Isn’t the point of most harem anime that the MC eventually has to choose the “right” girl?

Yeah - kinda. This whole trope would be tied in with the traditional love triangle, in which the different romance partners represent opposing values: "Do I marry the rich and handsome count, just like my family wants, even though I don't love him - Or do I run away with the dangerous outlaw, who I have passionate feelings for, but who can only offer me a life of uncertainty and instability." - And then the story will be about the character exploring these options, discovering their up- and downsides, and finally reaching a decision.

Now this classic setup works well enough for a single volume of a novel, but when you have a long running series this would get stale very fast. There is only so much you can explore between two options. So a lot of harem stories try to compensate by just throwing in more and more love-interests - What about option 3? What about option 4? In the end the protagonist is of course still expected to choose one of them - and I don't think I have seen one of these series where his choice isn't one of the initial two (unless it is a true harem ending, which does indeed happen sometimes).

Can't say I am a big fan of harem series either for this reason. A lot of them are just watered-down love-triangles.

"And we wound up on a deserted island."

... how far from the beach did they go on their tiny boat thingie?!

Wouldn't surprise me if they just washed up a bit further down the shore from the hotel, and just jump to the conclusion that they are on a deserted island because some trees block the view to the building.

So - there is that moment when Ouma's hair changes color, and she suddenly forgets what she had been doing. Right after that she suddenly start noticing that Toudou is haunted. I assume that means that Ouma had been haunted by the entity up till that moment, and that it jumped to the next host at this point.

i think the entity is Toudou's pevert friend as you can see her behind them when they are talking i forgot her name

I don't think so, because Ouma already saw the aura of Toudou's pervert friend in the past clinging to her body, and this current entity seems something entirely new.

So - there is that moment when Ouma's hair changes color, and she suddenly forgets what she had been doing. Right after that she suddenly start noticing that Toudou is haunted. I assume that means that Ouma had been haunted by the entity up till that moment, and that it jumped to the next host at this point.

Is her being haunted by some terrifying entity a new plot-point? Or is that something that got set up in one of the previous chapters and I just forgot about it?

Would be kinda funny if every single member of her current harem ends up leaving her for one reason or another, and she just ends up alone after having been handed a buffet of potential partners.

So chapter 5 and 6 had already been out two years ago (just never got translated). Are there any news on whether the manga is out of hiatus, now that the translation got picked up again?

The two characters explicitly had a relationship prior to the earliest scenes in the story, so it's natural for me to include the implied information about what that was like in how I describe the characters. If someone else wants to do something different, like focusing on explicitly depicted information only, then it's not my business to tell someone else how to enjoy a story. Nonetheless, the other stuff is part of the story and setting the author has carefully prepared for us.

The entire discussion was specifically about this chapter - how Niji had been somebody that some people could sympathize until this point, and now became villainous in a not fun way right here specifically. That was the initial post you quoted and answered to, so yes - we would of course look at this chapter and what happens here.

I do think she cares about Remu and values their relationship.

Like I said - I do not think she cares about Remu at all - at least not in the current chapter. Maybe she did at some other point, but right now she only cares about herself, and this shows itself very clearly in the way she speaks - never expressing any actual concern for Remu, but only focusing on herself, and how Remu's action reflect back on her.

Maybe she will come to her senses in some later chapter and be deeply apologetic, but right now she is just acting out of pure selfish desire. We'll have to wait for future chapters to see how things turn out.

last edited at Oct 6, 2025 11:25AM

I could be misunderstanding, but I don't think this is a celebrity stalker situation where she came up with the fantasy and then pursued Remu. It appears more to me like that Remu became part of her friend group, Remu was a safe person who filled a need in her life, and from there she started to push more fantasies and expectations upon Remu as she started to think of Remu as necessary for her.

Yeah - I think there is a misunderstanding. Celebrity stalkers are of course the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about stalking. That's completely natural, since those are the cases that newspaper and TV reports will happily cover - but the vast amount of stalking happens of course between completely normal and everyday people. They can start out as work colleagues, casual acquaintances, or friends. And the psychological mechanism that motivate stalking can of course pop up in slightly different contexts as well.

In the case of this manga Niji doesn't stalk Remu at the start - it's rather that we see her slip more and more into this sort of thinking/behaving. They are regular friends at the start, with Niji working through her feelings through the work of fiction she is penning, but we can also see how this fiction is becoming more and more important to her, how the intense emotional attachment to the fiction begins to affect her, and how it starts to gradually replace real life. We also see how this kind of unhealthy thinking is starting impact her actions and behavior - culminating in her crossing a moral boundary in this last chapter.

Also I wouldn't even go so far as to say that she truly believes in doing what's best for Remu. It might be that we are completely on the same side here, but the phrasing just doesn't sit right - since it does make it seem like you are saying that this is her motivation (which you have clarified you don't want to express with this). I would rather say it like this: Niji tells herself that she is doing the best for Remu to justify her own immoral actions. This might all just be word games at this point though. It seems like we mostly agree on what is going on.

Now I can't really tell where this is going to lead. It is possible that the manga will make her come to her senses, and truly regret her actions and thoughts - but I could just as well see this manga going to some dark places with Niji completely losing it. Like I said - I don't really think that we'll see murder or physical violence based on how the story has been so far, but it has touched on some pretty heavy topics. It is possible that not all characters come out of this story clean or partially redeemed - and Niji is currently the one character who has been pushed most towards being an outright villain.

I certainly never said Niji is virtuous or that this type of behavior would be beneficial to others.

And in fact, no character's perspective is based on reality, as this is fiction. If one isn't interested in the perspective of a major character in a piece of fiction, I guess they will not enjoy the parts of the story involving that character, but I will still talk about that character if I want to do so.

Edit: Also, I agree that this type of thinking, when taken to the extreme, can lead to murder etc. The same can be said of many typical human traits. I even described one thought process through which someone can appear as the aggressor to others (with murder being an extreme example of aggression) while thinking of themselves as a victim.

The reason why people talk about this character is because she is interesting, so I'm not really sure what you are talking about. Morally bankrupt or outright evil characters are interesting - including the psychology behind them. I saw this discussion being more about something purely technical: Is Niji motivated by wanting to protect Remu or wanting the best for Remu (and just following these goals in terrible and misaligned ways)?

And my answer was and remains - no - she is not actually interested in Remu's wellbeing. She is merely interested in protecting her idealized fantasy, which is an extension of her own desires (at least at the time of the current chapter - things like these can always change as the story progresses) - as evidenced by her actions and words.

last edited at Oct 5, 2025 9:29PM

She clearly believes she's helping Remu return to her original personality.

As for her trying to control Remu, yes, but she's not self conceiving of it as controlling Remu. She hasn't been depicted as thinking, "I know the real Remu is different than in the story. How can I blackmail and manipulate her to pretend she's like that so I can enjoy myself more?"

Controlling behavior in real life is usual not the result of some psychopath concocting elaborate schemes. It's more often because they think there is something they need to be okay that's being denied to them. Because of that, they feel scared or angry and try to get whatever that is. When someone stops them, they see that other person as the aggressor, even if to everyone else they look like the real aggressor.

Ah - I see where the confusion might be coming from.

So let's start of by saying that nobody this far believes that Niji is a psychopath, or anything close to that. I believe her psychology has been presented more closely to that of a stalker thus far - with a lot of her behavior and thinking matching up very closely to well known cases.

One fundamental thing here would be her elaborate fantasies, and how they begin to supersede reality. This is something we can commonly see with stalkers - where they have these highly detailed mental worlds about their victim. In these fantasies the targets of their affection are seen in a highly idealized light (perfectly matching the stalkers own taste), and of course as holding deep affection for the stalker.

Now having these fantasies is in itself not harmful, and rather common. To some degree a lot of people might work through their social or parasocial relationships by indulging in some sort of fantasy here and there. For a stalker however the fantasy becomes more and more consuming, until it starts replacing actual reality. This is a process that we see Niji going through - working out her crush towards Remu through fiction, but this fiction becoming more and more important and real to her. She understands Remu far better than anybody else. This fictional version of Remu is the true Remu. And so on.

Now - with a stalker - if they find out that their fictional account of their victim does not match up with reality, they will choose this fiction over reality, making up some sort of excuse why this idolized person does not behave like they are supposed to. For Niji this would be the "meddler" who is corrupting Nemu, pulling her away from her 'true' self - harming Nemu in the process.

By framing things like this - so they align with their fantasies - the stalker can then justify to themselves all kinds of morally reprehensible actions - violence, kidnapping, murder. Now these are all pretty dark, and I don't think this manga will push things this far, but we do see Niji stoop to blackmail and emotional violence - and she will probably frame this as her doing something good, as her protecting the 'true' Nemu, but that is of course not what actually is going on.

Niji is not really interested in protecting Nemu. She wants - needs - to protect her fantasy, and the fantasy version of Nemu - both of which are of course only extensions of herself and her own desires, so in the end she is only interested in protecting herself. We see this through her actions and words. Instead of trying to focus on Nemu, its all about herself - how she feels - how she has been hurt.

I don't mean to say that she does any of this intentionally or knowingly. It is all purely subconscious - but it still means that her underlying intentions are not based on some sort of misguided virtue, but purely on a selfish desire.

Up until now, I could still somewhat sympathise with Niji. But with this blackmail plot, she's actively villainous—and not in a fun way.

If we consider from Niji's perspective, we can realize she still likely cares about (her idealized) version of Remu. She knows almost nothing about Azuki and believes Azuki is taking advantage of Remu by grooming her to act differently. From what she's seen, Azuki looks very bad, so she wants to save Remu. In fact Azuki, has made morally questionable choices by getting involved with a student this way.

The very obvious info to readers is that Azuki is not particularly taking advantage of Remu and that Niji is the one holding Remu hostage in order to force her to act like a different person. Niji may feel very bad once she realizes this, but for now we need her to make more bad choices.

On mangadex, I joked that we needed Remu to become more traumatized to catch up to the older characters. Niji is helping us out.

I don't really see this interpretation. Just from the way she acts and talks it doesn't feel like Niji wants to save or protect Remu. She is presented as way more concerned about her own self and how her own misaligned fantasies have been disrupted.

"What about me?" "Was it fun lying to your friends?" etc. - This does not at all read as somebody acting out of worry and genuine concern, but somebody acting out of spite and with a false sense of ownership over another person. It's not about Remu's wellbeing - it's all just about Niji, and what she wants or thinks she deserves.

The margins of the chapter say "volumes 2 and 3 will drop together".

Yes - that's the printed volumes I assume. Volume 1 was chapter 1-5, so Volume 2 and 3 will cover chapter 6-14.

last edited at Oct 4, 2025 9:43AM

Am I missing something? We've got one last volume still, right? The end of the chapter mentioned "volumes 2 & 3 dropping together"

I am afraid not -according to mangadex chapter 14 is sadly the end.

I mean - I like this kind of horror vibe, but the sudden tone shift makes me worry about whether the manga might somehow be struggling - trying to find new readers by going into radical new directions.

I don't know what to think about the focus on food in the final dialogue - maybe I'm reading too much into it. On its own, it's innocuous, but considering she gave food to A'wu even when that wasn't what she needed, looks maybe like some kind of pattern. Sex or food is what she gives when she wants to avoid something/distract?

It reads to me as a sort of inability to communicate, which ties in with the 'That's not what I meant' comments from A'wu. Instead of actually talking or working through problems she falls back towards these acts that satisfy more base needs - sex and food. It's an avoidant personality trait. Dealing with all these crushing emotional issues is hard, but dealing with those base needs is easy. You are hungry - you cook food. You are aroused - you have sex. So unable to deal with the hard emotional issues she leaves them unresolved and instead tries to focus on stuff that is more easy.

So if she jumps right to having sex after hearing of A'wu's death at the end that is her once more trying to avoid doing the emotional work, and opening up to her new girlfriend about this. It is not her feeling happy about this death, or her consciously pushing her old relationship away, but her being unable to do this kind of hard emotional work.

It is a very dysfunctional trait, and will most likely lead to a similarly dysfunctional relationship. Not sure I's call it outright toxic though.

last edited at Sep 19, 2025 9:17AM

Feels like exactly the type of manga I'll enjoy. How long do you think it'll take for our MC to find out that the girl she fell in love with actually had a crush on her female best friend?

What if the tsundere's role is literally 'tsundere', and her task is to be mean to a person she likes, or something along those lines.

Okay - so Megura will turn out to be Yakou's sister, and the girl that Yakou is trying to recreate with her doll will actually turn out to be Azuki's younger self from when she was dating Megura. Pretty much 100% convinced this will happen.

I don't really get you, isn't Azuki trying to recreate Meguru from her perspective

Azuki is trying to recreate Meguru, but I was talking about the doll Yakou wants. The doll that Yakou is dreaming of in the latest chapter looks awfully close to a younger version of Azuki, so my theory is that she somehow met or saw Azuki during the period when Azuki was dating Meguru, and that impression is now starting to mix in with her ideal dream doll.

Remu was adopted into Meguru's family, just one year before the events of the story (ch 2). So she could not have met Azuki through Meguru.

Ah damn -totally forgot about that. It all would have fit so nicely on a narrative level, and that doll she starts to remember just looks to much like Azuki.

Okay - so Megura will turn out to be Yakou's sister, and the girl that Yakou is trying to recreate with her doll will actually turn out to be Azuki's younger self from when she was dating Megura. Pretty much 100% convinced this will happen.

I don't really get you, isn't Azuki trying to recreate Meguru from her perspective

Azuki is trying to recreate Meguru, but I was talking about the doll Yakou wants. The doll that Yakou is dreaming of in the latest chapter looks awfully close to a younger version of Azuki, so my theory is that she somehow met or saw Azuki during the period when Azuki was dating Meguru, and that impression is now starting to mix in with her ideal dream doll.

last edited at Nov 8, 2024 5:04PM

Okay - so Megura will turn out to be Yakou's sister, and the girl that Yakou is trying to recreate with her doll will actually turn out to be Azuki's younger self from when she was dating Megura. Pretty much 100% convinced this will happen.

Also are they eating ... flowers on page 28 chapter 8?

They are sucking out the sweet nectar, which apparently is a thing kids do in japan (and maybe elsewhere as well? Only ever saw this happen in manga)

last edited at Aug 18, 2024 6:40AM

Monster girl yuri harem? I can already see Takahashi getting jealous about her new rival, while also completely denying that a monster like her could ever have these kinds of emotions.

pg. 228 - The big reveal: Mona is always giving Shion head