Lmfao Zapp Brannigan. Never expected to see one of his best quotes in a manga meme, but here we are.
Along with a harem romcom protagonist hearing a confession.
...only to have him immediately lie to himself over not hearing correctly even though she said it literally right after hugging him tighter than any friends-only bike sharing buds would hold on.
At this point this goes even further beyond obliviousness and even denial and inferiority complexes.
This dudes traumatized by being ostracized as the only dude in a school of delinquents and gyarus and the bullying and other bullshit from most of the girls in his year/grade/class, and especially the extortion attempt Takae pulled on his first fuckin day lol
Literally dug her own grave there and she still wonders why he doubts her more than Ushigome whom he thinks is just teasing him cause of the compensated dating shit and knowing she's got dem tig ol bitties teenagers love.
I mean, Ushigome even has better honesty/integrity and believability levels in Saotome's mind than Takae because of how ditzy and clumsy she can be, and even if she knows what she has and uses what she's got, it's become less intentional like the beginning and become more like naiveté and an innocent dumdum personality once her character got moved from the compensated dating rescuee and became the well-endowed and bubbly harem member lol
I do fucking love the facial expressions in this series though. We came a long way from chapter 1 with the art looking a little more like they were trying to go semi-realistic or semi-shoujo artstyle, but I'm glad as it developed it embraced the comedic side of romcom and it moved towards the more animated style we have now lol.
For real though, he would have an easier time believing a confession from his new subordinate, even if he would probably still think she was trying to play him somehow. Hell, even if she was, he'd still believe her long before he would believe an honest legitimate confession from Takae.
And yet, flags being tossed all over this chapter that Hanako and Takae are the two final bosses of the series. The phone call interruption, the "secret memories", the final panel's group photo with Saotome sandwiched between Hanako and Takae, and even Saotome saying he finally got to spend actual time with each of the OG (or rather, same year) harem.
And probably the least obvious and the absolutely most subtle flag that too me 5 rereads to finally notice (/s, just in case lol), Hanako and Takae agreeing that its finally time for everyone to actually make their moves.
That's literally some endgame shit if I've ever seen one. Those kinds of lines are straight out of the "how to segue into the finale/final story arc/saga" manual lmfao
But it's true too though. The harems just gonna keep growing. He got a new subordinate, and it was the first year delinquent boss. Her whole crew along with probably Itachi's friend circle are pretty much umbrella'd/grandfathered into the harem (or at least the ratio counter for more platonic members), and they still have the second half of their second year left, along with an entire third year.
Unless Toshinori-sensei goes with the "Third Year is for Cramming, Prepping, and Taking Entrance Exams, So There Won't Be Much Story to Tell and Just Montage or Offscreen Most of the Year" loophole/bypass, but if real world sensibilities start being applied now just for their third year, then the story is gonna end up off the rails (or rather, back on the rails, after it completely fell off after... the first year festival arc maybe? or the Culture Festival/Fashion Show arc?)
Anyway, I don't mean off the rails in a bad way, just in the sense of real-world realism, like the art and comedy in the beginning of the series before it embraced the comedy and became the baseline for the quality we have and expect now lol story/plot aside, I've been reading since Chapter 1 was published, but it's still somewhat jarring when I go back and compare or even just reread cause of the differences in some things. A lot of em aren't major or anything, just subtle or small stuff, but it's enough to notice the difference and where some of the changes began haha
Aaaaanyway. /rabblerabblerambling lol