Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi o Suru - Ch. 106

[ShovelMan]

Gay ass manga

 

[Santouryuu]

What's with the drastic Translation differences between the 2 releases? Like even ignoring the many minor differences, the major ones are just too drastic

Potteto, Page 5
"I won't let our past affect how I act, but I imagine you don't even really want to talk to me at all... Sorry"
"I don't expect you to forgive me"
Tonikaku, page 6(first page was credits)
"So I'll do my best to not involve you... You would probably prefer that I hadn't even mentioned it...I'm Sorry"
"I swear that I've never thought that"

Potteto, Page 10, last panel
"I thought I was helping cheer you up. Not that I could help you get back on your feet, but I
wanted to be at least some help
Tonikaku, Page 11,last panel
"And, I don't think I ended up being of much use to you, myself....but I was making myself believe I was helping you feel better"

 

[dexdoujinmanga]

Ok, so no more costume. So maybe it's time for condom to take the stage?

 

[OliveOilOilOil]

This is watching that slow motion train wreck nobody will look away… that makes all of us rubber neckers

 

[Sayonarara]

S

(I posted this in the Church of Potteto's version of this chapter as well, but I prefer Tonikaku Scans' translation, so I thought I might as well post it here as well. Broadly the same, with an addendum regarding further thoughts on this chapter at the bottom)

I've been ruminating on the last couple of chapters since they came out, and have kinda changed my mind about Marin and Gojou's relationship, especially after reading some of the comments people left. It has become increasingly clear that this honestly isn't healthy. For either of them. They're codependent, with Gojou enabling Marin's lack of responsibility and emotionally selfish nature. There's a lot of wailing about the drama and people wanting a return to wholesomeness but if you take a step back, this doesn't feel wholesome at all. A relationship, especially a romantic one, should be mutually beneficial. Is this that?

Ask yourself; what does Gojou do for Marin? He makes her costumes, forgoing sleep, study, and even his own ambitions to do so. He cooks for her. He acts as a social bond to another cosplayer that can't stand Marin herself. He spends what must at this point be hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of yen to make her as happy as she can possibly be in her hobby.

What does Marin do for Gojou?

...

No, honestly, what does Marin do for Gojou? What interest does she actually show in him, as opposed to what he can do for her? Because as far as I can recall, Chapter 103 - in volume fucking 14 - is the first time the two of them went out and did something purely related to Gojou's interests and desires. Everything else is a result of or preparation for something that Marin or her friends wanted to do. She's "nice" to Gojou in that she doesn't immediately make fun of him for having a slightly weird hobby, but that's not some amazing feat - that's table stakes for being a decent human being. She has about as right to be considered a good partner as those interminable harem protagonists who get the girl because they are the only males in their stories who treat the romantic interests with basic respect.

"Oh, but he's gotten better at making hina dolls since he started helping her." "Oh, he met that other friend as a result of his interest in prop-making." "Oh, the class has a better opinion of him since he helped do her makeup." If that's your response, you completely misread the question. I asked specifically what Marin actively chooses to do to for the purposes of helping Gojou out with his life.

See, a lot of people pointed out to this being a self-insert fic from the author, and I can see it. This story revolves around the interests of the female lead, and everything that the male lead wants or feels is sublimated to that. He wants to be a hina doll artist? Well, helping the female lead with her costumes makes him better at that! He wants to make friends and connect to the people around him? Well, joining the female lead's social group is how he does that! At no point does Marin actively reach out and try to aid him; she's a passive recipient to his efforts and the universe (read; the mangaka) rewards him for sacrificing everything to her.

You know you fucked up your romance when Nagatoro, the girl whose first encounter with her romantic partner ended with him in tears, ends up a healthier, more balanced, and more giving partner than your female lead. At least Nagatoro - who I remind everyone started out as NTR-bait emotional abuse porn on twitter - was aware of and concerned about the inner life of her partner!

You have to feel sorry for Gojou. He's been placed in a universe where he'll never win, will never find true happiness, except in subservience to anothers' whims. The manga even says so - Chapter 94. "Wakana, too... As long as he lives, I don't think he'll find satisfaction. So, Marin-chan, please make sure to praise the things that Wakana makes." Hell, even though during the last cosplaying arc with Haniel Gojou was actually into things for his own reasons, the way it got presented - with Gojou on his knees begging Marin for forgiveness for being "selfish" enough to ask her to cosplay as a character she told him she wanted to cosplay as - positions him as a supplicant to Marin.

And taking that line, that this isn't a romcom centered around an ecchi gyaru with a love of cosplay but instead a dramedy about a toxic relationship with that gyaru, actually puts their earlier interactions in a new light. Marin's strongest character trait, from the very beginning, was that she didn't care what other people felt. She didn't care if they thought she was rude, or if she was weird for openly talking about porn, or anything. Remember all that kinda pervy stuff from those early volumes? How uncomfortable Gojou felt every time she gave him stuff to watch or he had to measure her for costumes? Remember how she never cared at all about trying to make him feel more comfortable (or, hell, maybe compromising in the smallest possible way so that he didn't feel that way)? How she didn't care that exposing his skill as a tailor or makeup artist might scare him or alienate him from the class (you might say "she knew it wouldn't result in anything bad - but we NEVER see her reassure him about that! That seems like a great moment of caring and friendship that this manga just... never bothers with)?

Marin never compromises on what she wants. Compromising your desires is for Gojou.

I mentioned Marin being akin to a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; you know the trope. Super-bubbly extroverted "quirky" girl who meets a shy, introverted, inexpressive loner and slowly breaks down his shell with irrepressible energy. It's a common enough male fantasy in media. Except this is more the flipped version of it, the female fantasy. She's a teenager with basically no self-control (she spent thousands of dollars on a DSLR camera because it's model name started with the same letter as her own!), no ability to manage her life (shown by her eating habits), no thought towards social norms or niceties (framed as her being straightforward, but that's not really consistent with her absolute reticence regarding Gojou. A more consistent explanation is that she just doesn't care about offending or discomforting others), and ends up dumping all of the emotional and physical labor of their relationship onto Gojou.

This is coming off as more mean-spirited than I intend. Sure, she's way too nonchalant about how much she asks or expects from her partner. She's 15, though. And an only child. The only real, deep relationship she would have at this point is that to her parents, where she would be the passive recipient of all of their love and attention. That's how she acts in this relationship too; she's more like Gojou's child than his girlfriend. Of course she doesn't have the emotional maturity to actually give equally to a partner. And no one would expect her to. I'm not making a value judgement of her - just pointing out how unfair this whole situation is to him.

The longer this goes on, frankly, the less I want this romance to continue. Gojou gives so much, so readily, desperate for any scrap of acceptance. He's still mentally that orphan, scared of the world and dependent on a calcified shell to protect him from it. Closed, afraid to reach out and ask for help, to let anyone know that it's too much for him. He deserves someone who'll reach over, who'll tell him it's okay to rely on her for a while, that his needs matter too. A person who can say "we" instead of "I".

Because Marin sure as shit won't.

Hell, at this point I think Non would make a better pairing. At least in this chapter she treats Gojou as someone whose feelings matter and that she has to talk to when they have problems, rather than Marin's fundamentally cowardly and self-centered solution of just walking the fuck away whenever the risk of being vulnerable rears up.

ADDENDUM: So this chapter's ending can kind of be seen as Marin compromising, giving up on her goals to support Gojou. But if that's the case, if that's how it's meant to be perceived, the problem is even worse than I originally thought. Even for teenagers, this is painful to watch. Imagine that this happened to you. Imagine you had a friend who introduced you to a hobby - say, rock climbing or something else you were nervous about doing publically because of self-image issues, and introduced you to a friend group through it, and you've spent a bunch of time and energy with them enjoying this hobby together.

Then you try to introduce your friend to something you're interested in and you're kind of shy about. Maybe you're a high-level esports player trying to go pro and mention how much time it takes to practice your skills. You know, the kind of thing that friends talk about; the situations in their lives and the struggles they're going through. This is the first time you've opened up like this, after like half a year of friendship.

And then that friend, immediately afterwards, straight up ghosts you. That's kind of weird, you think, so you go to their house to see what's up, and that friend, before you can even finish asking about plans to go rock climbing next weekend, says that they never want to go rock climbing with you again. And their excuse is that obviously you care so much about being a professional esports player that you have no time for the hobby they introduced you to.

Do you understand how shocked and hurt and betrayed you'd feel at that moment?

This is not a romance. I'm sorry, it just isn't. Neither of these characters treat the other as a romantic interest. Gojou definitely doesn't see Marin in a romantic light - he doesn't even see her in an erotic way any more! He spent the night at her house, hopped up on aphrodisiac energy drinks, and thought nothing of it. And Marin doesn't even treat Gojou as a friend, let alone a potential boyfriend. She treats him like a simp. Where other girls might have a guy like him saved as "Free Lunch" on their phones, he's "Cheap Costumes". AND HE ALSO MAKES HER LUNCH! The only hint that she sees him as anything greater was her promising herself she would confess to him three arcs and two years ago. And then... nothing.

Sadly your kinda right man

 

[anon763]

[...]

I remember a few chapters ago when the two were leaving Comiket, and Gojou was feeling moody after seeing everyone fawning over Marin while Marin responded by completely ignoring him, and there were comments in these sections getting annoyed at Gojou for "ruining Marin's special day".
People were mad because after he put in all that unhealthy obsessive effort for her sake, when he then stood there watching from the sidelines as everyone fawned over her, they didn't think he was happy enough for her.

 

[VerticalVectors]

Good, put your clothes back on and go to school.

 

[VerticalVectors]

(I posted this in the Church of Potteto's version of this chapter as well, but I prefer Tonikaku Scans' translation, so I thought I might as well post it here as well. Broadly the same, with an addendum regarding further thoughts on this chapter at the bottom)

I've been ruminating on the last couple of chapters since they came out, and have kinda changed my mind about Marin and Gojou's relationship, especially after reading some of the comments people left. It has become increasingly clear that this honestly isn't healthy. For either of them. They're codependent, with Gojou enabling Marin's lack of responsibility and emotionally selfish nature. There's a lot of wailing about the drama and people wanting a return to wholesomeness but if you take a step back, this doesn't feel wholesome at all. A relationship, especially a romantic one, should be mutually beneficial. Is this that?

Ask yourself; what does Gojou do for Marin? He makes her costumes, forgoing sleep, study, and even his own ambitions to do so. He cooks for her. He acts as a social bond to another cosplayer that can't stand Marin herself. He spends what must at this point be hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of yen to make her as happy as she can possibly be in her hobby.

What does Marin do for Gojou?

...

No, honestly, what does Marin do for Gojou? What interest does she actually show in him, as opposed to what he can do for her? Because as far as I can recall, Chapter 103 - in volume fucking 14 - is the first time the two of them went out and did something purely related to Gojou's interests and desires. Everything else is a result of or preparation for something that Marin or her friends wanted to do. She's "nice" to Gojou in that she doesn't immediately make fun of him for having a slightly weird hobby, but that's not some amazing feat - that's table stakes for being a decent human being. She has about as right to be considered a good partner as those interminable harem protagonists who get the girl because they are the only males in their stories who treat the romantic interests with basic respect.

"Oh, but he's gotten better at making hina dolls since he started helping her." "Oh, he met that other friend as a result of his interest in prop-making." "Oh, the class has a better opinion of him since he helped do her makeup." If that's your response, you completely misread the question. I asked specifically what Marin actively chooses to do to for the purposes of helping Gojou out with his life.

See, a lot of people pointed out to this being a self-insert fic from the author, and I can see it. This story revolves around the interests of the female lead, and everything that the male lead wants or feels is sublimated to that. He wants to be a hina doll artist? Well, helping the female lead with her costumes makes him better at that! He wants to make friends and connect to the people around him? Well, joining the female lead's social group is how he does that! At no point does Marin actively reach out and try to aid him; she's a passive recipient to his efforts and the universe (read; the mangaka) rewards him for sacrificing everything to her.

You know you fucked up your romance when Nagatoro, the girl whose first encounter with her romantic partner ended with him in tears, ends up a healthier, more balanced, and more giving partner than your female lead. At least Nagatoro - who I remind everyone started out as NTR-bait emotional abuse porn on twitter - was aware of and concerned about the inner life of her partner!

You have to feel sorry for Gojou. He's been placed in a universe where he'll never win, will never find true happiness, except in subservience to anothers' whims. The manga even says so - Chapter 94. "Wakana, too... As long as he lives, I don't think he'll find satisfaction. So, Marin-chan, please make sure to praise the things that Wakana makes." Hell, even though during the last cosplaying arc with Haniel Gojou was actually into things for his own reasons, the way it got presented - with Gojou on his knees begging Marin for forgiveness for being "selfish" enough to ask her to cosplay as a character she told him she wanted to cosplay as - positions him as a supplicant to Marin.

And taking that line, that this isn't a romcom centered around an ecchi gyaru with a love of cosplay but instead a dramedy about a toxic relationship with that gyaru, actually puts their earlier interactions in a new light. Marin's strongest character trait, from the very beginning, was that she didn't care what other people felt. She didn't care if they thought she was rude, or if she was weird for openly talking about porn, or anything. Remember all that kinda pervy stuff from those early volumes? How uncomfortable Gojou felt every time she gave him stuff to watch or he had to measure her for costumes? Remember how she never cared at all about trying to make him feel more comfortable (or, hell, maybe compromising in the smallest possible way so that he didn't feel that way)? How she didn't care that exposing his skill as a tailor or makeup artist might scare him or alienate him from the class (you might say "she knew it wouldn't result in anything bad - but we NEVER see her reassure him about that! That seems like a great moment of caring and friendship that this manga just... never bothers with)?

Marin never compromises on what she wants. Compromising your desires is for Gojou.

I mentioned Marin being akin to a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; you know the trope. Super-bubbly extroverted "quirky" girl who meets a shy, introverted, inexpressive loner and slowly breaks down his shell with irrepressible energy. It's a common enough male fantasy in media. Except this is more the flipped version of it, the female fantasy. She's a teenager with basically no self-control (she spent thousands of dollars on a DSLR camera because it's model name started with the same letter as her own!), no ability to manage her life (shown by her eating habits), no thought towards social norms or niceties (framed as her being straightforward, but that's not really consistent with her absolute reticence regarding Gojou. A more consistent explanation is that she just doesn't care about offending or discomforting others), and ends up dumping all of the emotional and physical labor of their relationship onto Gojou.

This is coming off as more mean-spirited than I intend. Sure, she's way too nonchalant about how much she asks or expects from her partner. She's 15, though. And an only child. The only real, deep relationship she would have at this point is that to her parents, where she would be the passive recipient of all of their love and attention. That's how she acts in this relationship too; she's more like Gojou's child than his girlfriend. Of course she doesn't have the emotional maturity to actually give equally to a partner. And no one would expect her to. I'm not making a value judgement of her - just pointing out how unfair this whole situation is to him.

The longer this goes on, frankly, the less I want this romance to continue. Gojou gives so much, so readily, desperate for any scrap of acceptance. He's still mentally that orphan, scared of the world and dependent on a calcified shell to protect him from it. Closed, afraid to reach out and ask for help, to let anyone know that it's too much for him. He deserves someone who'll reach over, who'll tell him it's okay to rely on her for a while, that his needs matter too. A person who can say "we" instead of "I".

Because Marin sure as shit won't.

Hell, at this point I think Non would make a better pairing. At least in this chapter she treats Gojou as someone whose feelings matter and that she has to talk to when they have problems, rather than Marin's fundamentally cowardly and self-centered solution of just walking the fuck away whenever the risk of being vulnerable rears up.

ADDENDUM: So this chapter's ending can kind of be seen as Marin compromising, giving up on her goals to support Gojou. But if that's the case, if that's how it's meant to be perceived, the problem is even worse than I originally thought. Even for teenagers, this is painful to watch. Imagine that this happened to you. Imagine you had a friend who introduced you to a hobby - say, rock climbing or something else you were nervous about doing publically because of self-image issues, and introduced you to a friend group through it, and you've spent a bunch of time and energy with them enjoying this hobby together.

Then you try to introduce your friend to something you're interested in and you're kind of shy about. Maybe you're a high-level esports player trying to go pro and mention how much time it takes to practice your skills. You know, the kind of thing that friends talk about; the situations in their lives and the struggles they're going through. This is the first time you've opened up like this, after like half a year of friendship.

And then that friend, immediately afterwards, straight up ghosts you. That's kind of weird, you think, so you go to their house to see what's up, and that friend, before you can even finish asking about plans to go rock climbing next weekend, says that they never want to go rock climbing with you again. And their excuse is that obviously you care so much about being a professional esports player that you have no time for the hobby they introduced you to.

Do you understand how shocked and hurt and betrayed you'd feel at that moment?

This is not a romance. I'm sorry, it just isn't. Neither of these characters treat the other as a romantic interest. Gojou definitely doesn't see Marin in a romantic light - he doesn't even see her in an erotic way any more! He spent the night at her house, hopped up on aphrodisiac energy drinks, and thought nothing of it. And Marin doesn't even treat Gojou as a friend, let alone a potential boyfriend. She treats him like a simp. Where other girls might have a guy like him saved as "Free Lunch" on their phones, he's "Cheap Costumes". AND HE ALSO MAKES HER LUNCH! The only hint that she sees him as anything greater was her promising herself she would confess to him three arcs and two years ago. And then... nothing.

Your impressions are absolutely on point, and Tonikaku’s scans are definitely better. I’m rather shocked there are even people hitting you with dumb and questioning reacts. Probably says more about an overwhelming portion of manga readers being immature simps in their own right.

 

[budifelt]

Ungrateful chicks

 

[Santouryuu]

I've been ruminating on the last couple of chapters since they came out, and have kinda changed my mind about Marin and Gojou's relationship, especially after reading some of the comments people left. It has become increasingly clear that this honestly isn't healthy. For either of them. They're codependent, with Gojou enabling Marin's lack of responsibility and emotionally selfish nature. There's a lot of wailing about the drama and people wanting a return to wholesomeness but if you take a step back, this doesn't feel wholesome at all. A relationship, especially a romantic one, should be mutually beneficial. Is this that?

No, honestly, what does Marin do for Gojou? What interest does she actually show in him, as opposed to what he can do for her? Because as far as I can recall, Chapter 103 - in volume fucking 14 - is the first time the two of them went out and did something purely related to Gojou's interests and desires. Everything else is a result of or preparation for something that Marin or her friends wanted to do. She's "nice" to Gojou in that she doesn't immediately make fun of him for having a slightly weird hobby, but that's not some amazing feat - that's table stakes for being a decent human being. She has about as right to be considered a good partner as those interminable harem protagonists who get the girl because they are the only males in their stories who treat the romantic interests with basic respect.




You know you fucked up your romance when Nagatoro, the girl whose first encounter with her romantic partner ended with him in tears, ends up a healthier, more balanced, and more giving partner than your female lead. At least Nagatoro - who I remind everyone started out as NTR-bait emotional abuse porn on twitter - was aware of and concerned about the inner life of her partner!

Okay, first off, this comment makes me wanna try Nagataro, though it's premise always put me off. Secondly, I think your points are quite valid. Their relationship has for the most part been stagnated, and the drama elements are just too sparse and incomplete, with the author basically stalling any major progression for quite a few volumes. And funnily enough, even that stalling was shown more through Marin's pov of feeling blueballed.

Point though is, I am not sure if the current developments are the correct way to deal with it. The series always has been subtle with the drama, and it's always been accompanied by slice of life stuff. Their cosplay getting super-popular out of the blue was a perfect opportunity to really solve some of these issues without any of the somewhat tropey drama being done now. Gojou doesn't get enough credit, enough compensation, or enough of anything really for all his help in Marin's cosplay. His feelings about making cosplay costumes are not given enough attention. The success of this recent cosplay was the perfect trigger for them to start introspection without deviating from the manga's vibe and tone till now. I mean ideally this all should have started ages back, but still.

What we are instead getting is out of place drama, with both the characters randomly starting to avoid each other instead of actually processing everything through normally after the explosion of their cosplay, which had a lot of buildup leading into it

 

[JACGohu]

Lots of people complaining about the lack of communication, which I don't disagree with. But it's also a cliffhanger where she just dropped this particular bomb. I'd like to see how the author handles it next chapter.

Since they handled the old misunderstanding in a timely fashion after it was reintroduced, similar may happen with Marin.

 

[Lustrist]

Marin stocks will rise watch it

 

[shwiftyshfifty]

For the childhood "friend", it's about as good as you can make that end.

For the newer not-quite-girlfriend, yet another dumb misunderstanding drama that could easily be solved with communication.

They're still just teenagers and teenagers aren't well versed in their emotions. Not to mention neither of them really have parents or guardians they can talk too about this stuff.

 

[shwiftyshfifty]

(I posted this in the Church of Potteto's version of this chapter as well, but I prefer Tonikaku Scans' translation, so I thought I might as well post it here as well. Broadly the same, with an addendum regarding further thoughts on this chapter at the bottom)

Heh peeps out here writing whole-ass essays. I love the commitment, truly. (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞

 

[Endominus]

Okay, first off, this comment makes me wanna try Nagataro, though it's premise always put me off. Secondly, I think your points are quite valid. Their relationship has for the most part been stagnated, and the drama elements are just too sparse and incomplete, with the author basically stalling any major progression for quite a few volumes. And funnily enough, even that stalling was shown more through Marin's pov of feeling blueballed.

Yeah, Nagatoro kinda has Watamote's problem. You need to grit your teeth and push through the first volume or two before the rough edges start to smooth over. It never becomes a fluffy series, but it does get better than the start.

I think part of the issue here is that other romance series have advanced beyond this kind of characterization. There's so many manga out there where either the main cast are actually decently proactive and trying to further and deepen their relationships (take Otaku ni Yasashii Gal wa Inai, one of the only love triangle series where that is actually used to good effect to advance the romantic aspects, instead of an excuse to have the main character waffle about). There's manga where the drama isn't so shallow, in which characters apologize and then actually change their behavior like Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku - a pure Romeo-and-Juliet style romance with a strong focus on external perceptions - and Kono Oto Tomare, which is more like this series in that it's primarily about a craft/practice (koto playing in that case) with the romance usually taking a back seat. You also have Yancha Gal no Anjou-san showing what a better version of the romance in this series could be - despite the at-times unbearable skittishness of the MMC there, he does actually grow in confidence thanks to the FMC, and in turn she finds a stable and devoted partner in him, someone whose self-control serves to temper her impulsiveness. It's the most direct comparison I can think of to the romance plotline in this manga, and it just throws the problems of Gojou's and Marin's relationship into stark relief as a result.

Your impressions are absolutely on point, and Tonikaku’s scans are definitely better. I’m rather shocked there are even people hitting you with dumb and questioning reacts. Probably says more about an overwhelming portion of manga readers being immature simps in their own right.

The ironic thing is, I don't want to be right. I'd love for the mangaka to actually right this ship and have the characters actually address the failures in their relationship. But there's a concept in writing called the magic circle. Within it, the audience extends the author as much good faith and suspension of disbelief as necessary, with the understanding that there is a reason for everything being communicated. They come up with theories to explain the gap between their expectations and the events in the story, and are more engrossed with the mystery as a result. This is part of what makes FromSoft's games so captivating.

But every time that faith is broken, every time it becomes apparent that it was just a mistake or a lack of attention on the author's part, the magic circle shrinks, people are left outside, and they begin to question every event, wondering if this too is evidence of a writer's failure. It's a breakdown of the suspension of disbelief, or the competence of the writer to actually satisfyingly conclude their story. It invites critical reexamination of everything that's happened or will happen, with very little good faith extended to the author. This arc, I think, I've finally been pushed out of the circle. I'm no longer wondering how the main two will get together. I'm assuming however they do it will be unsatisfying, will not address the problems I've noticed, and will leave me feeling hollow.

I'd love to be wrong. That's why I'd at least read to the end of this arc. But I don't think the author even understands that the relationship they're portraying is a toxic one and that something needs to be done to correct it.

 

[Diagus]

Eh?
Next Boss

 

[LimsKragma]

Okay, first off, this comment makes me wanna try Nagataro, though it's premise always put me off. Secondly, I think your points are quite valid. Their relationship has for the most part been stagnated, and the drama elements are just too sparse and incomplete, with the author basically stalling any major progression for quite a few volumes. And funnily enough, even that stalling was shown more through Marin's pov of feeling blueballed.

Point though is, I am not sure if the current developments are the correct way to deal with it. The series always has been subtle with the drama, and it's always been accompanied by slice of life stuff. Their cosplay getting super-popular out of the blue was a perfect opportunity to really solve some of these issues without any of the somewhat tropey drama being done now. Gojou doesn't get enough credit, enough compensation, or enough of anything really for all his help in Marin's cosplay. His feelings about making cosplay costumes are not given enough attention. The success of this recent cosplay was the perfect trigger for them to start introspection without deviating from the manga's vibe and tone till now. I mean ideally this all should have started ages back, but still.

What we are instead getting is out of place drama, with both the characters randomly starting to avoid each other instead of actually processing everything through normally after the explosion of their cosplay, which had a lot of buildup leading into it

Yeah, agreed. This is where the author's skills (plus editor's) should come forth. So, the progression of the story to a good one would depend on whether or not this team could make the story or not.

 

[Echion]

At least they're finally talking, I think it'll be fine.

 

[Waffuls]

just gonna say this was the better translated version for this chapter. but i feel that reading both gives you a fuller picture of what is being said and expressed

 

[Meth0d]

(I posted this in the Church of Potteto's version of this chapter as well, but I prefer Tonikaku Scans' translation, so I thought I might as well post it here as well. Broadly the same, with an addendum regarding further thoughts on this chapter at the bottom)

I've been ruminating on the last couple of chapters since they came out, and have kinda changed my mind about Marin and Gojou's relationship, especially after reading some of the comments people left. It has become increasingly clear that this honestly isn't healthy. For either of them. They're codependent, with Gojou enabling Marin's lack of responsibility and emotionally selfish nature. There's a lot of wailing about the drama and people wanting a return to wholesomeness but if you take a step back, this doesn't feel wholesome at all. A relationship, especially a romantic one, should be mutually beneficial. Is this that?

Ask yourself; what does Gojou do for Marin? He makes her costumes, forgoing sleep, study, and even his own ambitions to do so. He cooks for her. He acts as a social bond to another cosplayer that can't stand Marin herself. He spends what must at this point be hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of yen to make her as happy as she can possibly be in her hobby.

What does Marin do for Gojou?

...

No, honestly, what does Marin do for Gojou? What interest does she actually show in him, as opposed to what he can do for her? Because as far as I can recall, Chapter 103 - in volume fucking 14 - is the first time the two of them went out and did something purely related to Gojou's interests and desires. Everything else is a result of or preparation for something that Marin or her friends wanted to do. She's "nice" to Gojou in that she doesn't immediately make fun of him for having a slightly weird hobby, but that's not some amazing feat - that's table stakes for being a decent human being. She has about as right to be considered a good partner as those interminable harem protagonists who get the girl because they are the only males in their stories who treat the romantic interests with basic respect.

"Oh, but he's gotten better at making hina dolls since he started helping her." "Oh, he met that other friend as a result of his interest in prop-making." "Oh, the class has a better opinion of him since he helped do her makeup." If that's your response, you completely misread the question. I asked specifically what Marin actively chooses to do to for the purposes of helping Gojou out with his life.

See, a lot of people pointed out to this being a self-insert fic from the author, and I can see it. This story revolves around the interests of the female lead, and everything that the male lead wants or feels is sublimated to that. He wants to be a hina doll artist? Well, helping the female lead with her costumes makes him better at that! He wants to make friends and connect to the people around him? Well, joining the female lead's social group is how he does that! At no point does Marin actively reach out and try to aid him; she's a passive recipient to his efforts and the universe (read; the mangaka) rewards him for sacrificing everything to her.

You know you fucked up your romance when Nagatoro, the girl whose first encounter with her romantic partner ended with him in tears, ends up a healthier, more balanced, and more giving partner than your female lead. At least Nagatoro - who I remind everyone started out as NTR-bait emotional abuse porn on twitter - was aware of and concerned about the inner life of her partner!

You have to feel sorry for Gojou. He's been placed in a universe where he'll never win, will never find true happiness, except in subservience to anothers' whims. The manga even says so - Chapter 94. "Wakana, too... As long as he lives, I don't think he'll find satisfaction. So, Marin-chan, please make sure to praise the things that Wakana makes." Hell, even though during the last cosplaying arc with Haniel Gojou was actually into things for his own reasons, the way it got presented - with Gojou on his knees begging Marin for forgiveness for being "selfish" enough to ask her to cosplay as a character she told him she wanted to cosplay as - positions him as a supplicant to Marin.

And taking that line, that this isn't a romcom centered around an ecchi gyaru with a love of cosplay but instead a dramedy about a toxic relationship with that gyaru, actually puts their earlier interactions in a new light. Marin's strongest character trait, from the very beginning, was that she didn't care what other people felt. She didn't care if they thought she was rude, or if she was weird for openly talking about porn, or anything. Remember all that kinda pervy stuff from those early volumes? How uncomfortable Gojou felt every time she gave him stuff to watch or he had to measure her for costumes? Remember how she never cared at all about trying to make him feel more comfortable (or, hell, maybe compromising in the smallest possible way so that he didn't feel that way)? How she didn't care that exposing his skill as a tailor or makeup artist might scare him or alienate him from the class (you might say "she knew it wouldn't result in anything bad - but we NEVER see her reassure him about that! That seems like a great moment of caring and friendship that this manga just... never bothers with)?

Marin never compromises on what she wants. Compromising your desires is for Gojou.

I mentioned Marin being akin to a Manic Pixie Dream Girl; you know the trope. Super-bubbly extroverted "quirky" girl who meets a shy, introverted, inexpressive loner and slowly breaks down his shell with irrepressible energy. It's a common enough male fantasy in media. Except this is more the flipped version of it, the female fantasy. She's a teenager with basically no self-control (she spent thousands of dollars on a DSLR camera because it's model name started with the same letter as her own!), no ability to manage her life (shown by her eating habits), no thought towards social norms or niceties (framed as her being straightforward, but that's not really consistent with her absolute reticence regarding Gojou. A more consistent explanation is that she just doesn't care about offending or discomforting others), and ends up dumping all of the emotional and physical labor of their relationship onto Gojou.

This is coming off as more mean-spirited than I intend. Sure, she's way too nonchalant about how much she asks or expects from her partner. She's 15, though. And an only child. The only real, deep relationship she would have at this point is that to her parents, where she would be the passive recipient of all of their love and attention. That's how she acts in this relationship too; she's more like Gojou's child than his girlfriend. Of course she doesn't have the emotional maturity to actually give equally to a partner. And no one would expect her to. I'm not making a value judgement of her - just pointing out how unfair this whole situation is to him.

The longer this goes on, frankly, the less I want this romance to continue. Gojou gives so much, so readily, desperate for any scrap of acceptance. He's still mentally that orphan, scared of the world and dependent on a calcified shell to protect him from it. Closed, afraid to reach out and ask for help, to let anyone know that it's too much for him. He deserves someone who'll reach over, who'll tell him it's okay to rely on her for a while, that his needs matter too. A person who can say "we" instead of "I".

Because Marin sure as shit won't.

Hell, at this point I think Non would make a better pairing. At least in this chapter she treats Gojou as someone whose feelings matter and that she has to talk to when they have problems, rather than Marin's fundamentally cowardly and self-centered solution of just walking the fuck away whenever the risk of being vulnerable rears up.

ADDENDUM: So this chapter's ending can kind of be seen as Marin compromising, giving up on her goals to support Gojou. But if that's the case, if that's how it's meant to be perceived, the problem is even worse than I originally thought. Even for teenagers, this is painful to watch. Imagine that this happened to you. Imagine you had a friend who introduced you to a hobby - say, rock climbing or something else you were nervous about doing publically because of self-image issues, and introduced you to a friend group through it, and you've spent a bunch of time and energy with them enjoying this hobby together.

Then you try to introduce your friend to something you're interested in and you're kind of shy about. Maybe you're a high-level esports player trying to go pro and mention how much time it takes to practice your skills. You know, the kind of thing that friends talk about; the situations in their lives and the struggles they're going through. This is the first time you've opened up like this, after like half a year of friendship.

And then that friend, immediately afterwards, straight up ghosts you. That's kind of weird, you think, so you go to their house to see what's up, and that friend, before you can even finish asking about plans to go rock climbing next weekend, says that they never want to go rock climbing with you again. And their excuse is that obviously you care so much about being a professional esports player that you have no time for the hobby they introduced you to.

Do you understand how shocked and hurt and betrayed you'd feel at that moment?

This is not a romance. I'm sorry, it just isn't. Neither of these characters treat the other as a romantic interest. Gojou definitely doesn't see Marin in a romantic light - he doesn't even see her in an erotic way any more! He spent the night at her house, hopped up on aphrodisiac energy drinks, and thought nothing of it. And Marin doesn't even treat Gojou as a friend, let alone a potential boyfriend. She treats him like a simp. Where other girls might have a guy like him saved as "Free Lunch" on their phones, he's "Cheap Costumes". AND HE ALSO MAKES HER LUNCH! The only hint that she sees him as anything greater was her promising herself she would confess to him three arcs and two years ago. And then... nothing.

Astute criticism, and well founded. I especially like the mention of the genderbent "manic pixie dream girl" trope, that has been this manga to a T from the beginning. People often accuse this series of appealing to the male gaze, some sort of sexist ecchi bait. Fair enough, if you only read surface level and look at the visuals (usually the anime watchers, they're the typical suspects). The series is written by a female author as a sort of wish fulfillment, Gojo being really an ideal man. Competent, stoic, unphased, dedicated and determined. Marin is what the author wished she was in HS, and likely what a lot of girls wish they were. Unreproachable, independent and free spirited. The addition of Romcom elements has fucked up the ecchi cosplay dynamic. I really would like to know what the author thinks they're cooking here. Has this been the intention the whole time? I think there must be some sort of editorial oversight due to the success of the anime.