I think Tomoe-chan's my favorite character tbh. She was just fun.
Idk, I don't wanna be too negative, especially after the overreactions earlier in the thread, but this really kinda felt to me like the Monkey's Paw outcome of that "I wish this really nice oneshot got a serialized continuation" feeling. I can sorta see what the author was going for, but something about the execution just didn't sit right with me.
To be honest, all the commentors getting upset with Ritsu kinda threw me for a loop, because at least for the first half, I was very frustrated with Kyouko, and how she felt like an exaggerated, hypocritical version of how she had been presented in the oneshot. In the oneshot, she was like, yes a drunkard who slept around a lot, but still ultimately really thoughtful and trying to piece together her response, along with like, shutting down the shitty homophobic gal she was talking to. But then in the series, she came across as like, even more immature, throwing temper tantrums, getting roasted by her new friends in a way that felt simultaneously way too mean-spirited but that the narrative kept backing up as justified, and just being genuinely unpleasant with the controlling, jealous attitude well before there was any real justification for her to act that way. The last part may just be a Me Problem, since like, that sort of thing really rubs me the wrong way so I'm more sensitive to it, but like, some of their exchanges in chapter 1 and 2 made me sincerely hope this would end in them breaking up. That scene in Chapter 1 where Tomoe asked what Ritsu liked about her and all she could come up with was "a pretty face?" after flashing back to all her most obnoxious moments felt really emblematic of that, and kinda ties into another issue I had. But yeah, I loved her in the oneshot, but after that she felt flanderized beyond likability.
At least, until the chapter that took her POV again, at least, and then it was like, she's back to being a real human being again, her jealousness was (mostly) portrayed as reasonable insecurity rather than toxic posessiveness, and I found myself kinda rooting for her again, which made the Drama Chapters(tm) more bearable. On the whole, despite the first few chapters really making me dislike her, I ended this mostly on her side and willing to chalk that early toxicity up to authorial mistake.
And then on the other side of things, a lot of people were really upset with Ritsu, but honestly my feelings about her throughout was a pretty consistent "meh." Again, she was decent in the oneshot, but after her initial confession, it felt like her... interestingness, for lack of a better word, got disposed of along with her hair. As the aformentioned "A pretty face, I guess?" scene kinda exemplified, the story felt like it undercut any real sense of interest she had in Kyouko that the oneshot had established, and then failed to really bring any of that back. So I can sorta see how it might have come across to people like she lost interest, but to me at least, in combination with the lack of development of that supposed middle school crush, and how Kyouko suddenly felt super controlling and stuff, like her interest in her was really just a shallow infatuation all along with no real basis, and then the rest of the story did nothing to really dissuade that notion. Also why her interest in Makoto didn't really feel to me like a "cheating heart" situation, because the story made it feel like emotionally at least, there was nothing there to really cheat on in the first place. On top of that, the story set up the senpai and by extension the big sister as this big mystery to investigate, which was at least a cool and interesting new direction to take, until they did nothing interesting with it and just made it about Kyouko's jealousy again, leaving Ritsu with nothing really going on in the end. I didn't hate her or anything, I just didn't give a shit about her.
While we're on this, it felt like Makoto's characterization did shift a slight amount too, from a somewhat daffy but ultimately harmless person with some evident face blindness, to this sad, slightly sketchy person trying to use Ritsu as a replacement for Akane. Which was alright, I guess, but I don't like how it basically justified Kyouko's paranoia, (even if ultimately the point was to then counteract that with Ritsu turning her down) and I just enjoyed her characterization right up until the kiss much more.
TLDR? Oneshot was cute and good. Chapters 1 and 2 felt like they undermined everything the oneshot was doing to create a new setup where Ritsu is in a onesided relationship with a toxic controlling flanderized version of Kyouko, while working together with her friend to dig into the mystery of her sister, through a somewhat daffy Senpai with face-blindness. Chapters 3 and 4 then turned the tables on Kyouko's characterization back around to her original version, but failed to course-correct Ritsu or do anything interesting with the new direction. That kiss scene in 4 also did Makoto a bit dirty IMO. And the pacing throughout was so breakneck that none of this felt like natural character progression or evolution, just weird sudden swerves, even the stuff that feels like it should work on paper. So in the end, 5 and 6 felt like an insincere and unearned happy ending after everyone became less than the sum of her parts. Except for Tomoe-Chan, who was fun. I really feel like it should have stayed as a oneshot.
All that being said, thank you Daphie for the work you did on this; despite my feelings on the story itself, you did good with it, and I enjoyed your notes at the end of each chapter a lot ^^
last edited at May 12, 2023 3:13AM
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