Gal no Jitensha wo Naoshitara Natsukareta - Ch. 6 - Things Got Awkward with a Gal

[radstylix]

WTF is this bullshit

• Became mopy and mad when he didn't remember or recognize her, making him feel guilty about it.
• Best friend decides to help her out (definitely recognizes him), but decides to be extremely vague about it. Also telling him its all his fault
• Send him along to her place, wasting his time after school while feeling bad all the way

I know they're still in high school, but sheeeeesh. Easily avoidable problem if she only followed up that the kid in the hospital was her.

On the other hand, I've been employed for more than a month and most of the bad or toxic experiences I've had so far involve women... Very lore-accurate.

 

[phorx]

All this is just proof that the author successfully rage-baited all of us, because in the next chapter she’ll show him the figure he made her 10 years ago and then he’ll call her ”Meguru”… and then she’ll either jump off the balcony or pin him down and fuck the life out of him.

 

[draxdeveloper]

All this is just proof that the author successfully rage-baited all of us, because in the next chapter she’ll show him the figure he made her 10 years ago and then he’ll call her ”Meguru”… and then she’ll either jump off the balcony or pin him down and fuck the life out of him.

Wait, there are just those two options?

 

[Ingway]

I get it. And it seems like everybody's pissed at this chapter, so the manga done fucked up in expressing itself - and I think the release pace and the way the half-chapters were broken up doesn't help. But she isn't mad that he doesn't remember and she isn't giving him the cold shoulder; she's avoiding him out of shame. Why? Let me recap:

Why does it feel like I'm defending it, then?

I mostly get it, and I know she's ashamed, but that still means she's upset he didn't see her as special compared to how much she saw him like that, but the execution of her little stunt is the problem, and the friend isn't helping either with the "oh wow, actually you deserve it" when he is still completely confused about it.

 

[suica]

Bruh you've only known this bitch for 2 days now, why are you so obsessed with her. Any normal teenager would have ignored her and moved on with their life.

He's a teenage boy with no friends and there's a hot chick his age showing interest in him. Even if he's not aware of it, somewhere deep inside he's hoping this will somehow lead to sex. Is this pathetic? Absolutely. But that's how you think when your body is 50% semen at this age.

 

[Eycaj]

This flavor of romcom drama always stinks of people that have had very few meaningful relationships. This is just NOT how people communicate/act in the real world, unless they're intentionally being dramatic and difficult.

Also, why do male leads always have the worst selective memory? Who the fuck forgets a direct interaction/volunteer opportunity that would have clearly been a formative moment for his crafting passion?

It's not like he's a retiring office worker with early on-set dementia. Bro is in fucking high school. This shit would be fresh as hell in his brain.

Contrived as hell.
-
Thank you for the scanlation. Quality is fantastic.

 

[ItsThatBriGuy]

She also lied about being new to the area. He might have been able to put it together otherwise.

She didn't lie... exactly. This might be a spoiler for the manga (or not), but she and her mother moved back to the area right before she started HS. The next part is emphatically a spoiler: after the local hospital failed to treat her illness effectively, her father prevailed over her mother and moved the family to an area where the hospital had a much better reputation, one that was well earned. She got better near the end of elementary and stayed through middle school.

 

[YamiryuuZero]

Yes, solve your problems, talk it through! Stop avoiding the solution!

 

[UdenEmpati]

I get it. And it seems like everybody's pissed at this chapter, so the manga done fucked up in expressing itself - and I think the release pace and the way the half-chapters were broken up doesn't help. But she isn't mad that he doesn't remember and she isn't giving him the cold shoulder; she's avoiding him out of shame. Why? Let me recap:

From her perspective, when she was at her lowest and isolated in the hospital, a boy in her class that she didn't know came to visit with her friends and offered to make a gift for her. The gift helped her get through it all, mentally. It was the most special, personal, important connection she'd had with a boy and she completely falls in love with the idea of him. Time passes. She meets him again without knowing, starts falling in love with the real him as she gets to know him, finally goes out with him and has a great time on a date, and confirms that they're the same person! And right at that emotional climax, when she wants to pour her heart out and and thank him and have a moving, fated reunion, she's hit by an avalanche of a revelation that it was ALL one-sided.

"Oh. You were actually giving those out like candy? And some of those kids left such a strong impression that the boring ones like me weren't really memorable? So the story in my head about being by saved by you; my love; our connection, I... just imagined those, on my own. Because I'm an idiot. So you're even more saintly than I thought... And I, by comparison, am such a small person that I got overwhelmed, lashed out at you, and ran away in defeat, functionally nuking our nice day out and our burgeoning relationship. I want to die, now." She feels awful, foolish, guilty, humiliated, and pathetic. She doesn't blame him at all.

So to that end, she gets points from me for even getting out of bed and coming to school. As for why she won't talk to someone who means so much to her? Well, the realization that she doesn't mean shit to him, for starters.

And the friend, Douguchi? She acknowledges that he's right to find it unreasonable but unashamedly has the policy of "I have my friends' backs, especially when they're wrong," making her a first-class bro. Even if I kind of want to hit her.

And I would have been way worse at the MC's age - I would have made such a mess out of this if I were in his shoes, getting my feelings hurt and cutting off all contact like you said, and also turning the thing with Douguchi into a screaming fight it the middle of the hallway. Ugh.

Yeah, I guess my point is that the manga's doing a bad job if what everyone takes away is "God, they're such bitches."

Why does it feel like I'm defending it, then?

You're absolutely correct, in terms of what the story is going for.

The difficulty, I think, is that from his perspective: she's just some popular gal that he has only talked to a couple times, who stalked him to his home after he stopped to fix her bike once, got all up in his business almost immediately and invaded his personal space, and was very friendly and outgoing for a couple days' time until they go on that outing, and that "not-quite falling out" occurs.
It's not been all that much time, nor have they had all that many interactions that would suggest they'd build the sort of rapport that would, from where I'm sitting, incentivize his stressing out and wanting to pursue her and find out what happened. It feels like it'd be too superficial, still, for the effort that would be involved.
The most justification that we have for the ML feeling as compelled as he does, is that he is the kind of person to go out of his way to help others, and it's sold as enough of a core part of his personality that it becomes the foundation for him spending a near-week's worth of energy spinning his wheels over trying to reach out to her.

And maybe that's enough of a build-up of characterization to justify him doing that. But he also had to be pushed into it by an introduced third-party individual. So while he felt he needed to resolve this, he was also incapable of doing it himself until the plot got someone involved on his behalf as an external force.
Maybe more time was needed building up their connection, or something, so that there'd be more of an understandable reason for him to want to try and fix this issue. Whether that's more chapters detailing them (I guess re-)connecting first, or a very explicitly-stated amount of time passing of them interacting and building a rapport, I can't say.

At present though, it feels a touch superficial in this light, and like they're being pushed along the plot, rather than traveling it organically. There might be some detail I missed that justifies it, but. yeah.

 

[YamiryuuZero]

Oh well in the end this manga deserved its low popularity in the land of gyaru highschool romance manga. But maybe it will could go so bad like the one osanajimi manga by yoomu that each chapter is a hate-read by 99% of readers (including me ofc) that it somehow retain its popularity but for different reasons.

Are you referring to "Imasara desu ga osananajimi wo suki ni natteshimaimashita"?

 

[HawkGoggles]

oh so Doguchi WAS that other little girl at the hospital. That's why she makes that face when he said he doesn't understand why Mizoguchi is mad because she knows him as well. Doguchi is a good friend. She's letting them be able to have a private conversation without the chance of either of them running away

 

[essensue]

You're absolutely correct, in terms of what the story is going for.

The difficulty, I think, is that from his perspective: she's just some popular gal that he has only talked to a couple times, who stalked him to his home after he stopped to fix her bike once, got all up in his business almost immediately and invaded his personal space, and was very friendly and outgoing for a couple days' time until they go on that outing, and that "not-quite falling out" occurs.
It's not been all that much time, nor have they had all that many interactions that would suggest they'd build the sort of rapport that would, from where I'm sitting, incentivize his stressing out and wanting to pursue her and find out what happened. It feels like it'd be too superficial, still, for the effort that would be involved.
The most justification that we have for the ML feeling as compelled as he does, is that he is the kind of person to go out of his way to help others, and it's sold as enough of a core part of his personality that it becomes the foundation for him spending a near-week's worth of energy spinning his wheels over trying to reach out to her.

And maybe that's enough of a build-up of characterization to justify him doing that. But he also had to be pushed into it by an introduced third-party individual. So while he felt he needed to resolve this, he was also incapable of doing it himself until the plot got someone involved on his behalf as an external force.
Maybe more time was needed building up their connection, or something, so that there'd be more of an understandable reason for him to want to try and fix this issue. Whether that's more chapters detailing them (I guess re-)connecting first, or a very explicitly-stated amount of time passing of them interacting and building a rapport, I can't say.

At present though, it feels a touch superficial in this light, and like they're being pushed along the plot, rather than traveling it organically. There might be some detail I missed that justifies it, but. yeah.

Makes sense, I see how you got there. My reading was a little different and I liked how (to me) it wasn't as melodramatic as some other, similar dramatic arcs.

To me, the reasons he'd be more invested in the relationship than the average person are laid out right at the beginning of the series. He's alone, and while he's surviving, he's lonely. He wants at least one friend but has no idea how to even start. He looks at the popular kids interacting and it might as well be magic. In the first chapter he's pumped at the end of the day because he spoke with two whole classmates in one schoolday, so... it's bad. And he realizes nothing really came of those interactions. He's not sure what the problem is, but he's certain it's a problem with him, and he wants to fix it. Overwhelmed, though, he procrastinates by saying "Oh well, I'm sure sure there's somebody out there I'll click with."

Naturally that person immediately crashes a bike into him. You're right that they haven't known each other long, but I think there are two important aspects to their relationship that even he, socially stunted as he is, can recognize:
1 - She's really nice in the way that she's happy to smooth things over and be his non-judgmental social training wheels, and
2 - They'd already started to let those all-important public masks slip and talk about some rather personal and substantive things

So I think he felt they really did "click" as he'd been hoping for someone to, making her a lower key version to him of her own concept of her "fated person." That alone makes her worth pursuing.

But add to that his own self-evaluation as someone who has something wrong with him socially and the fact that he said some stuff that appeared to have hurt her very badly, and I totally get why he wants to at least know what he did wrong. Even if it's only for reference in his next attempt at a friendship.

As to the amount of effort it justifies... well, he sent her one text after she apologized, got left on read, and decided to give her some space. Weekend and a couple schooldays go by and during that time neither reaches out. They're in the same classroom but she might as well be on the fucking moon. Finally he says "Screw it I'm going to confront her in person," but is stopped at the last second by her friend who's like "nah, she'll bolt - corner her at home." We don't know that his first and only attempt to really talk to her would fail, but... crowded hallway probably wasn't the best time or place.

Personally, it made sense to me. I liked that he had his own reasoning for not flooding her with messages or harassing her at school and was like, alright, one last try and then I'm out - but at least I'd like to learn from this. Also his obvious niceness and discomfort at seeing his one and only new friend visibly in pain.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Makes sense, I see how you got there. My reading was a little different and I liked how (to me) it wasn't as melodramatic as some other, similar dramatic arcs.

To me, the reasons he'd be more invested in the relationship than the average person are laid out right at the beginning of the series. He's alone, and while he's surviving, he's lonely. He wants at least one friend but has no idea how to even start. He looks at the popular kids interacting and it might as well be magic. In the first chapter he's pumped at the end of the day because he spoke with two whole classmates in one schoolday, so... it's bad. And he realizes nothing really came of those interactions. He's not sure what the problem is, but he's certain it's a problem with him, and he wants to fix it. Overwhelmed, though, he procrastinates by saying "Oh well, I'm sure sure there's somebody out there I'll click with."

Naturally that person immediately crashes a bike into him. You're right that they haven't known each other long, but I think there are two important aspects to their relationship that even he, socially stunted as he is, can recognize:
1 - She's really nice in the way that she's happy to smooth things over and be his non-judgmental social training wheels, and
2 - They'd already started to let those all-important public masks slip and talk about some rather personal and substantive things

So I think he felt they really did "click" as he'd been hoping for someone to, making her a lower key version to him of her own concept of her "fated person." That alone makes her worth pursuing.

But add to that his own self-evaluation as someone who has something wrong with him socially and the fact that he said some stuff that appeared to have hurt her very badly, and I totally get why he wants to at least know what he did wrong. Even if it's only for reference in his next attempt at a friendship.

As to the amount of effort it justifies... well, he sent her one text after she apologized, got left on read, and decided to give her some space. Weekend and a couple schooldays go by and during that time neither reaches out. They're in the same classroom but she might as well be on the fucking moon. Finally he says "Screw it I'm going to confront her in person," but is stopped at the last second by her friend who's like "nah, she'll bolt - corner her at home." We don't know that his first and only attempt to really talk to her would fail, but... crowded hallway probably wasn't the best time or place.

Personally, it made sense to me. I liked that he had his own reasoning for not flooding her with messages or harassing her at school and was like, alright, one last try and then I'm out - but at least I'd like to learn from this. Also his obvious niceness and discomfort at seeing his one and only new friend visibly in pain.

I actually went back to re-read everything from the beginning after I wrote out that previous response, to see if I maybe had missed something that gave more substance and filled in the gaps I was seeing--and I found pretty much the gist of what you've laid out here.
So yeah--I think the majority of the issue is the same thing that all serialized manga suffer from: being released chapter by chapter with time in-between that authors require to...y'know, write and plan and draw and edit and revise and polish and review and submit and publish.
Which, can't help that--if you want work made by human beings, and you want good work made by human beings, then that takes time. And it's also not like there's 50 chapters of this series out, with a chapter dropping every three months, where you kinda have to re-read some 30 chapters to "remember" what all's going on.

I could maybe nitpick a few things here and there, but it's as you said--for what we're given, it's honestly fairly justified in characterization of each person and the in-story timeline of events. And the more I re-read from the beginning, the less chafing I find the ML as well, and the more I can understand and empathize with his character and his position in his life & world.

--

Plus--and I'd said this before on an earlier chapter--I think it's important that he actually be the one to reach out to her. Before this moment where things went wrong, she had always been going to him, and had been "the pursuer", and thus the reason for the plot to progress forward. Now that he's "chasing" her, that creates more balance in the dynamic between their characters, and helps push them both forward in the narrative as a unit and not as "one passive force, one active force". That imbalance of their characters would lead to an uneven relationship between them, which wouldn't be as healthy from an interpersonal perspective (one person's doing all the work, rather than it being a cooperative & mutual effort), and it would actually be detrimental to future plot events if one person's always just sitting still as the story moves around them.

This way, they're both becoming active forces on one another and on the story, creating a more harmonious union overall.

 

[NoodlesNomm]

Hes done nothing fucking wrong lmao

I swear to fuck if he has to apologize

 

[bingoboyop]

I get it. And it seems like everybody's pissed at this chapter, so the manga done fucked up in expressing itself - and I think the release pace and the way the half-chapters were broken up doesn't help. But she isn't mad that he doesn't remember and she isn't giving him the cold shoulder; she's avoiding him out of shame. Why? Let me recap:

From her perspective, when she was at her lowest and isolated in the hospital, a boy in her class that she didn't know came to visit with her friends and offered to make a gift for her. The gift helped her get through it all, mentally. It was the most special, personal, important connection she'd had with a boy and she completely falls in love with the idea of him. Time passes. She meets him again without knowing, starts falling in love with the real him as she gets to know him, finally goes out with him and has a great time on a date, and confirms that they're the same person! And right at that emotional climax, when she wants to pour her heart out and and thank him and have a moving, fated reunion, she's hit by an avalanche of a revelation that it was ALL one-sided.

"Oh. You were actually giving those out like candy? And some of those kids left such a strong impression that the boring ones like me weren't really memorable? So the story in my head about being by saved by you; my love; our connection, I... just imagined those, on my own. Because I'm an idiot. So you're even more saintly than I thought... And I, by comparison, am such a small person that I got overwhelmed, lashed out at you, and ran away in defeat, functionally nuking our nice day out and our burgeoning relationship. I want to die, now." She feels awful, foolish, guilty, humiliated, and pathetic. She doesn't blame him at all.

So to that end, she gets points from me for even getting out of bed and coming to school. As for why she won't talk to someone who means so much to her? Well, the realization that she doesn't mean shit to him, for starters.

And the friend, Douguchi? She acknowledges that he's right to find it unreasonable but unashamedly has the policy of "I have my friends' backs, especially when they're wrong," making her a first-class bro. Even if I kind of want to hit her.

And I would have been way worse at the MC's age - I would have made such a mess out of this if I were in his shoes, getting my feelings hurt and cutting off all contact like you said, and also turning the thing with Douguchi into a screaming fight it the middle of the hallway. Ugh.

Yeah, I guess my point is that the manga's doing a bad job if what everyone takes away is "God, they're such bitches."

Why does it feel like I'm defending it, then?

I get all of this but from a reader's perspective, the MC is being forced in a position like this for no reason. Think about it from the beginning, what exactly has she done to deserve a better treatment from the reader? She snapped and posted a picture of him without permission and even after telling her not to do it, did it again.

Her feelings on the matter are understandable but everything both her and her friend have done are completely unreasonable. Put yourself in the guy's shoes. Would you be happy with all this. Now this guy is so sar behind social skills that he genuinely believes that he messed up, ultimately he is a teenager too but all it ends up feeling like that he doesn't even realises that he is basically being taken advantage of.

 

[NoodlesNomm]

I get it. And it seems like everybody's pissed at this chapter, so the manga done fucked up in expressing itself - and I think the release pace and the way the half-chapters were broken up doesn't help. But she isn't mad that he doesn't remember and she isn't giving him the cold shoulder; she's avoiding him out of shame. Why? Let me recap:

From her perspective, when she was at her lowest and isolated in the hospital, a boy in her class that she didn't know came to visit with her friends and offered to make a gift for her. The gift helped her get through it all, mentally. It was the most special, personal, important connection she'd had with a boy and she completely falls in love with the idea of him. Time passes. She meets him again without knowing, starts falling in love with the real him as she gets to know him, finally goes out with him and has a great time on a date, and confirms that they're the same person! And right at that emotional climax, when she wants to pour her heart out and and thank him and have a moving, fated reunion, she's hit by an avalanche of a revelation that it was ALL one-sided.

"Oh. You were actually giving those out like candy? And some of those kids left such a strong impression that the boring ones like me weren't really memorable? So the story in my head about being by saved by you; my love; our connection, I... just imagined those, on my own. Because I'm an idiot. So you're even more saintly than I thought... And I, by comparison, am such a small person that I got overwhelmed, lashed out at you, and ran away in defeat, functionally nuking our nice day out and our burgeoning relationship. I want to die, now." She feels awful, foolish, guilty, humiliated, and pathetic. She doesn't blame him at all.

So to that end, she gets points from me for even getting out of bed and coming to school. As for why she won't talk to someone who means so much to her? Well, the realization that she doesn't mean shit to him, for starters.

And the friend, Douguchi? She acknowledges that he's right to find it unreasonable but unashamedly has the policy of "I have my friends' backs, especially when they're wrong," making her a first-class bro. Even if I kind of want to hit her.

And I would have been way worse at the MC's age - I would have made such a mess out of this if I were in his shoes, getting my feelings hurt and cutting off all contact like you said, and also turning the thing with Douguchi into a screaming fight it the middle of the hallway. Ugh.

Yeah, I guess my point is that the manga's doing a bad job if what everyone takes away is "God, they're such bitches."

Why does it feel like I'm defending it, then?

I get that. But God. The fucking friend. It specifically mentions that she looks at him like its HIS fault and that HE should remember this bullshit thing. Its so ass.

 

[BanzaiYuri]

The fact it took me several minutes just to remember the issue probes how trivial it actually is. "He doesn't remember we met a decade ago before I was a gyaru! I'm so depressed about my naïvety and angry at him for no genuine reason!"

 

[essensue]

I get all of this but from a reader's perspective, the MC is being forced in a position like this for no reason. Think about it from the beginning, what exactly has she done to deserve a better treatment from the reader? She snapped and posted a picture of him without permission and even after telling her not to do it, did it again.

Her feelings on the matter are understandable but everything both her and her friend have done are completely unreasonable. Put yourself in the guy's shoes. Would you be happy with all this. Now this guy is so sar behind social skills that he genuinely believes that he messed up, ultimately he is a teenager too but all it ends up feeling like that he doesn't even realises that he is basically being taken advantage of.

Uh... the post of mine that you're quoting says I'd cut all contact and fight her friend. What more do you want from me? A lawsuit over the photo? Physical violence? C'mon.

 

[Samdobb]

I like how we see the girl is just as awkward as the guy in this story.

 

[So-chan]

This is fucking stupid. Massive amount of fake drama created because he doesn't remember something that happened ages ago and this is somehow his fault. And the worst part is he plays the simp part perfectly. Pretty much begs her to "forgive" him for literally fucking nothing.

Pathetic simp behavior. Fuck off. Dropped.