Kusunoki's Flunking Her High School Glow-Up - Vol. 4 Ch. 23 - Congrats on your highschool debut, Shizuki-kun

[K-Lye]

That's the thing. We ARE just kids. You may be saying this as someone who thinks they haven't done anything wrong in life.
But I can say from experience that I've regretted saying a lot of things in general (not just middle school).
In this situation parents weren't involved so she wasn't reprimanded for saying something hurtful, and I hope she somehow apologizes (if she even remembers what she said).
Yes parents using the excuse "they're just kids" is deplorable because it gives excuses to the kid to keep doing stupid shit, but I don't think it's a really good argument to use against the Original Poster observation.

I really like how the author is portraying this character. Her behavior is extremely realistic (except for the vomit part), and we are mainly seeing her through the lens of the main character's bias. This creates an antagonistic view of her for us as readers, which is further reinforced by her character design. However, she hasn't actually done anything bad so far, aside from the comment she made in middle school, which, as you mentioned, is typical behavior for someone that age. I hope the story doesn't outright antagonize her and that the main character eventually becomes the bigger person, accepting that she has changed over the years, just as he has.

It’s pretty shocking how many readers are vilifying her for doing something most children do. Yes it wasn’t right and yes she should apologise but she’s hardly a demon (insofar as what we know about her so far) and she certainly isn’t responsible for his trauma.

Putting her aside though, negative events happen in everyone’s life. Going around blaming others because it hit you harder than intended is not just childish but actually pretty narcissistic.

 

[Jexzer]

Yeah it’s a manga and melodrama is kinda baked in, but so what if she knows who he is? It’s not like she’s going to ruin his school debut, he already already only talks to main girl and her tomboy orbiter.

 

[MiguelH224]

Hey, at least this time he managed to talk to her without puking



What's your goal here girl?

 

[WaterSoluble]

That was a big wall of text, yes, I have read the full thing. I disagree though, you cannot just say "yeah she was just a kid" when giving someone else a trauma.
A kid or not, when you're growing up and learning from your parents and others, you should know that being mean is... well... bad.

You absolutely can. Children have inferior decisionmaking skills and rationality , and most lack strong moral awareness due to having a fundamentally self-centred understanding of the world. The notion that a child bully should be saddled with long-term blame relies on treating children like adults, needlessly stigmatizing them for actions that they took when they were completely different people.

 

[AnjinM]

That girl is a snake and needs to be crushed under heel.

 

[NeloDante]

You absolutely can. Children have inferior decisionmaking skills and rationality , and most lack strong moral awareness due to having a fundamentally self-centred understanding of the world. The notion that a child bully should be saddled with long-term blame relies on treating children like adults, needlessly stigmatizing them for actions that they took when they were completely different people.

I can see that you have not been a victim neither seen how victims of children's bullying end up to say that with a straight face.
A child doesn't have the same mentality of an adult, that much is clear, however a child can understand what is bad and what is good.

Abusing someone is a bad thing, period, this is not about kids understanding how bad that is, but understanding that it is bad and that they should not do it. The only people that have ever said "she/he was just a kid" are those that have done something bad in the past themselves or completely ignorant people, noone that knows how it is has ever said anything similar.

 

[Uk2897]

oh no, bros. I'm starting to like her.

Toxic women are pretty interesting after all

 

[Uk2897]

The Spanish translation is up to 31 in another site, about the reason she is that way and the MC(I'm not fluent in Spanish so I can't say it is 100% correct):

Spoiler: Spoilers

basically she liked a idol when she was a kid and wanted to be a nice girl like her, but other girls in school started to be a dick to her, and she decided to be a dick back at those girls, she got disappointed that she couldn't be a perfect nice girl, then she saw on the news that the idol she liked was fired for underage drinking and got happier after noticing that the idol also was not perfect, and everything was fine with her until she met the female lead that apparently is what she wanted to be for real, so now she wants to see the "dark side" of the female lead

About the MC she didn't care, she was just curious about why he avoided her, and when he talked about his trauma she basically told him that was a skill issue on his part to fall in love with her just because she was nice to him

MC decided to stop avoiding her like the plague because he decided that was a waste to go out of his way just to avoid a person that doesn't even care about him, he still hates her

Damn all that till 31. Pretty slow development :/

 

[Dark1400]

Damn all that till 31. Pretty slow development :/

there are more stuff, but i just addressed what people are curious about on the comments, i basically just talked about the next 1 or 2 chapters and chapter 30 + 31

 

[Exile]

Setting boundaries and inflicting trauma aren't the same thing, fam.

How cute.

And what are the boundaries? who decided then since they arent a fact in the sense they obey some programed law, we dont put ours hands on fire because this is a instinctive trait from hundreds of generations but social norms are ever changing, what is acceptable today might not been so 100 years ago or will be 100 years from now, thus "boundaries" are set in two ways ... one being testing then and the other being forced upon, they are learned by repercussions even if not necessary directly.

Also I will say this, its really is a skill issue from his part since I gone back and check the first chapter, someone asked her if she found him gross and she agreed with that, he wasnt a part of the conversation and just because people are "nice" to you in a social grouping this is entirely due to whats called "polite conversation", doesnt mean they like you or have a good opinion on you, its simply social conventions dictate you cant be mean in public to other unless its socially acceptable, it really sucks when you are at the bottom of the pole but guess what? if you arent you still act as most people do because you dont want to be ostracized from the group.

Socially she did nothing wrong, he wasnt a part of her group and she had no personal interest on him, being "nice" doesnt mean she is romantically interested and people that think that way pretty much fall under a label, Incel that explains a lot of people being "upset" about people "defending her", none of us are saying she is a nice person BTW, simply that she did nothing wrong within the social norms, lets not act as she "lead him on" just to public humiliate him ... she was nice to him in public and in a private conversation she agreed with a comment by another person, a conversation he wasnt a part of. In fact by her behavior she seem to have agreed just for the sake of without even considering him.

 

[himi-cat]

That was a big wall of text, yes, I have read the full thing. I disagree though, you cannot just say "yeah she was just a kid" when giving someone else a trauma.

"Yeah, she was just a kid" isn't an excuse, it's an explanation - you start there and move on to ". . . but that doesn't make it acceptable, she really needs to change (and ideally reach a point where she fully understands why it's not acceptable)".

What makes this particular character problematic isn't that she was bullying him before, it's that she's still doing it - up to now it was relatively low-key and more focused on messing with his only female friend (who she doesn't even seem to see as a rival? it's hard to say), but now she's realised she has some serious leverage and she's getting a lot more direct.

And I mean, it makes zero sense given she seems to want some kind of relationship with him - unless what she wants is some kind of pretend boyfriend thing that lets her parade around with a hot guy? But still, she's clearly got some kind of interest in him, and she's used whatever means were available to get what she wants - "oh, look at me, I'm hot", then "oh, look at me, I'm so nice to your little friend (who is obviously so much less great than me)", and now "oh hey, I know your big secret and I can crush you like a bug".

A kid or not, when you're growing up and learning from your parents and others, you should know that being mean is... well... bad.

Shockingly, a lot of parents and people in positions of influence over kids don't seem to think teaching basic humanity to the kids in their care is all that important . . .

 

[himi-cat]

100% agree shes fake call it what it is and if we put real world logic too this the MC really should just get over it i know its trauma and all but it happened in middle school ive said somethings in middle school that im not proud of but no one i know held it over my head for 4 years maybe its just a different culture situation

That's absolutely not how trauma works - the whole point is that it's not any kind of rational response, it's a deep-seated subconscious thing that the rational parts of your brain have no control over. When he's triggered and having flashbacks, he's not going "oh god, that was so embarrassing", he's literally experiencing what he felt at the time the trauma happened - which in his case was clearly paralysing fear to the point where he was physically sick. Why exactly he felt that way and why exactly it caused this level of trauma in him doesn't matter - whatever the reason, his trauma is real and his response to being triggered is real.

And saying shit like "just get over it" . . . isn't helpful (to put it in the nicest possible words). You don't "get over" trauma, the best you can do is reprogram your brain so that it doesn't decide to replay your trauma whenever something happens to hit the right set of buttons. Doing that is really hard, there are no easy routes, and probably most people who suffer significant trauma never actually manage it - maybe they manage to change their life enough that they don't hit their triggers, maybe they manage to figure out how to minimise the impact when they are triggered, maybe they just go through life desperately trying to avoid anything that might remind them of what happened and drinking themselves into oblivion when they do get triggered. Or maybe they "get over it" permanently. Like, dead permanently.

Okay, rant over.

 

[Heika]

Booooo! Give me back my wholesome chapters with my precious Kusunoki!

 

[himi-cat]

Socially she did nothing wrong, he wasnt a part of her group and she had no personal interest on him, being "nice" doesnt mean she is romantically interested and people that think that way pretty much fall under a label, Incel that explains a lot of people being "upset" about people "defending her", none of us are saying she is a nice person BTW, simply that she did nothing wrong within the social norms, lets not act as she "lead him on" just to public humiliate him ... she was nice to him in public and in a private conversation she agreed with a comment by another person, a conversation he wasnt a part of. In fact by her behavior she seem to have agreed just for the sake of without even considering him.

eh, re-reading that part it screams "unreliable narrator" to me - that's how he's presenting this stuff to himself as part of his self-improvement narrative, but it doesn't ring true when he also clearly doesn't realise that his thing of getting sick when he looks pretty girls in the eye is a trauma response. I would expect there to be more going on that he's not necessarily remembering or recognising as part of his initial trauma.

Or, of course, maybe none of this is all that carefully thought out and internally consistent - it's not like this would be the first story that wasn't all that well written . . .

 

[meltworkzz]

I hope i can see the snake the same way I'm afraid of after this.

 

[Flavihok]

The bitch and her audacity

 

[MeganeYeyi]

Oh my goooooooosh

 

[thtgiang]

I can fix her.

 

[lolfacesayshi]

BARF BARF BARF BARF BARF COME ON SHE'S RIGHT IN PROJECTILE VOMIT RANGE

 

[Exile]

eh, re-reading that part it screams "unreliable narrator" to me - that's how he's presenting this stuff to himself as part of his self-improvement narrative, but it doesn't ring true when he also clearly doesn't realise that his thing of getting sick when he looks pretty girls in the eye is a trauma response. I would expect there to be more going on that he's not necessarily remembering or recognising as part of his initial trauma.

Or, of course, maybe none of this is all that carefully thought out and internally consistent - it's not like this would be the first story that wasn't all that well written . . .

Or maybe that is all there was and he simply had a extreme reaction, not that he is dysfunctional either when the worst reactions are in her presence that shows is more of he overlapping one of her characteristics (being pretty) over others and there isnt really any kind of extreme response, I could go all Freud but this is just the author making a setup for the characters to interact, he is that way simply for the interactions with the female lead to be more interesting in the sense he initially tries to reject but stops because of course he will since otherwise the story wouldnt progress.

After all this is fiction.

I also say people are seeing things that arent there, she might not be nice but she dont nothing wrong socially, seen far worst antagonist characters (just look at typical Shoujo female antagonists), in fact this have a lot of similarities with Masamune-kun no Revenge were the male lead also goes over a transformation to get revenge on the female lead because he thought she called him "piggy" and we have every reason to think that way until the author shows what happened that night and you still have people siding with the maid (totally unrelated to filling a specific fetish niche I am sure) and a lot because Aki really is a rather honest (and mean since when she starts she doesnt stop) person.