Kusunoki-san wa Koukou Debut ni Shippai Shite Iru - Ch. 37 - I thought I'd have my lady check to see if it looks weird

[TheBlackGamer]

She does look cute with long hair. Then again, I am biased, given my preference for long hair.

Agreement

 

[TheBlackGamer]

Harem master is ready to break some hearts! Specifically two, Kusonoki and Otobe's. I am a Hebikawa stan now.

It's funny you think the protag has any feelings left for the snake bitch

Current personal rankings:
1. Kusunoki: Former introvert gone faux extrovert, you love to see it. Genuine sweetheart, great chemistry with MC, had struggles and shows improvement.
2. Otobe: Cute mini dark skin tomboy, kind of annoying at the start but has undergone some character growth and has a fun balance of shy and mischievous.
.
.
.
99. Background character 37: They have a pulse and havent done anything wrong
100. Hebikawa: Bitch with a sad girl backstory, has done nothing to show any personal growth or improvement, shitty motives and personality

You know speaking of the bitch being a bitch. A lot of people praise her for being interesting but she's not. She's the typical bitch character because she had it "hard" growing up that made her jaded. It's no different than multiple of other bitch characters who are cunts because of their background.

Just a lot of simps falling for that woe is me bullshit.

 

[Kromwulf]

Oh man, the tomboy looks unbelievably cute, hnnnggggghhhh

 

[Nightazakus]

oh dear god, will the cute dark skinned girl ever win in a harem manga that doesn’t have a harem ending

Yeah probably not

Never bro, this is manga made by Japanese person, unlikely to happen that way.

 

[Erbakhan]

Thank you shadow

 

[SomeFreak]

Respect to Shadow

 

[Arthorivs]

I don't want the snek girl to win, but chill guys. The author is yet to "redeem" her with the sad backstory and probably something involving her creepy step-dad.

 

[Tonikill1]

hate it when author introduce these characters merely as plot device for the main ship. like no shit they're not winning

 

[Dingo777]

I don't want the snek girl to win, but chill guys. The author is yet to "redeem" her with the sad backstory and probably something involving her creepy step-dad.

I hope if they author doesn’t chose to redeem her she ACTUALLY gets an arc (break, realization, change, apology, work to forgiveness) and not “oh she has a sad backstory, make the MC forgive her and now she’s good”.

 

[GregoryFregory]

decent chapter, Irie-san has risen up to be my 2nd favorite girl in the manga after Hebi that's for sure. I'm hoping for more of her in the future

 

[oofek]

how can bro be so dense 😭

 

[JackWasGone]

Oh yh, shea definitely crushing on him 130%

Too bad she ain't gonna win

 

[Lunkli]

Thank you for wasting your time.

 

[Tinker_OwO]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot she was also a heroine loll

 

[essensue]

I hope if they author doesn’t chose to redeem her she ACTUALLY gets an arc (break, realization, change, apology, work to forgiveness) and not “oh she has a sad backstory, make the MC forgive her and now she’s good”.

(Assuming you mean "author doesn't choose to redeem her"?) Honestly I'm more afraid that it's going to pivot instead to her needing to be saved, or that a redemption arc is going to be all melodramatic and drawn out and really show her suffering. I've reread most of the series since the last chapter release, and once you know she has absolutely no idea who the protagonist is, it becomes obvious just how much fun the early chapters are having by playing her up as being sinister when actually she's just being weirdly polite. Overall, I'm not sure she really owes him more than a "Hey, I'm really sorry for saying you were 'gross' in middle school. That was shitty of me. And for not respecting your boundaries when I was trying to figure out why you were being all weird and rude to me."

How would you feel about it if it turned out that her desire to determine whether Kusunoki was a faker like every other girl she's known was rooted in a desire to use Kusunoki's Pollyanna-ass example as an offramp from her own cycle of hiding behind her cynicism? And she was just like "Yeah, sorry about that" and gradually grew out of it? Would that be sufficient?

Spoiler: Hebikawa's crimes against/Relationship with Shizuki

If she wanted any kind of relationship with him, yeah, she'd have to work toward reconciliation that satisfied him, but... She doesn't appear to be pursuing that: She was after him in the way that a cat chases anything smaller than itself that runs away. Keisuke was being weird af and her curiosity demanded that she know what he was hiding. After she pries it out of him in chapter 24 (pg.17) she says she won't follow him around anymore, and she doesn't. Every interaction they've had since, Keisuke stumbles upon her and chooses to engage with her, for reasons like getting over his own fear of her or because he thinks he can help her. And I'd forgotten that she was vocally disappointed in how boring his secret was, and when she notices that calling it not a big deal hurts his feelings even more somehow, she apologizes briefly but immediately.

Here is the extent of Hebikawa's relationship with Keisuke: They were barely acquaintances. Even the scenes showing them "together" are her obviously just walking past his desk and him watching her be popular from afar. So she was exactly as nice to him as she was to everyone else, which is way more positive attention than he was getting from anyone else in school. She was aware (chapter 24) that he probably had a crush on her, but get in line, apparently - she was the prettiest and most popular in the grade.

And then one time, she throws him under the bus when her friend challenges her about talking to him from time to time and makes an excuse: "Doesn't he gross you out?" "Yeah, he is gross. But being nice to people like him makes me look like a saint." She doesn't even go out of her way to be mean to him, she just agrees with her friend because that has more social utility in the moment. The rest of that chapter is her saying that whatever version of her he loved was all in his head, and she's not wrong, even in Keisuke's own words: she was kind to him "So I thought to myself she was different from the others..." In the end, she wasn't. At her worst, she was no meaner than anyone else in the class, but it did seem like a betrayal because she was the only one to treat him decently, previously.

Other than seem very threatening, she hasn't actually even really done anything rude in the last 20 chapters other than call him "surprisingly nice" which given how he'd been behaving around her previously, yeah, fine.

I'm not rooting for Hebikawa as a romance option, and right now I almost feel like it would be more satisfying if her story with Shizuki was wrapped at this point. He doesn't need to rescue her to realize that sometimes the villains of your story are way bigger in your head than they are in real life, if they're even villains at all. The constant coincidental run-ins are getting a bit much. And recently she feels more like the protagonist of a different story, honestly. Maybe the writing will justify her presence by having her relationship with Kusunoki be important for both of them.

 

[Desertking1]

Literally these two are better than Kusunoki. The FMC in this series is beyond boring and less interesting. This manga would be dead without Hebi. I hope she wins in the end. Kusunoki and Shizuki look good as friends. Nothing good or whatsoever from shipping them. No chemistry at all. Snake all the way. Best girl.

 

[Erricane]

A peek of Otobe of what she'll look like with long hair. Hell yea.

 

[Arthorivs]

(Assuming you mean "author doesn't choose to redeem her"?) Honestly I'm more afraid that it's going to pivot instead to her needing to be saved, or that a redemption arc is going to be all melodramatic and drawn out and really show her suffering. I've reread most of the series since the last chapter release, and once you know she has absolutely no idea who the protagonist is, it becomes obvious just how much fun the early chapters are having by playing her up as being sinister when actually she's just being weirdly polite. Overall, I'm not sure she really owes him more than a "Hey, I'm really sorry for saying you were 'gross' in middle school. That was shitty of me. And for not respecting your boundaries when I was trying to figure out why you were being all weird and rude to me."

How would you feel about it if it turned out that her desire to determine whether Kusunoki was a faker like every other girl she's known was rooted in a desire to use Kusunoki's Pollyanna-ass example as an offramp from her own cycle of hiding behind her cynicism? And she was just like "Yeah, sorry about that" and gradually grew out of it? Would that be sufficient?

Spoiler: Hebikawa's crimes against/Relationship with Shizuki

If she wanted any kind of relationship with him, yeah, she'd have to work toward reconciliation that satisfied him, but... She doesn't appear to be pursuing that: She was after him in the way that a cat chases anything smaller than itself that runs away. Keisuke was being weird af and her curiosity demanded that she know what he was hiding. After she pries it out of him in chapter 24 (pg.17) she says she won't follow him around anymore, and she doesn't. Every interaction they've had since, Keisuke stumbles upon her and chooses to engage with her, for reasons like getting over his own fear of her or because he thinks he can help her. And I'd forgotten that she was vocally disappointed in how boring his secret was, and when she notices that calling it not a big deal hurts his feelings even more somehow, she apologizes briefly but immediately.

Here is the extent of Hebikawa's relationship with Keisuke: They were barely acquaintances. Even the scenes showing them "together" are her obviously just walking past his desk and him watching her be popular from afar. So she was exactly as nice to him as she was to everyone else, which is way more positive attention than he was getting from anyone else in school. She was aware (chapter 24) that he probably had a crush on her, but get in line, apparently - she was the prettiest and most popular in the grade.

And then one time, she throws him under the bus when her friend challenges her about talking to him from time to time and makes an excuse: "Doesn't he gross you out?" "Yeah, he is gross. But being nice to people like him makes me look like a saint." She doesn't even go out of her way to be mean to him, she just agrees with her friend because that has more social utility in the moment. The rest of that chapter is her saying that whatever version of her he loved was all in his head, and she's not wrong, even in Keisuke's own words: she was kind to him "So I thought to myself she was different from the others..." In the end, she wasn't. At her worst, she was no meaner than anyone else in the class, but it did seem like a betrayal because she was the only one to treat him decently, previously.

Other than seem very threatening, she hasn't actually even really done anything rude in the last 20 chapters other than call him "surprisingly nice" which given how he'd been behaving around her previously, yeah, fine.

I'm not rooting for Hebikawa as a romance option, and right now I almost feel like it would be more satisfying if her story with Shizuki was wrapped at this point. He doesn't need to rescue her to realize that sometimes the villains of your story are way bigger in your head than they are in real life, if they're even villains at all. The constant coincidental run-ins are getting a bit much. And recently she feels more like the protagonist of a different story, honestly. Maybe the writing will justify her presence by having her relationship with Kusunoki be important for both of them.

She 100% will need to be saved, the step-dad chapter is a huge Chekhov's Gun. The "redemption" I said on a previous comment is about her conception of herself, because it seems to me she sees herself as rotten and is why she is initially suspicious of Kusunoki, like "no way a girl like her can exist!". Chapter Page 17 is a strong indication this will turn into a "harem" manga, though I'm still hoping it won't. So yeah, expect some melodrama.

 

[JH7391]

Well...honestly I prefer to keep the original, so I'd have 18 just cut off lmao
but well done, I didn't notice until you pointed it out on the last page

 

[Kanade0021]

thanks for the translation!