Excellent. Now Matsuri can ask for permission to become Mrs Sunflower.

Probably more of that "King"'s goons? I'd assume the girl from last chapter somehow comes into play, otherwise why introduce her ...

e: Duplicate p9 in the ch.22? Well, I guess it's a rough sketch of the same page ...

last edited at Aug 22, 2022 3:31AM

Ditch the younger sister right now.

I get excited every time even though I know it's going to just be two pages and leave me wanting.

Very meta, considering how the villainess and the heroine seems to go about their sex life ...

Really need some chapters with just the two of them now. Having the gang around is fun and all, but ...

As others have said, he fell in love with her at first sight

What he's actually talked about initially was her photography. Specifically a picture she took of Ms Sunflower (because there's only a dozen people in that universe so of course). It's only later in the chapter that Miss Sunflower kinda connects the dots for him, and actually is basically a scene that's right at the heart of the conundrum: given that Miss Sunflower literally says she loves Ayame in it. But nobody would go "ooooooh" at that. It's just taken as some sort of female friendship affection. Meanwhile part-time-dude is embarrassed by the idea of being in the same category because of course for him it's immediately romantic.

Either way I don't think anyone's debating he isn't into Ayame. It's just that there's nothing there regarding her. He's there and useful and clearly she doesn't hate him, but that's about it ...

https://yokai.fandom.com/wiki/Kesaran-Pasaran

Yeah, I got an entire farm of those under my bed and behind my book shelves. Somehow they are growing without makeup powder though ...

So the get-drunk-forget-everything-cliche and the sudden-rival-appearance-cliche in one chapter, huh.

Eh, a m³ of water doesn't even cost a Euro - not sure what it's in Japan, but let's assume a similar range. So that's what, max. 10€? Plus probably actually easier to clean than sheets and beds and such, and while the water needs more frequent replacement the pool itself probably doesn't need nearly as much maintenance ...
... I mean, I'd find it sorta unrealistic because such a pool would be very, very heavy and thus expensive to integrate into a building. But if you got that covered I don't think it'd be too much of a hassle. Possibly the biggest hurdle just the time to empty it and fill it up again.

it's been built up since way early on.

If by "built up" you mean "he exists" then, yeah, I guess you can call that romantic development.

I find it a bit annoying since it's the typical yuri-isn't-serious sorta vibe; where Ayame is obsessed with Ms Sunflower but obv. that's not to be taken as anything of substance. It was the same earlier on with basically all the various "pairings", only recently-ish it pivoted to take them as something more serious than "they are just being cute together".

Meh.

It’s the same way dramatic irony works. The readers know something’s up while the characters remain ignorant, which adds tension as we brace for an impact we know is coming. Shifts the tone a little, gives us a heads up so twists and changes don’t feel like they’re cheaply coming out of no where, and makes us wonder what exactly is going to happen that makes it all go downhill.

I'd argue it does the opposite of all of those things. It's just flat out "here is how it is", so you know all of those things in advance - there's no twist or change in the first place since the direction has already been announced.

At most it adds this fake tension you speak about, but that's rarely better than tension of the unknown. It's not like readers (as demonstrated in this thread) are so blind that they don't see that something is going on here without having it spelled out ...

last edited at Aug 12, 2022 8:43AM

Still too much Nii-san and not enough Matsuri.

I sense artist limitations, especially with short-haired girls...

Might have been a bit of a gimmick, if we're being a bit generous.

You in danger, girl. Be careful making critical opinions about music around these parts!

You are only allowed to have an opinion on what comments are acceptable, that's what all the cool kids do. Having preferences towards music is totally cringe and uncool.

I don't know. This felt like a very long chapter for very little, and that entire cliche "school celebrity" thing is a bit ... meh, even when dressed up in fantastical elements.

I do like the eye thing though. They are just occasionally fire, don't worry about it, perfectly normal eye things. (:

Ok yeah that is pretty cool but imagine how awkward it would’ve been had she missed

That would have been a 200% better outcome; the awkward moment where you know she's for once deliberately tried to impress and then couldn't. Would have indubitably be fiendishly cute.

I don't get why authors do this sorta "spoiler" for their own work ... I can't think of a single instance where it improved any sort of narrative. Just takes away any sort of curiosity about how things will work out.

Also Shizuku digging her nails into Ichio's leg and then playing it like a guitar was the highlight of this chapter haha.

I'm sure it was meant to convey something other than sheer comedy, but if so, I can't say it succeeded for me ... xD

That chapter was just kinda weird.

That setup indeed was almost comedic in how "in your face drama backstory" it is so far. I really feel they missed a trick with her coming home to find her pet dog dead too ... oh, and also, it should have rained. All the time.

I too like complaining about complaints, thus multiplying the complaints. The only thing better is complaining about complaining about complaining; at that stage it's basically exponential complaining and soon nothing else can be talked about ...

imo the first chapter should have followed one pair through the school, and you'd get to see the others sorta in the background. That way the theme of everyone being their own protagonist could be displayed, you'd get to see that clearly some more is going on, but it wouldn't necessarily "spoil" all couples and you'd already get some sort of progression and without forcing anyone to immediately remember far too many characters.

Eh, way too much thrown in just randomly in ch.1. Maybe it'll actually sort itself out afterwards, but that was one lazy first chapter for sure ...

Nice, nice. Could be interesting/fun. Hopefully has some twists and turns and not just some gags.

inb4 Al-kamil holds an insanely petty grudge against Aria for not buying her sweets when she was younger

They've subverted this way too often already. Now I want the opposite; make it something completely messed up. I don't know, turns out that Aria murdered her entire village, then turned Al-Kamil, just to torture her for centuries afterwards. ^^

♫ ′Cause falling in love
is so hard on the knees ♫