I...uh...don't exactly trust this manga to do this topic justice? I honestly can't decide if it'll be more annoying for this to be a fake-out or a genuine attempt at drama that feels a little unearned.
Yeah, I may be proven wrong but this feels kinda....unsalvageable? either it's a very poor taste fake-out or a tone shift that's very much a blindside. and even if things work out, it makes it kinda difficult to root for an endgame where the main pair end up together because it went from a harmless series that you don't think about too much to a pretty....bad vibes dynamic? hopefully I'm wrong because I liked this series up to this point.
Yeah, that came on a bit too fast. I think I get where the author was going with this. She wants to show that Satou is going through some stuff that Makino, being a generally inconsiderate scumbag, never noticed, thus giving us a reason to care about Satou as more than just an object of the scumbag’s affection. I’m thinking this went so fast because the author doesn’t want to stretch the drama out too long, so she confined most of it to this chapter and the end of the last one. The problem is, the crescendo she had planned was too high for the amount of build up she dedicated to it. It probably would have worked better if we had just seen the scarring later, instead of the actual knife.
I still have hope for this series, though. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I’m hoping that this is going to be used to bring the couple closer. Discussing Satou’s issues while forcing Makino to act a bit less scummy (or, at least, to care about more than just her own “needs”) and confront her true feelings. Only time will tell, though.