Toukyou KINOKO: Sekai Ranking 1-i no Komyu-ryoku Saijaku JK~ - Ch. 12 - World's No.1

[MangaRoxas]

...I, uh, I'm just gonna enjoy the silly character being silly.

 

[Zhangar]

The issue boils down it's "One Punch Man but Cute Girl, but missing everything that makes One Punch Man actually good."

What we've actually got is "what if Saitama wasn't any smarter than Lenny from Of Mice and Men" and that's ... not fun.

It's a fascinating train wreck, but unless we get some amazing turn around soon this manga is shaping up to be a legendary fumble by the writer.

 

[MostlyHumanTLs]

I said it on a previous chapter - but the hard part for the author with a character like her, is that there's no middle ground to her mentality in all of this. She's either 100% oblivious and obtuse to the whole of existence around her, or she's competent and utterly unstoppable in whatever she chooses to do.
So with the direction being "clueless nuke" from the outset, she cannot be allowed to ever actually gain situational awareness. Because the moment she does, she instantly annihilates whatever antagonist--human or Stranger--appears before her, and she becomes a walking Weapon Of Mass Deterrent for the nation of Japan who will find out who she is in short order.

And...at that point, this stops being the comedy it's being presented as. From where I'm sitting, the setting itself is too dangerous and the stakes are too great to allow for the type of absurdist humor we've been given - it only works in the first place because the one person who could single-handedly destroy every Stranger and save (or rule, arguably) the world would make a sack of cracked bricks look like Einstein.

And so, the author now has to justify her never gaining contextual awareness or growing as a person in the social sense--which, mind you, was one of her primary character arc goals, alongside "making friends"--and we also need to ramp up the threat level from where we've started, because introducing less-dangerous enemies kills the momentum that's been established with this first arc. And that means, that no one else in the world can allow her to find out the truth of what's transpired here, and the longer that delusion is forced to last, and the more instances and events are piled atop it, the more twisted and strained the entire setting becomes to perpetuate her ignorance and simpleminded naivety.

Which, I suspect, means a definite shelf life on the series if the author wants the premise to be preserved. Because as these 12 chapters have shown, you can ask your readers to suspend their disbelief for only so long before the gag starts to wear thin - especially when the setting that the gag is taking place in is so dramatic and high-stakes.
The narrative dissonance created between the protagonist and everyone and everything around her doesn't seem like something that can hold for forever.

Maybe the plan is to eventually drop the silly parts the revolve around Kinoko's personality, but again, that also means the type of humor we start with likely won't persist. Maybe it could be done, but given it only lands because she's this dumb, if she starts getting smart, the singular axis the humor rests on disappears - and then this just becomes and action story with a protagonist that sits wholly outside the power scaling of the setting, and what narrative obstacle exists at that point?

You're pretty much on point with everything you've said. I had a similar, less developed thought about Kino having to remain mostly the same in order to preserve the comedic potential.

My personal disagreement is with the degree to which the state you've described is a problem for this story.

Basically, from my perspective, I don't see an issue with Kino existing in a world with such dangers.

You say that this absurdist humour can't work with such high stakes, but that's a wholly subjective statement. For me, subjectively, the comedy here works great. It works exactly because of the contrast between the stakes and the apparent absurdity.

And this may be due to the fact that I always adhere to the internal logic of the world, and don't try to compare it to how things would work in real life.

I treat all fictional stories as each one happening in their own world, with their own rules and common sense, established as the story progresses. Fiction must allow for rules to be different from real life, contrary to non-fiction stories. Basically, anything goes, as long as it makes sense internally.

I've re-read it from the start last chapter, and haven't found any objective inconsistencies. As far as I can tell, everything that was established in previous chapters is yet to be contradicted.

I also don't find the pacing to be a problem. The time spent within the world for this arc so far is just a few hours, but we're getting a detailed view of the events, focused on comedy. Plot is moving forward. Things are happening. It's just not the main focus of this story.

In the end, whether people like it or not comes down to each individual's taste in humour.

 

[Angry_Aguri]

it's so fucking stupid.


i love it. 100%

 

[7goat]

"wtf this girl who blatantly negdiffed all of our attacks while being tied up and is now for some reason contributed to my apocalypse plan that we just skipped straight to the final stage and thinks I'm her boss and loyally obeyed my every order including getting herself tied up in the first place might actually be the #1 strongest in the world??"
"I'M GOING TO KILL HER, THAT'S A REALLY GOOD IDEA"

11th strongest in the world, more like 11th dumbest in the world (#1 spot obviously goes to Kinoko)

 

[KoffeeStarZ0e]

it's unbearable at this point....

 

[dcdfvr]

well we'll finally get somewhere now that Ippe knows who she really is i hope

 

[Nanaca]

Seriously, can we just admit this arc was a damn mistake and move on to anything else. It's eaten up the larger share of the series' run by now, and most of it has amounted to a big fat nothing moving at a glacial pace.

 

[NotteBoy97]

I can handle the MC being a dumbass who can't read the room to save her life but when you put her in a position where you kind of need her to read the room to save other people's lives than you can't fucking drag it on too long. Like this 'part time job' misunderstanding could had worked for a chapter or two but now it's the majority of the manga and it's just killing the pacing. It's not even that funny of jokes like sure I laughed at all of them crying over breaking their shit failing to hurt her but when people have died in front of her it's hard to maintain humor. IIRC Mob Psycho had an arc like this where the MC falls for a scam by a villain and you know what they did they quickly resolved it and made the scamming villain a main character cause having an asshole trying to trick the misunderstanding OP Hero can actually be really good but you need to maintain the pace and tone.

 

[Hadski]

What a fucking mess of story pacing

 

[nightnyx]

Bruh how long the author gonna drag this arc? It has been talk no jitsu for past few chapters

 

[S0LUS]

Wild how quickly the author blew all of this series' potential and the readers' goodwill, I was praising it at the start for not just copying the Saitama premise & making it so she actually earned her crazy-ass powers via the power of dedication and a critical lack of brainpower instead of just kinda stumbling into them with minimal effort, but this arc should've taken place in like chapter 70+ bc pulling this kind of shit right out the gate is absolutely ridiculous, lol. We've barely been introduced to the world and characters & now have more screen time of our MC being the dumbest creature to ever live (and not in an amusing way) than we do of her doing literally anything interesting, and most of the dialogue is being given to people who by all metrics should've been defeated or straight-up died immediately- and would have in most other series- & now they're acting like these literally-who-ass cultists knowing her identity changes anything or even means literally ANYTHING to anyone in any goddamn way...

The way I see it, either they do something crazy & this "ultra-powerful" plant thing genuinely starts the apocalypse or whatever & the series takes a hard left turn into unknowable territory in order to become entertaining again, or she finally gets told to stop being fucking braindead by government girl (after her mouth is finally uncovered 10 more chapters from now), beats it in one punch like everything up to this point implies things'll go, and I just stop reading because there is no fucking way on earth the author could ever gain my trust back after fumbling such an entertaining start to a series to such a colossal degree lol. It could hit 500+ chapters & people could start calling it the next One Piece ("just skip the first 50 chapters bro the author was in a coma & they had a trained chimp do that part but it gets good after 100 chapters i swear") and I still wouldn't pick it back up

 

[DarkenerPlays]

holy shit this is hilarious also is he still being stupid? how on the shitty planet are you gonna kill her?

 

[Zhangar]

holy shit this is hilarious also is he still being stupid? how on the shitty planet are you gonna kill her?

If he told her that her job review requires that she shove her head into a bucket of water and stay there until told otherwise, he might successfully drown her.

Assuming she still needs oxygen, anyways.

 

[Dust_pile]

Thanks for the chapter!

Lol Kinoko just casually saving someone with almost noone noticing .

Now to see if Kinoko will notice when the guy is actually giving his best to kill her, or if he is too weak to register as an attack to her.

 

[Dust_pile]

You're pretty much on point with everything you've said. I had a similar, less developed thought about Kino having to remain mostly the same in order to preserve the comedic potential.

My personal disagreement is with the degree to which the state you've described is a problem for this story.

Basically, from my perspective, I don't see an issue with Kino existing in a world with such dangers.

You say that this absurdist humour can't work with such high stakes, but that's a wholly subjective statement. For me, subjectively, the comedy here works great. It works exactly because of the contrast between the stakes and the apparent absurdity.

And this may be due to the fact that I always adhere to the internal logic of the world, and don't try to compare it to how things would work in real life.

I treat all fictional stories as each one happening in their own world, with their own rules and common sense, established as the story progresses. Fiction must allow for rules to be different from real life, contrary to non-fiction stories. Basically, anything goes, as long as it makes sense internally.

I've re-read it from the start last chapter, and haven't found any objective inconsistencies. As far as I can tell, everything that was established in previous chapters is yet to be contradicted.

I also don't find the pacing to be a problem. The time spent within the world for this arc so far is just a few hours, but we're getting a detailed view of the events, focused on comedy. Plot is moving forward. Things are happening. It's just not the main focus of this story.

In the end, whether people like it or not comes down to each individual's taste in humour.

As you said, when reading the story in one chunk or at least in larger pieces, like in a volume release, this arc doesn't really feel dragged out. That's the problem with individual chapter releases, the plot has to move forward in a major way every chapter, or at least in every other chapter, otherwise readers get bored.

This story just doesn't work very well with it's current release schedule and chapter length.q

 

[MostlyHumanTLs]

As you said, when reading the story in one chunk or at least in larger pieces, like in a volume release, this arc doesn't really feel dragged out. That's the problem with individual chapter releases, the plot has to move forward in a major way every chapter, or at least in every other chapter, otherwise readers get bored.

This story just doesn't work very well with it's current release schedule and chapter length.q

Kids these days have the attention span of a goldfish, and the attention to detail of a cabbage.

I see no reason to blame the story for it.

 

[triland]

I didn't know a story about an overpowered idiot girl would have a CBT arc for the readers, but I deep down feel like I deserve the punishment.

 

[DarkenerPlays]

If he told her that her job review requires that she shove her head into a bucket of water and stay there until told otherwise, he might successfully drown her.

Assuming she still needs oxygen, anyways

can't she just inhale then hold her breathe forever because of her stats anyways?

 

[booterror]

Honestly, the stupidest thing this chapter is the other girl who had an opportunity to remove her bindings and tried to remove her mouth gag last instead of first, the moment one hand was free, to warn the extra silly girl that this is obviously not a part time job.

The next stupidest thing is the cult leader finally realising she's unknown and still thinking about killing her. Even if he considers that she'll remain an enemy, he's seen how strong she is and it should be obvious he doesn't have the means to harm her.

Personally, I don't really mind how extra silly "unknown" is. She is shown to have had no common sense even when she was in the boonies and now that she's interacting with people she's got zero clue. There's no better time to show her being this silly than at the beginning, because she'll eventually wise up. Maybe. XD

Of course, the pacing is a bit rough when you consider that she's been on a cross for the last 3 chapters, that this arc started on chapter 5 and that there are currently only 12 chapters.

But the reality is that the moment she understands that the cult needs to be apprehended, it'll be over in a single page. So I wouldn't be surprised if she did absolutely nothing the whole arc or even tried to defend the "part-time work president" from the incoming gardeners who have come to resolve the situation.

Well, it's ok enough for now.

I agree, but when you are a crazy cult leader, you drink lots of kool-aid.

In his mind he has all the cards: She might be the Unknown, but he knows shes a moron and has convinced this simpleton this is all a job and shes docile and not on guard (so he thinks). She likely wouldnt expect some sneak attack or other contrived plot to catch her off guard and kill her. In his mind shes a dangerous threat, but one that still could be overcome.