So yeah, this ending is what I have been expecting for several chapters? Edit: Honestly, I don't really see how you could make it longer if you wanted to. Brick wall is brick wall, yo.

Just saw this part of the original post, but the story definitely could have been a bit longer. While I don't think it would be as long as Octave was (maybe 1 more volume), Akiyama could always surprise us because I think there were plenty of parts Octave could have ended perfectly fine before it actually ended (and it could have continued on even longer than that!).

She loves drama so she could easily written in more conflict. I think we would have had more time to wallow in Kashiwai's angst. Had more time to see her push and pull with coming to terms with polyamory and how she could or couldn't fit into the polycule. Maybe get a few chapters of Tsuzuki's headspace or more conflict between Kashiwai and her coworkers. We'd be able to see Kashiwai coming to terms with her sexuality and how she met her new partner. Basically we'd see the same story, but with more time to breathe and to let actions and feelings settle in between the arcs.

I know a lot of people would groan at the dragged out angst and drama, but I live for that shit and I love how Akiyama Haru tells those stories.

(>_<);;

I feel the side characters would have a bigger appearance in the story. And there were a sudden change of pace throught the story too. So I disagree, it is plausible to think It was axed, even whithout the author's comments about it. The real question is: why the annoyance by people saying it was axed?

I actually like the story. Contrary to what other people have said, the plot feels whole and complete despite being only 10 chapters. Both women grew from the relationship, both understood what they want and stayed true to it, and them moving on with life with no regrets to what could have been. This is one of the stories that gets tiring and turns into a convoluted mess when you prolong the narrative (I'm looking at you, Domestic Girlfriend), which is why I think it's a perfect ending for both of them.

I wish we got to know the wife a bit. I don't think she even got a name.

Yikes, this was fricken awful. There goes several months down the drain.

Yikes, this was fricken awful. There goes several months down the drain.

You spent several months reading this? It only took me like a few minutes per chapter. ;p

Announcing the story is going to end doesn't mean it was cancelled, it just means it's going to end. Every story gets a "here is when the end is" announcement. That's not evidence of cancellation.

I disagree that it's obvious. There's no hanging plot threads, every character played a particular role in the story and all of those roles were fulfilled. I genuinely see no evidence that the story was cut short.

https://twitter.com/_akiyamaharu/status/1574969638495977472?t=V9iIUt6MVSTRa6tAAL3Fkw&s=19

https://twitter.com/_akiyamaharu/status/1574969640572227586?t=TE5ZPTX9d6jiHbb5CwPX-A&s=19

Based on her announcement on twitter (through machine translate) it reads like she wanted to continue on longer. I don't think she would word it like wanting to focus on writing the end so she won't need to write more and writing it so the readers would have been happy to have read it if it wasnt cut shorter than planned.

Yeah, I went back and read them. I don't see how you're getting that at all. Some of the fans say they wanted to continue longer, and she responds with pretty generic "thank you" messages, but that doesn't say anything about how she feels. She says she hopes to create a good manuscript and that she hopes everybody likes the story. She estimates how long it will take to write the ending. There's nothing about the language in either of those tweets that suggests she had to cut it short.

Ofc I could be wrong and maybe someone who understands Japanese can give more clarification, but I think it was axed. Looking at some of the Japanese reader's tweets reacting to her announcement, it seems like they believe it was axed as well.

Yeah, but this entire topic of conversation is about how I believe people are just assuming that it was cut short without any evidence, pointing out that Japanese people are doing the same thing doesn't actually mean anything. It would be one thing if they were citing evidence, but can you show me a single example of such?

Akiyama Haru loves her slow burn and the first 5 chapters of het would not have been that dragged out if she knew it was ending in only 2 volumes. We only got 1 chapter from Tsuzuki's pov which I'm sure we would have gotten a couple more of if it had continued longer. I think the fact that it doesn't feel axed to you is a testament to Akiyama's writing skill.

You are assuming that she meant for this to be a slow burn because Octave was. But like....there are also several one shots on her resume. Not every story from an author is necessarily planned to be the same length. Her other series are 3 and 4 volumes long. Octave is her longest work by a big margin, I think it's easy to argue that it's not necessarily representative.

And again, how would this be longer without fundamentally changing the characters? I'm just not seeing it.

I feel the side characters would have a bigger appearance in the story. And there were a sudden change of pace throught the story too. So I disagree, it is plausible to think It was axed, even whithout the author's comments about it. The real question is: why the annoyance by people saying it was axed?

I'm not annoyed by people saying it was axed, I'm annoyed by people assuming something without any evidence.

For example, why do you feel the side characters would have a bigger appearance in the story? They don't have any hanging plot threads or unaddressed developments. They are exactly as involved as the story would lead you to believe they are, and there's not really much they could do that would change the outcome in any way.

It seems to me like you just wanted more, and you're projecting that on to the author regardless of what she has said or indicated.

There is a sudden change of pace because the story hit a crisis when Kashiwai is confronted with the fact that she's not happy being one of three lovers Like I said, when a car is driving towards a wall, things are going to change fast once it hits. That doesn't mean the wall is a surprise. You can see it coming. It's a wall.

I'm not even saying I know with certainty that it wasn't cancelled early, but I think it's worth it to point out that there's not really any evidence to suggest that this isn't exactly the story Akiyama-sensei wanted to tell.

TEMP's post brought me a deeper moving of Iberis which point out some misty feeling I can't tell by myself. Really enjoy the post TEMP has ever posted. Appreciate for it sincerely.

I feel the side characters would have a bigger appearance in the story. And there were a sudden change of pace throught the story too. So I disagree, it is plausible to think It was axed, even whithout the author's comments about it. The real question is: why the annoyance by people saying it was axed?

I'm not annoyed by people saying it was axed, I'm annoyed by people assuming something without any evidence.

For example, why do you feel the side characters would have a bigger appearance in the story? They don't have any hanging plot threads or unaddressed developments. They are exactly as involved as the story would lead you to believe they are, and there's not really much they could do that would change the outcome in any way.

It seems to me like you just wanted more, and you're projecting that on to the author regardless of what she has said or indicated.

There is a sudden change of pace because the story hit a crisis when Kashiwai is confronted with the fact that she's not happy being one of three lovers Like I said, when a car is driving towards a wall, things are going to change fast once it hits. That doesn't mean the wall is a surprise. You can see it coming. It's a wall.

I'm not even saying I know with certainty that it wasn't cancelled early, but I think it's worth it to point out that there's not really any evidence to suggest that this isn't exactly the story Akiyama-sensei wanted to tell.

Heavensrun, I always appreciate your well-reasoned posts, and I especially share your desire for specific textual evidence to support assertions about a story.

But I’m going to go the other way this time and say that it just feels like there was the setup to a longer story here. Probably not primarily in terms of plot/event, but a more nuanced development of the MCs’ feelings and perhaps more reactions from the side characters. There’s no hard evidence for that feeling, it’s true, and failing a declaration by the author about whether or not the series was cut short, there can’t really be such evidence from the story itself.

It’s just that given the overall pacing of the beginning chapters, although the final destination turned out to be the same, the ending really does seem like a local commuter line suddenly turned into a bullet train. :-)

Akiyama Haru loves her slow burn and the first 5 chapters of het would not have been that dragged out if she knew it was ending in only 2 volumes. We only got 1 chapter from Tsuzuki's pov which I'm sure we would have gotten a couple more of if it had continued longer. I think the fact that it doesn't feel axed to you is a testament to Akiyama's writing skill.

You are assuming that she meant for this to be a slow burn because Octave was. But like....there are also several one shots on her resume. Not every story from an author is necessarily planned to be the same length. Her other series are 3 and 4 volumes long. Octave is her longest work by a big margin, I think it's easy to argue that it's not necessarily representative.

And again, how would this be longer without fundamentally changing the characters? I'm just not seeing it.

I answered the how it could be longer in this response where I also acknowledged that it probably wouldn't be as long as Octave was even if it continued further.

I think we just have to agree to disagree on whether we believe it was cut short or not. I think it's pretty rare in general for authors to publicly acknowledge their story was axed and most of the time we readers can only rely on how the pacing of the story feels to us. I know there's a lot of series where the the ending is rushed because the author wrote themselves into a corner, or they were just done with it or they had planned on a short story from the start so I understand how you feel when people throw the "axed" comment on everything, but I just don't feel that for this series. The pacing and tone from the chapters before the announcement to after the announcement was just too different and unusual from the pacing I'm familiar with of her other works (aside from Octave).

https://twitter.com/_akiyamaharu/status/1574969638495977472?t=V9iIUt6MVSTRa6tAAL3Fkw&s=19

https://twitter.com/_akiyamaharu/status/1574969640572227586?t=TE5ZPTX9d6jiHbb5CwPX-A&s=19

Based on her announcement on twitter (through machine translate) it reads like she wanted to continue on longer. I don't think she would word it like wanting to focus on writing the end so she won't need to write more and writing it so the readers would have been happy to have read it if it wasnt cut shorter than planned.

Yeah, I went back and read them. I don't see how you're getting that at all. Some of the fans say they wanted to continue longer, and she responds with pretty generic "thank you" messages, but that doesn't say anything about how she feels. She says she hopes to create a good manuscript and that she hopes everybody likes the story. She estimates how long it will take to write the ending. There's nothing about the language in either of those tweets that suggests she had to cut it short.

I got the impression of axed from her tweets since it kinda read to me like "It's gonna end soon even though I know the story just started so I'm gonna do my best to complete all the plot lines in these last 3 chapters." That's my interpretation of it. You had a different one and that's cool too.

last edited at Dec 28, 2022 1:06PM

Just go and find a way. If you can’t find it then just create it ;)

BEST ENDING! The author did very well to end this in this way; I couldn’t have asked for anything else

And then there's the origin of the word, where harems were comprised of women having sex with a noble and looking pretty in his estate in exchange for luxury and a high social standing. More prostitution than romance

To be clear, this origin is a misconception. That understanding of the word comes from Europeans' orientalist imaginings about Muslim harems. The origin of the term is in describing a part of the house where only women and children are allowed. In the time before slavery was abolished in the Islamic world, this did include concubines, since they were women. It was more domicile than personal brothel.

You can probably imagine how and why Europeans got creative with what harem meant.

I agree with many others, and applaud the Akiyama Haru for wrapping this up so skillfully with such short notice.

last edited at Dec 29, 2022 10:31AM

wth is this..... till the end, it pain (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

I actually like the story. Contrary to what other people have said, the plot feels whole and complete despite being only 10 chapters. Both women grew from the relationship, both understood what they want and stayed true to it, and them moving on with life with no regrets to what could have been. This is one of the stories that gets tiring and turns into a convoluted mess when you prolong the narrative (I'm looking at you, Domestic Girlfriend), which is why I think it's a perfect ending for both of them.

I agree with this. maybe a bit more condensed than I would be happiest with, but everything in the story is more mature and reasonable than you'd expect from such a premise. it's certainly quite the colorful way to realize your engagement isn't right for you lmao. I think it leaned well into the importance of communicating, ultimately I was satisfied after reading

BEST ENDING! The author did very well to end this in this way; I couldn’t have asked for anything else

Really? I sure could! I really, really wanted Nanami and Mitsuki to end up together! Would this fit in with the theme of the manga? Hell no! Had I been very happy, if it were to end that way? Hell yes!

Heavensrun, I always appreciate your well-reasoned posts, and I especially share your desire for specific textual evidence to support assertions about a story.

But I’m going to go the other way this time and say that it just feels like there was the setup to a longer story here. Probably not primarily in terms of plot/event, but a more nuanced development of the MCs’ feelings and perhaps more reactions from the side characters. There’s no hard evidence for that feeling, it’s true, and failing a declaration by the author about whether or not the series was cut short, there can’t really be such evidence from the story itself.

It’s just that given the overall pacing of the beginning chapters, although the final destination turned out to be the same, the ending really does seem like a local commuter line suddenly turned into a bullet train. :-)

That's fair enough.

I just think there is already a bias people should take into consideration when reading fiction, a tendency people have to think that because they wanted to see a longer story, clearly the author intended it to be longer and was somehow cut short. This isn't the first time I've felt like people were overly presumptive about how a series came to an end. The word "axed" seems to crop up at the end of nearly every series at least once, and sometimes it's clearly accurate, but a lot of times I think it's at least very ambiguous. I usually ignore it or lightly remark, but in this case, it stuck with me because I feel like the ending is pretty logical to the story, heavily foreshadowed, and there just aren't any loose ends.

You are assuming that she meant for this to be a slow burn because Octave was. But like....there are also several one shots on her resume. Not every story from an author is necessarily planned to be the same length. Her other series are 3 and 4 volumes long. Octave is her longest work by a big margin, I think it's easy to argue that it's not necessarily representative.

And again, how would this be longer without fundamentally changing the characters? I'm just not seeing it.

I answered the how it could be longer in this response where I also acknowledged that it probably wouldn't be as long as Octave was even if it continued further.

Ah, sorry, I forgot to respond to that at the time because I got distracted by the giant picture of an axe underneath. ;p

I mean, I'm sure, if I wanted to, I could construct an entire side narrative to pad the series out, about how the coworker is actually secretly in love with someone, and I could dump in several more secondary characters and pretty much make it last forever. But the question here isn't "is that a thing you can do" the question is "was there any reason to think the author was going to?"

I mean, at the very least would you agree that it is plausible that this is the story the author intended to tell?

I think we just have to agree to disagree on whether we believe it was cut short or not. I think it's pretty rare in general for authors to publicly acknowledge their story was axed and most of the time we readers can only rely on how the pacing of the story feels to us. I know there's a lot of series where the the ending is rushed because the author wrote themselves into a corner, or they were just done with it or they had planned on a short story from the start so I understand how you feel when people throw the "axed" comment on everything, but I just don't feel that for this series. The pacing and tone from the chapters before the announcement to after the announcement was just too different and unusual from the pacing I'm familiar with of her other works (aside from Octave).

I'm happy enough to agree to disagree on this. I appreciate the acknowledgement of my perspective. Personally, I think a lot of series that were explicitly cut short still manage to have satisfying endings, and a lot of stories that end on their own terms fall apart at the end. "This series was cut short and that's why the ending is bad" isn't really a valid excuse anyway.

(side eyes "My Unrequited Love")

I just don't think it's weird that the pacing and tone would change, the announcement was basically "we're coming to the end" and that is naturally when many stories go through rapid developments.

I got the impression of axed from her tweets since it kinda read to me like "It's gonna end soon even though I know the story just started so I'm gonna do my best to complete all the plot lines in these last 3 chapters." That's my interpretation of it. You had a different one and that's cool too.

Fair enough, no hard feelings over it.

This series leaves me satisfied after reading it. The length is just right

Who's the glasses woman at the end?

At least the ending isn't that bad as Octave's

last edited at Dec 31, 2022 12:47AM

Who's the glasses woman at the end?

At least the ending isn't that bad as Octave's
Mitsukii's wife. You must have missed the point where it said "3 years later," and the wedding photos.

last edited at Jan 1, 2023 11:55AM

I have just picked this up and it feels like a well written train wreck. It's looking like a what a scums wish should have been. Not my thing either way but as train wrecks happen, I can never seem to look away.

I can always respect and author that's willing to do justice to this kinda story.

Okay so having read this I can say, it was at least pretty okay. Nothing too grand but it was a competent piece and even if only ever so slightly, thought provoking. It's a very 7 out of 10 piece and I feel like I am being kind there. The ending (9-11) just kinda happend and I feel like we could have gotten more ta the point where she realises that she was just fooling around and them wanting different things. It was kinda handled as maturely and competently as I could expect at this point so still, I will say it's a decent read, the opening chapter looked like it was building up to something with more grit to it but perhaps that's my fault for jumping the horse, yeah, still okay though.

I am a touch disappointed by some of the comments here, the hatred towards the author feels ill mannered to me. Like this obviously isn't for everyone and that's fine but I don't think fictional mediums that feature things you don't like should result in this, idk.