Kusunoki-san wa Koukou Debut ni Shippai Shite Iru - Ch. 45.1 - Even if I end up all alone, that’s fine, because then, no one else will get hurt (Firs…

[Tinker_OwO]

Otobe is carrying this series for me ngl loll

 

[mgRdr]

Not really consistent with her being a popular hottie in middle school.

She wasn't a popular hottie in middle school, this chapter is set during elementary school days

 

[Jackist]

How the hell is my love life less interesting compared to these children?

It’s not hard to be more interesting than nothing at all

 

[UdenEmpati]

You nail it perfectly. I don't see a reason why Kusunoki would even make a move on Keisuke knowing the fact that she already knows how Moe feels for Keisuke. She's been characterized to be handed in a silver platter and all the popularity that she got is thanks to Keisuke's efforts. She already achieved what she wanted, having a perfect blond girl image, which makes her character arc essentially complete.

So unless the author adds more interesting nuances and flaws to her overall character or give her an actual reason why she would pursue Keisuke, this would just lead her either giving up or her winning by the virtue of being the FMC which would be a cop out and a stinky one.

true - and the issue is, we have no reason to assume that Kusunoki is any way other than how she's been continuously presented to the readers. If anything, this backstory shows she was always this way, and to this day doesn't "get" romance or have those feelings for others.

So...I don't know what path forward there is to get her involved with Keisuke in that fashion. At worst, she now realizes she potentially might lose Moe and Keisuke if the same thing that happened before repeats itself, and all that means is she's incentivized to try and push them together and keep herself on the side as both of their friends, so that she doesn't end up alone again.

Nothing about that addresses any development of her character, only pushes her to retain the existing status quo.

Which makes me think that Hebikawa's entire purpose will be to make Kusunoki realize that - surprise - she DOES have the capacity for romance because "oh noes Keisuke is being taken away by a mean girl", and that will...I guess spark something in her and she'll get jealous or possessive?
Which, would just prove Hebikawa at least someone correct in that "you're not the pure and bright and perfect person everyone thinks you are, if you're capable of being jealous".

So maybe that's the reason Hebikawa's here at all. And Moe will get double shafted, because unlike Chisuga, she won't be allowed to get mad at "losing Keisuke to Kusunoki" and leave, and will be forced to suck it up and quash her own feelings and stay in "Her Lady's" life.

Which also feels extra bad, to me, because it both makes a contrived change to Kusunoki's character with no actual setup (relying on an outside agent in Hebikawa, yet again), and Moe gets denied her crush and having to just deal with that or lose two people important to her.

 

[REMasher]

Being a kid can be rough, man.

 

[MasterPannya]

What a snake.


Wait

 

[KensouADV]

I had not considered this...... please no. I beg you author, please no. This already sucks, THAT would be even worse....

It would be funny if they're now dating in high school and completely forgot what happened back then with Kusunogi and come up with lame "Oh yeah, sorry about that but we were just children, right? Hey, let's go out someday for the old times."

 

[Veruschka]

Yeah yeah whatever, wheres snek anyway? Yeah yeah sure seriously hut dont you mind giving me more snek? Wheres snek
Im going to snek

 

[kamikazejoe]

boring. where is hebikawa? this is going nowhere.

 

[Shygig]

havent read the chap yet but wtf is this cringe chap name

 

[iolas]

Eh... meh. I feel like this trope’s been done to death.

Thanks for the chapter!

I like this manga, but man, snek and smol girl are so much better than FMC, even what we know about their backstories seems to be better.

 

[Babymech2]

I can't believe all of Japan got vaccinated... Sad if true

 

[MadScientist666]

So Kusunoki has the tism?

Being an autist myself, I actually wondered that as well, haha.

 

[iolas]

Being an autist myself, I actually wondered that as well, haha.

Do you really have/had trouble understanding what is love that hard tho? Feels like this trope of i don't know what love is and i don't care about love is so overused in manga to justify a character not being interested in romance.

 

[Drcool]

thanks for the translation

 

[UdenEmpati]

Do you really have/had trouble understanding what is love that hard tho? Feels like this trope of i don't know what love is and i don't care about love is so overused in manga to justify a character not being interested in romance.

I went back through and skimmed a bunch of the manga looking for examples to make a different point elsewhere, and I did happen to come across a number of single-panel instances where Kusunoki would start saying something about Keisuke in a manner that could be construed as her becoming "conscious" of him in some respect, only to immediately walk it back and then look away with a slight blush on her face.

So...one rather charitable interpretation of that being peppered throughout the narrative thus far, is that Kusunoki does in fact have feelings toward Keisuke, but has thoroughly buried them within herself, entirely because of this event that occurred in her past that this chapter is expanding upon.

She didn't "get" love before, because she was a 6th grader and it's not unheard of for a child of that age to not be thinking about that stuff, just because we have clear examples of other kids doing so.
The sticking point is that her not "getting" love at that time cost her two friends and (what I imagine will be expanded upon in the second half of this chapter) a huge blow to her self esteem and sense of self worth & how she can't relate to other kids.

So now in the present timeline, she's shutting that part of herself down completely, to avoid that ever happening to her again. Except she can't just choose to turn off her heart; only completely deny and reject it, and vocally denounce any semblance of understanding romance to anyone that asks her about it.

And that would be all well and good, except Keisuke does like her, and now Otobe likes Keisuke - and so the past is set to repeat for her, except 1) she now does have feelings for Keisuke, that she's aggressively avoided confronting, and 2) she's made such a big show of not understanding romance that she can't act on them even if she wanted to.
And if she does act on them now, she ends up hurting Otobe, and if she rejects Keisuke, she hurts Keisuke, and also possibly Otobe, because Kusunoki has lied to her and everyone else about her inability to understand love and Otobe will think she was lying to set her up somehow, just like Chisuga did.

So .... it could be that Kusunoki is genuinely still oblivious and naive. But we've gotten very subtle illustrated hints that could be interpreted as her simply lying to herself all this time for fear of ruining her friendships, while trying to overcome who she'd been in middle school as a result of all this happening in elementary school.

And I think that this might be the case, and we're being set up to witness her try to make things go differently this time around and not lose Otobe and Keisuke.
Given the chapter title, I kinda think she'll continue to deny her feelings, bury them completely, and play Matchmaker / Wingwoman for her two friends - except Keisuke doesn't have feelings for Otobe, and given Kusunoki's penchant for not being able to "read" the people around her, she might slip up and reveal the (alleged) lie she's told everyone and herself, and risk hurting her friends anyway.
And if Kusunoki instead just runs away from it all entirely and avoids them both, I could see Hebikawa coming back into play, offering to help Kusunoki, only with the real motive of poisoning her with thoughts of jealousy and fear of losing two friends who start dating one another, with the intention of watching Kusunoki "fall". Which, would bring all four of the main characters together, and would also maybe finally give Kusunoki some depth to her character by having a side of her that's not Little Miss Blandly Perfect that we've seen for 44 chapters or so, though at the risk of destroying multiple friendships, of course.



Anyway that got rather longwinded, but effectively I'm currently undecided on whether Kusunoki's truly dumb to all of this, or if she's truly just deluded herself into thinking that's the case out of self-preservation.

 

[the_Bear_from_Bearcave]

There are people in real life that really have bland personalities and not-so-memorable past.

Yeah, but they're not good material for main characters, and if writer can't imagine anyone else for their story, that's a problem with writing.
I can freely admit that any story with me as MC would be almost guaranteed to be bland and boring as shit, that's why I wouldn't want to read any story with MC exactly like me. Manga MCs can be relatable to us , but they need to be interesting. Realism just by itself isn't necessarily good quality, just like lack of realism isn't necessarily bad. If all I wanted was a realistic story, I can spend the 23 minutes of average anime episode looking at what I'm currently doing in my own life instead, but it would be boring and pointless.

 

[Wizardrone]

not her problem

thanks for chapter

 

[MiguelH224]

As a reminder, this chapter comes off the back of a chapter where Otobe let it be known to Kusunoki that she likes Keisuke

So this would explain why she would not go for him now

 

[euro_r]

Chicks before dicks
Sisters before misters