Yay, Kou's back!

Now hopefully Rin hits her over the head about her feelings and they get together....

I read the chapter, and it wasn't nearly as confusing as I'd feared. It has two separate but related plotlines and effectively brings the arc to a conclusion. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.

Concurrent plot lines are fine by themselves, but the reason I call it confusing is because of how many plot details happen entirely offscreen and are either never explained or only hinted toward in a single line of dialogue.

There are two big examples of this. The first being the entire situation with the company they're outsourcing to. I've already seen a number of people completely misunderstanding it, such as thinking that this chapter represents all the work the company ever did and that it was a mistake to ever get them involved. Because it's never mentioned that the company has been turning in models that were just fine the entire time before the shit ones came in. Nor is it made clear that there is still a portion of the work coming from them that doesn't have any problems.

The other is the whole situation between Catherine and Kou. Going from "too bad you'll have to give up finishing your design, but Hotaru is plenty capable of doing it" to just casually stating "Hotaru failed, Kou won" as if nothing happened is whiplash-inducing, for one. I get that the author wanted to have Kou coming back be a surprise, and I get that he also wanted to have Kou winning the design war be a surprise. But the end result of him tacking a surprise onto a surprise doesn't seem to be thought out beyond "this'll surprise people!" so the resulting timeline is, at best, nonsensical. Why did Kou decide to give Catherine an answer when she still had so much tine before she was required to give one? Why did she decide to do it apparently a day before she finished her design (given that she was able to finish it overnight)? Why did Catherine already have a ticket for a flight back to Japan leaving the next day prepared? Was she expecting Kou's sudden decision, as well as foreseeing what that decision would be? Why did Catherine send Kou back to Japan one day before Kou finished her design? Why did Kou even have her unfinished design at the house? She clearly wasn't planning in finishing it until Hotaru said something. Did Hotaru just stand there and watch as Kou finished the design in the bedroom they share and not think anything other than "well, I guess I lose now, better give up and not even attempt to finish my own design"? Despite having just reaffirmed her drive to work? Did Catherine, upon seeing Kou's finished work, just tell Hotaru "no reason to finish your own design anymore. You've lost"? That doesn't really fit with how she's acted toward it up til now.

The next chapter only really makes the situation more confusing by claiming that Kou can't help directly on the dodgeball game because she still has work she needs to do for Catherine. Seriously, why was she sent back to Japan when she was? And what other work? Nothing outside of the boss design was ever mentioned as being her current project.

Also notice Kou's wearing the same clothes when she arrives back at Eagle Jump as she was when she departed France. Did she step off a 12-hour flight, go through customs, take an hour-long train ride into Tokyo, then head straight to the company, not even stopping to shower and change, or even drop off her luggage?

I'm sure people can make guesses to the answers to some of those questions, but that's just it; they're only guesses. There's a distinct lack of information not only about what happened, but how and why. It was all specifically excluded for the sake of making a bigger surprise.

last edited at Mar 12, 2020 10:44PM

^Kou never takes showers or change clothes if she doesn't have to, that was established in the first chapter.

Perhaps Hifumi could do some comforting...

You're too optimistic if you think Tokutaro still remembers AobaxHifumi is supposed to be a thing.

Is the source of your statements work experience? If it is, I'd like to work where you do. I find it very dangerous that some people really believe what you wrote is the universal truth.

Because it is. Developers who don't test their code once don't get hired after an internship.

Once you witness it in practice, it makes sense, even if it doesn't make it any better.

No, it doesn't. It goes against the very first lesson taught in every basic beginner coding class. Test your shit, you get nothing out of sending in code you have no idea even works, especially when you are just adding a feature onto a program you were just introduced to.

This lets them very quickly finish their tasks

Except they don't. They are extending the required time and pushing deadlines by constantly having to have someone else recreate and report basic bugs. Then bugs with specific causes will never be fixed, just requiring more manpower and adding more crunch for later.

If the progress is not properly assessed and the supervisors don't see the relationship between the initial task and the endless fixes, people can get away with such an approach, or may not even realize how inefficient they do their job.

Sorry to hear that you had literal children fresh from high school with zero coding experience as supervisors.

The next step is to imagine what happens if the manual testing doesn't cover the feature at all, for one reason or another...

Yeah, would love to know what reason or another they would not test the only feature the programmer was responsible for.

Quality control on all levels is still a massive issue for a lot of reasons, one being that writing the sufficient automated tests, despite all the available tools and libraries, tends to consume more resources than the features' development itself, and it's hard to prove how much work doesn't have to be done later thanks to them. Especially to people with little idea about software development.

Not remotely true in game development, especially when working with a well established game engine. Not testing will always take longer than simply testing the feature, not testing just adds more work for the developer in the long run.

I think it’s hilarious that anyone thinks that real-life coding experience has ever had the slightest relevance to this series.

When it's used to inject drama into a mostly fluffy series I think it's important how believable it is. That coupled with Kou just dropping out and moving to the otherside of the planet just because the company didn't have confidence in a brand new employee to carry the art department for a brand new franchise was the start of the downward slope for the series.

Assuming a reader cares about stuff like that, it must have been heartbreaking.

Because it is. Developers who don't test their code once don't get hired after an internship.

Maybe at companies with standards. There's a ton of companies where they hire anyone they can get and anyone smart enough would run away. I've interned at a startup where the "senior developer" literally told me the users are your testers. Some developers have no standards and it propagates to those they hire

I've interned at a startup where the "senior developer" literally told me the users are your testers.

Sounds like how Bethe$da has been going about game developement for a few decades already... o3o

Assuming a reader cares about stuff like that, it must have been heartbreaking.

You're right, I always make the same mistake assuming the possibility that weebs have any literary standards.

Assuming a reader cares about stuff like that, it must have been heartbreaking.

You're right, I always make the same mistake assuming the possibility that weebs have any literary standards.

Well I know two weebs - I'll just drop the pretense immediatelly and say it's my two cousins from the outskirds of my hometown (also the closest and favourite of all my cousins) - that have no such literary standards. Heck, the older, male one has SAO of all things as his favourite series, so you know his taste/standards are crap!

last edited at Mar 13, 2020 8:41AM

Assuming a reader cares about stuff like that, it must have been heartbreaking.

You're right, I always make the same mistake assuming the possibility that weebs have any literary standards.

Ohh, let's see who can out-sarcasm the other!

What's the betting the Outsource company is only turning in bad work because they're focusing all their resources on that dinosaur game that's competing with Eagle Jump's Dodgeball game?

Assuming a reader cares about stuff like that, it must have been heartbreaking.

You're right, I always make the same mistake assuming the possibility that weebs have any literary standards.

Ohh, let's see who can out-sarcasm the other!

I agree; that sarcasm and negativity is part of the reason why I mostly stopped checking this comments section.

As for why I'm back, Volume 9 was just released in English, and covers Chapter 91-102, so maybe we can create a division for Volume 9. Here's hoping Volume 10 will come out by the end of the year.

Doesn't Kou coming back to save the day like that cheapen Aoba's "arc" in the first half of the chapter (and those before)? She seemed to be stepping up to the task only to end up still being saved.

Perhaps, but one thing I'm interested to see is Kou getting a second chance to act as art director. She still regrets her failure in the past, but perhaps she can do a better job this time. Besides, Aoba's the character designer, so she has her chance, too.

FAIRY STORY 4!!!

And Aoba as character designer. Daaaaym.

shanejayell posted:

FAIRY STORY 4!!!

And Aoba as character designer. Daaaaym.

My theory is... time travelers, some things went very wrong so someone came from the future and made things go back in track hahaha.

Imagine if we get a third anime season and they skip the Hajime game arc with 10 seconds at the start xP like "A lot of things happened but now Yagami is back!" Opening Song starts because... I don't think they'll have enough time in the anime to cover that arc and fairy story 4 with 12 episodes... Well, is just wishful thinking, only the cafe lolis from kirara can get third season, ova and movies.

So will this new cute girl be added to Aoba's harem?

So will this new cute girl be added to Aoba's harem?

Of course she will; everyone is a part of Aoba's harem (except Rin, her heart belongs solely to Kou). The question is, who will be her gf?

Re-reading the previous chapter, the last exchange between Rin and Kou was sooooooo gay.

"Y-you're really coming back?"
"Of course, baby. You're my everything."

It's amazing all my complaints are solved. It's as if the mangaka heard me. Aoba is finally getting recognized and almost back to main POV character, Yagami is back (and back to Rin), Nene is debugging. All is right in the world.

Tama chan totally sounds like something you'd name your cat

Do any of you remember when Aoba x Hifumi was one of the main ships?
Yeah... those are some good memories...

Aoba x Hifumi comes back later, and in a pretty big way.

I still ship it, so I'm glad

Also the new girl Isshiki is cute

Do any of you remember when Aoba x Hifumi was one of the main ships?
Yeah... those are some good memories...

Aoba x Hifumi comes back later, and in a pretty big way.

I still ship it, so I'm glad

Ah, a fellow comrade, I see!

Hmmmm...

Chill dude... geez

The all-caps is the chef’s-kiss touch in brain-damaged cave-dweller expression.