It's her name, Kawai Ino.

I'm not sure comparing it to architecture is the best example. Even the best game designers don't always notice everything they could do to improve design until after they've actually tried it out for themselves. And Hajime is still learning.

That's why it seems a safe bet that they were likely given a deadline with a lot of extra leeway in the case they go over.

Her entire assignment is to make a minigame to be included in the final product. That is the entirety of what her hiring will be evaluated by. If the minigame ends up being too uninteresting and is cut from the game, she would have failed that assignment in the most literal sense.

Why wouldn't they want to see how well a programmer is able to work with the design team to produce a final product?

If she werent so singlemindedly obsessed with speed, maybe she'd realize there are other ways of looking at it. The mechanics being made more complex just gives her a better chance to show of her coding skill. And that's another thing they might be looking at. Rushing to turn in something really simplistic might not impress them as much as well-coding something much more difficult.

I don't know where you're getting this "only getting one project done is going to ruin her evaluation" thing. At no point did anyone say they'd be graded on how much work they get done. Just on how well they perform on their assigned task.

Umiko isn't really an apt comparison, as she takes that attitude for completely different reasons, as she has clearly stated, and she actually does care about making the product better. Naru only seems to care about getting things done as assigned, damn the final quality.

And the thing is, Naru can't even be sure they're evaluating her so heavily on speed. Since she's doing actual work for the game they are making, they might put more emphasis on the total quality of the final product. So she'd be screwing herself by trying to rush out something that ends up being poorly-designed.

It's less that she spoke up and more about how she said it. Like, what purpose does bringing up Hajime's own status at the company really serve there other than to be a not-so-veiled jab at her?

Addendum: If she'd simply asked how breaking the deadline would affect her evaluation as a provisional employee, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much. But she had to do it in a very passive-aggressive and nearly condescending way.

last edited at Sep 1, 2017 1:49AM

I just can't see Hajime as being nearly as in the wrong as some other people are. It's Hajime's job to get the minigame past inspection. If she turns it in for inspecting and it isn't good enough for Hazuki, at worst the work will be outright rejected, while at best Hazuki will demand numerous changes of her own (or just say "try a bit more"), which would cause even worse delay.

Hajime seems to have a firm grip on when the deadline is "on paper" and when things actually need to be done by, and a good idea of the kind of things Hazuki might find lacking. Naru wanting to turn something in way ahead of schedule to impress people is the least of her worries. Hajime has a much bigger picture to worry about, while Naru only cares about herself. (Not realizing that in the long run, worrying about the bigger picture could actually end up making her look much better)

But even if you do think Hajime is being completly terrible, calling Naru "100% correct" is absurd. There are clearly better ways she could have handled it, and better ways she could have put it. Acting bitchy and essentially insulting a senior staff member that is supervising you to their face when you've barely been there a full month is never what I would call "being correct" in your actions or attitude.

I am genuinely curious how much longer people will be able to contine defending Naru's actions amd attitude.

last edited at Aug 31, 2017 10:43PM

Their student project game is actually probably the least believable thing in the entire manga.

Naru seems to only care about making games with Momo, which would explain why she treats the current project, where she's not doing that, almost like a school assignment. Which is again problematic, because Momo is going into graphics, so they won't be directly working together on just about anything.

Honestly, the entirety of Naru's aspirations seems to be "Momo wants to make games, so I want to join her", which makes some of the extreme lengths she goes to accomplish it and how serious she takes it seem a bit absurd.

And makes her seem even worse for being so condescending about Nene's reason not being serious enough.

Granted she may have more reasons, but that's all she's actually given. And she hasn't given any other characters the benefit of a doubt, so why should she get one!

I'm not sure Umiko is really comparable. She gets mad at Hazuki more for the unapologetic nature and tendency to run away from actually taking responsibility. She never actually refuses to do them. Because she DOES want to make the game better. She just hates Hazuki's attitude.

Casually insulting someone and then praying that nobody says anything that might make them think of ways to make it even better is not really a good attitude to have. And it's not really a programmer's job to be driving members doing the game design and planning. The higher-ups in the planning department are responsible for dealing with those delays.

Let me put it this way: finishing the project but then it being judged as not meeting a high enough standard of quality as a minigame to be included in the final product WOULD get her a lower evaluation then being thrown around a bunch, but still managing to produce something that is included. So secretly getting mad at people for saying things that lead to a better final product (even if it means more changes) does not seem like a good attitude to have. I would think you would want the final product to be as well-designed as possible. Especially since it's the only project she is being given, and her hiring is going to be decided entirely based on it alone.

And we've seen how strict Hazuki is toward game elements being fun and interesting.

Trying to pick fights with every single person you've worked with so far is not really what I would call very forward-thinking.

In truth, all Naru really cares about at the company is her own image, and fuck anything that might make her look bad.

Except she's so singlemindedly obsessed with it that she kinda loses sight of what would actually make her look good.

Think of it this way. If her 3 month review comes up, and all she has to show is a single minigame she reworked several times, she will need her supervisor to state she had to rework it due to new ideas coming up. Now if the supervisor decides to dodge blame for their own convenience, and claim all rework done was because of poor quality, then Naru could potentially be fired. Naru has been at the company for a couple weeks, so probably she doesn't know yet that Hajime is actually a lovable womanchild.
This actually happens. Ideally, companies expect teams to grow by having bosses teaching the job to those directly below them, so once the boss retires or gets promoted, said employee will get their old boss' place. In reality, some people with no aspirations or real chances to grow beyond their intermediate leadership fear losing their job to skilled newcomers, so purposely undermine them.

With how obsessed Japanese companies are with official paperwork, dodging the blame would be difficult. Naru has the paperwork requests from Hajime showing requested changes, and the compiled code on the server showing she turned it in several times, so that seems like a bit of a stretch for her to be worrying about.

I mean, I know exactly what she actually is worrying about, but I am trying to be very careful to avoid any referencing upcoming events.

I think you're missing a key point here, though. This isn't a personal project given as a test like Nene's. This is a piece of work that is actually being put into the final game. That isn't the place to be trying to show off. Even if she turns in her work quickly, if the minigame itself ends up not being up to quality because she didn't want to make last minute changes and be late, that affects the image of the entire company.

Also, this is a programming team she is trying to get on. Being asked to make last-minute changes and working past the original deadline is basically their job description. What would actually impress them more? Turning in something early because you threw a fit over having to make changes? Or being able to handle those changes, even if it means being a bit later?

Plus, Hajime's not even involved in evaluating her job performance. Getting mad at her about it isn't going to achieve anything. Naru should really have been consulting with Umiko about how she's been asked to make modifications that could push the deadline. But that would look like she's complaining, affecting her image with the one person who actually matters.

Also, getting annoyed at people is fine, but acting all petty and catty because of it is not proper workplace conduct. That's high school conduct. In the workplace, no matter how much you hate someone, you still have to work with them, so you should at least act cordial. Those kinds f workplace feuds can seriously affect productivity.

Trying to pick fights with every single person you've worked with so far is not really what I would call very forward-thinking.

In truth, all Naru really cares about at the company is her own image, and fuck anything that might make her look bad.

Except she's so singlemindedly obsessed with it that she kinda loses sight of what would actually make her look good.

It could be much worse. They could arrive on day 1 and instalty one-up all other established characters. You know... kind of like what Aoba did to Kou in a year.

To be fair, Aoba did that mostly out of luck, accidentally forgetting to remove an image she'd done as a bit of playing around. And it's a bit difficult to call it one-upping Kou, as she would never have been able to get her designs through in the final competition without Kou helping with them. If Kou had ignored her and continued trying to come up with her own designs, Kou could likely have won.

And as a side note, whatever you may think of Hajime constantly adding to the work, Naru was needlessly passive-aggressive and condescending about it. Not a good attitude to take toward your direct supervisor when you're a provisional employee.

And remember that Hajime is new to that kind of work, too. It's certainly her first time being fully in charge of something, and it may even be her first time working directly with the programmers. Of course she'll grope around a bit.

I am not so sure it's that she's dense so much as that she has absolutely zero interest in romance at the moment, and thus is not even looking for those cues around herself.

I think you're misreading (or maybe somehow the translation got messed up), but she actually said that she was basing her judgment on what it would be like to be around boys solely on her imagining of what it would be like.

Not that she fantasizes about being with them.

This chapter is the reason I chuckled to myself at everyone immediately proclaiming those two "best character" as soon as the showed up in the prologue.

Does it really show her hiding? Her face is out, and she's waving, drawing attention to herself.

Someone without prior knowledge of the game would likely not associate that image with "infiltration".

As far as composition goes, Aoba's is more simplistic and doesn't quite convey the theme of the game as well. It's not as easily understandable what is going on to people who don't already know the game.

It would be better for an artbook than for an advertisement.

It really speaks to how faithful the season 1 anime adaptation was that the author can introduce an anime-exclusive character for the first time and everyone is confused, seriously remembering that character appearing in the manga.

I know that just having a TV Tropes Ho Yay page doesn't count for much... but K-On has a TV Tropes Ho Yay page. That's pretty much why I watched it. I do remember being disappointed 'cause there was not nearly as much yuri as I would have liked from something which I had been led to believe was yuri (but which is not), but I still watched it to the end 'cause it was still a pretty solid anime.

So you're less mad about it being yuri-bait and more mad that someone lied to you about it being yuri at all.

last edited at Aug 13, 2017 2:10AM

I don't recall Haruhi showing any sort of romantic interest in girls outside of enjoying teasing the one girl. Which can't really be called romantic.

Lucky Star was a product (and embodiment) of the moe culture at the time and was pretty clearly never really meant to be serious in that aspect.

Tamako had one character say a single ambiguous line. You'd need some actual development on the point before you could seriously call it anything.

K-ON was... well, I don't really remember anything actually going very far into even the realm of subtext outside of Mugi looking at everything with yuri-goggles. But it's been years since I watched it.

I honestly don't recall there being the slightest yuri aspect in chuunibyou. Though I didn't really like it so I never watched the second season.

People have complained about unresolved gay subtext for ages now, it doesn't mean they want to read the same story over and over, just that they feel the relationships in the story aren't being treated entirely respectfully (YMMV on the RIn and Kou dynamic).

I want to be fair to people, but I've seen people drop series and complain about them for absurdly general reasons, such as the simple existence of male characters or explicitly straight characters or the fact that a series has no romantic element at all. (Not even unresolved subtext; I mean series that have essentially no subtext at all without reading way too deep in to things.)

Which is a bit more than just whining about unresolved subtext. It's demanding that every series be a serious romance containing exclusively homosexual women.

And honestly, after seeing how specific some of the complaints can get, it starts getting difficult to take many of them seriously.

For instance, I recall there being complaints when NG introduced Hana-chan in the spinoff. A male character who you could not make less threatening if you tried. Who was on-screen for all of two pages. Exclusively in the bonus material.

last edited at Aug 12, 2017 2:46PM

Romance isn't even one of the genres for the series. It's all secondary stuff for extra character development.

It's like reading a hot-blooded battle manga and complaining it doesn't have enough comedic gag elements.

Yeah I totally agreed with that.

I've noticed a certain segment of users seem to have extremely narrow tastes and loudly complain about anything that doesn't fit those. They seem to only want to read a single genre, with stories that follow a single pattern of plot developments and characters that fit into a single set of archetypes.

Which I guess is fine if people want to read essentially the exact same thing over and over again, but I don't think they really have any place complaining about things which aren't that.

And with that in mind, it's much easier to ignore them.

Romance isn't even one of the genres for the series. It's all secondary stuff for extra character development.

It's like reading a hot-blooded battle manga and complaining it doesn't have enough comedic gag elements.

Everyone's surprised it's a double release, but could you imagine splitting these chapters? You'd get cut off right in the middle of a conversation!

Which I'm pretty sure he only did because they ran together in the same magazine issue.

I'll be curious to see how the cat scene changes in the anime since everyone already knows about the cat.

That's strange, actually, since everyone in the manga already knows about the cat as well.

Its pretty clear that Kou is the only one there who has ever seen it before.