Mada Kimi wo Miageteru - Ch. 4 - It Really Fits You

[Phantaminium]

I need to see more from the past, it feels like he had a very brittle ego towards his work but also didn't at the same time. I think FMC was the filter to get to what he feels is a refined work?

Either way I think we'll come to understand the process more or what he was missing or felt he was missing. I'd like to see an actual statement from the editor.

 

[rphilly]

I'd like at least a little bit of introspection into Minori, not just because the MC is an insufferable whiny loser but also because I want more information on what Minori is actually feeling here and back then. If she was romantically interested in him then it becomes baffling that they actually didn't date unless she deliberately didn't confess. Keita was a cowardly loser back then, and still is now, there is no way he would ever confess to a girl he liked. This should basically be obvious to anyone that's ever interacted with him. That means Minori deliberately chose not to pursue a relationship back then but fundamentally Keita is still the same person he was back then which is worse because now he's an adult that needs to fulfill financial responsibilities. So why should she want to pursue it now? He literally isn't capable of fulfilling any role in a relationship.

It would be better if she platonically liked him back then and now is just reminded of better times through their reconnection. Gradually developing into romantic love by spending more time together. Instead she's a black box with the implication that she loved him back then and bafflingly still does right now.

 

[AzrefReza]

You are right. But still feels weird she didn't do this with him first. Saw a comment saying "if this was there highschool time it would be more wholesome." And I am going to be honest they were right. Because right now he is just her second choice. Bro can't win at all and it's very sad. 😭

I am honestly impressed by how you manage to delve deeper into stupidity after each new message…

 

[Lajs]

You are right. But still feels weird she didn't do this with him first. Saw a comment saying "if this was there highschool time it would be more wholesome." And I am going to be honest they were right. Because right now he is just her second choice. Bro can't win at all and it's very sad. 😭

When Mc asked about her husband she said he was dead in a very uncaring casual way… something is off about her plus she works as a hostess.

 

[Lajs]

I am honestly impressed by how you manage to delve deeper into stupidity after each new message…

He ain’t really wrong Mc has done nothing but take L’s and him coming back home after losing just to be her second choice is crap especially when she is so casual and nonchalant about mentioning her husband is dead.

 

[tairar]

Lol 😆 I didn't know I was that rememberable. Lol 🤣 🤣 🤣 For a chapter that was very boring. It's wholesomeness ruined by her being used goods. This authors pacing is very slow most are going to skim. Seriously why did the mc drop the husband part? He doesn't know if the husband is still around or not. So it's very disrespectful to have a married woman alone with just himself. Would you like your wife hanging out with an old guy friend alone? If yes, i feel sorry for you. And please value yourself more.

Lmao I can’t believe you’re still at this shit after the last chapter

 

[essensue]

I need to see more from the past -snip-

I think this series is at its best so far when it's doing its brooding, atmospheric character development in moments of quiet, but it's kind of agonizing to read serialized. It feels like we're getting loose ends introduced faster than we're making forward progress.

I'd like at least a little bit of introspection into Minori -snip-

I really get the sense that her opacity is a deliberate choice, and I'm really curious to see what it'll wind up being in service of. A way of representing her own unresolved or unconfronted feelings? Big reveal that will recontextualize a bunch of stuff we or the MC thought we knew? Small reveals that will parallel MC's getting his own life straightened out? Representation of MC's lack of insight? Just a mysterious tone thing?

When Mc asked about her husband she said he was dead in a very uncaring casual way… something is off about her plus she works as a hostess.

She doesn't work at a hostess bar, she's a bartender at a concafe - they're at the opposite ends of the spectra of price and innocence, totally night and day. Even if she's wearing a bunny costume. They made a whole (implied) joke out of it last chapter. Might be the best-paying job to support herself after "housewife" fell through. Tending bar is a great way to pay for school, for example.

For her tone when she mentions being a widow, I've mentioned it previously, but I don't think that's the message we're meant to take, and I hope you'll read the linked comment and keep it in mind if you meet someone with a similar reaction irl. And from a storytelling perspective, I think her tone and mindset are meant to mirror the MC's, where he talked about the implosion of his career as a mangaka in a similarly detached and unemotional way.
Granted he went into painful detail and she used it to redirect the convo to a chapter-end cliffhanger.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I think this series is at its best so far when it's doing its brooding, atmospheric character development in moments of quiet, but it's kind of agonizing to read serialized. It feels like we're getting loose ends introduced faster than we're making forward progress.


I really get the sense that her opacity is a deliberate choice, and I'm really curious to see what it'll wind up being in service of. A way of representing her own unresolved or unconfronted feelings? Big reveal that will recontextualize a bunch of stuff we or the MC thought we knew? Small reveals that will parallel MC's getting his own life straightened out? Representation of MC's lack of insight? Just a mysterious tone thing?


She doesn't work at a hostess bar, she's a bartender at a concafe - they're at the opposite ends of the spectra of price and innocence, totally night and day. Even if she's wearing a bunny costume. They made a whole (implied) joke out of it last chapter. Might be the best-paying job to support herself after "housewife" fell through. Tending bar is a great way to pay for school, for example.

For her tone when she mentions being a widow, I've mentioned it previously, but I don't think that's the message we're meant to take, and I hope you'll read the linked comment and keep it in mind if you meet someone with a similar reaction irl. And from a storytelling perspective, I think her tone and mindset are meant to mirror the MC's, where he talked about the implosion of his career as a mangaka in a similarly detached and unemotional way.
Granted he went into painful detail and she used it to redirect the convo to a chapter-end cliffhanger.

Every day I'm more and more convinced that some people need everything spoonfed to them at the outset of a series these days and can't stand obfuscated character motivation or any building of suspense behind thought processes.
And it would be less tiresome to deal with if the subsequent "discourse" wasn't full of judgmental condemnations or "bold claims" that build off of faulty information or errors of detail that could be corrected by actually reading and parsing the chapters. People think they see a pattern based on other--pointedly lesser--manga they've read and make snap prejudicial judgments and then start tilting at windmills of their own making.

This is building suspense and mood by keeping the FL's past and motives and internal narrative hidden from the reader and focusing the lens of the story through the ML. He's not spineless or pitiful or idiotic, it's been shown that he made attempts before and was burned--and we're getting more and more detail and revealing of the narrative with each chapter.
The FL is clearly intended as an enigma for the time being, and we are meant to learn more alongside the ML as it is appropriate for the plot.

It's four chapters. I wish people could give things time, or just learn they can let a series go and not spend multiple chapters' worth of forums getting upset that they haven't been handed the full plot already.

 

[LannerBlackZero]

Guys, if you're looking for a fast-paced manga where everything happens in the first chapter go to read a battle shonen because this one is clearly not for you.

 

[Felgon]

Right now, it totally feels like she has him wrapped around her fingers, and she knows it.

 

[essensue]

Every day I'm more and more convinced that some people need everything spoonfed to them at the outset of a series these days and can't stand obfuscated character motivation or any building of suspense behind thought processes.
And it would be less tiresome to deal with the subsequent "discourse" wasn't full of judgmental condemnations or "bold claims" that build off of faulty information or errors of detail that could be corrected by actually reading and parsing the chapters. People think they see a pattern based on other--pointedly lesser--manga they've read and make snap prejudicial judgments and then get start tilting at windmills of their own making.

This is building suspense and mood by keeping the FL's past and motives and internal narrative hidden from the reader and focusing the lens of the story through the ML. He's not spineless or pitiful or idiotic, it's been shown that he made attempts before and was burned--and we're getting more and more detail and revealing of the narrative with each chapter.
The FL is clearly intended as an enigma for the time being, and we are meant to learn more alongside the ML as it is appropriate for the plot.

It's four chapters. I wish people could give things time, or just learn they can let a series go and not spend multiple chapters' worth of forums getting upset that they haven't been handed the full plot already.

I think scanlated manga might be the easiest medium for there to be a mismatch in reader expectations and what's on offer. If you just look at this by its art and tags, you might wind up confused and angered by its contents. If you don't have the media literacy to support a functioning Slop Detector, your "let them cook" meter might be stuck at "this is dumb" forever.

This series does a pretty good job so far holding the reader's hand re: the MC's thought process. But it also uses the mature versions of some concepts that are normally flattened down and simplified for fiction, like depression, grieving the death of a spouse, or feeling directionless after your plan for life falls apart, without doing anything in particular to make them more accessible. That's not necessarily a bad thing, because it's hard to do well and kind of awkward. But it can lead to a big gap in how readers experience it, as evidenced by all the "he's such a bitch" and "she didn't love her husband."

I (force myself to) assume that this might be their first encounter with the messier, real-life versions of these feelings, and the comments are just the noise they make as they learn. Surely nobody's actually as serious as they sound on the internet, right? If nothing else I find hope in the fact that they're sticking around, four chapters in. Everybody has a first time, and I think I might implode in shame if my real-time thoughts on my middle school lit homework were available to read.

Now. Setting all that aside. The real tragedy is that the discourse (derogatory) has prevented everyone from addressing what should be the elephant in the room:

In both flashback and current timeline, Ashihara is only ever depicted wearing what appears to be a frilly maid's apron over a tracksuit.

 

[Lajs]

I think this series is at its best so far when it's doing its brooding, atmospheric character development in moments of quiet, but it's kind of agonizing to read serialized. It feels like we're getting loose ends introduced faster than we're making forward progress.


I really get the sense that her opacity is a deliberate choice, and I'm really curious to see what it'll wind up being in service of. A way of representing her own unresolved or unconfronted feelings? Big reveal that will recontextualize a bunch of stuff we or the MC thought we knew? Small reveals that will parallel MC's getting his own life straightened out? Representation of MC's lack of insight? Just a mysterious tone thing?


She doesn't work at a hostess bar, she's a bartender at a concafe - they're at the opposite ends of the spectra of price and innocence, totally night and day. Even if she's wearing a bunny costume. They made a whole (implied) joke out of it last chapter. Might be the best-paying job to support herself after "housewife" fell through. Tending bar is a great way to pay for school, for example.

For her tone when she mentions being a widow, I've mentioned it previously, but I don't think that's the message we're meant to take, and I hope you'll read the linked comment and keep it in mind if you meet someone with a similar reaction irl. And from a storytelling perspective, I think her tone and mindset are meant to mirror the MC's, where he talked about the implosion of his career as a mangaka in a similarly detached and unemotional way.
Granted he went into painful detail and she used it to redirect the convo to a chapter-end cliffhanger.

First the place she is working at has her dressing up in a lingerie looking bunny outfit that isn’t too different from a hostess. And second her reaction is nowhere near the same as Mc dude looks miserable and she looks neutral also everything else you added is speculative with nothing that really backs it up.

 

[havelmom]

he should draw an ecchi gal manga for maximum inception and so we can watch her get flustered

 

[Yutvy]

She clearly likes him — I just don’t know how much or why.

Now the real question is about her marriage and her husband who died, and why she started having this strange friendship with him again, along with the way she looks at him.

 

[shadowmasstitan]

Anyways I typed that all out but at the end of the day it's literally only chapter 4 and more context could change it.

Yeah, like I said "I really hope the author doesn't drag it out." Because until it gets resolved. All the wholesome moments can become manipulation moments.

 

[essensue]

First the place she is working at has her dressing up in a lingerie looking bunny outfit that isn’t too different from a hostess. And second her reaction is nowhere near the same as Mc dude looks miserable and she looks neutral also everything else you added is speculative with nothing that really backs it up.

It's obviously not a hostess club or lounge, though, because hostesses typically wear cocktail dresses and have an air of luxury and sit with the customers. It's literally called Bunny Cafe in cutesy hiragana. She explicitly calls it a concept cafe. A counter separates the girls from the patrons. It has dumb glassware. At the end of the day readers should know she's cast at a cafe, not a hostess.

For both of their backstory reveals, they're shockingly matter-of-fact about it in their tone, don't have the expected emotional breakdown, and, crucially because we're talking about technique here, neither of their faces is shown emoting while they're talking.

You see the other person's reaction, or the rest of the speaker's body with their face out of frame, or if you see most of his face, his eyes are hidden behind his glasses and his mouth behind his drink. Or his head is concealed by a convenient tray of food. Or he's turned his face away from her and the reader. Or her yawning from being up all night.

It's about creating emotional distance between speaker and subject, and between reader and character. Their hearts are closed off, even if they're speaking about it frankly. We're shown one so that we can understand the other.

Honestly, I'm not sure how you guys got onto grading it on a scale of how "wholesome of a romcom" it is, when it's very obviously not that from the jump. I'm sure it would also be a better horror story if it had at least one monster, too.

Anyway, was your point that she's mysterious? Or was your point that she's a whore?

 

[Lajs]

It's obviously not a hostess club or lounge, though, because hostesses typically wear cocktail dresses and have an air of luxury and sit with the customers. It's literally called Bunny Cafe in cutesy hiragana. She explicitly calls it a concept cafe. A counter separates the girls from the patrons. It has dumb glassware. At the end of the day readers should know she's cast at a cafe, not a hostess.

For both of their backstory reveals, they're shockingly matter-of-fact about it in their tone, don't have the expected emotional breakdown, and, crucially because we're talking about technique here, neither of their faces is shown emoting while they're talking.

You see the other person's reaction, or the rest of the speaker's body with their face out of frame, or if you see most of his face, his eyes are hidden behind his glasses and his mouth behind his drink. Or his head is concealed by a convenient tray of food. Or he's turned his face away from her and the reader. Or her yawning from being up all night.

It's about creating emotional distance between speaker and subject, and between reader and character. Their hearts are closed off, even if they're speaking about it frankly. We're shown one so that we can understand the other.

Honestly, I'm not sure how you guys got onto grading it on a scale of how "wholesome of a romcom" it is, when it's very obviously not that from the jump. I'm sure it would also be a better horror story if it had at least one monster, too.

Anyway, was your point that she's mysterious? Or was your point that she's a whore?

“It's obviously not a hostess club or lounge, though, because hostesses typically wear cocktail dresses and have an air of luxury and sit with the customers. It's literally called Bunny Cafe in cutesy hiragana. She explicitly calls it a concept cafe. A counter separates the girls from the patrons. It has dumb glassware. At the end of the day readers should know she's cast at a cafe, not a hostess.” … Again it’s not that far off she literally wearing a bunny costume that looks like lingerie for costumers.

“For both of their backstory reveals, they're shockingly matter-of-fact about it in their tone, don't have the expected emotional breakdown, and, crucially because we're talking about technique here, neither of their faces is shown emoting while they're talking.”… That’s a lie we do see their faces when talking about the subject and the Mc is very extroverted of how he is feeling and she is very nonchalant the story doesn’t hide how either character reaction or feeling.
“
Honestly, I'm not sure how you guys got onto grading it on a scale of how "wholesome of a romcom" it is, when it's very obviously not that from the jump. I'm sure it would also be a better horror story if it had at least one monster, too.

Anyway, was your point that she's mysterious? Or was your point that she's a whore?”… Hold up you can sit here and make all this speculative theories on her that shows her in a positive light which would go with an old trope done in many stories. Even though this particular story hasn’t given much to go on however when someone decides to point out negatives within the story and potential threads opposed to yours now it’s a problem?

 

[essensue]

“It's -snip-

"Not that far off" from what, dude? The 1980s? It's far off from your literal assertion: Hostesses do not wear bunny girl costumes (unless it's cosplay night at a pretty third-rate cabaret.) You mentioned hostesses to try and smear the character via their association with prostitution, so is your point that wearing a bunny girl costume is "not that far off" from sex work? If not that, what point were you making? Seriously.

There's no emotion on display here or here. I like it, it's clever. We see his face when he speaks elsewhere, but not when discussing his shameful past that he's quite literally refusing to face. Also worth noting that he doesn't really come alive and loosen up until she convinces him to start drawing again.

You're quoting and agreeing with the "gross, she's used goods" guy, which maybe you know, maybe you don't. I was serious when I asked whether your point was that she was mysterious or a whore, and you didn't answer.

 

[Takuma_Aki]

Is it because I’m old? I don’t see anything wrong with their past flashback nor how their relationship are heading so far.

You could say it’s dumb they didn’t date back then or whatever, but that doesn’t make this less wholesome to me? They’re just human. We made mistakes all the time. Arguably, the fact they still have this second chance to correct past mistakes makes it even more wholesome to me, if anything.

 

[Lajs]

"Not that far off" from what, dude? The 1980s? It's far off from your literal assertion: Hostesses do not wear bunny girl costumes (unless it's cosplay night at a pretty third-rate cabaret.) You mentioned hostesses to try and smear the character via their association with prostitution, so is your point that wearing a bunny girl costume is "not that far off" from sex work? If not that, what point were you making? Seriously.

There's no emotion on display here or here. I like it, it's clever. We see his face when he speaks elsewhere, but not when discussing his shameful past that he's quite literally refusing to face. Also worth noting that he doesn't really come alive and loosen up until she convinces him to start drawing again.

You're quoting and agreeing with the "gross, she's used goods" guy, which maybe you know, maybe you don't. I was serious when I asked whether your point was that she was mysterious or a whore, and you didn't answer.

Smart one I’ve said multiple times what she is doing isn’t far off from hostess. And hostess aren’t prostitutes however what she is doing wearing a lingerie bunny outfit for her job in order to entice men is similar to what hostesses do they both entertain men for a job doesn’t mean sleep with them.

“There's no emotion on display here or here. I like it, it's clever. We see his face when he speaks elsewhere, but not when discussing his shameful past that he's quite literally refusing to face. Also worth noting that he doesn't really come alive and loosen up until she convinces him to start drawing again.”… Yeah I have no clue what you are talking about. Both examples show emotion from both and we know the Mc feels terrible with how his life has went do to his actions even from the first panel of him laying down. However the same can’t be said for the woman of her being upset of anything in fact everything we’ve seen so far is she knows Mc can’t say no to her and she has him wrapped between her fingers.

“You're quoting and agreeing with the "gross, she's used goods" guy, which maybe you know, maybe you don't. I was serious when I asked whether your point was that she was mysterious or a whore, and you didn't answer.” … You didn’t answer my question either. And my point here is it seems this story similar to crappy rent a girlfriend both have a simp/loser Mc and Fmc that has a job of enticing men plus string along the Mc however I’d say the Fmc for this story may be worse because she married some guy who she doesn’t show much emotion for when mentioning he died.