^ Agree with all this, except I think the problem has nothing to do with any in-story qualities of the characters (that is, which imaginary person is most to blame) but is just a complete fuck-up by the writer who has introduced a storyline that makes an incoherent hash out of the characters and their established priorities and motivations.

This whole plot development is completely misconceived from the start--Fukami has absolutely no standing to demand anything at all of Kase, and she in fact has spent most of the series at least pretending to ignore her. The scenario should be:

Fukami: "I don't want you to leave!"

Kase: "Sorry, I'm moving in with my girlfriend!"

End of story arc.

once you're living 24/7 with someone there's very little room for miscommunication and misunderstandings

laughs in divorce court

^ Agree with all this, except I think the problem has nothing to do with any in-story qualities of the characters (that is, which imaginary person is most to blame) but is just a complete fuck-up by the writer who has introduced a storyline that makes an incoherent hash out of the characters and their established priorities and motivations.

Yes, I totally agree with you. The characters themselves are "blameless" (I think it's a given, after all it's not like they have free will or anything) and of course it's the author's fault if they're "acting" like idiots.

Like, Kase's senpai isn't an asshole usually, so it's 100% out of character for her to act like that.

The thing is, this could've been an interesting side-arc about Fukami if things played out normally:
- Fukami declares her love and asks Kase to stay
- Kase says she's been dating Yamada for more than a year and she's leaving.the dorm to live with her
- Fukami has to deal with her feelings and the loss of her room mate
- Maybe throw in a new character? Maybe the blonde girl (the one that's always saying she's Kase's rival, I forget her name right now) becomes Fukami new room mate? Maybe they're all ultra-gay and they fall in love?

I dunno, It could've been a nice side plot to explore without turning it into a high-stake drama clusterfuck.

^ Agree with all this, except I think the problem has nothing to do with any in-story qualities of the characters (that is, which imaginary person is most to blame) but is just a complete fuck-up by the writer who has introduced a storyline that makes an incoherent hash out of the characters and their established priorities and motivations.

From what I know of the manga industry, there's probably some editorial oversight taking place that's driving these plotlines.

Kase-san is no longer some cute little indie manga published semi-occasionally on minor-league yuri websites. It's officially hit the bigtime. I can go into Barnes & Nobles half a world away and buy an official English translation of the latest tank.

And once you hit that level of notoriety, publishers start wanting you to craft storylines that match their polling data.

last edited at Apr 29, 2023 8:51PM

As much as I love interlude of Fuuko between Yuni-Nanase disastrous relationship in My Girlfriend is Not Here Today, as much I hate the way how Fukami here freely brings herself between Yamada and Kase, without feeling any kind of wrongdoing.
But...

I don't see this drama as unnecessary. Kase has the big problem to make the borders about her priorities in relationships.
And a big problem wanting to be friendly with everyone (it's not possible in reality).
She looks like having a fear of not being liked. And Fukami somehow tricked her to think Kase needs to make some amends, and now it turns out that Kase is much more liked by Fukami than she wants to be (what an irony!)

Also, I don't see Kase as the winner of the race (even if she wins!).
If she does not come clear with everyone before the race, she already lost her integrity as a person. So, winning the race won't help her and solve anything.
Kase behaves cowardly, hiding behind that race and her physical powers, but she must use her powers of personality to solve her problems, and is she enough mature and spiritually strong enough?

If not, say bye bye. Yamada search for another girlfriend who deserves you.

last edited at Apr 30, 2023 7:21AM

And Fukami somehow tricked her to think Kase needs to make some amends

This is “Somehow, Palpatine returned” levels of bullshit plotting, though.

As I believe I’ve suggested before, the author could have thrown in some kind of hand-wavy university-or team-specific rule or expectation about changing roommates that wouldn’t make Kase come off as the biggest airhead/most inattentive girlfriend in the world. The situation is:

• They’ve been talking about living together for years

• Yamada had found a good apartment in a crazy-tough housing environment

• Time is of the essence for taking the place

• Fukami had been at best a distant presence in Kase’s life

So her demand that Kase stay in the dorm comes almost out of nowhere (“almost” because readers were somewhat aware that Fukami was falling for her roommate, but Kase had no clue about it), but more importantly, Kase’s response makes it seem as if she doesn’t care about Yamada and their life together at all, which we know from the rest of the story just isn’t true.

Sure, Kase can be a ditz who has trouble setting boundaries, but this jacks up those personality traits several orders of magnitude from being an occasional annoyance to a relationship deal-breaker.

^
I understand now the situation better. Thanks for the excellent observation and facts about consistence of the story. Yeah, it's all true what you said in your comment above.
You entered in much deeper levels of understanding this manga than me and I respect your opinions.

Anyway, to add, I call stories without logical sequences - pure evil. It can be done by author, a censorship, or mistakes in translations, or anything else what seriously damages story.
Usually, when I see a black hole in the thread of the story, it's always a signal for me to use a magnifying glass and examine real intentions and what is hidden. But here, I really have no idea how to emotionally respond to the story. And what "hidden" I might find?

If you say in a case of this manga it's all about author, I can agree. Because I can't remember if I ever felt so much inexplicable rage to any other manga-situation than to this in few last chapters. Truly, pure evil, and after all fluff how we found ourselves in situation of "what should be an occasional annoyance now became relationship deal-breaker" (paraphrase of your words)
Let's wait and see what comes next (upon us)...

last edited at Apr 30, 2023 7:22PM

Note; the scanlators changed the last page of Chapter 31 from this to this since it became clear that Fukami didn't (properly) confess just then.

last edited at May 21, 2023 11:38PM

Note; the scanlators changed the last page of Chapter 31 from this to this since it became clear that Fukami didn't (properly) confess just then.

Thank you for the notice!

If Kase redefines the race to "I'm definitely leaving, but if you win I'll tell you why"... that still won't change that they missed a good apartment because of her stupidity, but it'll be a marginal improvement.

Please just get this over with already

last edited at May 22, 2023 2:38AM

Kase-san is managing her, basically. she wants to get out from under without crushing her spirit. I now think she needs to talk more honestly and openly with Morning Glory about it, though.

author-san surely has the ninja sub-class with how effortlessly they are out here assassinating their own character and killing their stories potential.

why must we take the long route of having the side character slowly realize their feelings only to then be rejected instead of the short route of revealing that her crush is taken by another girl which forces her feelings out quickly bringing the conflict to its emotional conclusion?

This arc is just frustrating and makes me hate Kase, I can't take much more of it.

author-san surely has the ninja sub-class with how effortlessly they are out here assassinating their own character and killing their stories potential.

why must we take the long route of having the side character slowly realize their feelings only to then be rejected instead of the short route of revealing that her crush is taken by another girl which forces her feelings out quickly bringing the conflict to its emotional conclusion?

I agree with this wholeheartedly. None of this tracks with Kase’s established character—I can almost see the puppet strings when Kase does things that that the previous fictional person would never do.

Why is Kase like this?! Auuggh. Really hate this arc so much.

I hope she trips or something. Doesn't matter which of them, either would do. Both would be better.

Kase has been so dumb this whole arc, I can’t decide if she realised Roommate confessed and was trying to let her down gently, or if she was oblivious to the romantic confession.

Following this arc is still suffering but it looks like Kase is committed to moving out no matter what and probably coming out no matter what so I guess progress is progress.

oh my god kase's not the only one being stupid. roomie doesnt know that she herself is gay. she said that to mean "as a friend" but she doesnt know that she doesnt like kase as a friend. oh NO

Don't want to spend the rest of this year focusing on this race....

That the pain of a bi-monthly(?) manga that we have to endure.

oh my god kase's not the only one being stupid. roomie doesnt know that she herself is gay. she said that to mean "as a friend" but she doesnt know that she doesnt like kase as a friend. oh NO

That's a very Japanese way with dealing things, like giving someone a second chance to walk back a statement or hinting you don't want to do something without saying it directly.

Suki is a very convenient word for that, and aishiteiru is not that commonly used.

Kase isn't particularly thrilled about coming out when she's living with another woman in a school dorm, nor does she want to out anyone else.

Note; the scanlators changed the last page of Chapter 31 from this to this since it became clear that Fukami didn't (properly) confess just then.

Thank you for the notice!

If Kase redefines the race to "I'm definitely leaving, but if you win I'll tell you why"... that still won't change that they missed a good apartment because of her stupidity, but it'll be a marginal improvement.

Yeah, that's where I am at too. We're begging for crumbs at this point.

why must we take the long route of having the side character slowly realize their feelings only to then be rejected instead of the short route of revealing that her crush is taken by another girl which forces her feelings out quickly bringing the conflict to its emotional conclusion?

Also, agree but I think that's because this apartment move now feels like an end-game event, and she's stretching out the build-up to it, in an attempt to make it seem like a journey with an "earned" conclusion. I think it's been done terribly but I think that's the idea. I wouldn't be surprised if this all ends when they finally move in together. Last version was only 24 chapters.

last edited at May 22, 2023 9:19AM

this apartment move now feels like an end-game event, and she's stretching out the build-up to it, in an attempt to make it seem like a journey with an "earned" conclusion. I think it's been done terribly but I think that's the idea. I wouldn't be surprised if this all ends when they finally move in together. Last version was only 24 chapters.

You may well be right—maybe this is supposed to function as a last obstacle before a cohabitation finale.

But what a botch job—if the story needed more chapters, who among us wouldn’t have been fine with a bunch of lovey-dovey scenes of Yamada and Kase establishing their love nest and then a housewarming party with callbacks to the side characters?

For years this series/franchise has been among my all-time favorites, and while the second series was definitely more uneven than the first (and the jealousy theme did become annoyingly repetitive), I never expected such a radical swerve into a ditch as we’re getting here.

Following this arc is still suffering but it looks like Kase is committed to moving out no matter what and probably coming out no matter what so I guess progress is progress.

What? How do you get that? She still hasn't called off the race so I wouldn't call that committed to moving out. As for coming out, this chapter was her tripling down on staying in the closet. Not only did she kept lying about her boyfriend. She also needed to qualify every mention of like, whether it's hers or her roommate's to make sure her roomie didn't think for an instant that she might be gay.
This chapter was Kase completely failing to make progress at anything, as is the norm for this arc.

Fukami is just too adorable in her uselessness.