Dex-chan lover
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2018
- Messages
- 402
I may have overstated writing it all in one chapter, so I'll just post the stuff I have here from a few dif chapters (and dynasty, I didn't realize my comments were so different between the two, but I guess it depends on who is replying).
chapter 155:
If you're using food metaphors, then the band moment is the beginning of dinner and right now we're on the appetizers and the full meal is yet to come.
I can't speak for everyone, but for me I read a story like this as in flow, and does the flow feel connected or is it interrupted? Does the flow follow reasonable curves, or is it unusually and even unnaturally jagged? And other such questions. When I look at this story right now, I think all of it fits, I don't think we've reached any satisfying conclusions in the college arc because we haven't reached any conclusion points.
But the basics seem pretty well established:
1) Aya and Mitsuki are together, but not open about their dating with most of their classmates.
2) They are both charming enough that there are clearly other people interested in them on some level though not necessarily pursuing them.
3) Mitsuki has been struggling to find a band she fits into, and this latest one seemed better than the rest.
4) Mitsuki is still popular for her playing even within this band, but the band is social media focused more so than art focused which is not inspiring for Mitsuki.
5) Mitsuki didn't want to be seen comprising her art and herself in front of Aya
6) Aya saw.
There are a number of obvious conflict points with these established, and probably a lot of non obvious conflict points, and right now we're picking at the latest developments but we may pick on ones from earlier later on too. Or we may not, whatever Sumiko-sensei is interested in. Either way, none of these have blown out completely yet in terms of confrontations or conversations between Aya and Mitsuki, they're still just possible points of conflict. Hence, appetizers.
Chapter 162 on Dynasty:
They've always had drama and conflict. First was the conflict over pretending to be a boy. Second was the drama with Aya's friends. Then there was Aya's fear that Kanna was going take Mitsuki away to America, which lasted for a while and wasn't resolved immediately. We had a bit of mini drama with Mitsuki feeling jealous of "Onii-san". We had all the drama at school with Mitsuki's music, which then turned into Aya's jealousy, and all of that wasn't resolved until they finally got together. Then we had Aya's drama with feelings of insecurity that led to her essentially self-harming, which was also kind of the end of the fear of Kanna taking Mitsuki away.
Some of that was resolved quickly, and some of that really wasn't. I have no problem with people saying that they don't like the current drama and preferred the previous drama, but the idea that this was a fluff manga is just not accurate. There have always been really cute fluff chapters, but there have also always been drama arcs, from the very beginning.
[communication issues] Here, it feels very in character. Mitsuki has always been the type that struggles to talk about her feelings and problems. That's really never changed. I wish she made more growth about it, but it's not out of character and so it doesn't bother me as much. Aya, too, doesn't necessarily struggle to talk about her feelings in the same way, but is conflict avoidant most of the time. And like others have pointed out there are still aspects of their relationship that work really well, so it's not like they're on the outs and super depressed and about to break up. They just have problems communicating, which they've always had.
[on the manga changing] This is really my main issue with people complaining is that the manga hasn't changed. It's reader's expectations that have changed. Which, that's fine! If people were ok with this kind of writing style before they were together, and less ok with it after, that's a totally valid take. But a lot of the complaints are acting like the style changed in college, and it really hasn't. The manga has always been this way. Things don't always get resolved immediately, there are fluff or unrelated chapters in between the drama arcs, and it takes a while for these things to resolve or they get complications down the line.
And to be absolutely clear, if someone doesn't like the manga in college, I would certainly never argue that they're wrong. That's a totally valid take. It's when people say, "I don't like the college arc because there's too much drama, no fluff, and nothing gets resolved now" where I feel like they should reread the manga from the beginning to see that well it was always like this.
Current chapter 168: To add to those thoughts, I also think thematically this is the direction the manga needed to go. If their relationship is based on feeling different and othered because of their music taste (with that partly also being a metaphor for being gay), then what does their relationship look like without music? And can they make it work not having that in common any more? It goes back to what Kanna and Joe were dealing with. Can Aya and Mitsuki avoid the mistakes of Kanna and Joe, can they be better and do better?
