Imasara desu ga, Osananajimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimaimashita - Ch. 34 - Unforgivable Person

[CheTachibana]

Yeah, I was thinking about this too, and even more than the medium, I feel like the problem is serialization and letting the reader's knowledge of the plot pass out of short term memory and their understanding of structure and characters to solidify incorrectly. It's so jarring this way, when the twists and comparisons require a kind of fluidity to enjoy properly.

Clearly the author was going for the bait-and-switch 'we interrupt your romantic comedy to bring you a romantic drama' effect to lob a cannonball at readers expecting another light and fluffy childhood friend experience. That requires Hikari's bit to come first so it can shatter us as much as it does her, and that's hard to reconcile with the most effective way to tell the WHOLE story. The manga author leans even further into this by using familiar love-status-quo tropes and an initially 4-koma format to lull readers into expectations of familiarity with how it's all going.

If this series were released as a completed novel or manga, I think I wouldn't put it down until I finished, and the timeline issues would be much easier to overlook. Even if we know the middle of the story before the halfway point, I feel like there's still plenty of drama in the journey along the way. Really hope it delivers.

My sincerest hope right now is that neither of the girls' stories are the ones that 'matter' in the end, and that the last section of the story is focused on the male lead's experience over a broader time period that amounts to something like the woodcutter's testimony from Rashomon.

btw killer first comment

Exactly, well said. I began with the medium as a hovering point, because this is an adaptation of a novel, and in the novel you have this exact bit of information, which we in this medium are missing, the total page count. I haven't had the chance to give the original a read, so I cannot say with full certainty that the drama bait was intentional, or just misplaced because he was attempting to structure the manga like the origin novel. With this caveat away, spot on, the author didn't do justice to the characters and let the plot branch back in an needlessly complicated way.

In programming you have the concept of libraries. They are essentially pieces of already written down code you refer to. A simple "Hello, world!" printout thanks to libraries doesn't take 200 lines of manually written code and just 5. The Author has to write those lines and refer to them later, but unlike with libraries, those libraries he used, they are necessary to be explained if you want to understand why the story goes this way. Problem, the libraries are much longer than the code...

On the other hand, the Author might have went with the drama bait similarly to let's say "Happy Sugar life" or "Talentless Nana", but where the drama there differs is that the plotpoint where the switch happens is much before you had a connection with a character. This switch should have happened in the first few chapters, if not the first in order for it to make sense. (Exception is of course Doki Doki literature club, where that switch happened later, but the switch there doesn't involve backlog of 40+ backstory to make sense).

I don't mind giving this story a follow every week to see how it develops, if it disappoints me, I would have lost collectively 3-6 hours of my life. If it doesn't, it would be one great comeback.

And on your last point, the main male lead was basically reduced to a tritagonist. If the story ends with the priority of perspective of him, his decisions and mind, it would be on paper more or less equal coverage of the three of them. If he assumes the role of a proper main character, by the end of the story, that would make justice for the story resolve.

Perhaps when the story ends, if it ends properly well, I might attempt to reorder the story and see if it would work better that way.

Btw you could see that? Hahha, thank you, but in fairness, I was a passive forum follower before that (and reddit forums experience lol)

 

[essensue]

Exactly, well said. I began with the medium as a hovering point, because this is an adaptation of a novel, and in the novel you have this exact bit of information, which we in this medium are missing, the total page count. I haven't had the chance to give the original a read, so I cannot say with full certainty that the drama bait was intentional, or just misplaced because he was attempting to structure the manga like the origin novel. With this caveat away, spot on, the author didn't do justice to the characters and let the plot branch back in an needlessly complicated way.

In programming you have the concept of libraries. They are essentially pieces of already written down code you refer to. A simple "Hello, world!" printout thanks to libraries doesn't take 200 lines of manually written code and just 5. The Author has to write those lines and refer to them later, but unlike with libraries, those libraries he used, they are necessary to be explained if you want to understand why the story goes this way. Problem, the libraries are much longer than the code...

On the other hand, the Author might have went with the drama bait similarly to let's say "Happy Sugar life" or "Talentless Nana", but where the drama there differs is that the plotpoint where the switch happens is much before you had a connection with a character. This switch should have happened in the first few chapters, if not the first in order for it to make sense. (Exception is of course Doki Doki literature club, where that switch happened later, but the switch there doesn't involve backlog of 40+ backstory to make sense).

I don't mind giving this story a follow every week to see how it develops, if it disappoints me, I would have lost collectively 3-6 hours of my life. If it doesn't, it would be one great comeback.

And on your last point, the main male lead was basically reduced to a tritagonist. If the story ends with the priority of perspective of him, his decisions and mind, it would be on paper more or less equal coverage of the three of them. If he assumes the role of a proper main character, by the end of the story, that would make justice for the story resolve.

Perhaps when the story ends, if it ends properly well, I might attempt to reorder the story and see if it would work better that way.

Btw you could see that? Hahha, thank you, but in fairness, I was a passive forum follower before that (and reddit forums experience lol)

I believe the novel is being published concurrently with the manga, both as serials. I have not read it.

With regard to the story structure needing to establish info that can be later referenced, I like your example and would like to refer you back to it, as this work already makes heavy use of extra-textual knowledge and context: What are tropes, metaphors, and other literary devices if not 'libraries' for creative writing? This story's title is basically "a stock character type and what they're famous for," (i.e., childhood friend, not realizing until it's too late that they're in love) so it doesn't feel like too much of a reach to assume the work is a commentary on same.

Assuming the whole story was plotted out from before publication began, intentional "drama bait" does seem like the most obvious reason to structure it this way. Hikari must broadly conform to the Childhood Friend archetype and therefore can't undergo any meaningful development in those first 20 chapters, so it's not like we need that time to get to know her... only to love her.

Thus, I'm a little worried that Hikari's self-awareness in aspiring to embody the Childhood Friend Romance Route trope is only being set up to show that's it's self-defeating - saying that her bubbly perfection drove Yuu off or made her seem unattainable, or that she would have been successful if she was as focused on her actual goal as much as she was on trying (and often adorably failing) to recreate memorable examples of Childhood Friendship that all the readers know and love. Functionally, dangling her in front of us before smashing her and saying "well she did that to herself." That would be pretty .

Similarly, if the author thinks that Yami's much heavier arc and connection with the ML trivializes Hikari's story, experiences, and concerns as a character, well... you can't very well put it before hers. Obviously a good author could lend both equal weight in a reader's mind, but I'm on full alert bracing for edgy bullshit with this one.

Would love to be wrong in the end, but my expectations are low. Just along for the ride right now.

 

[CheTachibana]

I believe the novel is being published concurrently with the manga, both as serials. I have not read it.

With regard to the story structure needing to establish info that can be later referenced, I like your example and would like to refer you back to it, as this work already makes heavy use of extra-textual knowledge and context: What are tropes, metaphors, and other literary devices if not 'libraries' for creative writing? This story's title is basically "a stock character type and what they're famous for," (i.e., childhood friend, not realizing until it's too late that they're in love) so it doesn't feel like too much of a reach to assume the work is a commentary on same.

Assuming the whole story was plotted out from before publication began, intentional "drama bait" does seem like the most obvious reason to structure it this way. Hikari must broadly conform to the Childhood Friend archetype and therefore can't undergo any meaningful development in those first 20 chapters, so it's not like we need that time to get to know her... only to love her.

Thus, I'm a little worried that Hikari's self-awareness in aspiring to embody the Childhood Friend Romance Route trope is only being set up to show that's it's self-defeating - saying that her bubbly perfection drove Yuu off or made her seem unattainable, or that she would have been successful if she was as focused on her actual goal as much as she was on trying (and often adorably failing) to recreate memorable examples of Childhood Friendship that all the readers know and love. Functionally, dangling her in front of us before smashing her and saying "well she did that to herself." That would be pretty .

Similarly, if the author thinks that Yami's much heavier arc and connection with the ML trivializes Hikari's story, experiences, and concerns as a character, well... you can't very well put it before hers. Obviously a good author could lend both equal weight in a reader's mind, but I'm on full alert bracing for edgy bullshit with this one.

Would love to be wrong in the end, but my expectations are low. Just along for the ride right now.

To your last words first, I don't have big expectations, but that's the beauty of it, as Hachiman said once:

It's brand value has fallen so much that it can't go any lower than it already is. It's essentially bottomed out. So basically, that means there's no risk it'll go any lower. Invest now!

A caveat that I forgot to mention (and after learning editing a post, makes the reply go through manual review process), I haven't read the novel and didn't know it was still ongoing, so that's on me for speculating on a sand foundation.

To continue on the programming reference, in a way, yes, they are, they are the sort of those universal libraries. To refer to my example with Doki Doki Literature club, it similarly begins as such with similar tropes, before the infamous "thriller" part begins, but unlike there, here the bait didn't, in fact, work out in his favour. Again on the point about the medium, the way it was serialised here, as you said in your previous reply, was an issue, I will add to this, it made the drama look forced upon the viewer, who came with a different expectation and was forced to create a connection that was without a reason shattered.

It might seem convenient, but exactly your reasoning is why I would rather believe there is plausible reasoning behind it and that these "libraries" here will lead to a resolve. What I meant by connection, I used the wrong word. Attachment would be closer, but still not the best fit. Accustomed, maybe, the reader gets accustomed and expects something and then it gets essentially blown. She didn't grow in those 20 chapters, the problem with the development here is that compared to the timeline, it is done backwards in shift forwards.

I genuinely think that her bubbly personality and childhood friend mentality are instrumental and in the long term make logical sense and weren't just set for bait or to appease an auditory, because if it was, it would be just as you said, (slap face).

Maybe I am giving too much faith in the author, I mean my only other interaction with him was with Douki-chan, but there the author did do justice to the premise. Whether or not he trivialises his story is something we would see in the climax and resolve, until then, likewise I will be riding the wave.

My sincerest apologies for this being as long as it is

 

[noleafclover75]

To your last words first, I don't have big expectations, but that's the beauty of it, as Hachiman said once:


A caveat that I forgot to mention (and after learning editing a post, makes the reply go through manual review process), I haven't read the novel and didn't know it was still ongoing, so that's on me for speculating on a sand foundation.

To continue on the programming reference, in a way, yes, they are, they are the sort of those universal libraries. To refer to my example with Doki Doki Literature club, it similarly begins as such with similar tropes, before the infamous "thriller" part begins, but unlike there, here the bait didn't, in fact, work out in his favour. Again on the point about the medium, the way it was serialised here, as you said in your previous reply, was an issue, I will add to this, it made the drama look forced upon the viewer, who came with a different expectation and was forced to create a connection that was without a reason shattered.

It might seem convenient, but exactly your reasoning is why I would rather believe there is plausible reasoning behind it and that these "libraries" here will lead to a resolve. What I meant by connection, I used the wrong word. Attachment would be closer, but still not the best fit. Accustomed, maybe, the reader gets accustomed and expects something and then it gets essentially blown. She didn't grow in those 20 chapters, the problem with the development here is that compared to the timeline, it is done backwards in shift forwards.

I genuinely think that her bubbly personality and childhood friend mentality are instrumental and in the long term make logical sense and weren't just set for bait or to appease an auditory, because if it was, it would be just as you said, (slap face).

Maybe I am giving too much faith in the author, I mean my only other interaction with him was with Douki-chan, but there the author did do justice to the premise. Whether or not he trivialises his story is something we would see in the climax and resolve, until then, likewise I will be riding the wave.

My sincerest apologies for this being as long as it is

Douki-chan was not written by Maruto. Same artist but someone else is writing this story.

 

[story645]

i genuinely think that her bubbly personality and childhood friend mentality are instrumental and in the long term make logical sense and weren't just set for bait or to appease an auditory, because if it was, it would be just as you said, (slap face).

I think the author is just going really hard on the duality of Hikari and Aya. On the surface they're as different as can be (it's almost a line by line of contrasts) but they want the same things - literally w/ Yuu, thematically with friendship/belonging/normalcy.

Which I think someone mentioned in the novel that Hikari's home life is also hinted to be not great & I think the author may be hinting at it w/ her spending so much time at Yuu's (rather then a more even split) but which if true would make more sense to hold off on a full reveal til after the Aya arc to highlight the contrast in how they approach the world.

 

[Hmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Bruh

 

[gmkgoat]

Reminder that Yami did nothing wrong

 

[Trevoga]

mangaka posts worst written manga ever

asked to leave japan

 

[CAVEdude123]

This shit is so ass bro holy fuck. Both of them have actual brain damage.

 

[Flavor25]

I get you Yami stans like her but I gotta ask, do you really want to see her end up with the MC? At this moment, I think she’d be better off finding someone else and starting on a clean slate rather than ruin a friendship with the one person that stood by her when she was at her lowest just to chase after a guy she barely knew. Sorry but Yami’s gotta lose here.

 

[Dingo777]

I get you Yami stans like her but I gotta ask, do you really want to see her end up with the MC? At this moment, I think she’d be better off finding someone else and starting on a clean slate rather than ruin a friendship with the one person that stood by her when she was at her lowest just to chase after a guy she barely knew. Sorry but Yami’s gotta lose here.

I ship Yami x A Good Therapist

 

[Nuggz]

Wtf am I reading