Girl Meets Rock! - Ch. 81

[MangaDex]

 

[SuperOniichan]

Hatochi is already forced to convince herself and others that this isn't a date and that she's not his girlfriend. Damn, at this rate, they'll be married in a volume or two.

 

[RiffRaffROTFL]

Too many uninteresting side characters taking up too much space in the story. I don't care about the punk guy or the delinquent he met two minutes ago -- or the LMC's vice president for that matter. I'd much prefer if the narrative refocus on the band members.

 

[rabidfish]

Damn bitch have some self respect lol poor thing. I really hope all goes well. And the delincuent looks like he was a fake asshole the whole time, just now he's showing his true colors.

 

[pitpat]

what getting rejected by a baddie does to a mf

 

[Valle_reading_manga]

Dude became a criminal over a broken heart during middle school

---

This really looked like he punched his own face to me. And taking a look at it again, I know why: the thumb's pointing away from his face/towards the reader

 

[ysil69]

Lots of side character backstory packed into a single chapter.

 

[Valle_reading_manga]

Too many uninteresting side characters taking up too much space in the story. I don't care about the punk guy or the delinquent he met two minutes ago -- or the LMC's vice president for that matter. I'd much prefer if the narrative refocus on the band members.

I think you can't focus on the band members ignoring the side characters, because there's no real plot without them.
They don't have some big goal they're chasing or some overarching story arcs imo.
It's pretty much just performing at the next event xy with the twists stemming from their interactions with said side characters.
If you get rid of most of the side characters, you're left with the Heartbreak - Protocol rivalry & the relationship between the bands' members. Which works I guess, but there's nothing really out of the ordinary happening there.

In general, I feel like the story is about the whole LMC experience viewed primarily from one specific band's perspective, but you need members to make the thing feel authentic.
Although I feel the pain trying to keep up with all the characters appearing in passing...

 

[mgRdr]

In general, I feel like the story is about the whole LMC experience

Which is more or less the literal translation of the manga title

 

[fight2live]

when a character says "i doubt we'll meet again", you know that character will definitely show up again

 

[RiffRaffROTFL]

I think you can't focus on the band members ignoring the side characters, because there's no real plot without them.
They don't have some big goal they're chasing or some overarching story arcs imo.
It's pretty much just performing at the next event xy with the twists stemming from their interactions with said side characters.
If you get rid of most of the side characters, you're left with the Heartbreak - Protocol rivalry & the relationship between the bands' members. Which works I guess, but there's nothing really out of the ordinary happening there.

In general, I feel like the story is about the whole LMC experience viewed primarily from one specific band's perspective, but you need members to make the thing feel authentic.
Although I feel the pain trying to keep up with all the characters appearing in passing...

If you want to write about a dozen or more characters, then invest in them as if it were a true ensemble cast by building real narratives for them. But, this isn't what's happening. The way the author is going about this is really slapdash so there's no payoff when issues are resolved. I mean, did the jazz band teacher going up to sing feel impactful at all? It didn't to me because he was never built up as a credible antagonist -- just a minor NPC that groused about the LMC in passing. How am I supposed to care about that? All it did was water down an already diluted narrative even further.

And, you don't need big goals for character to be engaging. They just need to be INTERESTING. If they are, then slice of life stuff is perfectly fine. But 2/4 members only have just enough personality to complete their short plot arcs and haven't done much since because of it. IMO, the last thing this manga needs is more one-note mob characters.