OK, this is purely me playing devil’s advocate (I was an early adopter of the “Yundou is into Xiaoen” theory, and still hold to it), but was there anything more explicit in this chapter to support that premise than we’ve seen before?

There certainly was more of the same—statements with implied subtext, significant expressions, meaningful framing and cuts from panel to panel, etc. Is it the quantity of suggestions/focus on Yundou’s feelings that sealed the deal for previous doubters?

Shiho has been the focus of the story for 3/4 of the manga. I always find it funny that some people still hates her but continue to read this manga anyway. If you hate the character that drives the story, why not just drop it? Lol

This repeats the commonplace fallacy that disliking the direction of a story means only “hating” the imaginary person depicted in that story, and that the only rational response is to stop reading.

The several reasonable replies that have already been posted here include, but are by no means limited to:

• Having enjoyed part of the story, a reader might hope that the series might get back on track

• There’s an interest in seeing where the story goes

last edited at Nov 23, 2023 10:52AM

Ngl it’s kinda aggravating how Xiaoxen is such a great (if eccentric) person but pretty much everyone in her life has like…nothing good to say about her, even when she’s head of a farming company and is GOOD at her job almost everyone still thinks she’s a useless adult, her thick skin is impressive for not letting all that talk get to her

That connects to the comment above yours—she’s a woman who doesn’t give off that submissive, respectful vibe needed to qualify as a “good,” or rather “appropriately acting,” person. I think other people do have positive feelings towards her—they just want her to “act normal.” They’ve all (felt like) they’ve had to bow to convention—why does she get away with not doing it?

not enough character growth has happened to justifiy the time and chapters spent.

This is one of the main premises of the argument against this story arc in a nutshell—it’s been far too much ado about, ultimately, far too little.

I know Sensei doesn’t qualify the chapter for a Big Boobs tag, but—gw’an with your bad self, Sensei!

I'm not here to start a debate club with you, I'm just saying for all your going on about quality of writing (which is a pretty subjective thing to begin with), I haven't really seen any arguments for that other than "i don't enjoy how she's written, therefore it's bad writing"

That is quite false, (or else you just haven't been paying attention). As has been mentioned several times before, Dynasty reader feihong has written two longish posts laying out the detailed case against how the character of Shiho has been handled in this story from the point of view of character development and the narrative relation of that character to other characters.

Despite your sneering, no one has claimed to be making the "pinnacle of literary analysis," just that many of the objections to this story are literary rather than simply a visceral dislike of an imaginary person.

At this point some o' y'all are just moving goalposts. Like, I get it, you hate Shiho and nothing she can do or say will ever satisfy you unless she straight-up turns into a completely different character. And that's your prerogative.

But don't act like she's still behaving like she did back when she was introduced or pretend her acknowledging her bitchy behavior (which really, in the end, is just what it was, nothing more) and apologizing didn't happen just because you disagree with her existence period.

Because clearly, your "objective literary analysis" is more tinged by personal views than y'all think it is and at this point it really shows.

Once again, for many of us the issue is not "liking or not liking Shiho" as an imaginary person--it's the quality of the writing, and what the author's conception of the character has done to the overall series.

Yeah you keep saying that but I don't really buy it.

OK, if that's how arguments work, then I think you're lying when you say that you think the series is well-written.

At this point some o' y'all are just moving goalposts. Like, I get it, you hate Shiho and nothing she can do or say will ever satisfy you unless she straight-up turns into a completely different character. And that's your prerogative.

But don't act like she's still behaving like she did back when she was introduced or pretend her acknowledging her bitchy behavior (which really, in the end, is just what it was, nothing more) and apologizing didn't happen just because you disagree with her existence period.

Because clearly, your "objective literary analysis" is more tinged by personal views than y'all think it is and at this point it really shows.

Once again, for many of us the issue is not "liking or not liking Shiho" as an imaginary person--it's the quality of the writing, and what the author's conception of the character has done to the overall series. Shiho's actions and her motivation (which, as you rightly say, amounts to nothing more than "bitchy behavior by a un-self-aware bitchy person") simply are not commensurate with the amount of narrative time and attention she has been given. There's been very little mystery or complexity about her character--just a long, drawn-out process by which the other characters belatedly come to realize what has been obvious to readers all along. (In fact, Yori still has no clue to what the whole mess was about.)

That "you just hate Shiho" gambit is long past its expiration date.

That said, I do think it's fair to criticize the pacing for being choppy and the structure of events to be more like a dumb soap opera than a realistic character drama, which is disappointing when Kodama is trying to tackle such heavy subjects. As a result, while I think this premise had potential to be her best work, it ends up clearly inferior to Segull Villa Days and Fake a Marriage With my Junior. But it is interesting enough to be worth reading if you can handle dark subject matter and mutually toxic relationships.

While this sort of story isn't my main cup of tea, it certainly is interesting as change of pace from the run-of-the-mill yuri story.

But I think it's pretty clear that a lot of readers don't have much (like any) patience with stories about "mutually toxic relationships." In fact, a lot of readers seem to be dead-set on identifying "the good one" (as opposed to "the least messed-up one") in a story no matter how much of a trainwreck all the characters might be. It's remarkable how often people will go to the mat for "[X] did nothing wrong!" when it's pretty obvious that, while X might not have been the worst of the worst, X still did plenty of things wrong.

Indeed. “Good things happen to shitty people for no good reason” is the ultimate in realism.

And honestly, we should be grateful for that. Living in a meritocracy sounds great on paper, but life needs its share of injustice and randomness.

It's no surprise that a defense of the writing in this particular manga would lead to paens to an unjust universe.

Where did you read that Shiho actually feels bad for Yori? I did not get that, her line that there is not really a reason to hate her anymore makes me assume the opposite, actually.

In fact, in the strict sense of the term there was never a “reason” for Shiho to hate Yori in the first place. Yori was unaware of Aki’s feelings for Yori, and Aki was unaware of Shiho’s feelings for her, making for an incredibly weak foundation for the ensuing cathedral of angst.

I guess “Shiho gets what she wants without doing anything to deserve it” is a kind of character development.

Except not everything works that way. Especially not love.

Indeed. “Good things happen to shitty people for no good reason” is the ultimate in realism.

It's not that her manga are particularly "dark" (her darkest is World Without Freedom and I've read much darker yuri) or "realistic" (Kodama's manga are largely soap operas), but that they invite the reader to root for and be invested in manipulative women who deliberately use their beauty, feminine charms, and interpersonal skills to their own advantage, and that is a personality type most people have been socialized to despise on sight.

In fact, in the afterword to “I Married My Best Friend” Kodama draws herself as two avatars, “light Kodama” and “dark Kodama,” (the familiar “good angel/bad angel” images), with “Gentle Romance,” “Silly Humor” and “Boobs” listed for the light version and “Soap Opera,” “Jealousy,” and “Heavy” for the dark, with a footnote saying “Dark Kodama draws boobs, too.”

I’m not sure that completely tracks with Kodama’s body of work (except for the boobs), but that’s how they present it, anyway.

I guess “Shiho gets what she wants without doing anything to deserve it” is a kind of character development.

So a pair of garden-variety manga humor tropes: Sick Episode + Lethal Cook = "Woop-woop! Red flag! Toxic behavior!"

Right.

Knock it off, you won't be warned again.

I want to apologize to the original poster—I did overreact, and did overuse the word “toxic.” I should have kept the topic to the disagreement about how to understand the scene in the manga.

I also reacted negatively to being called names and to having my mental state questioned by third parties, and should have known better than to engage with those persons.

She made a sick person cook for her. :‑< That's not sweet or lovely at all.
I'm sure her temperature went up after all that work.

"Made"--lol.

That's a new world record in the Dynasty-forum "imaginary toxic behavior" Olympics.

And that's this week's installment of metard theatre. Thank you, metard.

An “infinity mirror” post, with name-calling—nice work.

You're getting a bit paranoid, aren't you, dear?
Girl was fine having a sick person cook for her while she watched. Nitpicking on words won't change that.
Denouncing vague forum-wide conspiracies and lapping up the victim role? All signs that you need to take a vacation.

So a pair of garden-variety manga humor tropes: Sick Episode + Lethal Cook = "Woop-woop! Red flag! Toxic behavior!"

Right.

She made a sick person cook for her. :‑< That's not sweet or lovely at all.
I'm sure her temperature went up after all that work.

"Made"--lol.

That's a new world record in the Dynasty-forum "imaginary toxic behavior" Olympics.

And that's this week's installment of metard theatre. Thank you, metard.

An “infinity mirror” post, with name-calling—nice work.

Beautiful. ^_^

This chapter really was all kinds of sweet and lovely, wasn’t it?

She made a sick person cook for her. :‑< That's not sweet or lovely at all.
I'm sure her temperature went up after all that work.

"Made"--lol.

That's a new world record in the Dynasty-forum "imaginary toxic behavior" Olympics.

Beautiful. ^_^

This chapter really was all kinds of sweet and lovely, wasn’t it?

The ending was so damn cute (and their vows were a bit hilarious), that I missed the fact they've got separates room as a rule/wedding vow. Even though it makes some kind of sense due to their respective professions, that's still fucked-up.

Am I the only one who remembers that those wedding vows are the same as their initial rules when they got together except with “If either of us falls in love with someone else, we’ll go back to being friends,” replaced by “We’ll always put each other first, both as friends and partners”?

When they say the vows there’s even a flashback to the two of them writing those rules in the first place.

This has always been a pretty silly series—extremely light-hearted about potentially serious behavior, which has led to a lot of hand-wringing and fine-grained parsing of morality in the comments. But Makino’s perverse sincerity about her feelings for Sensei give it a sort of grounded center, and (to me, anyway) the hand-wavy plot developments are ultimately rather charming.

And then the author’s notes completely seal the deal.

That Flowerchild--always about the mentoring.

Code Red! Lethal overdose of the word "tomorrow"!

yeah the moment Shizuku started thinking about how she couldn't wait for tomorrow to come it was all over. The two of them might get one last moment together where Kaori gets to the end of the story but that's really going to be their last moment together isn't it.

Yes, I think we've narrowed our narrative options to:

• Happy Ending: Kaori reads the final chapter, then she dies.

• Sad Ending: Kaori does not get to read the final chapter. She dies instead.

An option I do not foresee:

• Kaori's operation is a miraculous success; everyone lives happily every after.

Code Red! Lethal overdose of the word "tomorrow"!

I just can't read the words "motivation button" without remembering this. :D

You and me both—I literally envisioned Koga’s “motivation button” that way as soon as I saw the title.