It's good writing that the problem isn't necessarily neatly solved, MC just helps students deal better with their issues.This author knows the issues of Japan's current "don't stick out, don't speak out" culture way too well.
I swear this author must have studied actual medical psychology at some point.
Maybe the author really is just having a poor showing, but the repetition, where the character's negative thought loop reinforces her own internal assumptions over and over again while she gets no real external insight, matches so closely to what it actually feels like to be in that headspace. I can't help but feel like the author has done it on purpose. I think it really highlights the issue to help readers in similar situations see themselves in the character.I feel like this is maybe the weakest chapter in the entire series. It was like 10 pages worth of content stretched out to 5x that by just repeating everything over and over with no elaboration on anything.
The author was quite masterfully showing the passage of several weeks: all her meals in different places and Kouga's name being pushed down in her latest contacts feed...Maybe the author really is just having a poor showing, but the repetition, where the character's negative thought loop reinforces her own internal assumptions over and over again while she gets no real external insight, matches so closely to what it actually feels like to be in that headspace. I can't help but feel like the author has done it on purpose. I think it really highlights the issue to help readers in similar situations see themselves in the character.
It feels to me that the lack of elaboration on the teacher and the missing students are the author being gritty and real, showing that you're not always going to get the full context or the answers you need to personally achieve closure and that sucks, but cyclically obsessing over it on your own is only going cause harm. They show her spiraling and then they present a tool (reading novels/thinking about something else) that you, the reader, might be able to use if you find yourself similarly spiraling.
So to me, coming in to it with this perspective on the author's intent, I actually thought this was a really strong chapter compared to some of the previous ones.