It's an adaptation of a kind of dark satire of "traditional" skewed gender ratio web novels, I think? Not the funny kind of satire. I haven't read the source material, but...
It focuses more on the madness/horror/tragedy of the leftover women's lives and how one chaste isekai'd dipshit "unintentionally," through "obliviousness" leads them on and what comes from that. Except that he fucking knows. He knows and he makes excuses to dodge responsibility just like most JP romcom protags who pretend they never had an inkling that the girl they were trying to get close to might like them back. So he's "kind" to them (read attentive and emotionally intimate) without any care in the world for their feelings.
Right now shit's just starting to migrate from Sowing to Reaping phases, yet he's still on his bullshit. So I kinda hate this dude and it might be bleeding into other works right now.
The girls are effectively written and I feel for them.
Oh, also, if the main character getting overpowered and sexually assaulted by a 7th grader is a dealbreaker for you, keep walkin'.
I think another problem is that I came back to it after a year off, and read some Danjohi ga Kowareta Sekai de Gisugisu Suru Hanashi during that break, and it has ruined other works for me in this genre of "okay, gender ratio, but this time serious and weighty." I think you can find an English verion under the name Tensions in a World Where the Gender Ratio Collapsed, and boy howdy, does it deliver on the promised tension. Darkly funny, smart, and all in an atmosphere that's chest-tighteningly oppressive. I'm actually gonna go catch up on that instead, now. Ha, sorry, you asked me about a different manga and I suggested a totally different web novel...
There's also 1:39 that just takes the same concept and takes it to the illogical extreme. Every female reaction is played up to orgasmic levels to the most inane and simple kindness, and it's very funny if you're into that type of humor. The intentionally vapid and kind protagonist acts as a straight man, with a somewhat legitimate reason for obliviousness, as he chooses the most ignorant explanations because the knowledge of everyone around him, including family, being bat-shit insane and wanting to breed him will irrevocably change him for the worse.
At the very least, it's trash-slop comedy and isn't pretending to be anything else, and you have to appreciate it for that.
It occurs to me that you can't wind up making yourself a victim of this kind of yandere JUST by being dense - you have to be actively dismissive of her feelings to convince yourself that you aren't playing with them. He knows what he's doing, and it's for his own convenience. Does he even have a reason to resist? This is always so lame. Maybe I'm just coming in hot after reading 1:5 Ratio.
I mean, to be fair to him, they are only fifteen. It's a world with noble and royalty, he might not actively want to take the plunge for societal reasons. Everything he's done so far reads less as oblivious and dismissive, and more cautious. Though it's something I'm sure will be later explored, as he recognizes her feelings toward him as "I'm someone who ABSOLUTELY cannot die".
It occurs to me that you can't wind up making yourself a victim of this kind of yandere JUST by being dense - you have to be actively dismissive of her feelings to convince yourself that you aren't playing with them. He knows what he's doing, and it's for his own convenience. Does he even have a reason to resist? This is always so lame. Maybe I'm just coming in hot after reading 1:5 Ratio.
Dude was so thorough prepare for any threat, it's very jarring he's not even trying to reign in her codependancy. Let's hope he'll see this at some point in school and will set out to help her make other friends. At this point, it's not even the eventuality of his death that will turn her evil, it's any issue any imagined or real threats to their relationship that will set her off.
It's an adaptation of a kind of dark satire of "traditional" skewed gender ratio web novels, I think? Not the funny kind of satire. I haven't read the source material, but...
It focuses more on the madness/horror/tragedy of the leftover women's lives and how one chaste isekai'd dipshit "unintentionally," through "obliviousness" leads them on and what comes from that. Except that he fucking knows. He knows and he makes excuses to dodge responsibility just like most JP romcom protags who pretend they never had an inkling that the girl they were trying to get close to might like them back. So he's "kind" to them (read attentive and emotionally intimate) without any care in the world for their feelings.
Right now shit's just starting to migrate from Sowing to Reaping phases, yet he's still on his bullshit. So I kinda hate this dude and it might be bleeding into other works right now.
The girls are effectively written and I feel for them.
Oh, also, if the main character getting overpowered and sexually assaulted by a 7th grader is a dealbreaker for you, keep walkin'.
I think another problem is that I came back to it after a year off, and read some Danjohi ga Kowareta Sekai de Gisugisu Suru Hanashi during that break, and it has ruined other works for me in this genre of "okay, gender ratio, but this time serious and weighty." I think you can find an English verion under the name Tensions in a World Where the Gender Ratio Collapsed, and boy howdy, does it deliver on the promised tension. Darkly funny, smart, and all in an atmosphere that's chest-tighteningly oppressive. I'm actually gonna go catch up on that instead, now. Ha, sorry, you asked me about a different manga and I suggested a totally different web novel...
Yo, I came back to tell you, I read this, got to chapter 40 and stopped. I really don't like Noa, which is a shame that they decided to go that route. That entire group and bullying of that one girl was just swept under the rug. Good recommendation, shame it just went with a character that I just did not like at all.
I mean, to be fair to him, they are only fifteen. It's a world with noble and royalty, he might not actively want to take the plunge for societal reasons. Everything he's done so far reads less as oblivious and dismissive, and more cautious. Though it's something I'm sure will be later explored, as he recognizes her feelings toward him as "I'm someone who ABSOLUTELY cannot die".
You're making excuses for him as though what I said was "he's a bad person who deserves the bad things that are about to happen to him." Now, I happen to think that's ALSO kinda true, but it's absolutely NOT what I said, and any moral dimension is irrelevant to the simple mechanics of whether or not the MC is aware that the heroine has feelings for him. He obviously is.
What I said was that being "dense" or inobservant isn't sufficient for this style of yandere plot to play out - the target of the yandere's affection isn't unaware of the yandere's feelings. They notice her feelings and dismiss them, judging them to be either unworthy of consideration or inconvenient and of lesser importance than their own priorities. They might rationalize with denials like "well she doesn't understand her own feelings," "she'll eventually realize I'm not worth it," "it's just a phase," "she simply can't be understood," or any other number of ways of conveniently twisting logic to make it look like they're doing HER a favor by getting what THEY want. And escape IS what they obviously want, because it's improper, or it makes them uncomfortable, or they're bad with women, or however you feel like dressing up the concept of "cowardice" that day.
This is a luxury afforded to those who get to ultimately make the decisions. When the relationship won't progress if you don't allow it to, you're able to shut things down by pretending not to notice their feelings, pretending not to hear things that aren't convenient, actively trying to redirect the conversation when it's headed somewhere you don't want, lying about why you do things, and other evasive maneuvers.
This should all be familiar - it is THE playbook for herbivore male romcom and harem protags. And what it all has in common is that it's avoiding the conflict implicit in acknowledging her feelings. It's especially familiar in Japan, where "polite" conflict avoidance is a key social skill for maintaining harmony. And that skill is overused in the above-mentioned characters in a way that's likely to bullseye the reader as well.
This typical yandere plotline I'm referring to is a cycle of all of the above, that repeats with increasing intensity as the yandere becomes more and more desperate to make him understand, and the MC grows equally frantic in his attempts to maintain the status quo.
All I said was that the plot doesn't unfold the way we're familiar with if he ACTUALLY doesn't notice (is dense,) and instead requires him to PRETEND not to notice.
This chapter is chock full of a besweatdropped MC pretending not to notice what the yandere confining him is after. If he ACTUALLY didn't understand, then when Elen hugged him or tried to drag him off to be alone, he'd simply be confused. He looks to the knight trainees or whoever for help because he understands exactly what might happen if she succeeds: SMOOCHES.
In summary, the conditions I outlined originally have been met: He recognizes that she has romantic feelings for him but decides that he can safely ignore the "problem" and is dead wrong in that judgment. Yandere plotline's a-go. I guess I hit a breaking point in how many times I saw it yesterday and felt the need to call it out for sucking.
Separately, whether dodging romantic advances without conflict is morally crappy depends entirely on context - you could excuse his behavior by focusing on the aspect where he's functionally being sexually harassed by his boss. It doesn't change his situation at the end of the day, though.
Finally, 15 is plenty old enough to understand that you're engaging in deliberate behavior to lead someone on, maintain the status quo, or let someone down easy. Even if you weren't doing it yourself, weren't you observing the behavior in others in middle school and complaining about it with friends? That's years earlier, and was a healthy part of any lunch table bitch-fest about romance. Most 14-year-olds are plenty capable of connecting the dots on "Man, that girl wouldn't give me a clear answer, shit sucks so mu- wait, I kind of did exactly that to these other girls, huh." Then again some thirty-somethings show no signs of ever learning to connect those dots, so... しょうがない
Holy shit I'm glad the world of 1:5 doesn't have magic. I refuse to rank yanderes, because they each have their own unique charm. If they need to establish a hierarchy amongst themselves, let them fight. Related: That reminds me of the title of another webnovel that I haven't read, but whose title has remained stuck in my head for how bonkers it is - 1人でもやばいヤンデレ美少女たちが手を組み始めました、これはもう諦めた方がいいですか？ (basically, "Beautiful Yanderes, Each Terrifying On Her Own, Have Begun Joining Forces - Should I Just Give Up Now?")
He should find a powerful defensive ability to copy. That way he only gains strengths without gaining a weakness. Plus a defensive ability suits his goal of not dying.
It's an adaptation of a kind of dark satire of "traditional" skewed gender ratio web novels, I think? Not the funny kind of satire. I haven't read the source material, but...
It focuses more on the madness/horror/tragedy of the leftover women's lives and how one chaste isekai'd dipshit "unintentionally," through "obliviousness" leads them on and what comes from that. Except that he fucking knows. He knows and he makes excuses to dodge responsibility just like most JP romcom protags who pretend they never had an inkling that the girl they were trying to get close to might like them back. So he's "kind" to them (read attentive and emotionally intimate) without any care in the world for their feelings.
Right now shit's just starting to migrate from Sowing to Reaping phases, yet he's still on his bullshit. So I kinda hate this dude and it might be bleeding into other works right now.
The girls are effectively written and I feel for them.
Oh, also, if the main character getting overpowered and sexually assaulted by a 7th grader is a dealbreaker for you, keep walkin'.
I think another problem is that I came back to it after a year off, and read some Danjohi ga Kowareta Sekai de Gisugisu Suru Hanashi during that break, and it has ruined other works for me in this genre of "okay, gender ratio, but this time serious and weighty." I think you can find an English verion under the name Tensions in a World Where the Gender Ratio Collapsed, and boy howdy, does it deliver on the promised tension. Darkly funny, smart, and all in an atmosphere that's chest-tighteningly oppressive. I'm actually gonna go catch up on that instead, now. Ha, sorry, you asked me about a different manga and I suggested a totally different web novel...
Unbeknownst to him, she had fallen long ago. Fallen in love that is. Thats good. Atleast we're sure that this ain't gonna turn into some shitty harem as soon as the academy arc starts.
