School Back - Vol. 3 Ch. 11 - Worries

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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.
It's good writing that the problem isn't necessarily neatly solved, MC just helps students deal better with their issues.

And it mostly avoids black and white stuff, outside of stuff like molester arc. For example, in this chapter the gals' group wasn't painted as cartoonishly evil. The tallest girl was being a bitch during conversation, but others called her out on it, and, probably because I'm not a fan of moral police students in manga, I don't dislike her much - who cares about sitting on tables, and it feels to me that the previous issue with Kouga could be caused by something minor as well. And we don't even know what happened with Jun-Jun, and if it really had to do with school at all.
 
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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 issues with the focus character aren't really elaborated on, nothing with the teacher is elaborated on. I know that not everything is going to be spelled out and solved but I can't help but compare it to something like Tasogare Memorandum which always felt like it managed to tell a complete story in each chapter despite only giving you bits and pieces of what's going on.

This series kind of lives and dies on whether the central issue/character of a chapter is engaging and this and the last chapter were just kind of flat.
 
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man this and We Shall Now Begin Ethics getting translated again, we back in the phsycological vibes
 
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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.
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.
 
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Jan 15, 2024
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Thanks for the chapter! This series is always so good :hearts:
The author does a really good job at presenting the issues in a way that's at least understandable even if you can't entirely relate to it.
 
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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.
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...
 

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