Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly. You can't just draw a normal girl, put some glasses on her, and call her ugly. Now I have to just pretend that this character, who obviously isn't ugly, is. When the author of a visual medium forces you to ignore your own eyes in order to buy into their story, they have completely failed.

I don't think she's literally supposed to be ugly even within the world of the story, just not conforming to the fashion standards in Fujishiro's clique.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 2:16AM

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly. You can't just draw a normal girl, put some glasses on her, and call her ugly. Now I have to just pretend that this character, who obviously isn't ugly, is. When the author of a visual medium forces you to ignore your own eyes in order to buy into their story, they have completely failed.

You get the same thing in movies and tv show. Everybody treats the MC like he or she is ugly, when, a lot of times they're the hotest ones. I think, it's because the audience is suppose to empathize with them, and as sucky and shallow as it sounds, most people don't really like ugly people.
Also I think themusicman500 is right I don't Kurokawa is suppose to be ugly just plain.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 2:31AM

Takkyomi posted:

DO NOT trim Kuro's eyebrows. I don't want to see her slow transform into a gyaru.

Serenata posted:

juanelric posted:

^Panty shot? When? I seriously didn't notice.
Either way, this chapter was nice.

I was going to ask the same, didn't notice and I feel embarrassed to read the chapter again for something like that

When she bends over
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/useless_princesses_ch03#9

Oohh.... ((((((nice))))) hahahahaha nah seriously, that's a very random fanservice

Takkyomi posted:

schuyguy posted:

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly.

Besides watamote may you tell me other series that doesn't suffer from this issue?

Gintama.

But yeah, I do get your point, in anime, is hard to make a character look ugly without crossing a line where they can't never look good... So if they say "this one is ugly" we just have to believe it.

Hmmm well, Shingeki no kyojin had some not very appealing characters from time to time... Like Hange, I don't think she/he was made to look good.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 2:49AM

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly.

She's not ugly though. She is just not putting her effort to make up.

She's not ugly though. She is just not putting her effort to make up.

Lots of different people (including her own mother) are repeatedly calling attention to her appearance, in a negative manner. She doesn't look plain or ugly. She doesn't even look like she doesn't take care of her appearance; her hair is tied up, her face is clean, her uniform is neat, there's nothing sloppy or lazy about her. What the characters are saying simply does not match up with what is portrayed in the art. When the author is telling us one thing and showing us another, it better be some kind of deliberate trickery or metacommentary, because otherwise it's simply failure.

This kind of thing happens a lot in movies and especially in theater, because the writer or director or whoever is constrained by the limitations of their media. Plus lots of different people are involved who might have different ideas about what they're portraying. Some inconsistency is expected (though this doesn't excuse the classic example of the "ugly" girl being some stunning actress except with glasses on and a sweater).

But when you're the writer and illustrator of a comic, consistency is expected. This same failure happens all the time in manga. It's similar to the issue where a manga starts off with some random characters talking about the main character, "She's gifted at sports, gets the highest grades, and is beloved by everyone!" or whatever. In that case, it's merely an example of the author being lazy and telling the audience what they should be showing us. Here it's worse, since the show and the tell actively conflict. I'm not saying this ruins the story for me, it's just lazy writing that annoys me.

BUT I LOVE HER EYEBROWS NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly. You can't just draw a normal girl, put some glasses on her, and call her ugly. Now I have to just pretend that this character, who obviously isn't ugly, is. When the author of a visual medium forces you to ignore your own eyes in order to buy into their story, they have completely failed.

I don't know about you, but I still wake up up in cold sweats screaming from the horrifying visions of those hideous eyebrows burned deep into my psyche.

She's not ugly though. She is just not putting her effort to make up.

Lots of different people (including her own mother) are repeatedly calling attention to her appearance, in a negative manner. She doesn't look plain or ugly. She doesn't even look like she doesn't take care of her appearance; her hair is tied up, her face is clean, her uniform is neat, there's nothing sloppy or lazy about her. What the characters are saying simply does not match up with what is portrayed in the art. When the author is telling us one thing and showing us another, it better be some kind of deliberate trickery or metacommentary, because otherwise it's simply failure.

So far, we only saw her wearing her uniform and her mother didn't say anything about her actual physical appearance, just that she wish she would pay more attention to what she wear, implying she wear plain clothes. And other people mostly mentioned her eyebrows when dissing her on a physical level, so I really doubt she's supposed to actually be ugly, just not into fashion nor taking care of herself much and that's enough for a bunch of bitchy high-school girls to call her "ugly".

I agree that there are issues on a lot of mangaka's front regarding supposedly "ugly" characters -in the same way most mangaka who want to do traps just draw a girl and call them a guy without even trying to put in some masculinity- but I don't really get such vibe there because it's obvious that the source is "fashion prejudice".

I'm still digging here for glasses and bloodbath.

so basically she gon be like haruhi and they gon fall in love and that girl from past is gon join

so basically she gon be like haruhi and they gon fall in love and that girl from past is gon join

Can you keep my love life a sekret please?
:>

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly. You can't just draw a normal girl, put some glasses on her, and call her ugly. Now I have to just pretend that this character, who obviously isn't ugly, is. When the author of a visual medium forces you to ignore your own eyes in order to buy into their story, they have completely failed.

eh. Yeah! That usually does bug me more.
There are shows where characters are called fat but never drawn that way. Another where one "NEVER" wears skirts halfway through the show after wearing one for half the season. I may be remembering that one wrong. It was a boring arse show anyway.

Here. I think I was too busy expecting this turn of events, and prepared to bored to death with the makeover arch, that I didn't really think much about the visuals not matching what we were being told at all. Maybe something interesting can come from that boring old arch.

EVERY thing else in this chapter was really good though. I really like the way the lead character's relationship is developing. The lighter haired one is taking an interest in the other and even reevaluating the info she already had. Very interested to see how genuine this interest becomes. She's perusing some recommended manga. Will they click of any of them? What's going to be yuri trigger @_@. Ah. Not to many stories manage to even get me to care this much.

So one of the girls wasn't down for putting down eyebrows and one of the others actually wanted to read a certain manga? Maybe there is hope for them as well. Not necessary but it could be nice!

I'm personally OK with it if it's done to the point of ridiculousness, so you know it's not to be taken seriously. Like in Yamato Nadeshiko - let's have the heroine creepily butcher some fish ... and all those stereotypical bishounen guys ... and aunt departing in a bunch of helicopters while scattering rose pedals .... "Calm down, it's a human!"

Obviously the message is still questionable. But whatever, humor sometimes still has to fuck around with social norms. ^^

Fujishiro is going to be bullied now I bet.

I knew the make-over arc was inevitable because A) that's just the way things are done in this particular romance trope even Girl Friends did it, and B) Fujishiro places A LOT of stock in the importance of appearances so it would be entirely out of character for her not to try to "help" Kurokawa if she cares about her at all. Like yeah, it's a tedious trope with unpleasant implications when played straight but it makes sense here given the characters involved. We'll just have to wait and see how the author decides to play it and hope for the best.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 7:11AM

The “ugly girl doesn’t look ugly” thing is an issue of long-standing in popular culture, although a slightly different one in comics/manga than in live-action.

In TV and movies, producers need to pick from a pool of real human beings trained in acting who have already been strenuously vetted for physical attractiveness, and if you’re going to do that “ugly duckling > swan” transformation, you’ve got to start out with someone swanlike and try to disguise them as a duck (i.e., you can’t even use the very small pool of “the ugly one” character actors, almost all of whom aren’t actually ugly anyway).

But even though comics have a lot more flexibility in depicting a character’s appearance, for some reason they also habitually suffer from that “supposedly ugly but obviously not” problem.

I read a lot of romance comics from the 1940s-1970s, and almost all attempts to portray an unattractive or even “plain” protagonist are truly laughable in real-life terms. Generally the artist just takes the “stock attractive female” figure and gives her something like frizzy hair, freckles, glasses, or what are supposed to be dowdy clothes. (The fact that I’ve known absolutely adorable women with any one or all of those attributes just makes the problem even worse).

Given that manga often have an even narrower range of human faces/bodies than Western comics (in a lot of manga or webtoons I’ve gotten confused about which character is which by losing track of small differences in hair style or color), it’s no surprise at all to see the “ugly isn’t ugly” problem once again.

Whether it’s because of artistic laziness or convention or what I do not know, but it’s truly an issue that’s very widespread and has existed for a very long time.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 8:47AM

It's like the author knew readers would get attached to the eyebrows. This author is devious! :P

Edit: I like that there was at least one person in her clique that wasn't happy the other two were badmouthing Kurokawa. As others have mentioned, maybe Izumi will become a prominent character later on. The other two, on the other hand, can go fuck themselves. Or each other. Either works, so long as it's away from our two Useless Lesbian Princesses and their short-haired (hopefully lesbian) Knight. Can we get a partner for Knight Izumi while we're on the subject? :3

Edit 2: I only just realized that they are literally named Black("Kuro"-kawa) and White(Fuji-"shiro"). Might not be that important a factoid, but I feel like I should have noticed their names sooner regardless.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 10:08AM

I'm personally OK with it if it's done to the point of ridiculousness, so you know it's not to be taken seriously. Like in Yamato Nadeshiko - let's have the heroine creepily butcher some fish ... and all those stereotypical bishounen guys ... and aunt departing in a bunch of helicopters while scattering rose pedals .... "Calm down, it's a human!"

Obviously the message is still questionable. But whatever, humor sometimes still has to fuck around with social norms. ^^

Yamato Nadeshiko also has the message of Sunako being fine the way she is though, horror loving goth creep and all, the only thing she needed to work on was getting rid of her self loathing and realising that she IS pretty regardless of what anyone says, the message feels a lot less wholesome here though.

Noooo, don't trim the eyebrows! Thick eyebrows are pretty!

I think the make over trope is suppose to represent a coming of age moment, where the MC awakens to her femininity. This usually marks the start of the character's interest in boys (or other girls, as the case may be) and dating. It normally brought about when the MC's crush says, something like, I think you would look better with...

For the record the "plain" look does not mean unkempt. It means comfortable jeans and a t-shirt, little to no makeup, and a quick, and easy to maintain hair style. In my opinion I'll take the woman rocking the jeans and tee combo over a the fashion plate runway model any day.

Nooooooooo its going down the exact route I hope it wouldnt

• Otaku girl falling for popular girls "beauty" CHECK
• Makeover time by trimming eyebrows CHECK
• Popular girl making a scene in front of her over-the-top-mean-friends CHECK

I'm still clinging onto the hope that the makeover doesnt happen next chapter

The “ugly girl doesn’t look ugly” thing is an issue of long-standing in popular culture, although a slightly different one in comics/manga than in live-action.

In TV and movies, producers need to pick from a pool of real human beings trained in acting who have already been strenuously vetted for physical attractiveness, and if you’re going to do that “ugly duckling > swan” transformation, you’ve got to start out with someone swanlike and try to disguise them as a duck (i.e., you can’t even use the very small pool of “the ugly one” character actors, almost all of whom aren’t actually ugly anyway).

But even though comics have a lot more flexibility in depicting a character’s appearance, for some reason they also habitually suffer from that “supposedly ugly but obviously not” problem.

I read a lot of romance comics from the 1940s-1970s, and almost all attempts to portray an unattractive or even “plain” protagonist are truly laughable in real-life terms. Generally the artist just takes the “stock attractive female” figure and gives her something like frizzy hair, freckles, glasses, or what are supposed to be dowdy clothes. (The fact that I’ve known absolutely adorable women with any one or all of those attributes just makes the problem even worse).

Given that manga often have an even narrower range of human faces/bodies than Western comics (in a lot of manga or webtoons I’ve gotten confused about which character is which by losing track of small differences in hair style or color), it’s no surprise at all to see the “ugly isn’t ugly” problem once again.

Whether it’s because of artistic laziness or convention or what I do not know, but it’s truly an issue that’s very widespread and has existed for a very long time.

I like your idea, about needing a good looking person to go through the ugly duck/swan transformation, way more than my theory that humanity is petty and shallow, and can't really root for actual ugly person.

I am waiting for the beautifull Kurokawa :)

"Let me pay you back with my body!!"

Definitely no way anyone might ever misinterpret that, lol.

Well I like Fujishiro at least.