Koutsugou Semi-Friend - Ch. 41

[Rezuo]

I thought this was the yuri vampire manga made by the same author, lol. I was confused 'till the end

 

[galaxia9]

Seems like a good start in life went bad and she thought, fuck it, I'll do the same back to life. Quite an appropriate and realistic backstory.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Lots of people in the same situation are not the same person as she is so they would develop differently.

And while there is a lot of people whose parents did not taken proper care of them, there is not a lot who were also neglected by society as well. From what I have seen over the years of a people in those situations a lot of them would actually end up worse than her. She might have lied and toyed with other people's emotions but she didn't kill anyone, and that actually puts her amongst the nicer ones.

She is still a bad guy here, no doubt about that. But she is a bad guy who is not inherently evil and who can became a good person only if here is someone to take good emotional care of her. Presenting her as a coldhearted psychopath is a bit too much, considering how worse she can actually be compared to what she has been doing so far.

At the same time, the tone of this series doesn't involve violence to the degree of murder.

As far as the scale of behavior and actions taken between people, Rin represents the extreme end of that behavioral spectrum. We aren't being given "murder and grevious abuse" and the like as something to consider within the framework of what to expect, so Rin is the stand-in for the limit in their place.

In that sense....she's currently the "worst Bad" that the story portrays when it comes to negative behavior and characterization, and is clearly an outlier from everyone else introduced thus far. Saying "yeah but she hasn't killed anyone" doesn't factor into the story, unless you expect the author to introduce that in the future.

Yes, Rin is likely to be redeemed. That's more of a meta call in my mind, though, because it's a common theme to never involve categorical antagonistic characters who are "bad" for its own sake. I would argue this chapter creates depth for her character, but whether the reader sympathizes with is an individual judgment call. As of now, all we know is the lead-up, and then the aftermath with Ruka from Ruka's perspective. We have no real information at this time as to why Ria targeted Ruka, only that she left Ruka changed for the worse in her wake (as showcased by Ruka's behavior up until Suuna entered her life, and the tonal shift in who she was versus who she now is).

However else you want to slice it - Ria still put her hands on a middle schooler when she was nearly graduating.

And at that point - if you want to play the "what is the benchmark for a Bad Person" and include things like the potential for murder, then surely sexually assaulting a young girl can also be taken into consideration?

 

[UdenEmpati]

nope, I read tons of good mangas, it's just that like japanese readers I don't get butthurt nor morally outraged over non issues like some western readers

can't wait for my prediction to be right and you come back to say this manga was never good to begin with or something :v

It sounds to me like you're trying to conflate multiple viewpoints and criticisms here.

Rin can be a nuanced person, and still be an antagonist, and still be "redeemed", and still held accountable and criticized for the objectively bad things she's done--to Ruka and to others.

Trying to play the moral superiority game isn't productive, and it obfuscates the issues people have with the character and paints any critical analysis of Rin with too broad a brush to be useful.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Yeah I was worried when it opened on her flashback that we would do exactly that. Glad we didn't turn this into some sympathetic thing after what she did. Well for now anyway...

I'm almost convinced she'll be redeemed in some fashion, though I don't immediately know how that will occur.

I suspect it could be through Ruka's brother; he seems like the one person Rin seems to actually respect and seek to be seen as "good" by, as he's the only one we see actually looking at Rin and seeing the girl and not the ideal.

If he gets wind of what Rin did to his little sister, that could turn him away from her, which would (potentially) be the "last straw", and make her realize that this time her own actions and choices have hurt her, rather than it being everyone else simply forcing their views and perceptions upon her.

It might be more nuanced/involved than that, but I kinda don't see either of our Main Pair having any impact on Rin's personality that would influence her to change.

But all of that is a meta call; I'm not convinced the author will include an antagonist that is "Bad for their own sake", so I'm just assuming Rin will be redeemed (and getting backstory like this feels like the author laying groundwork for that).

 

[UdenEmpati]

How to ruin your story by wasting several chapters on some pointless boring drama before ending it in one chapter after every thing is resolved I bet! Yawn.

She is pretty important, actually--she's a big part of the reason Ruka is the way she is, and it wasn't until Suuna came along that she changed for the better.

Rin is Ruka's past coming back to confront/"test" her, and show whether Ruka has managed to progress her character and resolve the problems she had at the beginning.

 

[BrotherCoa]

At the same time, the tone of this series doesn't involve violence to the degree of murder.

In that sense....she's currently the "worst Bad" that the story portrays when it comes to negative behavior and characterization, and is clearly an outlier from everyone else introduced thus far. Saying "yeah but she hasn't killed anyone" doesn't factor into the story, unless you expect the author to introduce that in the future.

While not in the story it does factor into law everywhere in the world, and this story is not exception to the rule (unless author stated otherwise). I mentioned murder as it is one of the worst crimes that can be done without offering any chance for redemption. In story "The Summer You Were There" FMC was able to redeem herself by the end despite her crime also being quite heavy

Spoiler: Spoiler

bullying the person to the point of mental breakdown. But in the end, while still not 100% comfortable around eachother they were able to speak and start a new kind of friendly relationship. Even if the scars of the past are still visible for both parties.

With murder it's different, becasue once you kill that person (even in self-defense, trust me that some countries count even that as murder) there is no going back becasue that person is not there anymore. Unless Rin actually goes ahead and kills someone I will not count her as truly evil and will actually see her being redeemed.

Once that line is truly passed I will admit that you are right in that regard, until then I will see Ruka as a victim of her surroundings and not a villain that needs to be harshly punished.

However else you want to slice it - Ria still put her hands on a middle schooler when she was nearly graduating.

And at that point - if you want to play the "what is the benchmark for a Bad Person" and include things like the potential for murder, then surely sexually assaulting a young girl can also be taken into consideration?

Are you really want to go into that territory as Ruka has been much worse in that regard then Rin. Not only changing partners like socks but we do not even have confirmation that all of her "adventures" with other women were 100% consensual from the other party.

Not that Rin is innocent by any standards, even if she was also underage when she "put her hands" on Ruka. But everything Ruka did afterwards was of her own free will and honestly that puts her in a really bad spotlight until she meet Suuna and started to act like normal person.

And I do not hate or see Ruka in negative light as you are seeing Rin, she was also misguided and ignored until she found a person who "fix her". Rin also needs someone like that, maybe it will be Ruka's brother or maybe someone else. Time will tell.

 

[UdenEmpati]

While not in the story it does factor into law everywhere in the world, and this story is not exception to the rule (unless author stated otherwise). I mentioned murder as it is one of the worst crimes that can be done without offering any chance for redemption. In story "The Summer You Were There" FMC was able to redeem herself by the end despite her crime also being quite heavy

Spoiler: Spoiler

bullying the person to the point of mental breakdown. But in the end, while still not 100% comfortable around eachother they were able to speak and start a new kind of friendly relationship. Even if the scars of the past are still visible for both parties.

With murder it's different, becasue once you kill that person (even in self-defense, trust me that some countries count even that as murder) there is no going back becasue that person is not there anymore. Unless Rin actually goes ahead and kills someone I will not count her as truly evil and will actually see her being redeemed.

Once that line is truly passed I will admit that you are right in that regard, until then I will see Ruka as a victim of her surroundings and not a villain that needs to be harshly punished.



Are you really want to go into that territory as Ruka has been much worse in that regard then Rin. Not only changing partners like socks but we do not even have confirmation that all of her "adventures" with other women were 100% consensual from the other party.

Not that Rin is innocent by any standards, even if she was also underage when she "put her hands" on Ruka. But everything Ruka did afterwards was of her own free will and honestly that puts her in a really bad spotlight until she meet Suuna and started to act like normal person.

And I do not hate or see Ruka in negative light as you are seeing Rin, she was also misguided and ignored until she found a person who "fix her". Rin also needs someone like that, maybe it will be Ruka's brother or maybe someone else. Time will tell.

I'm also not saying Rin should be harshly punished; just that she's currently the end of the spectrum of "bad things done" by characters in the narrative. I think I said it in a comment to someone else but I do fully expect her to be redeemed, if only because this series doesn't strike me as one that would include axiomatically antagonistic characters who are not multidimensional in their narrative arcs.

Murder might be worse, but it's not been introduced into this story as a benchmark to consider when appraising the actions of the characters; so including it as part of the equation skews the analysis of everyone involved--which is why I make note of it. Also, murder isn't the objective worst thing one can do that marks someone as irredeemable; that's a subjective judgment call, and I would argue isn't helpful here because it simply won't happen due to the nature and tone of the series.

I don't think we're on opposing sides when it comes to Rin's character and her place in the story. I was only contesting using metrics of behavior that don't exist within the framework of the story itself as justification to dismiss other peoples' criticisms, as there are ones within the story itself to use, such as Ruka's own arc that you highlighted.

 

[BrotherCoa]

I was only contesting using metrics of behavior that don't exist within the framework of the story itself as justification to dismiss other peoples' criticisms, as there are ones within the story itself to use, such as Ruka's own arc that you highlighted.

I was not dismissing other people's criticisms at all, after all we all agree that she is a bad person when compared to everyone else. I was merely pointing out that Rin is not such a bad character that cannot be redeemed or understand. She is not evil for the sake of being evil. Hence why I note examples of how bad a character can be (murder or in your case sexual assault) and she is nowhere near those levels.

What I am more surprised is people trying to dismiss my own empathy toward Rin like she does not deserve any as a character. I fail to see what exactly has she done to not deserve any at all.

 

[Hresvelg_]

Don't really care about the supposedly"psycho" girl. Oh no, a potentially interesting side character, the horror! I was just put off by the unexpected hetslop shown in this chapter

 

[qef15]

Honestly I'm pretty split on Rin considering this chapter.

On one hand, that abuse and the fact she was no longer seen as a person makes me slightly sympathetic with her struggle to want to be a real person (just taken to the extreme). On the other hand, we have her use one of the most harmful ways to her surroundings to cope with that struggle.

I still hate her for trying to interject herself into the peak couple that is top Suuna and bottom Ruka and that harmful actions are not absolved by having past abuse and trauma. But her actions are, in a way, understandable. Understandable in the sense that they are logical for her to do and why she would do that, not something to agree with.

Rin needs therapy and help, because this is unhealthy trauma processing.

 

[PolizPolice]

nope, I read tons of good mangas, it's just that like japanese readers I don't get butthurt nor morally outraged over non issues like some western readers

can't wait for my prediction to be right and you come back to say this manga was never good to begin with or something :v

That's kind of you just projecting. While it's not impossible for her to be redeemed, this chapter wasn't the start of anything. Nothing in her behavior in this chapter was positive, doing extreme things to people mostly to leave an impression, one way or the other, mostly negative, and we already know what she did to Ruka, too, from chapter 19. She broke her heart and continued to gaslight her about things like kissing and the sort being something friends do, which is just wrong. Stalking her on a date, years later after disappearing on her while Ruka had a crush on her is nothing positive either, she could've given Suuna some tips and stay away from the place, maybe that way it could've been the start of a redemption, but it's not the case. This is looking at things from an objective standpoint.

And it's also projection of you to think I believe the manga is bad now, I'm completely fine with this development. But Rin is a bad person and has nothing "redeemeable" about her so far.

 

[UdenEmpati]

That's kind of you just projecting. While it's not impossible for her to be redeemed, this chapter wasn't the start of anything. Nothing in her behavior in this chapter was positive, doing extreme things to people mostly to leave an impression, one way or the other, mostly negative, and we already know what she did to Suuna, too, from chapter 19. She broke her heart and continued to gaslight her about things like kissing and the sort being something friends do, which is just wrong. Stalking her on a date, years later after disappearing on her while Suuna had a crush on her is nothing positive either, she could've given Ruka some tips and stay away from the place, maybe that way it could've been the start of a redemption, but it's not the case. This is looking at things from an objective standpoint.

And it's also projection of you to think I believe the manga is bad now, I'm completely fine with this development. But Rin is a bad person and has nothing "redeemeable" about her so far.

One point of clarification - Rin is from Ruka's past, not Suuna's

 

[PolizPolice]

One point of clarification - Rin is from Ruka's past, not Suuna's

Right, mingled names around

 

[raineight]

Murder is really really rare, it's kind of hilarious to go "she hasn't killed anyone, so she's not that bad" in a high school romance story. Being manipulative and abusive is almost as bad as a character in a story like this can be, though I guess there's "lying to destroy people's relationships" and "forcible rape" as worse things she's not shown as doing.

 

[SrNevik]

Are you really want to go into that territory as Ruka has been much worse in that regard then Rin. Not only changing partners like socks but we do not even have confirmation that all of her "adventures" with other women were 100% consensual from the other party.

I'm unclear on the point being made here. Changing partners is nowhere near the same thing as sexually assaulting a minor; that's not a serious comparison. I'm sure we agree, right? And the suggestion that her adventures may not have been consensual also doesn't go anywhere. You cannot prove a negative. That line of reasoning doesn't make sense. You made this comment by saying "Ruka has been much worse in that regard" when the other comment mentioned Rin's having sexual interactions with a middle schooler when she was in middle to late high school. I am not sure what you're implying there either. What middle schooler has Ruka been with? Ruka sleeping around seems to bother you, but that is not nearly the same as what Rin is potentially a culprit of.

 

[raineight]

What middle schooler has Ruka been with?

Decent chance she was with other middle schoolers when she herself was in middle school; I don't think she started playing around in high school. (Which is fine, I'm not accusing Ruka of doing anything wrong thereby.)

sexually assaulting a minor

Not to excuse Rin's behavior, but Rin herself was a minor. If she'd also been with someone who was 21 years old, many people would say that person was molesting a child.

 

[onedumninja]

She saw a child much younger than her and her first thought was to sexually abuse the child. She should be in prison.

 

[JustALolicon69]

srsly/..

 

[Sleepingair]

Damn so she can't manipulate the big brother thus she target locked instead his lil sister.😔, bisshh