Love Agency - Vol. 2 Ch. 18 - Seize the fortune by the forelock.

[Saya2879]

Where to find the aqua/ruby fan novel ? It's for my fictional friend

 

[Emptyslot]

What even was the point of this chapter?

At best it was the random intro of a side character whose arc was completed in a single chapter, and at worst it was just badly-disguised MC wanking

I think you have that backwards. Seki isn't the MC, he's the male lead, and plainly written with the thought in mind that the audience, and the author, is more like Nanto than like him. He basically just exists to be a popular cool guy, and show they aren't assholes but admirable.

Basically, this manga is less a story and more just a deconstruction of romance narratives and delusions. Enjoy.

 

[Radicool21]

I think you have that backwards. Seki isn't the MC, he's the male lead, and plainly written with the thought in mind that the audience, and the author, is more like Nanto than like him. He basically just exists to be a popular cool guy, and show they aren't assholes but admirable.

Basically, this manga is less a story and more just a deconstruction of romance narratives and delusions. Enjoy.

The issue then becomes that we’re expected to insert into a character that we have zero connection to and have no reason to identify with. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m supposed to like him.

With Kaguya, Ishigami worked as a stand-in because he was gradually introduced as a character whose actions spoke for themselves. When the cool guys (cheer team) turned out to be genuinely good people, Ishigami’s change of heart was convincing only because he’d had so many chapters showing his biases.

Here, it’s “here is a nice guy character, and here he is losing in every department (even niceness) to the male lead.” An entire chapter of “telling” for Nanto and “showing” for Seki; so Aka’s basically not even bothering to develop the character narratively. Which then begs the question why I, as a reader, should care about him either. The entire interaction comes across as abrupt and even condescending.

 

[Emptyslot]

The issue then becomes that we’re expected to insert into a character that we have zero connection to and have no reason to identify with. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m supposed to like him.

With Kaguya, Ishigami worked as a stand-in because he was gradually introduced as a character whose actions spoke for themselves. When the cool guys (cheer team) turned out to be genuinely good people, Ishigami’s change of heart was convincing only because he’d had so many chapters showing his biases.

Here, it’s “here is a nice guy character, and here he is losing in every department (even niceness) to the male lead.” An entire chapter of “telling” for Nanto and “showing” for Seki; so Aka’s basically not even bothering to develop the character narratively. Which then begs the question why I, as a reader, should care about him either. The entire interaction comes across as abrupt and even condescending.

Well, it is abrupt and condescending, yes. Nanto reads as Aka's own self-insert to be understood by anyone familiar with the mentality here.

I don't really think any of this is about the characters. Seki, Mari, the whole lot of them, are extremely shallow. They're more literary devices to present concepts. I honestly do not give a damn about any of them.

Right now, Aka is just illustrating the attitude Virgins have towards Chads, to use familiar terms, and presenting it as delusional. So sure of themselves as especially nice, when they're often unremarkable, while popular people are typically popular for a reason. In many stories, they're bullies, scum, etc., and Nanto is projecting that, so Aka can counter that notion as baseless paranoia.

But yes. They are basically cheap dolls rushing through concepts. Mari isn't a convincing showcase of trauma, she's more a spiteful subversion of a boring empty heroine who would be attracted to a useless effeminate piece of shit because he's a useless effeminate piece of shit, as well as a takedown of people who want to be saved by romance as if that's what it's for.

 

[ilahazs]

Can we have Nobuko as the FMC? Please? Pretty please?

Agree, Mari is a typical ojou-sama boring as hell character

 

[Radicool21]

Well, it is abrupt and condescending, yes. Nanto reads as Aka's own self-insert to be understood by anyone familiar with the mentality here.

I don't really think any of this is about the characters. Seki, Mari, the whole lot of them, are extremely shallow. They're more literary devices to present concepts. I honestly do not give a damn about any of them.

Right now, Aka is just illustrating the attitude Virgins have towards Chads, to use familiar terms, and presenting it as delusional. So sure of themselves as especially nice, when they're often unremarkable, while popular people are typically popular for a reason. In many stories, they're bullies, scum, etc., and Nanto is projecting that, so Aka can counter that notion as baseless paranoia.

But yes. They are basically cheap dolls rushing through concepts. Mari isn't a convincing showcase of trauma, she's more a spiteful subversion of a boring empty heroine who would be attracted to a useless effeminate piece of shit because he's a useless effeminate piece of shit, as well as a takedown of people who want to be saved by romance as if that's what it's for.

Thanks for the response, I think you helped me figure out why the series has been off-putting for me.

The characters feel like curated packages of personality traits and backstory designed to move “story” forward, rather than have any sense of self or purpose or conflict aside from that. So any character drama feels artificially forced, yet obligatory at the same time. Which given the author feels that much more grating.

Idk what the direction or purpose of this series is, but I’ll stick with it if only because I’m still interested to see whether it doubles down on the irony or if it’ll show some actual genuineness.

 

[Emptyslot]

Thanks for the response, I think you helped me figure out why the series has been off-putting for me.

The characters feel like curated packages of personality traits and backstory designed to move “story” forward, rather than have any sense of self or purpose or conflict aside from that. So any character drama feels artificially forced, yet obligatory at the same time. Which given the author feels that much more grating.

Idk what the direction or purpose of this series is, but I’ll stick with it if only because I’m still interested to see whether it doubles down on the irony or if it’ll show some actual genuineness.

I think it's written from a very genuine place, but also a very frustrated one. His ideas didn't get through in Kaguya-sama, because many readers had fallen in love with concepts he wanted to condemn and he'd taken too long to condemn harshly enough.

So yeah, so far this story has been feeling quite rushed, hitting the beats as fast as possible.

The start tries to lure in the Kaguya-sama audience with references. It provides an incredibly boring heroine that only someone who didn't understand Aka would fall for. In just a handful of chapters, we're told Seki could confess successfully now. Here, in just ten chapters, we've reached yet another pivotal point. I think Aka's going to keep rushing through things until he reaches the important part.

 

[krow5729]

Godfucking damn it the translators are fucking creeps......go to therapy. Those are CHILDREN

 

[Trucyasui]

I've been saying "OH NO!" x100 times in this chapter. I support Seki x Nobuko, so. . . . OH NO!

 

[adm0726]

bro awakened his inner mangaka through the taste of "n*r"