It doesn't help that in the volume 3 extras it has Kurumi dreaming of Kudou actively taking Naoi away from her - obviously its just the dream pages that feel like they have some amount of overlap with the story albeit not an exact match up, that have been in every volume so far, but far be it from me to completely write off the toxic yuri manga having a character literally steal one of the leads and run off with her.
My understanding is that Japanese healthcare is very subsidized, but isn't free. Especially if Naoi's dad did something like not enroll the family in any kind of healthcare program.
For sure. The first volume bonus hinted at the love hotel and Kokoro being more of a Stan than a friend. While the volume 2 bonus hinted at Kokoro's downward spiral. So at the very least volume 3's bonus feels like it hints at Kudou trying to take Kurumi's place in Naoi's life.
It feels like the extras predict plot points two volumes ahead; So Kudou might help out here in these upcoming chapters only to turn it around afterwards, which feels somewhat fitting for such a problems clown, I doubt her 'stealing naoi' was just about their hotel trip this chapter.
I'm not sure I agree with this in principle. However, narratively and thematically it would be a good way to keep Kokoro in the story, as opposed to it being Kokorover as specluated. Essentially this would be uncovering the "true Kokoro" in the way Naoi roused Kurumi's latent traits that Kurumi was keeping hidden.
it's a shame because akane was just trying to be helpful and had no clue how bad things already were and how much her words would cause everything to spiral out of control.
With all the other lingering plots, it almost feels like this was Kokoro's final farewell. And that Kurumi will wakeup to find out that Kokoro's parents whisked her away to get Kokoro away from her, making all of Kurumi's attempts to salvage their friendship pointless in the end. It would be kind of unsatisfying honestly, in that unless Kokoro would appear later, that Kurumi never really stood up to her, instead just giving her a look of rejection in the end. Though in ZenKowa, I don't think people or events are meant to be perfect, so it could still go this route. Plus, Kurumi's main fear all this time has been being left with nothing. If Kokoro is forced to leave, and her relationship with Naoi ends up on thin ice due to her capitulating to Kokoro and Kudou's interference, then Kurumi could feel like her fears have come true.
We’ve got two more chapters in this volume assuming we’re following the 5 chapters per volume model, though the past three chapter have been a bit shorter than average (21, 28, and 28 respectively, they’re usually around 30-35 pages with some in the 40 range iirc), so the next two chapters could be on the long side. Or not. Who knows lol but it would make sense for them to be a bit longer given all that’s happened so far. The whole volume has taken place over the course of one day which is pretty crazy to think about (Kurumi and the terrible no good very bad day).
When you put it that way, it does sound like the author intends for there to be a third year for them to have to survive, but that the author is being sure they can end sooner if necessary. This story would work fine if they were in their final year, so there must be some significance to having them be younger.
Likely because second year is “prime time” for students, you’ve had a year to settle into whatever niche you’ll be in, but you don’t have to worry about college exams yet so you have a lot of “free time”
This is a good point, but the story is also set up in a way where they aren't free until they make it college / graduate. Them having established roles (eg Kurumi class president, Kokoro the loner, Naoi the delicuent, etc) was important to the story, but free time hasn't been really. Everyone has enough going on that we wouldn't blame if they didn't study for entrance exams as well as they should. If the plan was to end after eg 5 volumes at max it would seem like putting them closer to freedom would make for a more satisfying ending without major time skips.
Well, that's unfortunate that it's declined and not carried in shops. I don't have a lot of spare money to throw around, but maybe I should figure out how to buy the digital volumes. I would love for this to be a long running series, even though I never expected it to be a financial top performer.
Kudou's true intentions are still quite the enigma to me, but her calling someone for the lols doesn't seem out of character for her. Also, the panels right before Kurumi passed out make me question whether Kudou stood up from her chair. Because the last thing she was looking at before her vision blurred was Kudou sitting in a chair. And one of the fading panels was an empty chair's legs, which would seem kind of odd unless it was hinting that Kudou had moved. Kudou was in the chair closest to Kokoro's head, which isn't visible in the second fading panel.
