Tsukkomi-machi no Machino-san - Ch. 5

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get jealous because his future wife is too close to Yagi-kun :kek: and his smile makes MC and readers happy :meguu:

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Thank you for translating
 
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I enjoy reading a good slice of life manga from time to time, but this feels like it's missing something.
It doesn't really have a direction. Even in SoL manga, most tend to have a vague sense of direction. Even if a manga is just 'kids playing together and having fun', it still tends to have a goal of 'having fun'. This manga has the MC just existing. And while that's fine, and the story is still fun to read, it leave a sense of emptiness.
 
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It doesn't really have a direction. Even in SoL manga, most tend to have a vague sense of direction. Even if a manga is just 'kids playing together and having fun', it still tends to have a goal of 'having fun'. This manga has the MC just existing. And while that's fine, and the story is still fun to read, it leave a sense of emptiness.
the only way I know this has any sort of linear progression in time is because the month is mentioned at the start of the chapter and it keeps being a different month on the calendar.

Everything else about this is very vignette-centric - down to the fact that, while the ML clearly feels some sort of way about the FL, and you could make a (I think still somewhat thin) argument that she sees him as anything more than an entertaining distraction before she has to go to her sport club after school, there's really no velocity to their overall relationship, because he wants to hang out with his dominoes, and she's the one that comes barging in and brings all the energy to each chapter.

Which, I think is fine, honestly, because it defies a lot of the expected conventions of school-age comedy manga. Leaving out the (for now) explicit "rom-" part of that genre label is a clear departure from so many titles of manga out there, that it feels incomplete to not have it here when it's a boy and girl lead set in a high school.
The boy is even a thoughtful introvert and the girl's a pushy sporty extrovert; two archetypes that are almost omnipresent in romcom manga.

So seeing them interact in a way that could be argued as not-actually/not-quite flirting, on top of the majority of each chapter taking place in a single room with no continuation of events between chapters to represent a clear progression of plot, is where I think that "missing something" sensation comes from, if I'm honest.

This chapter is probably the most overt so far in seeing the ML wish to do things beyond just his dominoes, and I personally am kinda sad about it because I'd hoped this would remain that "clear departure" story that I've mentioned before:

The ML just vibes in his club room alone, playing with dominoes; sometimes a friend shows up, tries to pull him somewhere, and he refuses; then the FL shows up, proposes some wacky scenario, she and the ML banter a bit and he has a comeback for every comment/remark she throws out, and then she leaves for club and he reminisces on how their interaction poses as some metaphor for life/youth/existence/what-have-you ... all without actual romance developing, but rather a strange/interesting/fulfilling friendship that exists solely within the confines of his little walled-in world.

I fully doubt that will happen, of course. But, it'd be neat to see this story buck convention, conceptually, using these characters and this setup.
 

BP

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The rolled up sleeves got me
I came here to post about that. Why do so many manga characters have rolled up sleeves like that? As in, they roll up the sleeves of shirts with already short sleeves? Is it some sort of trope?
 

BP

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It doesn't really have a direction. Even in SoL manga, most tend to have a vague sense of direction. Even if a manga is just 'kids playing together and having fun', it still tends to have a goal of 'having fun'. This manga has the MC just existing. And while that's fine, and the story is still fun to read, it leave a sense of emptiness.
For me, like Machino in the club room, this manga lets me catch my breath.
 
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I think, in ten years, he's going to miss the dominoes more.

After all, this only takes place eight years before The High Emperor of All Mankind, who Traverses the Sea of Ten Thousand Faces Aboard the Legendary Vessel Legendarium, Whose Eyes See All the Soul Hides as the Eternal Angel of the Earth, APRICOT ULTIMATUM EXODIUS IV, rises to power. And as we all know, his first decree was that dominoes, trominoes, tetrominoes and all other n<56 polyominoes were to be banished and burned at the stake.

And, honestly, pentacontakaihexonimoes aren't as fun to line up and knock over, even if they do technically get the job done.
 
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He’s a ghost tied to the dominoes club room so he can’t go to mcdonalds
Hey, that would actually explain his unsettling internal monologues at the end of every chapter!

Also, I feel like my unfamiliarity with the whole Boke and Tsukkomi style of humour makes a bunch of this manga's jokes sail way over my head
 

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