Activate third wheel mode. Dial up the aangst two degrees. Increase difficulty on suspension of disbelief...got it. In the pipe, five by five.

I've often thought that one of the big advantages to adoption (depending on timing) was being able to skip the diaper phase. But with the vibes Rio gives off, it seems like she'll have them dealing with plenty of her shit.

Soooo... they only have two rooms. Two has to share rooms. Is this the part where we start the fire on this slow burning romance?

Normal people brain: Of course the married couple would sleep together

Mangaka brain: Of course Rio will sleep with Ruriko, how else would I farm soapy melodrama out of this?

last edited at Sep 8, 2022 10:29AM

Soooo... they only have two rooms. Two has to share rooms. Is this the part where we start the fire on this slow burning romance?

Normal people brain: Of course the married couple would sleep together

Mangaka brain: Of course Rio will sleep with Ruriko, how else would I farm soapy melodrama out of this?

Besidessssss, why go logical when you can not only give some tiny drama, but also skyrocket progression! At this rate the useless lesbians will realize in like a few days! Truly the power of Rio!!

Though I would also love to see Rio being that very wack housemate some people have (in movies at least)

Soooo... they only have two rooms. Two has to share rooms. Is this the part where we start the fire on this slow burning romance?

Normal people brain: Of course the married couple would sleep together

Mangaka brain: Of course Rio will sleep with Ruriko, how else would I farm soapy melodrama out of this?

Besidessssss, why go logical when you can not only give some tiny drama, but also skyrocket progression! At this rate the useless lesbians will realize in like a few days! Truly the power of Rio!!

Though I would also love to see Rio being that very wack housemate some people have (in movies at least)

I shared an apartment with plenty of people I didn't know all that well in my college days. It's really not as fun as it's cranked up to be :P

And here we have the moment this series turns meh for me. Well, it still "depends" but I'll play the glass half-empty card. So far, this series was a very smooth, albeit visible progression between the two. The progress itself was based on relatable things and they solved it somehow by themselves (with some input from family or friends obviously).

I don't know, it just felt refreshing to have a series with a bit of more smooth sailing towards the progress, but not without some dark clouds here and there. I'd hate to drop this after so long just because of that. Or have to skip bigger chunks of it just to avoid rolling my eyes out of their sockets.

Unless it won't be permanent (or even semi-permanent) or something actually happened to Rio and we'll get a side character progression. Even if I frankly don't care much for her.

I don't really understand what people are so upset about. Rio hasn't even been hinted at being into Ruriko, so I don't see a love triangle on the horizon, and I also don't think it's that unnatural for the lesbian character to be friends with another (implied) lesbian who was disowned by her parents and thus has nowhere to go when she's out of work.

I imagine the reason Rio was created is the same reason most new characters are: as a manga gets longer, the easiest way to add variety and new sorts of character interactions is to introduce a new person. This can be done poorly, but so far at least I think Rio has been written well; I particularly like the contrast between her upbeat, peppy attitude and the extent to which her actual life is really miserable.

+1 annoying character get.

Soooo... they only have two rooms. Two has to share rooms. Is this the part where we start the fire on this slow burning romance?

I recall that Ruriko and Kurumi have already shared rooms while their air conditioner is broken. I'm not entirely sure if it's still broken, although the "fwoosh" sound effect near the end of Chapter 20 implies that it's fixed.

It seems as though Ruriko cares for Rio more than I expected, as shown by her uncomfortable reaction when Kurumi brings up Rio's family. It's possible that while Rio is lazy and not above mooching off her friends, her situation may be more dire than she lets on, and possibly not entirely her fault.

YES ADOPT THE FLUFFY AIRHEAD!!!!

Tbh I'm a bit shocked at how many people don't like Rio and this situation. She seems like a fun character who will undoubtedly speed up the progress of these two, what's not to like?

It seems as though Ruriko cares for Rio more than I expected...

Also, Ruriko was always a huge softie, so this development definitely makes sense.

I'm looking forward to seeing where things go. The message from Rio at least had some sense of urgency to it, so while I'm expecting some sort of a red herring, it might not be. Besides, simply her existence has already accelerated the moving of the gears on Kurumi's side, which is great to see. The hug was adorable.

This is why I'm also not fully agreeing with some of the comments that mention how things developed "smoothly" or "naturally" till now. I mean, at least I don't feel that these developments are either manufactured/contrived or particularly bumpy. There was a significant part of Ruriko's life that was fully separate from Kurumi (and vice versa, obviously), it was bound to come into play at some point.

Heh, it would certainly be interesting to see Rio, as ignorant as she is of the exact circumstances of their marriage, happily talk to Kurumi about how glad she is that Ruriko finally got to marry her after pining all those years. :D

Also this. I need this. Need.

All I want to say is that Ruriko's excited armflaps are the best thing.

Rio better make these two dorks go even further beyond so we can actually get some REAL MEAT

I don't really understand what people are so upset about. Rio hasn't even been hinted at being into Ruriko, so I don't see a love triangle on the horizon,

No one said anything about a love triangle. It's that she's annoying and guaranteed to horn in on time with Ruriko and Kurumi. Like they were literally just planning their next ~date~ "bonding day" and now this.

I think Rio has been written well; I particularly like the contrast between her upbeat, peppy attitude and the extent to which her actual life is really miserable.

Time will tell, but KuruRuri finally felt like they were getting close to something important and I can only feel like this is going to be a setback. It's hard not to resent that.

Tbh I'm a bit shocked at how many people don't like Rio and this situation. She seems like a fun character who will undoubtedly speed up the progress of these two, what's not to like?

So far, she's been shown (directly or indirectly) to be loud, immature, lazy, and inconsiderate. It's not hard to infer she'll be an even worse houseguest than she was a restaurant random encounter.

YES ADOPT THE FLUFFY AIRHEAD!!!!

Tbh I'm a bit shocked at how many people don't like Rio and this situation. She seems like a fun character who will undoubtedly speed up the progress of these two, what's not to like?

That she's an annoying pushy self-centred useless brat?

You know, I believe in helping out friends when they need you. But this girl has made a decision to be useless and dependent. She only needs help because she has explicitly chosen not to do anything that would make her not need help.

I have no problem with laziness, I'm lazy myself--if I could live comfortably without either working or IMPOSING ON OTHER PEOPLE, I would. But it's unethical to say, I'm going to do nothing, and sponge off my "friends" hard work. So like, make them work harder to support me. That's not a friend, that's a sponge. An ethical lazy person understands that everyone has the same right to laziness; if I don't like work, it's wrong to impose extra work on others. This kid wants not only to sponge off them, she wants to be high-maintenance while she does so. To hell with her.

Uh oh, taking in a stray.

Well I was genuinely caught off guard on the last page, didn't see that coming. I guess that's interesting.

... people disliking Rio so much also surprised me a little, Fuuka in Doughnuts was way more annoying to me and I felt like I was the only one that hated the character :P I guess different things strike a different nerve

How does Rio afford her travels?

I don't really understand what people are so upset about. Rio hasn't even been hinted at being into Ruriko, so I don't see a love triangle on the horizon,

No one said anything about a love triangle. It's that she's annoying and guaranteed to horn in on time with Ruriko and Kurumi. Like they were literally just planning their next ~date~ "bonding day" and now this.

The mangaka can choose which scenes to depict. If she wants to draw more Kurumi/Ruriko bonding moments, she's still perfectly capable of doing so. If you just don't like Rio because you find her annoying, that's fair enough, though I suspect it's because you're adopting Kurumi's perspective too uncritically.

But this girl has made a decision to be useless and dependent. She only needs help because she has explicitly chosen not to do anything that would make her not need help.

??? She's just unemployed? There's plenty of legitimate reasons someone might be unemployed. This is pretty excessively harsh on a girl we still know very little about.

oh boy, this can either go very very well or very very annoying

??? She's just unemployed? There's plenty of legitimate reasons someone might be unemployed. This is pretty excessively harsh on a girl we still know very little about.

She seems to have been unemployed for multiple years, though, and I think the more telling thing is that she was seemingly ungrateful and didn't bother doing chores even when living at Ruriko's place for free. Then she meets Ruriko again and literally the first thing she does is ask to freeload some more, even though Ruriko is now married. That is... not a good look, to be frank.

Ruriko demonstrating the old adage,
a friend in need is a friend indeed.

oh boy, this can either go very very well or very very annoying

I think it's the latter. Kurumi is kinda like starting to have feelings for Ruriko. She wants to know more about her and etc , but then Rio appeared. I feel like she's gonna be jealous a lot. If Kurumi feels uncomfortable and kinda insecure when they have just met in the restaurant, what's more if Rio started living with them. Also, what if the reason why Rio, as Ruriko said, has a problem with the family was because she likes girl? And then Rio, although it's not clear for now, also likes Ruriko? That's gonna be annoying. Geez, my imagination is running wild
(;ŏ﹏ŏ)

I don't really understand what people are so upset about. Rio hasn't even been hinted at being into Ruriko, so I don't see a love triangle on the horizon,

No one said anything about a love triangle. It's that she's annoying and guaranteed to horn in on time with Ruriko and Kurumi. Like they were literally just planning their next ~date~ "bonding day" and now this.

The mangaka can choose which scenes to depict. If she wants to draw more Kurumi/Ruriko bonding moments, she's still perfectly capable of doing so. If you just don't like Rio because you find her annoying, that's fair enough, though I suspect it's because you're adopting Kurumi's perspective too uncritically.

Yes, she certainly can draw that. I want her to draw that. But the framing and timing of story beats informs their intent.

We just went from a scene where one of them is jealous because of all the things she doesn't know about her wife to a scene where they talk about their next date being a stay-in relaxing time where they indulge in sharing the things they like with each other and then immediately follow that with a scene where the known freeloader (who inadvertently triggered that jealousy which catalysed that date idea) is now begging to stay with them. I don't think it takes any rocket voodoo to know what story beats that sets us up to expect. The author is free to subvert the expectations they've primed (and I hope she does), but it's called "subversion" precisely because it's rare.

Assuming that she's going to disrupt their life, harm productivity of the one who works from home, destroy their date idea merely by her presence, and cause tension between them, isn't "adopting Kurumi's perspective too uncritically", it's just reading the subtext the story presents.