Chiisai Boku no Haru - Vol. 1 Ch. 7 - Losing

[MangaDex]

 

[xyzzy]

What is the author cooking here?

 

[slyss]

What is the author cooking here?

Is the author even cooking anything at all?

 

[Mangamoz]

What is the author cooking here?

Old dusty meth.

 

[Qwest]

This manga doesn't feel like it works with the current pacing. Like it's confused on whether it wants to be a romance or sports manga. It seems like the mangaka wants this to be serialized for a long time hence the slow progress and setting up goals. At the same time though it skips around a lot cause it inherently feels like a short series. Characters aren't very appealing at this point with the only engaging aspects being the height gap and the MC being the big underdog in everything he does but even that gets tiring at some point

 

[Mangamoz]

We're gonna timeskip to her being a olympian champion next chap just you wait.

And she will already be married with kids too cause fuck it add more timeskips.

 

[Loliconi]

We're gonna timeskip to her being a olympian champion next chap just you wait.

And she will already be married with kids too cause fuck it add more timeskips.

And there will, for the 5th time, be a single panel with text in it saying "Yep, it wasn't me. I got absolutely destroyed and didn't get the girl nor the win." Because why not push 24 chapters into 7 like the author did until now

 

[Darkshade13]

This is such a weird story. It's a sports manga that almost never shows any of the sports stuff that you'd think would be important. But it's also a romance manga where there's almost no focus on any of the potential romance. And then we rocket ahead days, weeks, or months at a time to get to the next major event that the story will barely cover in passing.

It's like you gave a full serialization to someone who was only prepared to do one of those page-a-week webcomic releases and they scrambled to try and fill in the gaps with as much light, empty nothing as possible.

I like the idea of it, I'm not sold on the execution.

 

[Mangamoz]

This is such a weird story. It's a sports manga that almost never shows any of the sports stuff that you'd think would be important. But it's also a romance manga where there's almost no focus on any of the potential romance. And then we rocket ahead days, weeks, or months at a time to get to the next major event that the story will barely cover in passing.

It's like you gave a full serialization to someone who was only prepared to do one of those page-a-week webcomic releases and they scrambled to try and fill in the gaps with as much light, empty nothing as possible.

I like the idea of it, I'm not sold on the execution.

Feels like this was meant to be a "trailer' to an actual story.

But it isn't.

This MESS is the story.

 

[sorajomi]

It’s surprising how positive the Japanese comments on Sunday Webry are compared to the comments on here every week.

 

[Darkshade13]

It’s surprising how positive the Japanese comments on Sunday Webry are compared to the comments on here every week.

I wonder if some of that is just Japan. Like criticism and discontent aren't socially harmonious. It's like how in Japan if someone asks you for a favor and you can't or won't do it you're not supposed to just say "no" or "I can't." you're supposed to vaguely allude to difficulties and avoid actually rejecting them with finality until they get the hint and let you off the hook. I can see the same sort of logic applying where unless something is actively terrible you're supposed to be diplomatic and positive in lieu of making any waves or being a jerk by picking at the story.

Or maybe Japan just likes this sort of very sparse "we'll tell you things are happening without really showing it to you" type of story. I know there's an isekai story I read for a little bit. Isekai nonbiri or something like that, where it feels like someone's scripted a literal bullet-point list of plot points with no expansion on any of them. That series has been going on for years and seems fairly popular and I can't figure out why because it's barely a skeleton of a story coupled with passable art.

 

[sorajomi]

I wonder if some of that is just Japan. Like criticism and discontent aren't socially harmonious. It's like how in Japan if someone asks you for a favor and you can't or won't do it you're not supposed to just say "no" or "I can't." you're supposed to vaguely allude to difficulties and avoid actually rejecting them with finality until they get the hint and let you off the hook. I can see the same sort of logic applying where unless something is actively terrible you're supposed to be diplomatic and positive in lieu of making any waves or being a jerk by picking at the story.

Or maybe Japan just likes this sort of very sparse "we'll tell you things are happening without really showing it to you" type of story. I know there's an isekai story I read for a little bit. Isekai nonbiri or something like that, where it feels like someone's scripted a literal bullet-point list of plot points with no expansion on any of them. That series has been going on for years and seems fairly popular and I can't figure out why because it's barely a skeleton of a story coupled with passable art.

On the earlier chapters there’s a few comments saying this manga is ripping off Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, but no negative comments that actually call the manga itself bad, so it really might just be that Japanese people like manga like this one.
It could be that since there’s not really a plot or much of anything else to get into, they just think it’s a nice relaxing read? Who knows.

 

[HawkGoggles]

This story is a literal as "Slice of life" as it can get. Its not about sports or romance buy how the girl effects the MC. You don't need to see the results because that's not the point, its about the means, not the end.

 

[BroxTheMeerkat]

8 chapters in and we already got a love triangle, a training arc, a time skip, a tournament arc, a healing arc.

The pacing is all over the place

 

[shinshom]

im confused honestly

 

[slyss]

I wonder if some of that is just Japan. Like criticism and discontent aren't socially harmonious. It's like how in Japan if someone asks you for a favor and you can't or won't do it you're not supposed to just say "no" or "I can't." you're supposed to vaguely allude to difficulties and avoid actually rejecting them with finality until they get the hint and let you off the hook. I can see the same sort of logic applying where unless something is actively terrible you're supposed to be diplomatic and positive in lieu of making any waves or being a jerk by picking at the story.

No, Japanese people are known to be quite brutal when it comes to online interactions compared to how they are IRL, especially when talking about products or entertainment they consume.
If they don't like or have trouble with a certain something, you bet your ass they will express it online (That's why Japan has been forced to toughen penalties for cyberbullying in the last few years)

Comments, ratings, and the overall online reception of this manga have been largely positive, so they do genuinely like it.

 

[beemie]

The pine needle metaphor, the ml being the underdog, and the fl bringing back up said pine needle metaphor after the ml goes through a major hardship- this has all the components to be really great but the execution is too lighthearted. It doesn't have that really sentient impact that it has the potential for as compared to if this was expanded on, say, like in 30 pages.

Good content but no depth. Like a single spoon of your favorite flavor ice cream- only instead of making you thirst for more, it just leaves you vaguely unsatisfied and asking 'where's the rest of it???'

Gotta say it has it's own niche appeal. If it were too plot heavy, there would be comments saying it was too much/ too heavy on sports/ too heavy on romance. This is light, fresh and airy if you don't mind the quick pace and lack of depth 🤔

Anyways- thanks for the update!!!

 

[Weoooo]

I'm honestly surprised to see people dislike it that much. Seems pretty clear to me: this is a story about how her presence has changed him. He thought he was too short to play volleyball, he decided that wouldn't stop him. He thought he should break himself off because she had that cool childhood friend, then he decided he didn't want to. He was fine just playing, but got inspired to actually get good. He was okay with his team not winning anything, and then decided that they should actually try. In this chapter, he got injured and the team lost, he wanted to power through it to show he wasn't weak, and she got him to realize that he didn't just have one shot. By saying she'd play the game he likened himself to losing at the beginning until she won.

This is a romance/sports story in a way, but it's ultimately about self-improvement. It's paced quick, which says to me they don't plan on this being a 100 volume series. Which is fine! It can be a short manga about how a boy found inspiration to grow because of his relationship with a cool girl he met.

 

[Mangamoz]

I wonder if some of that is just Japan. Like criticism and discontent aren't socially harmonious. It's like how in Japan if someone asks you for a favor and you can't or won't do it you're not supposed to just say "no" or "I can't." you're supposed to vaguely allude to difficulties and avoid actually rejecting them with finality until they get the hint and let you off the hook. I can see the same sort of logic applying where unless something is actively terrible you're supposed to be diplomatic and positive in lieu of making any waves or being a jerk by picking at the story.

Or maybe Japan just likes this sort of very sparse "we'll tell you things are happening without really showing it to you" type of story. I know there's an isekai story I read for a little bit. Isekai nonbiri or something like that, where it feels like someone's scripted a literal bullet-point list of plot points with no expansion on any of them. That series has been going on for years and seems fairly popular and I can't figure out why because it's barely a skeleton of a story coupled with passable art.

They love Rent a Girlfriend over there.

Need I explain more?

 

[KuroeNekumi]

TBH, the pacing makes it seem like the point isn't really about the things that happen, as much as how our MC acts, changes, and grows through them.

After that, that's the only thing that actually gets any proper time given to it: his state of mind, and how through events in his school life it changes. They don't want to prolong some of this stuff for over 90+ chapters, they just go through the mayor beats and go through his thought process through them.

It just feels incredibly weird because we always jump a decently significant amount of time in between chapters (end of one and start of the next), and that skipped time doesn't get a decent explanation most of the time. That really has been my main crux with this manga so far, when by comparison the time skips inside the chapters at least feel a bit more "fair".

EDIT: also, another thing. I remember hearing that sometimes it is important to choose what you show and what you don't. and I feel that is also part of the pacing issue - there's a lot of things that are skipped over which seem at least interesting to see happen...but we just jump them in a single panel most of the time, if not just get it explained with pure text. It's unsatisfying as hell.