Dore ga Koi ka ga Wakaranai - Ch. 48

[shemper]

The editor's or author's note for the last chapter says, "The contenders for Mei's heart go down by one again..." That "again" is important. The Teacher saying "maybe we'll meet again" is often a form of rejection, just as Mei saying she can't travel right now is still a rejection of Kaoru. They could undo this stuff later, but I would treat both as rejections narratively.

The again could be for the kissing girl for all we know

 

[SrNevik]

The again could be for the kissing girl for all we know

If you believe that, sure. I guess we'll see.

 

[shemper]

If you believe that, sure; I guess we'll see.

The way it's framed, we can consider kissing girl and hugging girl are gone, while Maria is an uncertain outcome, but if she was trully gone, why do we get "again" only now

 

[SrNevik]

The way it's framed, we can consider kissing girl and hugging girl are gone, while Maria is an uncertain outcome, but if she was trully gone, why do we get "again" only now

Maria is the only other rejection before now. Maria exited, and now Kaoru. It happened once, and now it happened again. She didn't reject anyone else in between. What would be odd about saying "again" here?

 

[kl-ai]

a cute girl is crying on your shoulder and you ask her to read an ASMR SCRIPT 😭😭😭😭😭 holy fumble

 

[arcosapphire]

In some harem there is at least more acknowledgement of the competing feelings all happening at once; this series seems to tunnel vision on each "romance" one at a time, one chapter at a time and that puts me off a bit. I don't know if any of these feel like love--feels too compartmentalized. If I don't take the "love" seriously, it's fun though, so I keep up with it.

If manga authors ever had the guts to acknowledge polyamory (edit: obviously 100Kano is an exception), this would make more sense. Because the feelings aren't competing, and you can be distressed over losing a partner even while having a good time with another.

But when it's framed as "having to choose", then yeah, it's a bit weird for the focus to shift so frequently.

 

[Rafi_the_Tiggy]

Man, this imploded so hard for me. I feel hurt. It feels like they were just under time pressure to get to an end, and well, that’s a ruined story then. But that happens all the time in the industry, you get used to it.
Besides that, it’s crazy how much potential it had and how balanced the approach was in the first half.

This whole premise screamed poly, like the five senses (and maybe a sixth one in the old crush). And who would choose one sense over another? What a clever thing to do.
The beach arc also had a lot of bonding between the girls over their shared love for Soraik, but now it feels like that whole arc never happened or is meaningless besides the end with Sensei.

And sure, I am biased toward poly. I loved all characters in their own unique way, it’s just so rare.
So even with the lighthearted storytelling, I had my hopes up because of the genius premise.

But now, idk. This chapter felt incredibly hollow and irrelevant in any meta sense, and like other posters said, it’s because Mei has become a nothing-character who switches mood on a dime.
Not only that, but she would need to be the one to explore or discover the polyamory as the middle point of the dynamic, and there is just no real character growth right now to make that believable.
idk, maybe i am a bit bitter atm, but i think i put in on hold until its done.

 

[Ichigo69]

Mei's ALWAYS switched her mood on a dime, btw.

 

[Rafi_the_Tiggy]

Mei's ALWAYS switched her mood on a dime, btw.

Oh, for sure, but I would argue that this was fitting in, pretty much tight into the beach arc (build up/free spiritedness/comedy), because all the relationships were as floaty as hers in some way.
but now the "solution" for the whole build up is just, don't change/develop Mei, quickly remove Character from the picture.
Hell, Kaoru didn't even really have her own arc.
picking only one thing from what i said is also missing the point, right.
I am mad at the breakdown of the meta-context.
its all the things together that are disappointing , . . . but i like talking about it ;3

 

[Lonbomb]

a cute girl is crying on your shoulder and you ask her to read an ASMR SCRIPT 😭😭😭😭😭 holy fumble

Minato is so invested into ASMR that it leaves her in massive aura debt, that's why she's the best

 

[Spectrum]

Oh Minato, you were one of the girls I was rooting for but it seems obvious you're going to self-destruct quickly once you actually have Mei's attention.