Out of curiosity, is Ritsu the protagonist's full first name, or is it short for Ritsuka? If it's the latter, then that might explain why people call her "Zuka-chan."

I think it's bc of her last name. Tsukada > Tsuka > Zuka

also, according to this tweet, this is indeed the final chapter (of the "main story" if twitter autotranslate can be trusted)
https://twitter.com/ComicNewtype/status/1552852709467881474

Thanks for explaining. I had a suspicion that her last name played some part in inspiring her nickname, but wanted to be sure. The other "Zuka-chan" I'm familiar with is Shirobako's Shizuka Sakaki- "Zuka-chan" to her yearmates Aoi "Oi-chan" Miyamori and Ema Yasuhara(no nickname), and "Zuka-chan-sempai" to her kohais Misa "Mii-chan" Toudou and Midori "Ri-chan" Imai.

I assume that it's the last chapter, since Ritsu accomplished her goal(for the moment) and because of the timeskip to a year later, but I don't see any sort of "Fin" or "The End" that I can tell. I'd like some official confirmation on whether the series is over.

Out of curiosity, is Ritsu the protagonist's full first name, or is it short for Ritsuka? If it's the latter, then that might explain why people call her "Zuka-chan."

This is an interesting premise, but I hope that Kurotori can not only see Aizawa, but also communicate with her. It would be interesting to see what kinds of conversations they might have and for Kurotori to learn more about Aizawa, such as how she died.

I checked the manga out on Renta, and I noticed some significant differences in the translation in which Aita(which is how her name is spelled here) gossips about Takase after Kazema gets fired. Specifically, I'm referring to the panel after Aida says Takase should have been fired instead.

In the JapanStandard translation, one of Aida's coworkers points out that she was always on her side, but Aida replies that it was her obligation, and it would look bad for her if Takase quit(which Takase does anyway). In the Renta translation, Aita is the only one who speaks in that panel, and says that "After all, he(Kazema) did help her a lot with work. I'm the one who has to take the downfall of losing him," which implies that Aita thinks Kazema is more of an asset than Takase is, a bit like how she said in a previous scene that Kazema was good at his work despite sexually harassing his coworkers.

It's a relatively minor difference, since the point of the entire scene is that Aida/Aita doesn't care for Takase at all, but the difference between the explanations for her disdain for Takase are interesting, and I'd be curious to know which is more accurate.

EDIT: There's another instance of this later on in the first chapter. After realizing that Rinko really is nice and that she was just being paranoid earlier, Takase thinks, "It turns out that I'm no different than those who despise me" in the JapanStandard translation, but "She's not like the people I hated" in the Renta! translation.

It's also a bit disappointing that neither translation includes honorifics; I assume Rinko and her grandmother use "-san" on Takase, but it's unclear what, if any, honorifics, Takase uses on Rinko.

All in all, this manga was fairly good, but a bit too short and somewhat rushed as a result. I would have liked to see a few chapters building up Rinko and Takase's relationship, at least a whole chapter on Rinko's old job after some buildup to it, a few chapters between Rinko's grandmother is hospitalized and when Takase stays over with her, at least a chapter or two after Rinko gets transferred, and a few chapters in the denouement, among others. There's a lot of potential in the story that could have been realized with enough time for proper buildup.

last edited at Jul 22, 2022 7:53PM

That's like 4 drama cliches in quick succession (^^) A bit lazy writing wise but it's a short story so I guess the author can't waste too much time kicking things into gear. Oh well, I like the characters enough to get over that pretty easy. I would have liked it even more if they had a bit more time though, it does feel very rushed. I hope they'll get to have a nice conclusion in the final chapter.

That's part of the reason why I think this series should have been longer. If it was, then they could have had an arc about Shiina resolving her issues with her ex, rather than cramming that, Shiina and Takagai's reconciliation and the denouement into one chapter.

Oh fuck off Japan, calling 52.6kg overweight for an adult woman. God I hope no one reads this as a serious weight-loss manga over there, they'll bloody kill themselves.

While I agree that it's probably be better to deal with a more average person, a weight in the lower 40s of kg isn't unusual for a serious, young, female, long distance runner. If they'd said she was a gymnast, if probably would have been more believable, but still not an average person for sure.

And yes, there is a disconnect between the kind of training that a long distance runner does to get there, and the kind of low calorie diet plus light exercise that this manga is using, but that doesn't mean that everything held within is bad advice.

The recipes themselves seem pretty normal for diet food.

I'm reminded of a scene in Sword Art Online in which Asuna and her mother Kyouko log into ALO, the latter for the first time. Kyouko remarks that her avatar feels light, and Asuna says that's natural, since the avatar weighs about 40 kg. They then get into an uncharacteristically lighthearted debate over who's "fat" in real life(which Asuna notes is the first time she's had a conversation about nothing with her mother). Because of that, I found that 40kg as an end goal was rather light, although noting that it's the low end of Ritsu's desired range makes sense.

The anime trailer looks promising, although I wonder what the studio will pick as the stopping point for the first season. The end of the election arc seems like the most logical point.

I can understand why people don't like Kanoko, but we're not supposed to see her obsession with Hime as healthy. Even Hime, who's unaware of Kanoko's true feelings for her, is glad that Kanoko made another friend.

As for Sumika, I think Sumika sees a little of herself in Kanoko, since it's implied that she had unrequited feelings for Nene(although she claims they're non-romantic). Sumika was willing to grudgingly step aside and let Nene get together with Goeido, but then Goeido callously dumped Nene, so Sumika realizes it's not always easy to accept it when the person you love loves someone who may not actually be a good match for them(remember, Hime and Mitsuki's relationship has had its ups and downs, so maybe Kanoko dislikes Mitsuki because she thinks she won't treat Hime well). It helps that Kanoko trusts Sumika enough to tell her about her unrequited love enough for Hime.

Big yikes on the end of ch4. MC probably feeling pressure from meeting the ex and took "couldn't be happier" a little too seriously. Hope it doesn't get gross from here...

In case you're wondering and don't mind spoilers, Takagai(the kohai) tells Shiina(the MC) no in no uncertain terms and Shiina backs off, but this ends up causing things to be awkward between them until halfway through the final chapter.

If you'd like to see it for yourself, go check out the series on Renta! It only costs $2 to rent the remaining two chapters and see the rest of the story. Even the free preview for Chapter 5 resolves the cliffhanger.

I'm a bit tired of the drama on the discussion forum surrounding this chapter. I hope that once more people see how the rest of the story plays out, they'll calm down a bit.

So is "Miss K" named because her name was Keiko and "Miss N" has a name that starts with N, or because she was the eleventh woman the protagonist had feelings for, and "Miss N" is the fourteenth?

given that there's implied to have been a miss A, and B, and C... Yeah they might just be getting named according to each sequential letter of the alphabet.

That's why I considered the sequential letters theory, but I still wonder if it's a coincidence that Keiko is Miss K.

It reminds me of a one-shot by Rumiko Takahashi called "Multiplying Wives." A man named Morishita gets a tail in the mail from Keiko Matsuzaka, which eventually turns into a woman named Aiko- or "I-ko." Morishita marries Aiko, who loses her tail, and eventually, they attend a class reunion hosted by Morishita's classmate Matsuzaka. All the men at the reunion have identical-looking wives. It's implied that Aiko was born from Keiko's tail, and one can assume that each woman's first name is the phonetic spelling of an English letter followed by "-ko."

last edited at Jul 1, 2022 7:09PM

So is "Miss K" named because her name was Keiko and "Miss N" has a name that starts with N, or because she was the eleventh woman the protagonist had feelings for, and "Miss N" is the fourteenth?

I'm not too surprised by how Nagisa turned the other girl down. She was introduced too late and received too little buildup to be a viable love interest.

As for Nagisa and Ai, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of Nagisa getting together with his stepmother's younger sister, but I'm still curious as to how the story deals with this and what the ramifications of their relationship are.

I think this is Yvonne asking Yuna for help because she wants someone to stop her, even if it doesn't help.

Yeah, that's kinda how I saw it too.

So did I.

I'm also a bit curious as to why they ended with Yvonne claiming that she's actually bullying Elsa. Perhaps it's meant to delay Yuna's reaction until the next chapter, but I doubt that Yvonne's statement would be very convincing by itself.

Well, that was dumb. The explanation for the curse doesn't really make sense (Why did it hit Natsuki and not Ai? Why would suicide trigger it? Why is it hitting people she's met once and not classmates?), and as a study of murderers it falls apart pretty badly by the end (No one acts like Aoya, and Tokiko is an iffy take on psychopathy)

Most interesting as a look into the author's growth; it has similar themes to Satsuki, but goes about much of the execution in almost the exact opposite way:

• Walk's pacing is absolute shit past the first volume -> Satsuki is super episodic
• Walk spends much of it's time pretending that a serial killer is somehow a viable explanation for what we saw -> Liar Satsuki Can See Death
• Tokiko is alien and unpleasant -> Satsuki is still kinda alien, but fun and has a more socially-acceptable moral code
• Walk has too many characters, bogging the whole thing down -> Satstuki's supporting cast just sort of disappears when they're not involved in a story

I disagree with the claim that Walk has "too many characters." Six out of 16 die in the first four chapters, which leaves ten recurring characters. If anything, the problem is that most are underdeveloped and lack any real personality.

This manga was OK. It had an oppressively bleak tone and a shortage of likeable characters, but it had an interesting concept and some relatively good plot twists.

Just to clarify, who's the third murder victim besides Aoya and Rina?

Why is this volume so short? It makes me think the next one is the final one, which would suck if it's true

I think it's more that the chapters in this volume have longer pages.

That can happen sometimes. The last volume of Fullmetal Alchemist only has the final two chapters, but since they're long ones(the end of the final battle and the denouement), it isn't any shorter than the other 26 volumes.

That cooking assistant is so sus.

I agree, especially considering the introduction panels, which almost seemed to imply she was someone we'd seen alone. The fact that she's currently with Hinako is also potentially troubling, and I suspect that Ayame will make her move when they're alone.

I'm no expert on law enforcement or solving crimes, but Yashiro and Koga seemed relatively orthodox in their approach to the job, at least by the standards of fictional detectives.

I'm looking forward to the last two chapters. We're probably past the climax of the series, but the last chapters may resolve some of the unanswered questions.

yeah, the moment I saw her sitting at that train station I knew what was going to happen. The author even cleverly put a fence in between Tokiko and the detective so he couldn't actually save her even if he noticed in time.

But yeah, once everyone around her died, she became truly free from obligations and in her case on of those obligations was living wasn't it. Sucks but this certainly is a tragedy centered around death.

True. I revised my prediction the moment I saw Tokiko at the train station, separated from Koga by a fence.

I was personally expecting Tokiko to die at some point, but was personally expecting it to happen in the last or second to last chapter, not with two chapters to go. Then again, maybe the final chapter's an epilogue of some sort.

Eh, I don't think anything will happen. Shiina got into a bad mindset and if there was to be any actual assault aside from desperate "pindown" it would happen now, and not have a "cliffhanger" of this sort.
While of course, this isn't good, I gotta say this is a really neat story. To show how society can pressure you into certain things that affect you even when you're "Not entirely" as the society would like you to be. However odd that phrasing sounds. Even if you just look at it from an age gap perspective, worrying over those things isn't that odd. Although, as I said before, I think there's a lot more pressure on poor Shiina. While it doesn't make what she's doing justifiable, I still don't think it'll be an actual assault.
Also, I just noticed but this scene here is how this entire manga started huh.

And I have to say that after that last scene, the trivia page seemed a bit comical in terms of timing. "Anyway, that sexual assault attempt aside, here's some trivia about this place they had their first date."

I actually once thought that the first scene was from the time when Shiina was drunk, but if you look closely, she's not wearing the same clothes as when she went out to the bar.

I also appreciate how the manga goes into how Shiina feels pressured to get into a relationship, and to a lesser extent, how her sense of inadequacy is worsened by how Takagi, a woman 10 years her junior, seems to be better at her job. The final chapter seems to indicate that while Shiina's a bit sad that she and Takagai can't get married, she's more at ease about her current state. Besides, the fact that she and Takagai catch the bouquet indicate that they might get married soon.

In all fairness to Shiina, while she is desperate, I don't think she'd go so far as to even attempt sexual assault. Once she comes to her senses, she's overwhelmed with remorse.

As for the trivia, that's one reason why the date and the meeting with Takagai's ex should have been in a separate chapter, and then there could have been a half-chapter worth of buildup before this cliffhanger.

Well I cant say it isnt realistic but I seriously wasnt expecting rape. Like what the hell?

It's not rape. Takagai firmly says no, and Shiina comes to her senses and apologizes, but things are awkward between them for the next chapter and a half.

If you're curious as to what happens and can't wait for the scanlators to upload Chapter 5, check out Renta. The chapter preview for Chapter 5 shows the resolution to this cliffhanger, but not to Takagai and Shiina's relationship problems.

last edited at Jun 14, 2022 10:33AM

This is one of those times when it's clear that the manga would have been better off if it had been a longer series.

Takagai's ex is a potentially interesting character, so it's a shame that we don't know more about their relationship, why they broke up and why they're still on good terms.

As for Shiina's desperation causing her to push things forward too quickly, it would have been better if the story built that up over the course of a few chapters, showing her gradually becoming more impatient until she hits her breaking point.

Without spoiling anything, the denouement of the series is also a bit rushed, since the climax is in Chapter 6, and once it' resolved, there's only one scene left to wrap it up.

I like this series, but it would have been significantly better with enough time for buildup and payoff.

I like the character bios. They actually shed light on the cast without telling literally everything about them, and have some interesting points about the character designs.

Shouldn't there be an incest tag?

This author seems to be a firm believer of telling us but not showing us.

Agreed. One of my pet peeves is manga in which most of the details about character come from the character biographies, rather than in the story.