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…

[the_Bear_from_Bearcave]

[...]
What I am saying is, Kusunoki's issues as a character are not from some quantifable realism or her real world blandness, they come from something else.

OK, but most of my disagreement was with argument that I often see elsewhere as well, that if something can happen in real world, that means it can't be criticized for being written into manga. That's obviously wrong, since you can definitely create 100% realistic story be copying it from real life, and it won't automatically become good just because it's guaranteed realistic.

Now, I can agree that Kusunoki and her past isn't bland, the problem is more that her characterization is too thin and one-note so far. She needs some spice, and more struggle with her friends. At least in the early parts there was the scene when she was made to cry by Snake and her posse, that kind of conflict and her reaction to it could make her more interesting. Make Snake challenge her for real and call her out on real of perceived grievances, see what she does.

 

[Kababman]

Honestly, being lowkey autistic does make Kusunoki's boring ass a little more likable.

 

[RiceIST00]

brah

 

[bigboygng]

this also shows manipulative behaviour he tried to lure her in with the "you dont get it until you try it" thing. i can see that guy not having a very bright future but still thx for the tl

 

[fulani]

So clichéd, I could just cry

 

[FiddlePop]

The chapter's TITLE is bad enough, makes you cringe. This tired, bothersome cliche.

It can get worse

(Second Part)
(Third Part)
.
.
.
(Xth Part)

 

[FiddlePop]

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

Once a traitor, always a traitor

Jokes aside, I think I kinda figured it out; the reason that everyone complains that Kusunoki is boring and generic is because she is completely Shoujo-manga coded in a shounen-manga world.
She just a passive character like that.

 

[StLL]

aahh young love lol

 

[Elcief_SSN]

Bruh as elementary kids I was just throwing muds at my buddies no one even thought about romance.
Drinking from the same bottle was just plain disgusting. Indirect kisses were not something we even knew.
What are these kids on these days.

 

[ThreeTakeWonder]

to be autistic yet still be pretty, surely a curse

 

[ilusatus]

I wanna say, "whats wrong with you, girl?!".
But then i realize theyre 12, i guess that interraction make sense at that age.

 

[Nehona]

I wanna say, "whats wrong with you, girl?!".
But then i realize theyre 12, i guess that interraction make sense at that age.

Fine, but if after this flashback she tries to go down the: "it's fine if I'm alone" route, then it's bad.

I hope... I do hope she's going to think that it's actually not fine and that she gets a bit more active and fleshed out. If she does not, I'm 100% rooting for ANY other girl. Because literally anything is better than that.

Too bad she's going to win anyway...

 

[Nehona]

Once a traitor, always a traitor

Jokes aside, I think I kinda figured it out; the reason that everyone complains that Kusunoki is boring and generic is because she is completely Shoujo-manga coded in a shounen-manga world.
She just a passive character like that.

Honestly, she's SO passive she doesn't feel real. She's a walking cliche devoid of human emotions. And that's why the other girls are much more relatable, and people hope for them to "win"

... most likely not going to happen though.

But honestly, would most readers pick her over, say, Otobe in real life? Would you, out there in real life, pick the boring soulless Kusunoki over Otobe? I think not. I really think not. I would not for sure...

 

[FiddlePop]

Honestly, she's SO passive she doesn't feel real. She's a walking cliche devoid of human emotions. And that's why the other girls are much more relatable, and people hope for them to "win"

... most likely not going to happen though.

But honestly, would most readers pick her over, say, Otobe in real life? Would you, out there in real life, pick the boring soulless Kusunoki over Otobe? I think not. I really think not. I would not for sure...

Bruh, literally what I pointed out

 

[Knighto]

Let's hope she activates a yandere side or something and has an epic battle with snek girl

which could be kinda good, as is that snek plan to see kusunoki's real face

 

[UdenEmpati]

Fine, but if after this flashback she tries to go down the: "it's fine if I'm alone" route, then it's bad.

it's understandable that Kusunoki's like this as a 6th grader.
The issue is she's still like this in high school. Even accounting for how she had her super loner depressing middle school life and is trying to "debut" with a glow-up, she has this exact experience to try and learn from, and she....doesn't.
And now because she acts exactly the same, despite it causing her central point of trauma, Keisuke has caught feelings all on his own because he fully misinterpreted her behavior toward and around him all throughout the first portion of the manga.

So....she's learned nothing, and hasn't tried to learn or grow from those mistakes - the most she did, is reach out to someone else (Keisuke) and make him help her figure it out.
She's still not taking action or agency for herself, and it's landed her in the exact same place she was the first go-around, to an eerily similar degree.

I hope... I do hope she's going to think that it's actually not fine and that she gets a bit more active and fleshed out. If she does not, I'm 100% rooting for ANY other girl. Because literally anything is better than that.

I think it'll go like this -

Kusunoki's going to do try and play matchmaker for Otobe, reasoning that if she can get Keisuke and Otobe together first, then what happened with Chigusa and Ren won't occur again because she'll "get ahead" of a confession toward her and thus solve the problem.
Except...Keisuke doesn't like Otobe, he likes Kusunoki - a fact Kusunoki has refused to believe, or really entertain, or take a moment to consider.
So she tries, then backs off, ignoring and denying the weird and painful feelings that she's getting because she refuses to engage with her emotions after (I'm guessing) deciding that love is nothing but trouble, given her not understanding it as a child cost her friendships and happiness.
And Keisuke and Otobe realize something is wrong, but Kusunoki just hits eject and avoids them to not let history repeat itself (which, it is, just in the inverse way, but she doesn't realize this).

And that is when Hebikawa shows up, offering to help Kusunoki figure all of this out. Except she's really going to feed the poisoned pill of uncertainty and jealousy and fear into Kusunoki, in the hopes that it makes Kusunoki crash out and reveal that "darkness" that Hebikawa is convinced exists within everyone who appears perfect on the surface.

And....from there I have my own thoughts about what I want to have happen, but -

Too bad she's going to win anyway...

you are correct that Kusunoki will ultimately win the romance game with Keisuke, because that's the formula of this genre and story and I cannot see the author going differently.

Especially given there was that Twitter Popularity Poll about the three heroines that was released a bit ago, and the author expressed confusion on how Kusunoki came in last behind Otobe, with Hebikawa taking 1st place.

Anyone who doesn't get that, who is also in charge of the story? I do not see them suddenly going the Botan Gambit route.

The only way I could see it going differently is if the point isn't who ends up in a relationship, and Kusunoki's original arc of growing past her trauma and having a successful high school debut really is her whole deal and the author isn't aiming for a relationship ending at all.
But I think it's Kusunoki x Keisuke, or nothing.

 

[ChaosAndBunnies]

I will reiterate, the problem with Kusunoki is that she's just BORING. That's why the other girls are so much more interesting....

Odd how often that tends to happen in these series

 

[SupremeDoc]

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

majority of us are NPCs but we don't want want to admit it ¯\(ツ)/¯ better than having trauma

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.

probably best case scenario all things considered is for her to hide her feelings, Keisuke rejects Otobe, and then she eventually gets her feelings straightened out and confesses to Keisuke. and then somewhere in there is Hebikawa's arc.

Bruh as elementary kids I was just throwing muds at my buddies no one even thought about romance.
Drinking from the same bottle was just plain disgusting. Indirect kisses were not something we even knew.
What are these kids on these days.

kids these days are cooked.
but i will say it might be normal for some to experience those feelings since the whole nuke to their friend group happened in 6th grade which is the beginning of middle school and also the start of romantice feelings for some. elementary is definitely too early for almost all

 

[UdenEmpati]

probably best case scenario all things considered is for her to hide her feelings, Keisuke rejects Otobe, and then she eventually gets her feelings straightened out and confesses to Keisuke. and then somewhere in there is Hebikawa's arc.

I personally wanna see the author be brave and make Kusunoki decide romance ain't for her, and Keisuke either gets that and they remain friends, or he resolves his history with Hebikawa and helps her with her own character arc, and they get together instead. Mostly because I think his chemistry with Hebikawa is the best of the three, if a romantic pairing has to be included before the conclusion.
Almost 0% chance that happens, but.

kids these days are cooked.
but i will say it might be normal for some to experience those feelings since the whole nuke to their friend group happened in 6th grade which is the beginning of middle school and also the start of romantice feelings for some. elementary is definitely too early for almost all

There's also the fact that "kids" aren't a single age demographic, much less a monolith when it comes to development within their respective age groups.

Just because some kids weren't doing the whole "intro to dating" thing when they were 12, doesn't mean it's some foreign alien concept that others were.

And treating anecdotal experiences of individual persons from various points in time and within various cultural contexts as some benchmark of expectation for every child ever, both fictional and real, is honestly foolhardy, even when used as a single point of relatable reference.