's hand.

This non-ending was lazy and it was confusing, and I believe it was because the author couldn't make up their damn mind about who of the most vocal readers to disappoint - the "free Uta" crowd or the "Uta x Kaoru" crowd. So they decided, "why not both?" Readers wanted a story, not a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with all of the endings torn out.

Again, the main issue is people wanted to see how they eventually work out their issue and get together or part ways. We kinda got both as well as in the end we don't even know what this ending is supposed to mean.

This part was especially frustrating because throughout the almost three dozen chapters of the series we did get to see a whole bunch of other stuff with only indirect relevance to the main story (the Three Stooges of High School Love) as well as excruciating detail about the process by which Kaoru finally accepted the fact that Reiichi, who seemed to be a crappy, inattentive husband from the very first moment we saw him, was in fact a crappy, inattentive husband.

The parallel with the main Citrus story is obvious—both authors set up a situation where there were apparently irresolvable problems, wandered around for many chapters without directly addressing those problems, then put out a rushed finale where the central problems of the story were just handwaved away.

The difference, of course, is that Citrus committed to showing the happy ending that the rest of the story had rendered so implausible, while this one went the coy “let the reader decide” route—so a double authorial copout to match its double (arguably triple) timeskip.

last edited at Oct 23, 2020 7:44AM

All this arguing just boils down to whether or not the ending to this manga justifies what it asks its readers to sit through. Personally, I think the ending is downright horrible because it fails to resolve its central conflict in service of following multiple unrelated subplots... all of which the story also fails to resolve in a competent manner. While I won't rag on anyone for liking this story, this one really fell flat on its face with how it ended, just from a storytelling standpoint. How stories end are very important. The author is expected to tie up any and all loose ends that they've created, but this final chapter has failed on that front in an honestly spectacular fashion. Any claim to the contrary is willful denial of the facts.

this one really fell flat on its face with how it ended,

I'd qualify that as "a triple-(timeskip)-somersault into an empty swimming pool," but otherwise agree with your post 100%.

On reflection, I think that the grace note of Reiichi wandering through the apartment building like some sort of revenant at the (possibly platonic) yuri feast is the truly bizarre chef's kiss of clueless weirdness for this series.

last edited at Oct 23, 2020 10:02AM

I see it’s a good ending or is she suffering? Either way i don’t know if i’m satisfied with this ir not_:(´ཀ`」 ∠):but thank you for the hard work author! Thank you for the journey!

last edited at Oct 23, 2020 10:02AM

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.

But it is probably good shit, if you are growing roses it might be just what you want. If you put it in your sandwich, then complain about it being shit, then that says more about you.

Then what does it speak of when that bucket-o-turd is being sold for putting onto bread (and people still, ahem, eat it up)...?

Or did you just assume that it was, because it was billed as nutritious - when consumed by organisms with needs different from your own.

I'd say anyone marketing poop to people as nutritious on the basis of it indeed being edible for any number of decomposers and what have you is guilty of some quite egregiously false advertising just for starters.

Certainly not very commendable behaviour.

For the record I also got a certain wry chuckle out of your implicit equation of people-who-consume-popular-shit with maggots and bacteria and what have you. GG judging them several degrees harsher than what I was doing since at least I didn't imply them to be literally brainless...

I hate this. I feel like I wasted my 4 years for this.

Okay, I'm going to say it, I really wanted anyone but Kaoru to open the door.

Okay, so what did this wrap up and what are we meant to take away from it?

Kaoru: Lives on her own for a while, "keeping Uta's love in her heart," and then, post-college, reconnects with Uta and they get together. Presumably this is much healthier than her marriage because she's thinking about what she wants rather than expectations for her.

Uta: Thrives in her work despite constantly being depressed she can't bring in "the results." What "the results" are is currently unknown. Presumably in a happy relationship with Kaoru. Stays friends with Kuro and is on good terms with Reiichi. Wears a pendant in the shape of Pac Man.

Reiichi: Lives literally next door to the apartment his sister and ex-wife fuck in, so

Kuro: Stays with Miyabi in what is presumably a healthy, happy relationship, though she's super tsundere about it. Still very unclear if she's supposed to be ace or not. Buys a smart watch. Starts wearing her hair down and frankly it looks great.

Konatsu: I... think confessed her love to Uta? Because there was the weird moment looking at her picture, and Uta says she knows what it feels like to be the target of unrequited love? But it's not clear. Then she goes to Hawaii or somewhere for college and gets a sun tan.

Risako: Maintains a good relationship with Kaoru, and, like, maaaaaybe there's the implication her friendships keep get from shutting herself off from people. Otherwise completely unknown.

There's information here! It's just... piecemeal, and what we get is entirely predictable. The thing that bugs me the most is the author pulling out the very trite manga trope message of "ohh my treasured childhood innocent memories are a precious bittersweet treasure in my heart and I will hold onto them and reflect on the fragile impermanence of schoolgirl love as I enter adulthood." I could stand to lose this message from all manga, but here, it's completely incoherent to do that and then have her END UP WITH KAORU ANYWAY.

Listen, author, I get being rushed into doing an ending in a single chapter, but Kaoru is clearly the character you care about most, and Kaoru getting in touch with her own desires (and queerness) is a much more interesting thing to focus on than Uta... deciding not to change. Like seriously you have the dynamic character and the character determined to stay the same and you focus on the latter I mean

Also, the weird moment I'm fixated on is Kaoru's friend doing bicep curls on the zoom call.

last edited at Oct 23, 2020 8:32PM

All this arguing just boils down to whether or not the ending to this manga justifies what it asks its readers to sit through. Personally, I think the ending is downright horrible because it fails to resolve its central conflict in service of following multiple unrelated subplots... all of which the story also fails to resolve in a competent manner. While I won't rag on anyone for liking this story, this one really fell flat on its face with how it ended, just from a storytelling standpoint. How stories end are very important. The author is expected to tie up any and all loose ends that they've created, but this final chapter has failed on that front in an honestly spectacular fashion. Any claim to the contrary is willful denial of the facts.

Agreed 120% I couldn't have said it better. It's a shame because it was a rather original topic and could've been really interesting.

All this arguing just boils down to whether or not the ending to this manga justifies what it asks its readers to sit through. Personally, I think the ending is downright horrible because it fails to resolve its central conflict in service of following multiple unrelated subplots... all of which the story also fails to resolve in a competent manner. While I won't rag on anyone for liking this story, this one really fell flat on its face with how it ended, just from a storytelling standpoint. How stories end are very important. The author is expected to tie up any and all loose ends that they've created, but this final chapter has failed on that front in an honestly spectacular fashion. Any claim to the contrary is willful denial of the facts.

Agreed 120% I couldn't have said it better. It's a shame because it was a rather original topic and could've been really interesting.

(okay I know the comment I'm about to drop is long AF but I promise I am saying something)

For me the sad part is that it was original and interesting. The first few chapters were really cool and emotional, and the fact that things started to very slowly move seemed evidence the author knew what they were doing and were moving the story in a very realistic, believable way toward something really special. You wanted to go through the emotional pain to reach that. And uhhh, what was promised was not delivered, four years later.

Okay so this next part may be a little extra, but I think it goes beyond disappointing. Sometimes we are willing to read stories about situations that are traumatic to us so that when we reach the end, and it lands well, ultimately, we can process our trauma and feel seen and healed. For me Watamote was like that--so, so, fucking hard to push through, but worth it in the end.

Now I feel like unrequited love and being strung along are especially sensitive, common traumas in the wlw community. And in the yuri-reading community, many of us "aren't wlw" but yearn for the relationships we see displayed and think we can never have--and later turn out to be trans, so the idea of an impossible love that sits on the horizon grabs onto a lot of baggage there as well. Basically, a lot of people demographically who would be reading this might have trauma that is evoked by its main scenario.

So, I think ultimately the reason people are so upset is not just because this was a promising story that ended poorly, but because it led us out into the woods and then left us there. I think people are receiving this ending as a personal betrayal, and on some level they're right.

last edited at Oct 24, 2020 1:45AM

For me the sad part is that it was original and interesting. The first few chapters were really cool and emotional, and the fact that things started to very slowly move seemed evidence the author knew what they were doing and were moving the story in a very realistic, believable way toward something really special. You wanted to go through the emotional pain to reach that. And uhhh, what was promised was not delivered, four years later.

[snip]

So, I think ultimately the reason people are so upset is not just because this was a promising story that ended poorly, but because it led us out into the woods and then left us there.

While for me the stakes here were less personal (my own experience with unrequited love being only a small speck in the rear-view mirror of life) and more about the intellectual/emotional journey as a reader, I think this is a strong and accurate take on this series.

To expand on your final metaphor a little bit, after those opening chapters it felt like one of those taxi rides in an unfamiliar city where at first it seems OK that the driver is taking you off the beaten path—maybe they know a better way—but then you suspect they are either just stretching the ride out to run up the meter or maybe are lost themselves. Then, as you say, they make you get out in the middle of nowhere.

after 4 years of heart wrenching anguish ... Uta didn't even deserve an "I love you too" kiss???
Tomonari san that's a bit... cruel
I just hope there will be two or three more chapters indulging on Uta's happiness, girl deserve it.

Now I feel like unrequited love and being strung along are especially sensitive, common traumas in the wlw community. And in the yuri-reading community, many of us "aren't wlw" but yearn for the relationships we see displayed and think we can never have--and later turn out to be trans, so the idea of an impossible love that sits on the horizon grabs onto a lot of baggage there as well. Basically, a lot of people demographically who would be reading this might have trauma that is evoked by its main scenario.

So, I think ultimately the reason people are so upset is not just because this was a promising story that ended poorly, but because it led us out into the woods and then left us there. I think people are receiving this ending as a personal betrayal, and on some level they're right.

I dunno, that sounds like a bit of a stretch. While I'm not saying that what you said doesn't apply to anyone in this forum thread, I think you might be missing the forest for the trees here. People, regardless of sexual preference, can appreciate good stories, and will be rightfully disappointed when said story doesn't deliver on its implicit promises. The problem here is much more generic than you may think. A well-written story will not have nearly as much criticism than a badly written one.

To give you an example - Madoka Magica (the anime series, not the movie) had a lot of yuri shippers, but that didn't end with Madoka and Homura living happily ever after. That series is still regarded as one of the better anime series out there despite this, and that's because, even for its faults, the conflicts that the story introduces were all resolved in at least a competent manner. Todokanu Ito failed to resolve its most important conflict - Uta's unrequited love for Kaoru. If it somehow ended with Uta not getting with Kaoru, either implied or explicitly shown, as long as it was done well, it shouldn't be that much of a problem. However, that's not what happened, leaving most people who put up with the story for four years understandably upset. It's a storytelling failure, not a social one, for the most part, at least.

last edited at Oct 24, 2020 7:20AM

To be frank, I don't like this ending. That's it. But I still love the characters regardless, I just wish it could have been more specific. But idk, it could just be me and my distaste for open endings.

Lucas Magnus, I should probably let Linterdiction speak for themselves, but I don’t think their call was for a definite happy yuri ending, but just for a legitimate development of the central situation to a logical resolution (happily romantic or otherwise), given the story’s starting premises.

For me, as the story went along and there was still absolutely zero indication of Kaoru becoming aware of any change in her sexual orientation, I looked for signs of some kind of “Uta moves on” resolution but of course we didn’t get that either.

IOW, it would be just as respectful to the personal experience of people traumatized by unrequited love to explore the implications of that love remaining unrequited, and you two are saying much the same thing only with different emphases (as I did in my response post above).

Lucas Magnus, I should probably let Linterdiction speak for themselves, but I don’t think their call was for a definite happy yuri ending, but just for a legitimate development of the central situation to a logical resolution (happily romantic or otherwise), given the story’s starting premises.

For me, as the story went along and there was still absolutely zero indication of Kaoru becoming aware of any change in her sexual orientation, I looked for signs of some kind of “Uta moves on” resolution but of course we didn’t get that either.

IOW, it would be just as respectful to the personal experience of people traumatized by unrequited love to explore the implications of that love remaining unrequited, and you two are saying much the same thing only with different emphases (as I did in my response post above).

Wait, hold on. We're getting far from the point I'm trying to make. I made no claims that there's no merit to exploring the trauma people experience. What I'm saying is that, at its core, the failures of this story are technical, not thematic. To be more specific, I actually think that the themes of Todokanu Ito are refreshing, but the way the ending of this story was handled was a disservice to its themes. You can have an ending where Uta moves on from Kaoru, or one where they get together, or even one where Uta is left to evaluate and sort out what path she will take moving forward, introspection-style, but we got none of those. The author chose to ignore the central conflict and chose to give the readers an ending that refuses to address the elephant in the room. That's why it fails, and not because of any reader's personal experience. If that were the case, then a lot fewer people would be upset about the ending.

last edited at Oct 24, 2020 9:28AM

What I'm saying is that, at its core, the failures of this story are technical, not thematic.

I’m saying (and will let other posters speak for themselves henceforth) that they can be both—the two go hand in hand in this case.

I think (and of course I’m inferring this from what people have said here) a number of readers linked into this story from the beginning, stayed with it despite its many technical deficiencies, and often even went to considerable effort to explain away those technical deficiencies via evidence-free speculation and headcanon because of the nature of the theme.

Instances of unrequited love in real life are probably at least as common as mutual fulfilled love or love gone bad, yet such situations are rarely explored at full length in dramatic popular narratives (as opposed to comedies and manga one-shots, for instance). So that added a particular flavor to the authorial malfeasance here beyond simply yet one more manga series that looked promising at the start but ultimately crapped out.

Wait, hold on. We're getting far from the point I'm trying to make. I made no claims that there's no merit to exploring the trauma people experience. What I'm saying is that, at its core, the failures of this story are technical, not thematic. To be more specific, I actually think that the themes of Todokanu Ito are refreshing, but the way the ending of this story was handled was a disservice to its themes. You can have an ending where Uta moves on from Kaoru, or one where they get together, or even one where Uta is left to evaluate and sort out what path she will take moving forward, introspection-style, but we got none of those. The author chose to ignore the central conflict and chose to give the readers an ending that refuses to address the elephant in the room. That's why it fails, and not because of any reader's personal experience. If that were the case, then a lot fewer people would be upset about the ending.

The problem is, the themes ended up being really trite. I've read a kabillion manga with a high school girl opining "I will lock away the precious blossom of my youthful love without regrets and move forward celebrating the bittersweetness in my heart."

I think there just kinda was never a lot any author could do with Uta. She's in love with Kaoru and has decided not to try to get over it and is pretty much mature about the whole thing. "Unrequited love exists" is... not deep or interesting.
Kaoru (and Reiichi) is in a much more interesting position, wrangling societal and parental expectations, figuring out the difference between different kinds of love, trying to balance your own desires with the needs of others. But Uta is portrayed as the protagonist (at least at first), and anyone empathizing with her is going to just be frustrated with Kaoru. I feel like the big selling point was "a high school girl is in love with her sister-in-law!!!" and with that the author painted themself in a corner.

I don't think I was expecting much from the ending and this is along the lines of what I was but I still hoped the author would at least show Uta with Kaoru or someone else, you know, living a more obviously happy life.

I’m saying (and will let other posters speak for themselves henceforth) that they can be both—the two go hand in hand in this case.

So that added a particular flavor to the authorial malfeasance here beyond simply yet one more manga series that looked promising at the start but ultimately crapped out.

Like I said, this manga has interesting themes that made readers resonate with it, and that's why people "stayed with it despite its many technical deficiencies," clinging to a hope that Uta will have a end to her story that will help in their catharsis. HOWEVER, and I can't believe that this is my third time saying it - the story fails to deliver on its implicit promises - a resolution to this unrequited love conflict that the entire premise of this story in the first place. IF the story managed to resolve said conflict, no matter how the author may have done it, the reader will have closure. Todokanu Ito's conclusion is a non-ending, and that is a cardinal sin in storytelling. The flavor of the authorial malfeasance is overwhelmingly dwarfed by sheer technical incompetence - is my whole point, and I'd even go so far as to say that this whole story is invalidated by that joke of an ending. The story does its themes a huge disservice, not the other way around.

I apologize if I sound ticked off, but honestly, I am a little bit at this point.

The problem is, the themes ended up being really trite. I've read a kabillion manga with a high school girl opining "I will lock away the precious blossom of my youthful love without regrets and move forward celebrating the bittersweetness in my heart."

I think there just kinda was never a lot any author could do with Uta. She's in love with Kaoru and has decided not to try to get over it and is pretty much mature about the whole thing. "Unrequited love exists" is... not deep or interesting.
Kaoru (and Reiichi) is in a much more interesting position, wrangling societal and parental expectations, figuring out the difference between different kinds of love, trying to balance your own desires with the needs of others. But Uta is portrayed as the protagonist (at least at first), and anyone empathizing with her is going to just be frustrated with Kaoru. I feel like the big selling point was "a high school girl is in love with her sister-in-law!!!" and with that the author painted themself in a corner.

I don't think the themes are trite at all. To say that is to dismiss the very real feelings a lot of people have to go through in life. That's like saying that exploring the nuances that can be found in the clash between good and evil in a story is trite. It's simply not true. A good author will find a way to write a good story for the themes of their choosing. You can have compelling characters, a unique setting, etc.

"Unrequited love exists" is... not deep or interesting.

That's not all there is to it. The main conflict of this story is "How will Uta ultimately deal with her unrequited love?" and not just "Does unrequited love exist?" That's an absurd thing to say. On the topic of this main conflict, the author decides in the end to NOT answer this question, and instead faff about with things nobody asked for, like Risako and Reiichi's drama, that girl who was in that beach photo in the end, that whole "I wanna have kids" moment with Kaoru, etc. The author wasted a lot of time on actual narrative garbage instead of putting that effort into exploring the themes they brought up in the beginning of the story. A bunch of non sequiturs that all ended up in the garbage bin along with the main plot point, unresolved, until the end of time.

last edited at Oct 25, 2020 5:55AM

I apologize if I sound ticked off, but honestly, I am a little bit at this point.

That’s because you seem to be unable to recognize when people are agreeing with you from a slightly different angle.

I apologize if I sound ticked off, but honestly, I am a little bit at this point.

That’s because you seem to be unable to recognize when people are agreeing with you from a slightly different angle.

Are you, though? What you have been doing is telling me: "Hey, I know you said this thing, but I think it's actually this different thing." You're saying that both thematic and technical shortcomings pull the work down, and I'm saying that the problem's overwhelmingly technical, and the perceived thematic shortcomings are a drop in the bucket, if even that.

EDIT: Fourth time that I had to reiterate my argument. Am I going insane?

last edited at Oct 25, 2020 7:19AM