Kusunoki-san wa Koukou Debut ni Shippai Shite Iru - Ch. 44.1 - Why Do I Even Like Him? (First Part)

[Qnomei]

I'm glad Otobe has had the realisation of "wait I like him for really flimsy reasons", but I don't understand why she's letting him decide if she dates the guy who confessed to her. What's the logic there?

She's trying to sus out his feelings for her without asking him directly.

 

[gedearya]

Too scared to get rejected so she offloads the entire process to her crush

---

Meanwhile....

There was a tweet where the author was shocked that everybody voted for Hebikawa.

a kind and perfect beauty heroine ? meh boring
a mean sadistic side character that would absolutely dominated you? hell yeahh

 

[Hassaanrulz]

Not like confessing to someone just because you saw them in a maid costume is any better.

It is. Maids are the greatest human invention and the tomboy is cute

 

[Esgar]

I'm with the author on that one tbh. She kinda sucks. Obviously written to be an antagonist and past trauma and not much else. Guy's only reaction to her so far has been "fuck off."

And he is objectively right in that. It's unhinged how so many people just overlook how she treated him and how she treats others in general. Hell, they were much quicker to treat the MC as the bad guy despite being her victim. It's just... idk it just felt hopeless during those chapters when she was introduced again.

I'll take "boring" Kusunoki over the literal snake any time. It's just that guys on the internet tend to prefer the "bad" girl aesthetic more, maybe because they've been slowly trained by recent media to be masochists.

 

[colorlesseatstomboys]

I'm glad I'm not in a mood to read manga nor rant.

 

[UdenEmpati]

And he is objectively right in that. It's unhinged how so many people just overlook how she treated him and how she treats others in general. Hell, they were much quicker to treat the MC as the bad guy despite being her victim. It's just... idk it just felt hopeless during those chapters when she was introduced again.

I'll take "boring" Kusunoki over the literal snake any time. It's just that guys on the internet tend to prefer the "bad" girl aesthetic more, maybe because they've been slowly trained by recent media to be masochists.

I know for me - it's because Hebikawa breaks the mould of the story.

Remove her character from the narrative and this becomes yet another "quiet MC chases perfect class idol", with the added caveat of "perfect class idol" had no self-esteem for the first bit - but don't worry, she's so naturally talented in everything she tries to do that she'll still immediately rise to the top of the social ladder while being demure and modest the whole way through.

Hebikawa is the outlier to the gimmick formula, and makes this story stand out from all the others in its specifc genre categorization. For me, that makes the story worth reading over the others that are like it.

 

[WaterSoluble]

I'll take "boring" Kusunoki over the literal snake any time. It's just that guys on the internet tend to prefer the "bad" girl aesthetic more, maybe because they've been slowly trained by recent media to be masochists.

Trying to make real-world assumptions about people based on their fictional preferences is as misguided as trying to make real-world assumptions about people based on their kinks. Most people simply like whatever characters and storylines they find interesting, and aren't terribly concerned about the 'morality' of people and plotlines that are ultimately just make-believe.

 

[Friendly-Sentence710]

Poor Moe. Spent so long being a tomboy, she never prepared to have feelings.

Not like confessing to someone just because you saw them in a maid costume is any better.

I mean can you blame him for having excellent taste AND being cultured?

first love and unstable teenage romance drive you dizzy

Thank you for translating

Hormones are a hell of a drug.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Trying to make real-world assumptions about people based on their fictional preferences is as misguided as trying to make real-world assumptions about people based on their kinks. Most people simply like whatever characters and storylines they find interesting, and aren't terribly concerned about the 'morality' of people and plotlines that are ultimately just make-believe.

there's an argument that disparaging an entire swath of people based on their response to an online popularity poll is kinda Hebikawa-coded behavior, ironically enough.

 

[Esgar]

there's an argument that disparaging an entire swath of people based on their response to an online popularity poll is kinda Hebikawa-coded behavior, ironically enough.

I'm not sure if you're talking about me, but if you are:

This feels like a wild accusation. During the chapter when she literally forced herself on top of him when he was feeling ill from the trauma of seeing her again, acting all smug, people were legitimately saying that "she did nothing wrong" and that he just "made up his trauma." That's what I'm referring to when it comes to me feeling hopeless about some readers of this manga.

You're saying that I'm the same as the person who actively bullies and tries to ruin other people's lives for her own amusement? Because I disliked how people treated her as some misunderstood saint and blamed the MC for "whining" over feeling hurt by this character?

I understand that yall love her, but isnt that going too far? Why not just accept that, yes, she is a very bad person, but that you like that about her? Why go through all this effort to make it seem like it's the opposite? That she is somehow some saint while the MC is wrong for "feeling" like she did him any wrong? Because we all know that's not true and if she wasnt like that, yall wouldnt like her.

I would have no problem with readers acknowledging that and saying that they love her character because she is bad. It's the "she did nothing wrong" and "the MC is a bitch for even being slightly hurt by her" crowd that bothers me. The fact that this alone makes you make some smug remark about me "being like Hebikawa" is just... yeah that does make me feel hopeless, wont lie. There were people back then who legitimately described treating real people in their lives just like she did and claimed that it's OK because if they were bothered by that they were "weak." So yeah, I do kinda judge people when they say things like that.

 

[Qnomei]

It is. Maids are the greatest human invention and the tomboy is cute

To be fair, she wasn't quite a real maid. She doesn't have a skateboard.