Ochinai Yogore wo Boku wa Nanto Yobeba Yokatta noka - Ch. 17

[bluenorvo]

People are mourning the loss of childhood friend but damn, I'm impressed at how MC was able to make Nishino spill the beans about wanting to see him. He is also ballsy enough to propose for a meetup just the two of them. He's getting real good at this.

 

[Ragnolock]

I don't know if I'd classify Nishino as considerate of the MC, at least not until effectively the Beach Episode. She continuously got in his space, defaced his textbook, left food residue all over his desk, drooled on him, and would just up and touch him when he clearly didn't want that contact, and everyone around them treated him like the villain when he pushed back.

Nishino is the narrative opposite of Tsuzuri: the latter is the MC's germaphobia being recognized and worked around, and the former is the MC's germaphobia being deemed 'wrong' and requiring change.

We're meant to like Nishino because the MC is "the other" in the setting, the one who's different and isn't conforming to what the rest of his peers think is "acceptable". The author made a point to indicate that the MC himself isn't satisfied with his own status quo, but that doesn't change the fact that he's expected to change for the sake of fitting in with everyone else, rather than being met halfway with compromises taking his germaphobia into consideration.
Tsuzuri at least made that effort to see him and meet him on his level when they were younger. And even then, MC could see how it was causing her to become isolated from the others in the class, because of how much he was pushed to the outside due to his compulsions. That was why he pushed her away and broke things off in the first place--because he cared about her social life being affected by him, and didn't want that.

Now, he's being pressured to change because "Nishino is the correct path to social acceptability"; the rub, though, is that we're shown the MC's own struggles, and thus we have come to sympathize with him. While it's correct that he should grow and try to find healthy middle ground with his compulsions and the way he interacts with others, Tsuzuri's approach was infinitely more considerate toward him specifically, whereas Nishino was just "I'm going to be messy around you and you'll have to change to deal with it if you want to be with me". Some people reject that sort of dynamic over the more harmonious iteration that Tsuzuri represents, and that is why I suspect there is the pushback that pervades this specific chapter thread.

I get what you are saying, but after reading 100s if not 1000s of manga in my life I can say that 90% of the people who engage in discourse do not read that deeply into it. So many people just want to go against the grain, and choose to just like a character immediately, or ship a character immediately because its not the lead. Saying its "boring" for the lead to win when the story is about them.

While I see what you are saying, but I would argue that neither of them are handling his phobia well. One of them disregards it (not as much recently). The other essentially coddles him. Neither are good necessarily, but one can lead to helping him get over it, and the other keeps him trapped and essentially isolated. I would even say that her keeping him comfortable is kind of a bad thing. Because it just leads to him being ostracized by everyone.

Notice the difference between how they both behaved.
Nishino didn't try to stop him from going to the festival with his CHF. She was bummed out about it, but she didn't try to get in the way.

Meanwhile CHF is trying to keep him isolated from his new friend by shouting "Don't leave me", and then picking the worst time imaginable to confess.

I personally feel more bad for Nishino than the CHF because she had to hear that. Now its just going to be awkward.

 

[iolas]

This girl have actually put effort to be his friend, and she stayed with him even when others wanted nothing to do with him. But i still think it was completely unnecessary for the author to introduce a girl as a childhood friend, could've been a guy and we wouldn't have this stupid drama.

 

[Serverclosed]

Now we are cooking!

 

[Boneless_Pizza_69]

Dramaaaaaaaaaa

But at least its unique

 

[ThelunchofChickens]

 

[Rafalga]

Reducing her to an enabler isn’t a great read of the situation imo, she’s someone who cares about him and actively worked to befriend him despite his phobia alienating his other peers. As adults (surely there are no children on this forum, r-right) we can see that her behavior veers into enabling, but she has no way of knowing that at her age, especially given that none of the adults seem to take the situation very seriously. She is being caring and supportive in the way she knows how to be.

Nobody, including the author know how phobias work considering they seem to think power of love and extroversion can fix the dude no problem. In reality, someone like Nishino would be a fucking nightmare to be around while someone like this girl would a god send. Enabler my ass.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I get what you are saying, but after reading 100s if not 1000s of manga in my life I can say that 90% of the people who engage in discourse do not read that deeply into it. So many people just want to go against the grain, and choose to just like a character immediately, or ship a character immediately because its not the lead. Saying its "boring" for the lead to win when the story is about them.

While I see what you are saying, but I would argue that neither of them are handling his phobia well. One of them disregards it (not as much recently). The other essentially coddles him. Neither are good necessarily, but one can lead to helping him get over it, and the other keeps him trapped and essentially isolated. I would even say that her keeping him comfortable is kind of a bad thing. Because it just leads to him being ostracized by everyone.

Notice the difference between how they both behaved.
Nishino didn't try to stop him from going to the festival with his CHF. She was bummed out about it, but she didn't try to get in the way.

Meanwhile CHF is trying to keep him isolated from his new friend by shouting "Don't leave me", and then picking the worst time imaginable to confess.

I personally feel more bad for Nishino than the CHF because she had to hear that. Now its just going to be awkward.

A sizeable portion of people having nothing more than a shallow level of engagement with a series is certainly an unfortunate reality, but being dismissive in the other direction isn't solving that problem when it just serves to further muddy discourse where it's actually meaningfully occurring.

And no, neither of them are "handling the phobia" well. But that doesn't discount that both are important for the MC and his situation, as well as representing different stages in his life.
More to the point - I think the problem that at least some people have, though, is that Tsuzuri is being reduced to a plot device to show The MC moving on from his past--but it involves hurting a girl who only wants the best for him and to be happy with him, and it kind of just sucks to see her get introduced, be likeable, and then shot down and left heartbroken because there's just no way the MC can move backward in time. It sort of removes her agency as a person in the setting, and sets her up to fail by default the moment she appears in the narrative.
And when she's a cute girl who wants to help, having her be a by-design losing heroine that is necessarily rejected by virtue of the MC needing to grow will rub some people the wrong way, as it just kills her character. Maybe she'll get something after this, but she's here to serve a purpose in service to Nishino right now, and nothing more.

Beyond that, you're ignoring the context of Tsuzuri having long-standing feelings for him, and him very recently soft-rejecting her by calling her a close friend of importance. She's reeling from being friend-zoned and, I would argue, is taking this chance to at least make the attempt to speak her mind, before she loses all nerve. Plus, he'd walked away from her once already, effectively shutting the door in her face on continuing their relationship all the way back in grade school.
This moment represents a repeating of that history between them, and it would effectively mean she's lost. This reads to me as Tsuzuri's last-ditch effort to make her feelings for him known, to step up and fight when she couldn't do it before.

Nishino has also had a history of dragging him along and doing all manner of things without consideration for him. It's only been very recently that she's shown any restraint at all and actually deferred to his wants and feelings on a given matter. That is commendable as a bit of character growth for her, but if anything Tsuzuri is doing what Nishino would have done if this were still in the first 10 chapters of the story. She might not get another chance if she doesn't speak her mind here and now.

And, it's not clear that she's aware that he hadn't yet ended the phone call, nor is it clear that she is acting with the intention of Nishino overhearing them. It's certainly unfortunate that it's playing out this way, but I don't think you can point and say she deliberately sought to stop him from terminating the call before speaking.

 

[MaCl0wSt]

Im usually all in for the childhood friend but here the FMC did manage to build a good chemistry with the guy in very few chapters, can't help but root for her

Thanks for the chapter!

 

[Aspidochelon]

at least the development is super fast, I bet this overbearing drama will end in 1-2 chapters

 

[sp0ffee]

Aight... let see how this is gonna go

 

[MarcoMook]

Sorry childhood friend, but you lost from the beginning by having short hair.

Short hair is cute, but carries a NASTY debuff. +300% chance of being assigned "losing heroine" class during event flags.

 

[Leaveit2me]

He's gonna instinctively pull away cause phobia
Childhood friend runs away sad
He goes after to look for childhood friend thus not able to meet up with fmc

 

[GabrielZip]

Sorry but childhood friends are almost always called losing heroines for a reason

 

[damian_stefan1989]

Sorry but childhood friends are almost always called losing heroines for a reason

I'm unreasonably angry disappointed it took almost to the end of page 3 to see this posted.

 

[NerimaShinjuku]

“I-I like you!”

”Sorry, I only see you as my childhood friend”

”Also… I’ve secretly been a boy this whole time!”

”Hello Nishino? I’m dating Tsuzuri now, bye”

 

[2662]

Well well well. Looks like there is no longer a "maybe its not like that" that is have been commenting. Even still, I dont really understand why people are so upset about her getting rejected soon. She has been a character for all of 3 chapters. We haven't even gotten to know her, and the small amount we do know about her is that she just enables his phobia instead of trying to help him overcome it.

Its not that I wanted her to win but introducing characters with the sole purpose of them being to lose is just annoying.

 

[Telesto44]

Nobody, including the author know how phobias work considering they seem to think power of love and extroversion can fix the dude no problem. In reality, someone like Nishino would be a fucking nightmare to be around while someone like this girl would a god send. Enabler my ass.

Well maybe MC doesn’t actually have mysophobia? Sure he doesn’t like germs but it’s not like we’ve seen him have a panic attack over it.

 

[Ragnolock]

A sizeable portion of people having nothing more than a shallow level of engagement with a series is certainly an unfortunate reality, but being dismissive in the other direction isn't solving that problem when it just serves to further muddy discourse where it's actually meaningfully occurring.

And no, neither of them are "handling the phobia" well. But that doesn't discount that both are important for the MC and his situation, as well as representing different stages in his life.
More to the point - I think the problem that at least some people have, though, is that Tsuzuri is being reduced to a plot device to show The MC moving on from his past--but it involves hurting a girl who only wants the best for him and to be happy with him, and it kind of just sucks to see her get introduced, be likeable, and then shot down and left heartbroken because there's just no way the MC can move backward in time. It sort of removes her agency as a person in the setting, and sets her up to fail by default the moment she appears in the narrative.
And when she's a cute girl who wants to help, having her be a by-design losing heroine that is necessarily rejected by virtue of the MC needing to grow will rub some people the wrong way, as it just kills her character. Maybe she'll get something after this, but she's here to serve a purpose in service to Nishino right now, and nothing more.

Beyond that, you're ignoring the context of Tsuzuri having long-standing feelings for him, and him very recently soft-rejecting her by calling her a close friend of importance. She's reeling from being friend-zoned and, I would argue, is taking this chance to at least make the attempt to speak her mind, before she loses all nerve. Plus, he'd walked away from her once already, effectively shutting the door in her face on continuing their relationship all the way back in grade school.
This moment represents a repeating of that history between them, and it would effectively mean she's lost. This reads to me as Tsuzuri's last-ditch effort to make her feelings for him known, to step up and fight when she couldn't do it before.

Nishino has also had a history of dragging him along and doing all manner of things without consideration for him. It's only been very recently that she's shown any restraint at all and actually deferred to his wants and feelings on a given matter. That is commendable as a bit of character growth for her, but if anything Tsuzuri is doing what Nishino would have done if this were still in the first 10 chapters of the story. She might not get another chance if she doesn't speak her mind here and now.

And, it's not clear that she's aware that he hadn't yet ended the phone call, nor is it clear that she is acting with the intention of Nishino overhearing them. It's certainly unfortunate that it's playing out this way, but I don't think you can point and say she deliberately sought to stop him from terminating the call before speaking.

To me it deserves dismissal, because quite frankly I am tired of seeing people complain about a side character that got introduced 50 chapters in, and has been around 3 chapters being "So much better" than a character that has been around since chapter 1. When the character from chapter 1 has had way more personal growth, and development. They complain about tropes, but then will only ever like the most cardboard cutout version of a trope that exists.

Also if we look back. When he put a wall up between them. She didn't do anything to try and break down that wall until someone else showed up. This in essence is why I tend to hate the CHF trope. Not because they "always lose" its because they only ever try to do anything outside of the status quo when someone else shows up. To me it rings as "There is no way someone else will fall for him." Then the second someone does they then choose to be proactive. At that point its too little too late. It feels like a "Have your cake and eat it too" type of situation. I like seeing the journey to developing those feelings, and not an abruptly declaration 3 chapters after the character is introduced.

I am not saying she intentionally was trying to get Nishino to hear it. What I meant was she is actively trying to prevent him from going to her, and her picking the worst possible time to confess isn't meant to say she did this with him intentionally with her on the phone. There are several reasons why this is the worst possible time to confess.

Also if she was sad because of essentially being friend zoned. Why would you confess at all? If he made it clear that you are a friend to him. You are confessing with the knowledge that you will likely get rejected, and that will ruin your friendship with him. Its not like they see each other every day. They won't be able to just go back to how they were prior to this.

 

[aimer22]

Screw you, author!! You didnt have to add a losing heroine, so stupid, this used to be my favorite monthly manga but im done with it now!!