Koi to Uso - Vol. 9 Ch. 193 - Decent Enough Day?

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I know a lot of people still complain about KtU, but I like it. It's not gonna be, like, the greatest manga ever, but sometimes things dont have to be a 9 or a 10. A 6 or a 7 is fine too
 
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@icantnotthink

If only this could be a 6 or 7.
For me, it's closer to 1 or 2 for the rom-com genre.

I know i'm usually strict, but this manga has a LOT of problems, mostly because 2 of the main characters are dumb as a brick, bringing dozens of useless drama chapters and lot of fillers.

I just want to see how it will end now.
 
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@Siquall
I still wouldn't say it's a 1 or 2. That's the kind of rating reserved for Gal Cleaning more than a mediocre romcom.
 
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Wait a minute ... If the objective of the whole notice system was to fight the decline of the Japanese population, why are there special notices for gays? It is somewhat counterintuitive...
 
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@rrolo1

The Original purpose of the notice was that, but you have to consider that, after the notice having over 2 generations of previous successes the fact of the matter is: They solved the problem long ago.

What ended up happening was that the notice became a social norm/standard all on its own afterwards, therefore, people still used it and relied on it, because it made their lives easier, or because "It was the normal thing to do" and not because they HAD to do it otherwise they would go extinct. Now then, in a system like this, where social customs dictate that not having a notice and being out of the system is "Abnormal" Homosexuality would suffer from EXACTLY the same problems it suffered because of religion, just in a different context, but the same exact vector. I believe in this day and age we can all agree that is fucked up. And so did the people who came up with the notices themselves, so they came up with an idea: "We solved the birthrate problems. Why not ALSO help solve the discrimination problems and actually go and help those that would end up being mistreated/ostracized?"

They had the system, proved and tested, they knew they could help, and, last but not least, some of them KNEW how hard it would be for someone to come out as openly homosexual (Because they most likely were homosexual themselves) so the fact that they actually do this for the kids, whose parents signed them to this "Custom" without their consent, in order to help them be... well, Themselves, it's a really well thought plot line, it just makes too much fucking sense for this kind of thing to happen, in fact, it is Natural.
 
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@rrolo1
Think about it like this. A gay guy/girl forced into a relationship with a girl/guy is (more than likely) not going to be happy in their relationship, so they will probably divorce and not have children.

If two gay guys/girls get put together and both are like "oh dang, I love this person", they may be more encouraged to seek out adoption or surrogate birth.
 
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@Tromend

Yeah, that might be true, but it is heavily hinted that the official policy is ( still?) to push for conformity and to make any dissidence from the notice system as painful as possible. First of all , all of this manga is based in the fact that you have to fight the system for love ( or "love", depending of how you see the relations around the MC ), so having escape clauses like that undermine somewhat the premise. But even disregarding that, note that all the explanation sessions never touch the issue and when some characters muse about declining the notices, the officials say something to the line of "Yeah, you could, but it would be BAD for you", with even threats of sending some letters to the Universities requesting them to not acept that person. That does not compute very well with the "we'll let you out of the hook if you're gay" we see in the last chapters. Also, notice how this all conversation happens in a closed room in a one to one talk ... sure, you can say that it is to not to cast shame on the person, but it might also be to not give publicity to the "gay clause".

That said, one theory of mine about this whole issue ( for quite a while ) is that the Ministry that supervises the notice system picked the MC school to make some experiments: say, some people are without notices for no discernible reason since the beginning of the manga , giving a guy two notices, give a gay guy a option for a newfangled " gay option" ... That would explain a lot.

@icantnotthink

Well, not exactly. While the notice system tries to get a good pick for everyone for stability proposes, the main objective of it is not to make people happy, but to make them to have children. In the terms of the notice system, the governement wants kids first and, if the way to do so is to is to find them a suitable companion of the other biological sex, so be it ... so from the governement point of view, it would be better to have a unhappy gay guy paired with a ( most likely as unhappy ) girl, that might even get a kid or two out( I know a person that came from that exact backround ), than to recognize a gay couple that would , by definition, make zero children.

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That said, I somewhat doubt the overall sucess of the notice system in terms of popping children out ... you would have to see a lot of households with 3 or more children to recover from the demographic slump Japan is both IRL and in the manga's past and the families in this manga do not seem to reflect that ( IIRC there is only one household with 3 children ... )
 
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@rrolo1

I get your point but the thing is, the gay clause does not undermine the premise. This is just a fact. Why? Simple: The premise is that the kids were enrolled in the Government Notice System without their consent, it was imposed on them by their parents, and onto those same parents, by who? Society at large, which believes that Not Being part of the Majority = Failure/Problem that must be removed. This is the premise, the fact that they were imposed a system that they did not agree to, but are being forced to agree to because society deems it "good". It is a commentary on current social customs in Japan, as well as its birthrate problems.

The whole series has been a way to attack said premise with the Love (or "Love") aspect being the focus, but there are other focuses, such as (Which hasn't been touched yet) people that are OUTSIDE the notice program, they exist, it has been stated that this is the case, they are just a minority, there's also the Gay problem, what do they do with Gay people? Being addressed in this chapters.

The thing with this arc is, Gay people would throw a wrench in the index of "Happy people brought together by the notice" the government is pushing in order to have good public opinion and "Force, but not really" people into entering the system, because its "The Right thing to do". They are manipulative, they hide shit, they use underhanded tricks sometimes even threatening people to push their propaganda: "The Notice is a purely Good and benign program. There is NOTHING wrong with it. Its ALL Pluses, and no Minuses."

The Gay clause its a super messed up way of doing said manipulation, because they are helping Gay couples do their own thing without actively destroying their chances at normal love relationships because, again, they want to look towards the public as "100% successful". And you know what's the worst part? They are doing it in a way that you can't just call them "Evil" straight away, because, even if their methods are shady and kind of messed up in some instances, people are coming out of it happy and agreeing with said methods. It's pretty good psychological manipulation right there, on a Society level too, which is messed up.

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This whole show rides on this conflict of "What society deems Correct, Acceptable, and Normal" versus "What the characters feel is correct, acceptable and normal" is just that the focus is love relationships, that's it, really.
 
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@Tromend

You are right in certain ways. But I think the best description of the situation was given by Igarashi. If you tell two teens that they are the loves of their life, then society forces them to spend time together they'll fall in love, or at least have a decent marriage. People did this for as long as we've been here. The value of love based relationships only started to overvalue relationships and marriages based on more calculation in late 20th century and 21st century. Until then even gay people married women. Yes, out of societies' pressure, but they did do everything to keep up this facade and have a decent life. The marriage would end up close to what Yajima is having. Two people being married and then screwing off to do god knows what. Or making a good marriage act while they agree on doing some sideways fun in the meantime.

In that way of thinking it is better for the government to have a marriage like Yajima's than caring about gays. So the gay clause isn't just bad it is a plain waste of resources. This might be a writing error or the author just wants to focus on gay people.
 
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I don't get why Neji is so hell-bent on making Nisakra his friend, but maybe he's just happy that somebody finally listens to him, if only for a bit.
 
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NVM talking with only one person as a friend for so long would definitely make you feel something for them, even if your not interested romantically, my last comment looks bad now
 

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