Musume no Tomodachi - Vol. 7 Ch. 54 - Unforgivable

[sad_historian]

Miya's reaction is in no way an "overdramatization", it's the natural response of a child realizing she's the victim of neglect.

 

[Reito]

welp the father deserves to be happy but the age gap is really huge plus koto is underage so idk 🤔

 

[sirflimflam]

@Jojeke Just going to ask, are you being serious or are you cracking a joke? Because with the temperature in the comments section, it's hard to guess!

If you're being sincere then I'd say that's a pretty bad take, considering she was set up as a total mama's girl before her mother died, and it doesn't make sense for her to feel nothing about her mom unless she's some kind of psychopath, but then she'd be hardly as emotional towards her father as she is now.

Or maybe she's just a really good psychopath that mastered the art of faking emotions. Ko~waii

@Reito That's the thing, isn't it? I mean I don't even care about age gaps. If you're happy with someone, you're happy with them and I don't have any say in that. But children are different. They haven't fully developed as adults, and are easily swayed one way or the other, even if they think what they want is right. Especially in Koto's case here, her mom has abused her for such a long time that she is not really in a position to find fulfilling love. What she wants out of the relationship is to not be dominated, but to be in control. That's why she mentally equates Kousuke like an innocent puppy.

 

[Ryrie]

@sirflimflam Miya made no atempt to understand even before Koto came into the picture. Kousuke was feeling just as bad if not worse from the fact that his wife died while swamped with work and what does she do? She holes herself into her room adding even more troubles while he's in a midlife crisis. He needed someone to lean on whether it be his daughter or anyone really. Seeing how he initially refused Koto if Miya showed any bit of empathy for her father he probably WOULD be with that kouhai from work instead of Koto just because Koto was the first person to actually acknowledge him as a person no matter how twisted her intent was. Not defending his choice of doing so but it's understandable of wanting to cling onto someone.

 

[Jaden234]

While Koto has been trouble, Miya abandoned her father first, from staying locked up in her room ignoring him to ultimately running away from home. I understand her circumstances, dead mother and her father seeing her friend, but that doesn't negate everything she done. Her friend healed him while she ignored him, she got exactly what she deserved.

 

[Day-Ender]

@sebaasdf They're ALL at fault, and all equally so. After their mother's death Miya shut herself off emotionally from her father Kosuke, and pretty much was unable to come to terms with her grief, and quite possibly blames Kosuke for the Mother's sudden passing. Upon being coerced into going back to school by Koto, she then runs off for a day with some boy who basically didn't know the entire story and thought he was protecting her from her burdens while subsequently turning off her phone, which only caused more strain upon the Father, for obvious reasons. She does admit to "trying" to understand / reconnect with Kosuke, but in honesty she was pretty passive about it, and waited for Kosuke to do the heavy lifting / repair their relationship when she was the one who cut him off. Unsurprisingly Miya and Kosuke both have the same trauma and subsequently the same needs, AKA, someone to lean on / understand / carry their burden, and while Miya has that boy (or at least for as much as I remember him) Kosuke has no one else except Koto. Understandably Miya is extremely confused (because to her it seems like Kosuke is a pedophile trying to run off with a minor) and again, unable to come to terms with the situation.

Kosuke tried his best to play the responsible adult in the Kosuke / Koto "relationship" constantly refusing Koto's advances. Ultimately however, stress from his day to day life, from his unresponsive daughter, increased workload and subsequent burden, needing to keep up appearances as a working adult, the loss of his wife, and having way too much to do in way too little time, Kosuke ultimately cracks under pressure and gives in to Koto's advances. Everyone has base needs that must be met, and Kosuke is no different. It's only been about a year since his wife passed, and considering how he's sort of resentful of people who've got loads of free time in Chapter 1, it's a safe assumption that he hasn't had time to process / come to terms with his own grief. Like with Miya, Kosuke needs help and or someone who understands what he's going through, and Koto provides that. Sort of. He is still bound by societal convention however, and like the officer says in the previous chapter, even if their actions are consensual, society will not see it that way, and with good reason. The previous chapter has him realizing that he loves Koto, and is now willing to go to great lengths to keep her by her side. For an entire year he's been alone with no one to help him or listen to his burden, so it's not surprising that he's willing to risk a lot for someone that was willing to stay by him.

Koto IMO has the strangest motivations of all of them. Truthfully I'm unsure of what precisely her motive is, whether it be because she sympathizes with Kosuke, genuinely likes him, or believes he can give her the freedom she's been deprived of all her life, Koto's motivations towards Kosuke are a bit fuzzy. Koto isn't without blame however, as her upbringing has caused her to seek something or someone who can not only sympathize with her, but give her the freedom she desires. The aquarium chapter where she highlights the differences between the mother and father was her true awakening to craving freedom from her mother, and Koto seems to have no one except Miya and Kosuke. While she does sympathize with Kosuke, Koto seems very, very willing to chase after that freedom, at the expense of Kosuke's reputation and quite possibly his financial stability. The previous chapter highlights that she's been trying to break away from the mold that her mother has shaped her in (thus dropping the "good girl" act) and being rejected seems to have flung her to desperate measures, and her running away now is her ultimatum for Kosuke.

All three of them have genuine shortcomings and flaws that they're desperately trying to overcome, but for the moment we'll just have to see how this plays out. It's very, very twisted how the 3's relationships are intersecting. Had the three of them sat down to talk for a while, and for each of them to genuinely listen, things might've turned better sooner.

 

[Tersione]

Wow, what the fuck. I thought she was actually mellowing out, but this just makes me appreciate her dad's decision just for the look on her face, and I didn't even like his decision to go after Koto. "She's just a hurt teenager" just doesn't cut it anymore.

Kousuke's definitely still doing some dumb shit and he's being just as infuriating as Miya. He should've told her that he's worried that Koto might do something stupid like disappear or off herself, but I'm inclined to believe that Miya would still act unreasonable as she did in this chapter and give zero shits about Koto's well-being.

 

[kowoyoshi]

LOL all these Maya defenders, I sympathized with Maya, in the beginning, and what did she do? she acted like an asshole through most of her time coming back from her room, she is spoiled self-entitled jackass of a kid. People forgot Kousake tried to talk to her countless times and was ignored, he tried to reason with her and even discuss the future with her and what she do? she packed her shit and ran to some random no-name dude house for days without contacting her father, now tell me, why should I give a fuck about her situation? Kousake, atleast TRIED and he tried a lot. Also Kousake himself is a good case study of what happens when you feel like the world is against you, lets run over his issues because dumbasses in the comment section forgot, he to lost a wife, his daughter has isolated herself from him and the rest of the world, he works a thankless, soul-sucking job and has literally no one to turn too or lean on, meanwhile as the stress is building Maya's school and his work environment was kicking his ass while dealing with loss himself, while I sympathized with maya, in the beginning, her emotional outburst and running away made me dislike her greatly, now before someone accuses me of rooting for kousake here, I literally chapter before the side chapter called Kousake a dumbass for running after koto when his life is in ruins now.

Kousake literally just came back from the police station, his jobs he wasted all his time with is most likely going to let him go and well, his daugther is still Maya, instead of picking up the pieces of his life, he's going to chase some JK girl who's broken and manipulative and more trouble than she's worth because of some delusion of love because he doesn't realize Koto appears to become his only crotch in the shitshow of his life while also being a catalyst of pure destruction because either way you cut it, she's underage while feelings with both parties are mutual, society wouldn't accept it and it will be social suicide no matter the context for a 40-year-old man with a daughter, to be dating or romantically involved with a 15 to 16-year-old first-year high school student. He's already fucked up by kissing her in public and now he's playing superman to go save her because realistically speaking without Koto, I suspect Kousake would've of committed suicide evidently as terrible as that sounds, they co-dependent relationships with one another and even if Koto wasn't underage, that's still a toxic recipe for disaster, hell what's the plan when he finds her ? they spend the night and he tries to talk her out of whatever none sense she's doing? or he getting caught by the police and being with a underage girl. good god, everyone really is a mess.

 

[seth90]

@Day-Ender I understand everything you said, but the reason that I think Kosuke has more of the blame is sadly, because he is the adult in the situation, he is clearly allowed to feel like hi's all alone and overworked and everything that the manga has shown us, but he recognizes that what he's doing is wrong, time and time again he says so, he knows that there are waaay better ways to fix all the problems but he constantly picks the things that put him deeper into the hole. And while it sucks, we should expect more of the 40 year old than from the 16 year olds.

 

[Keetonman]

Fuck the pedo, jail time

 

[TanithG]

@Day-Ender Thanks for explaining what I was thinking more clearly than what I could possibly do.

 

[Kanami-chan]

daughter is really annoying. typical teenage girl.

 

[sirflimflam]

@Ryrie Again, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here but Miya is a child. Yes, her emotions are way unstable and she's not being fair to the letter of the law. But I expect that from children. No, Miya was not fair to Kousuke. The sad fact of the matter is, is Kousuke fumbled right when things were making a turn for the better, and sadly it really was Koto's fault for pushing him so hard when he was vulnerable. But that doesn't change the fact that Kousuke made a bad choice.

**edit: Meh, I think I went way too much into my life here, so I decided to edit it out. tl;dr I have a lot of experience raising an unruly teen mourning the loss of a parent much like Kousuke and feel his pain in handling her delicate mental state. I don't agree with him shifting his attention so much towards Koto in spite of that**

Kousuke deserves to be happy! He shouldn't be dating a child though, or unilaterally deciding he is her salvation.

 

[Keetonman]

By the way, I have this suspicion she's going to kill him lol

 

[3ds1234]

@seth90 He's doing all this shit BECAUSE he's been suffering and neglected. Adults are human beings too I think you continually ignore that. The reason he's going after koto isn't because he's attracted to her. He's doing it because she gave him a shoulder to lean on.

What has his daughter done for him but cause him suffering and stress. That by no means makes him in the right. I don't think he would ever go for koto if his mental state wasn't as low as it was in the beginning of the series.

 

[starch12313]

I mean quite frankly all this boils down to it being Mayas fault.

@seth90

we should expect more of the 40 year old

Should we? Yes hes 40 years old, but more than that hes human. You dont just suddenly become immune to emotional trauma when you become an adult. I just love all these post that, because hes an adult therefore he should act more like well an adult, and although true it in no way is an argument. Adults like children can break, as an adult their tolerance will be higher, but as the manga has shown kousuke is an adult that has broke down. So expecting a BROKEN 40 year old to act like a 40 year old is nonsensical.

 

[Iggy]

Hopefully he'll just die so Miya can finally have a competent guardian.

 

[Jojeke]

@sirflimflam That is what I'm saying. She was a "mama's girl" because she enjoyed the perks and the attention. It wasn't the actual love for her mother. The realization of her lack of love is what destroyed her and still haunts her. That's why she pretends, because otherwise it would prove that she's not normal.

 

[Scytale]

To everyone who is using Kousuke's stress as an excuse...

To begin with, how is that even an excuse? Him hurting and having a high-pressure job doesn't entitle him to maintaining a clearly unhealthy relationship with an underage and mentally unstable girl.

And then, remember that Kousuke's work-related pressure was mostly self-inflicted. Several times, we see him overwork himself, stay out late, and put himself through the wringer for no other reason than wanting to be acknowledged as an outstanding employee. We even see him get angry at his colleagues for fooling around instead of taking work more seriously, and get excluded from social events due to being such a high-strung stick-in-the-mud. He could have been less of a careerist to give himself a breather and focus on his personal and familial issues (apparently at no risk to his job safety), but he never did.

I'm not saying that he's unambiguously guilty, but in regards both to his work and to his relationship with Koto, he always behaved like he didn't have a choice when he could have taken a step back and made things less hard on himself instead of pursuing the wrong options out of some toxic, misplaced sense of responsibility.

Just like, right know, he could acknowledge how wrong pursuing Koto is instead of taking his savior complex even further.

 

[Franxx]

seems like this cunt daughter gonna be a cunt till the end, the one who messed him up is his environment, including her, yet she said it like she didn't take part on it