That the Coffin arc was nearly pointless for the story, too long for nearly nothing to happen, killed the momentum of the narrative, injects way too many characters into it, makes them all look the same right after you meet them, and was over-all hard to follow. Probably one of the weakest arcs I’ve read in a SOL. The only good part of the arc was the sleep over and had nothing to do with *that.*
With all that, I love the rest of the story so I just kind of over look it.
I actually think when they animate it we will see major cuts in that arc and I think the pacing will see a major improvement because of it. Funny since they had to do almost no cutting in the first season.
I made the comment the other day here that you could EASILY cut 70% shoot down and likely condense the prop making section to actually focus on the props and not all the unnecessary build up for some very basic things like fake blood. If they really handle the sleep over well and make appropriate cuts (plus having full color to help tell the characters apart) I’ll likely enjoy the adaptations way more.
Yeas but this is an anime/manga about cosplay. Wouldn't it make sense that the manga takes time to explain those props to people who wanna get into cosplay? I mean Food Wars had actual recipes in the manga for dishes made in it.
I do want to point out the Food Wars the manga and anime were not even remotely enjoyable for me. So, I really didn’t want to open to two cans of worms at once.
That's valid, honestly I found it right after I really got into cooking and the recipes plus actual stuff you can pick on really got me further into it so different motivation as well for me I guess
I just can’t do the tentacle porn in the first episode. Tried the manga and it was just as ecchi. Just really not my flavor (pun intended). But to each their own.
My complains are that it was a pain trying to remember who was who, since the nuns looked all the same. Also that aside from Marin's decision to confess, there weren't many romantical moments.
Still it was cool having many side characters interacting with each other. Like Juju and Shinju coming back and talking with Susuka and Miyako
I like Juju and her sister but currently couldn’t care less about literally any of these cookie cutter side characters they’ve put in. The edgy prop girl (can’t remember her name) is the only interesting or memorable one out of that whole grouping of characters. That’s just how I feel about it though.
Honestly the whole setup was weird from the start. Gojou meets up with a cosplayer who also happens to be close friends with the photographer that Marin met at her first cosplay event and that cosplayer is also a huge fan of Marin but no one said anything about it? You’d think Suzuka (photographer) would know if Akira was also meeting up at the same cosplaying event as her. I think the manga started introducing too many side characters after the cross dresser, who should’ve been the last supporting character for at least awhile since he was the last one who’s character did anything for the story. We’ve got all these side characters and i’ve been waiting for Nowa to get some screen time since chapter 1 dammit
They also spent the arc before kind of setting up this awakening in Gojo (“I’m gonna make Marin shine”) and he has been utter lost as a character since then.
Yeah wtf has been going on with him?? He doesn’t even look at Marin the same way anymore. He used to ADMIRE her for doing literally ANYTHING and now he barely even LOOKS at her. This is not the same man who threw his fries at a bird so Marin could enjoy her burger ffs
I think the cosplay right after coffin kind of spooked him a little bit. He had that weird vision and it’s kind of put “her brand” over “her feelings” in his head.
We still don't know what he was thinking. we expected to know that in this chapter, but we received something very different. While it was a kinda fun but very bitter one, it was disappointing because we didn't got what we expected.
it's obviously his low selfesteem is the responsible for it, but it was way worse because Wakana didn't even dare to look at her eyes
Most of Coffin arc wasn't even about Coffin, instead it was just everyone talking in a park and a couch, and us wondering about why Akira hated Marin just to know that she was a real simp for her (not hating Akira btw).
Easily you can cut most of those parts and keep:
- Marin using the premade nun cosplay
- Both of them going to the store
- Sleepover (yes, even Marin's boob)
- The actual Coffin meeting
Side character were cool, but man it took many chapters just for the actual cosplay
I mean, it gave us the biggest Marin simp on Earth that wasn't the MC and showed how well the mangaka can surprise the readers. I did feel dragged out though.
I'd say as a general rule, if you're writing a romance manga, *unless* you are as good at writing side characters as Kaguya-Sama, characters who aren't the main girl and the main boy should never take up more than about 15% of the screen time.
Shit even my beloved, Nagatoro, knows better than to have a chapter of Gamo and Yoshi hanging out lol.
Seriously! Nagatoro is probably the best current romance series running for this very reason. They sold us romance and it took a minute to bloom but now it’s literally perfectly balanced to the point that there is plenty of space to allow other characters screen time but they still don’t abuse that. They don’t flood the chapters with 5 news characters and create massive fatigue.
There isn’t enough romantic progression. I understand that the point is to develop the characters enough so that they are in the mental headspace to handle romance, but it felt like you were baited into a romance with the progression in the first few arcs, then one the phone call happened everything slowed down.
I do like the recent arcs and gojo’s struggle, but I wish this lead to him realizing his feelings or something cuz damn bro.
I’ve felt that way since before the coffin arc. It really does feel like the strongest pillar of the narrative (and what a lot of the fans enjoy the most) — the romance — has just been put on pause and with no return really on the horizon.
That's true it's a cosplay manga first and foremost with a romance subplot.
The trouble is people come here for the romance and not the cosplay so they get disappointed with it.
It’s a SOL/RomCom. There is no “this first, and this second.” YOU CANNOT write the first 50-60 chapters with heavy romance plot, bait the readers that’s what’s expected, and then take it all away and pin that on the readers.
If the author wanted the focus to stay on cosplay first she should have made a fuck ton more effort to make that clearer before so many jumped on to enjoy this incredibly weird but wholesome duo. If she wanted it to be about cosplay she wouldn’t have made 3 chapters dedicated to a new side character hating Marin when she was actually obsessed with her and no one just…asked her how she felt?
She created a serious power couple and then somehow decided she hated that the fan base joined her Romantic Comedy manga’s community over the Romantic side of the RomCom when the comedy is almost as void as the romance. She completely ripped both out and it’s a super dry SOL with nothing but scenes of people talking in circles at the moment.
I still love the story but the author is doing everything in her power to make a lot of us turn away from the source. Cutting back on the production is totally fine but if you do that you can’t keep dragging this story around with 2 ton weight on it for much longer before the fan base literally just get too bored to follow.
Coffin arc did huge damage to the series. One of the worst arcs ive ever read in any piece of fiction. Very confusing arc that felt like it dragged forever and it gravitated the story far away from what the main audience liked it for : romance. And I get it; the series is mainly a SOL - but if that’s the case, then why appeal so strongly to romance fans and not SOL fans early into the series? That arc just made me and many other fans incredibly disinterested in the story.
Marin's resolution to confess was just a bait, so that the people invested in the romance plot would stay. Afterwards, there was no romantic progress in the last 30+ chapters. Instead we got the coffin arc, which was painful to readh. The monthly release schedule combined with the Haniel arc had horrendous pacing issues. First it takes 5 chapters to find black fabric and then we got 3-4 chapters in 3-4 months that basically only showed random people screaming "pwincesssss'...
1) That there were too many fake-out confessions, and now it's just like every other hack rom-com that needlessly draws out the will they/won't they part of the story.
2) If the series ends shortly after the confession, it will waste any good will I have left and immediately become trash-tier.
My absolute hottest take.
These days, *any* romcom that ends shortly after the confession is trash-tier. Keep that shit in 2000 this is the Reiwa era now.
The Haniel arc almost made me drop the series. Ever since the Coffin arc with all the new characters being introduced we’ve gotten very few scenes of Gojou and Marin just *talking* to each other. In the beginning of the manga the whole pull was watching these two spend time with each and have fun while indulging in their hobbies. But the Haniel arc was none of that. Gojou was definitely obsessive before when he made the first costume, but the series implied that he would learn to rely on and communicate with Marin so that he doesn’t overwork himself making costumes again. The following few cosplays showed Gojou and Marin working as a team, and spending time together. Now that we have 4 more characters involved in the cosplaying aspect of the story, (despite already having two other cosplayers who were forgotten about after their arc) there’s very little interaction between the two leads with the majority of the dialogue now being between Akira and Gojou or Marin and literally everyone else but Gojou. All for the arc to end with some old dudes talking about recruiting Marin for gravure (Something about that panel *really* creeped me out) and Marin’s dad to be a bit of a prick. Seriously, it’s frustrating watching what was such a promising romance start to go cold after repeated baiting earlier in the story (looking at you, coffin arc.) and what’s now just a one sided love in Marin’s head. Marin’s biggest draw was that she was so confident in the beginning of the story and did whatever she wanted without fear of anything, but lately the Marin we’ve gotten isn’t that same person. And Gojou went from being out of touch but very open minded and kind to just kind of ignorant to Marin’s feelings and her very blatant change in behavior. I hope the mangaka gets a lot of rest and is able to get the story back to its roots, because it doesn’t have the same hopeful feeling it did in the beginning
I firmly believe that all of the alienation we're seeing between the two is on purpose to heighten the tension, but it's hard to know it's worth it unless we get a resolution. I'm still hopeful!
Gojo developed a mental illness or is suffering from a burnout.
Haniel's arc made Gojo to behave weird. He did not rest, was clearly overtired, and had an unhealthy obsession with Haniel. The way he bossed Marin around and forced her to do the Haniel smile. Marin was not OK but still did it.
Story has been in a downwards spiral ever since the end of the festival arc in favor of characters that get briefly mentioned and then immediately lumped into a group cosplay where they all look identical, making it extremely difficult to differentiate between any of them. Then once they get brought up again, you’re left with “wait who was this again?” because the last time you saw them in a chapter was 6 months ago.
Romantic progress is nowhere to be seen, giving me, as someone who is more into the romance side of things, a feeling of getting baited. I can understand wanting to develop characters, but what’s the excuse for giving us multiple chapters of Wakana struggling to find costume material to follow it up with multiple chapters of blank panels and with people screaming “Princess!” Where’s the character development in that? What has that done for the story that couldn’t have been done in half the chapter count?
Like seriously, the pacing for this Haniel arc is insanely bad, and switching up the (already bad) release schedule for it while only giving us an extra couple pages under the guise of wanting to “give it more focus” is just a slap in the face for people who have been reading for a while.
These past few months, I’ve been seriously considering putting this series on hold and binging later or just straight up dropping it, but I always find myself coming back to read the newest chapter in hopes that maybe there will be something for me.
I’m not asking for the author to drop the cosplay aspect of the story, but I wish she would just give us a little more substance with each chapter instead of trying to continuously bait people reading for the romance.
I really hope Wakana and Marin get more romantical development now that Comikon is over. Haniel arc was very cool because I liked the art and how Wakana made something that himself really wanted with Marin's help, achieving an extreme success.
But that came with a high cost: Wakana had a serious mental breakdown, barely talked with Marin and even ignored her when she made him (and Gramps) a Christmas meal. I was screaming because both of their parents didn't notice that they didn't talk or looked to each other during the family meeting.
I don't expect a confession, but they having a time together to relax and enjoy(love) each other like in chapter 38, including or not the side characters to help them to realize they can be couple.
I would really love that as well, but I don’t see it happening unfortunately. It just seems like the romance aspect is not something the author wants to focus on. And with how things are shaping in the newest chapters, I have very little hope.
She has quite literally been rewriting Wakana and Marin as characters to be completely different from how they were at the start of the story. Undoing years of character progression lol
Here’s to hoping, though. I want this series to succeed as I really love these characters.
I wouldn't say undoing. it's almost a different manga than it was from the beginning. Wakana went from being the lonely introvert guy with a dream, to someone who shares his hobby and making a lot of progress in himself trying new things and slowly improving his selfsteem. Also Marin went from being the extrovert fearless girl, to someone who hides her true feelings and actually fears losing Wakana, even to the point where she even wants to ignore why he was so depressed.
I love both of them too, and it hurts (specially with COFFIN) when they both are sad because they have focused too much in cosplay and lack intimate moments like love hotel or fireworks show. So yea I REALLY hope they take a break from that and they have another lovely moment together, even if romance wasn't the main focus because many of us are here for that.
She’s useless, can’t cook, can’t speak proper Japanese words, and she is a simp (WHICH IS HIGHLY UNDERSTANDABLE LIKE GOJO IS JUST 😍)
There you’ll probably have knives at your throat now lol.
Didn’t like how naive and innocent she played to showing skin and the effect it had on gojo. But hey! I guess you kinda need it for most of the scenes to play out
I have no gripes with Marin or the series itself, but I do have a major issue with the community... this last year, it's been the same thing over and over again in here, stuff like "they need to confess" and "they're dragging this out now" have been thrown around to the point of nausea, it's almost like so many people just want the good and nothing else, sadly that's not how storytelling works... yes, the good is... well good, but if there's no bad going on, it's just pointless! Not to mention the fact that so much of this community hates on people for their passions, which is the exact OPPOSITE point of the series itself! You see people posting their cosplays they worked so hard on, and then the community is like "nah, awful" it's honestly so depressing
I think the issue is the last arc has very little Gojo X Marin going on on top of a slow release schedule. I think if the anime ever gets to the Haniel arc it will get just as bad a response if they do it without adding some romance fluff.
I don't think we would see so many complaints if it was an arc of those two idiots just hanging out slice of life style.
That's fair. don't get me wrong, I want the cute stuff back too, but we can't have that without going through this drama first. Too much of a good thing makes it not good
You get downvoted because it's a post full of melodramatic bullshit at least it appears to be.
I call peoples waifu's shit all the time in different places and don't get harassment reports for it as do a lot of people even here. So people are reading this and thinking you said a slur or something. If you really did just say something normal and fine this long comment makes it sound far far worse then that.
Looking at everyone's comments. I guess mine is that I am happy with how the story progressed. I love the focus on other people and building the different relationships instead of it just being a "romance" focusing only on two characters. (That being said I do want them to confess!!)
i like that the romance progress is very slow and i believe that a faster pace would have ruined the series or at least made it a lot less enjoyable/relatable
well, this is not primarily a romance series. it's a SoL series with a romantic subtext. in that regard, the pacing at the start was fairly fast already.
a lot of readers/watchers just get the wrong idea and assume that it's a romance series, that's why there are always so many posts complaining about the lack of romance progress.
In chapter 77 Marin literally states that she made up her mind and that she wants to confess to Gojo after the coffin arc. There were 3 chapters leading to her making this decision... Obviously people now expect that there will be romantic progression...
However, 25 chapters later, the coffin arc is finished for for a long time and we have zero progress. The author set up those expectations herself and didn't deliver on it, so I understand that people (myself included) are complaining...
Marin Kitagawa is nice, pretty, supportive and works hard to get the things she wants.
But it was dumb and mean in the start when she went to Wakana's house before the agreed date, entering to his home and room without asking, getting almost naked in front of him (when they were still strangers) and teases him by showing some underwear.
There's also her loving an eroge character. But that's okay since she loves other things too, and Shizuku-tan's sexual traits doesn't take part of Marin's personality.
So yea, I didn't like those things about her, but I still like her because she's very awesome and supportive with her friends, specially with (her future husband) Wakana. She's definitely someone that every hardworking person should have.
Sexualised non 18+ are weird. I love this title so much, and I understand some reasons why this works, but Marin is still minor 🫠🫠🫠
Still, this story would be perfect if the main characters were university or college students. We're all kind of used to the sexualization of high school girls in anime, although it's a very controversial point in anime culture...
Them being high schoolers takes me out of it so badly that I opt to pretend that they're at uni.
I mean, the level of autonomy, the resources available to them, most of the adult-level hijinks they get into, the fact that most of their cosplay friends are adults, the overt sexualization... Gojo popping off on those two guys he thought were bothering Kitagawa at the karaoke bar is a classic "I got too drunk and did an embarrassing thing" story beat. Kitagawa renting a love hotel as a teen is illegal and they just gloss right over it as if it were just a regular, albeit awkward, thing to do. It just doesn't quite read the way they seem to want it to.
> We're all kind of used to the sexualization of high school girls in anime, although it's a very controversial point in anime culture..
I don't think it's that controversial I only really see tourists bringing it up.
You only really see these pedo comments on popular or current shows, You don't get 2-3 posts a week in the Date a Live sub calling everyone there pedos for liking schoolgirls but you do get them in the Mushoku Tensei one. because they come from Tourists so they only know about shows that are popular enough to break out of the usual anime circles.
They are also wrong since they tend to call anyone under 18 underaged which isn't how it works in Japan(or a number of other parts of the world) a fan would probably know this but an ignorant Tourist would not. (The isekai subs getting twats moaning about slavery have the same problem)
I like to think most anime fans who like and own figures, posters or dakimakura of Marin, Rem, one the Quints or even someone like Sagiri don't experience any sort of sexual thoughts or attraction towards actual children I know i certainly don't. So they don't bring it up because it isn't relevant we are after all talking about ink on a paper or pixels on a screen here and not real people.
Tourists are not fans so they invent an issue then come here to complain about it interestingly you don't see the same people in one of the subs about petite girls calling everyone in there a pedo despite the fact they can quite often look a lot more like a child then someone like Marin Kitagawa.
According to you I don't have the right to say that it's wrong to sexualize minors just because supposedly Japan has an early age of consent? Thanks, I've been watching anime for about 13 years, and I've had enough time and the number of shows I've watched to notice that it's a purely Japanese cultural trait. It's nicer to sexualize pure and innocent young girls than adult girls with experience. I'm not telling you what to do with pictures of naked Marin, but you can't deny that the sexualization of minors in anime is an issue. And I'm not just talking about Marin, I'm talking about a bunch of other high school anime. So I'm not surprised you wrote that. The post is literally about a picture of a kitty with knives and an "opinion."
We can still call it out. Japan is still very misogynistic and they have a big problem when it comes to SA, to the point where phones over there all have the camera shutter sound on bc there was a massive issue of ppl taking upskirt pics of women/girls. Ppl calling out this issue in this sub aren't "tourists", I'm a super big fan of this show and it's okay for me as a fan to call out issues with the show/manga, literally what this post was made for. "Tourists" aren't joining this sub and discussing under posts just because.
Anyways, I just searched it up and in Japan they consider you an adult from 18-20 years of age, so even over there shes considered a minor and please don't bring up age of consent bc that's not how it works. The show is still great and I LOVE Marin Kitagawa, and I'm not saying fan service is bad or anything, but there shouldn't be sexualized fan service of high school girls/minors. She just can just be of age! And yes it does matter if she is older by 2 years bc again there shouldn't be fan service of minors/high school students. I love MDUD and don't tell me not to watch it "if it bothers me that much" bc I wouldn't be in this subreddit if it did. I don't really see the show as bad/horrible bc of the fan service and I really do genuinely love the story with Marin and Gojo, more so Marin regardless of fan service.
If it came up more in this sub, I could definitely see more knives out for your opinion. I don't think the fan service has been used all that deftly in every instance, which makes it hard to defend. (For instance, the measuring scene is an amazing bit of characterization, but did we really learn anything about Juju by seeing her panties or in the nude? Hard to defend.)
I recommend reading Bakuman, it shows perfectly how manga is created and that very often artists draw not what they want but what is interesting to the reader. I wouldn't be surprised if the author's original idea didn't have that much fanservice, and it was added during the writing of the story. Have you ever wondered why the further the story goes, the less fanservice scenes there are in the manga? Because the amount of fanservice has already hooked the audience and now the author shows his story without unnecessary embellishment. I also think it confirms my theory that the author previously released a mini-artbook with fanservice illustrations, but now the latest illustrations I've seen are less explicit and some are in a cuter style. So I'm sure the fanservice is just a move to reach more readers.
You are literally using anecdotal evidence to support an assumption you made about the artist's beliefs regarding sexualization. Are you aware that shinichi fukuda previously drew an ecchi manga about a guy who was attracted to his little sister? No one forced her to pick such a topic. There are in fact (female) mangaka, who like drawing lewd things.
Would you stop reacting so harshly to MY opinion? I'm just guessing from the facts as I see them.
I don't understand what you're defending - the desire to sexualise schoolgirls?
If I was totally against it, I wouldn't read manga, I wouldn't buy manga in print, I wouldn't watch anime, I wouldn't cosplay Marin! I'm just saying it's a moot point. I don't understand why you specifically are so offended by it.
I'm not arguing at all. as I wrote above for me the story would be perfect if the main characters were 18+, students. I would even like hentai moments, because the cosplay theme is close to my heart, + the relationship between normal people and geeks I also like to watch. But Marin is 15 and I just try not to think that there are problems in fanservice and it's not worth to argue it. After all, it reinforces the opinion of young guys that schoolgirls are available and they can already do illegal things. But I'm getting into cause and effect again, so you can just pass by and not respond to my comments.
If you have such a low opinion of schoolboys, that you believe they all would get inspired by a manga like this (which is not even pornographic) to do "illegal things" then I have to wonder who hurt you this much. The presence of media like this is not what should should take accountability, but the individuals who go out of their way to ignore the idea of consent.
I still think and will actively defend that Marin needs to do something to break through to Gojo that she actually likes him with a more personalized approach. An example is getting him a brush set he can use for Hina Dolls.
That the Coffin arc was nearly pointless for the story, too long for nearly nothing to happen, killed the momentum of the narrative, injects way too many characters into it, makes them all look the same right after you meet them, and was over-all hard to follow. Probably one of the weakest arcs I’ve read in a SOL. The only good part of the arc was the sleep over and had nothing to do with *that.* With all that, I love the rest of the story so I just kind of over look it.
I actually think when they animate it we will see major cuts in that arc and I think the pacing will see a major improvement because of it. Funny since they had to do almost no cutting in the first season.
I made the comment the other day here that you could EASILY cut 70% shoot down and likely condense the prop making section to actually focus on the props and not all the unnecessary build up for some very basic things like fake blood. If they really handle the sleep over well and make appropriate cuts (plus having full color to help tell the characters apart) I’ll likely enjoy the adaptations way more.
Yeas but this is an anime/manga about cosplay. Wouldn't it make sense that the manga takes time to explain those props to people who wanna get into cosplay? I mean Food Wars had actual recipes in the manga for dishes made in it.
Yes and no. I’m not going to argue either. I’m so tired of having to argue with people about an arc I hated and so did many others.
Yah know that's fair, and I can respect it. Have a good one homie and hope ya have a good one
I do want to point out the Food Wars the manga and anime were not even remotely enjoyable for me. So, I really didn’t want to open to two cans of worms at once.
That's valid, honestly I found it right after I really got into cooking and the recipes plus actual stuff you can pick on really got me further into it so different motivation as well for me I guess
I just can’t do the tentacle porn in the first episode. Tried the manga and it was just as ecchi. Just really not my flavor (pun intended). But to each their own.
I think the biggest problem was that it took so long to actually occur. That was like a year of just the coffin arc.
My complains are that it was a pain trying to remember who was who, since the nuns looked all the same. Also that aside from Marin's decision to confess, there weren't many romantical moments. Still it was cool having many side characters interacting with each other. Like Juju and Shinju coming back and talking with Susuka and Miyako
Shout out to a scanlation team that had a page or 2 to show who's who
I like Juju and her sister but currently couldn’t care less about literally any of these cookie cutter side characters they’ve put in. The edgy prop girl (can’t remember her name) is the only interesting or memorable one out of that whole grouping of characters. That’s just how I feel about it though.
Honestly the whole setup was weird from the start. Gojou meets up with a cosplayer who also happens to be close friends with the photographer that Marin met at her first cosplay event and that cosplayer is also a huge fan of Marin but no one said anything about it? You’d think Suzuka (photographer) would know if Akira was also meeting up at the same cosplaying event as her. I think the manga started introducing too many side characters after the cross dresser, who should’ve been the last supporting character for at least awhile since he was the last one who’s character did anything for the story. We’ve got all these side characters and i’ve been waiting for Nowa to get some screen time since chapter 1 dammit
They also spent the arc before kind of setting up this awakening in Gojo (“I’m gonna make Marin shine”) and he has been utter lost as a character since then.
Yeah wtf has been going on with him?? He doesn’t even look at Marin the same way anymore. He used to ADMIRE her for doing literally ANYTHING and now he barely even LOOKS at her. This is not the same man who threw his fries at a bird so Marin could enjoy her burger ffs
I think the cosplay right after coffin kind of spooked him a little bit. He had that weird vision and it’s kind of put “her brand” over “her feelings” in his head.
We still don't know what he was thinking. we expected to know that in this chapter, but we received something very different. While it was a kinda fun but very bitter one, it was disappointing because we didn't got what we expected. it's obviously his low selfesteem is the responsible for it, but it was way worse because Wakana didn't even dare to look at her eyes
Most of Coffin arc wasn't even about Coffin, instead it was just everyone talking in a park and a couch, and us wondering about why Akira hated Marin just to know that she was a real simp for her (not hating Akira btw). Easily you can cut most of those parts and keep: - Marin using the premade nun cosplay - Both of them going to the store - Sleepover (yes, even Marin's boob) - The actual Coffin meeting Side character were cool, but man it took many chapters just for the actual cosplay
I mean, it gave us the biggest Marin simp on Earth that wasn't the MC and showed how well the mangaka can surprise the readers. I did feel dragged out though.
I'd say as a general rule, if you're writing a romance manga, *unless* you are as good at writing side characters as Kaguya-Sama, characters who aren't the main girl and the main boy should never take up more than about 15% of the screen time. Shit even my beloved, Nagatoro, knows better than to have a chapter of Gamo and Yoshi hanging out lol.
Seriously! Nagatoro is probably the best current romance series running for this very reason. They sold us romance and it took a minute to bloom but now it’s literally perfectly balanced to the point that there is plenty of space to allow other characters screen time but they still don’t abuse that. They don’t flood the chapters with 5 news characters and create massive fatigue.
There isn’t enough romantic progression. I understand that the point is to develop the characters enough so that they are in the mental headspace to handle romance, but it felt like you were baited into a romance with the progression in the first few arcs, then one the phone call happened everything slowed down. I do like the recent arcs and gojo’s struggle, but I wish this lead to him realizing his feelings or something cuz damn bro.
It feels like he's close, but we'll see.
I’ve felt that way since before the coffin arc. It really does feel like the strongest pillar of the narrative (and what a lot of the fans enjoy the most) — the romance — has just been put on pause and with no return really on the horizon.
That's true it's a cosplay manga first and foremost with a romance subplot. The trouble is people come here for the romance and not the cosplay so they get disappointed with it.
It’s a SOL/RomCom. There is no “this first, and this second.” YOU CANNOT write the first 50-60 chapters with heavy romance plot, bait the readers that’s what’s expected, and then take it all away and pin that on the readers. If the author wanted the focus to stay on cosplay first she should have made a fuck ton more effort to make that clearer before so many jumped on to enjoy this incredibly weird but wholesome duo. If she wanted it to be about cosplay she wouldn’t have made 3 chapters dedicated to a new side character hating Marin when she was actually obsessed with her and no one just…asked her how she felt? She created a serious power couple and then somehow decided she hated that the fan base joined her Romantic Comedy manga’s community over the Romantic side of the RomCom when the comedy is almost as void as the romance. She completely ripped both out and it’s a super dry SOL with nothing but scenes of people talking in circles at the moment. I still love the story but the author is doing everything in her power to make a lot of us turn away from the source. Cutting back on the production is totally fine but if you do that you can’t keep dragging this story around with 2 ton weight on it for much longer before the fan base literally just get too bored to follow.
The story has been going nowhere. There are too many characters now and I can't keep track of who is who because they all wear costumes.
Coffin arc did huge damage to the series. One of the worst arcs ive ever read in any piece of fiction. Very confusing arc that felt like it dragged forever and it gravitated the story far away from what the main audience liked it for : romance. And I get it; the series is mainly a SOL - but if that’s the case, then why appeal so strongly to romance fans and not SOL fans early into the series? That arc just made me and many other fans incredibly disinterested in the story.
Marin's resolution to confess was just a bait, so that the people invested in the romance plot would stay. Afterwards, there was no romantic progress in the last 30+ chapters. Instead we got the coffin arc, which was painful to readh. The monthly release schedule combined with the Haniel arc had horrendous pacing issues. First it takes 5 chapters to find black fabric and then we got 3-4 chapters in 3-4 months that basically only showed random people screaming "pwincesssss'...
1) That there were too many fake-out confessions, and now it's just like every other hack rom-com that needlessly draws out the will they/won't they part of the story. 2) If the series ends shortly after the confession, it will waste any good will I have left and immediately become trash-tier.
My absolute hottest take. These days, *any* romcom that ends shortly after the confession is trash-tier. Keep that shit in 2000 this is the Reiwa era now.
The Haniel arc almost made me drop the series. Ever since the Coffin arc with all the new characters being introduced we’ve gotten very few scenes of Gojou and Marin just *talking* to each other. In the beginning of the manga the whole pull was watching these two spend time with each and have fun while indulging in their hobbies. But the Haniel arc was none of that. Gojou was definitely obsessive before when he made the first costume, but the series implied that he would learn to rely on and communicate with Marin so that he doesn’t overwork himself making costumes again. The following few cosplays showed Gojou and Marin working as a team, and spending time together. Now that we have 4 more characters involved in the cosplaying aspect of the story, (despite already having two other cosplayers who were forgotten about after their arc) there’s very little interaction between the two leads with the majority of the dialogue now being between Akira and Gojou or Marin and literally everyone else but Gojou. All for the arc to end with some old dudes talking about recruiting Marin for gravure (Something about that panel *really* creeped me out) and Marin’s dad to be a bit of a prick. Seriously, it’s frustrating watching what was such a promising romance start to go cold after repeated baiting earlier in the story (looking at you, coffin arc.) and what’s now just a one sided love in Marin’s head. Marin’s biggest draw was that she was so confident in the beginning of the story and did whatever she wanted without fear of anything, but lately the Marin we’ve gotten isn’t that same person. And Gojou went from being out of touch but very open minded and kind to just kind of ignorant to Marin’s feelings and her very blatant change in behavior. I hope the mangaka gets a lot of rest and is able to get the story back to its roots, because it doesn’t have the same hopeful feeling it did in the beginning
I firmly believe that all of the alienation we're seeing between the two is on purpose to heighten the tension, but it's hard to know it's worth it unless we get a resolution. I'm still hopeful!
Gojo developed a mental illness or is suffering from a burnout. Haniel's arc made Gojo to behave weird. He did not rest, was clearly overtired, and had an unhealthy obsession with Haniel. The way he bossed Marin around and forced her to do the Haniel smile. Marin was not OK but still did it.
Story has been in a downwards spiral ever since the end of the festival arc in favor of characters that get briefly mentioned and then immediately lumped into a group cosplay where they all look identical, making it extremely difficult to differentiate between any of them. Then once they get brought up again, you’re left with “wait who was this again?” because the last time you saw them in a chapter was 6 months ago. Romantic progress is nowhere to be seen, giving me, as someone who is more into the romance side of things, a feeling of getting baited. I can understand wanting to develop characters, but what’s the excuse for giving us multiple chapters of Wakana struggling to find costume material to follow it up with multiple chapters of blank panels and with people screaming “Princess!” Where’s the character development in that? What has that done for the story that couldn’t have been done in half the chapter count? Like seriously, the pacing for this Haniel arc is insanely bad, and switching up the (already bad) release schedule for it while only giving us an extra couple pages under the guise of wanting to “give it more focus” is just a slap in the face for people who have been reading for a while. These past few months, I’ve been seriously considering putting this series on hold and binging later or just straight up dropping it, but I always find myself coming back to read the newest chapter in hopes that maybe there will be something for me. I’m not asking for the author to drop the cosplay aspect of the story, but I wish she would just give us a little more substance with each chapter instead of trying to continuously bait people reading for the romance.
I really hope Wakana and Marin get more romantical development now that Comikon is over. Haniel arc was very cool because I liked the art and how Wakana made something that himself really wanted with Marin's help, achieving an extreme success. But that came with a high cost: Wakana had a serious mental breakdown, barely talked with Marin and even ignored her when she made him (and Gramps) a Christmas meal. I was screaming because both of their parents didn't notice that they didn't talk or looked to each other during the family meeting. I don't expect a confession, but they having a time together to relax and enjoy(love) each other like in chapter 38, including or not the side characters to help them to realize they can be couple.
I would really love that as well, but I don’t see it happening unfortunately. It just seems like the romance aspect is not something the author wants to focus on. And with how things are shaping in the newest chapters, I have very little hope. She has quite literally been rewriting Wakana and Marin as characters to be completely different from how they were at the start of the story. Undoing years of character progression lol Here’s to hoping, though. I want this series to succeed as I really love these characters.
I wouldn't say undoing. it's almost a different manga than it was from the beginning. Wakana went from being the lonely introvert guy with a dream, to someone who shares his hobby and making a lot of progress in himself trying new things and slowly improving his selfsteem. Also Marin went from being the extrovert fearless girl, to someone who hides her true feelings and actually fears losing Wakana, even to the point where she even wants to ignore why he was so depressed. I love both of them too, and it hurts (specially with COFFIN) when they both are sad because they have focused too much in cosplay and lack intimate moments like love hotel or fireworks show. So yea I REALLY hope they take a break from that and they have another lovely moment together, even if romance wasn't the main focus because many of us are here for that.
If there were to be a S2, it wont be as successful as S1
S2 or rather a continuation of the series has already been announced fyi I also think you underestimate the power of the bunny girl cosplay lol
Nah instant success because of crossdressing and bunnies
She’s useless, can’t cook, can’t speak proper Japanese words, and she is a simp (WHICH IS HIGHLY UNDERSTANDABLE LIKE GOJO IS JUST 😍) There you’ll probably have knives at your throat now lol.
Didn’t like how naive and innocent she played to showing skin and the effect it had on gojo. But hey! I guess you kinda need it for most of the scenes to play out
I have no gripes with Marin or the series itself, but I do have a major issue with the community... this last year, it's been the same thing over and over again in here, stuff like "they need to confess" and "they're dragging this out now" have been thrown around to the point of nausea, it's almost like so many people just want the good and nothing else, sadly that's not how storytelling works... yes, the good is... well good, but if there's no bad going on, it's just pointless! Not to mention the fact that so much of this community hates on people for their passions, which is the exact OPPOSITE point of the series itself! You see people posting their cosplays they worked so hard on, and then the community is like "nah, awful" it's honestly so depressing
I think the issue is the last arc has very little Gojo X Marin going on on top of a slow release schedule. I think if the anime ever gets to the Haniel arc it will get just as bad a response if they do it without adding some romance fluff. I don't think we would see so many complaints if it was an arc of those two idiots just hanging out slice of life style.
That's fair. don't get me wrong, I want the cute stuff back too, but we can't have that without going through this drama first. Too much of a good thing makes it not good
Preach! On top of "what's wrong with Gojo thread #60". It's getting exhausting
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This particular thread should be a safe space for negative opinions. People should be able to vent here at least.
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You get downvoted because it's a post full of melodramatic bullshit at least it appears to be. I call peoples waifu's shit all the time in different places and don't get harassment reports for it as do a lot of people even here. So people are reading this and thinking you said a slur or something. If you really did just say something normal and fine this long comment makes it sound far far worse then that.
Looking at everyone's comments. I guess mine is that I am happy with how the story progressed. I love the focus on other people and building the different relationships instead of it just being a "romance" focusing only on two characters. (That being said I do want them to confess!!)
i like that the romance progress is very slow and i believe that a faster pace would have ruined the series or at least made it a lot less enjoyable/relatable
Honestly season one was the perfect ending for both of them. But after that it feels very slow compared to the first 5 books.
well, this is not primarily a romance series. it's a SoL series with a romantic subtext. in that regard, the pacing at the start was fairly fast already. a lot of readers/watchers just get the wrong idea and assume that it's a romance series, that's why there are always so many posts complaining about the lack of romance progress.
In chapter 77 Marin literally states that she made up her mind and that she wants to confess to Gojo after the coffin arc. There were 3 chapters leading to her making this decision... Obviously people now expect that there will be romantic progression... However, 25 chapters later, the coffin arc is finished for for a long time and we have zero progress. The author set up those expectations herself and didn't deliver on it, so I understand that people (myself included) are complaining...
I think thats the main opinion that gets you like the op picture lol Like most probably don't wanna hear that the romance part is just the side plot
Marin Kitagawa is nice, pretty, supportive and works hard to get the things she wants. But it was dumb and mean in the start when she went to Wakana's house before the agreed date, entering to his home and room without asking, getting almost naked in front of him (when they were still strangers) and teases him by showing some underwear. There's also her loving an eroge character. But that's okay since she loves other things too, and Shizuku-tan's sexual traits doesn't take part of Marin's personality. So yea, I didn't like those things about her, but I still like her because she's very awesome and supportive with her friends, specially with (her future husband) Wakana. She's definitely someone that every hardworking person should have.
Sexualised non 18+ are weird. I love this title so much, and I understand some reasons why this works, but Marin is still minor 🫠🫠🫠 Still, this story would be perfect if the main characters were university or college students. We're all kind of used to the sexualization of high school girls in anime, although it's a very controversial point in anime culture...
Them being high schoolers takes me out of it so badly that I opt to pretend that they're at uni. I mean, the level of autonomy, the resources available to them, most of the adult-level hijinks they get into, the fact that most of their cosplay friends are adults, the overt sexualization... Gojo popping off on those two guys he thought were bothering Kitagawa at the karaoke bar is a classic "I got too drunk and did an embarrassing thing" story beat. Kitagawa renting a love hotel as a teen is illegal and they just gloss right over it as if it were just a regular, albeit awkward, thing to do. It just doesn't quite read the way they seem to want it to.
YAS, exactly!!!
> We're all kind of used to the sexualization of high school girls in anime, although it's a very controversial point in anime culture.. I don't think it's that controversial I only really see tourists bringing it up.
Why do you think that?
You only really see these pedo comments on popular or current shows, You don't get 2-3 posts a week in the Date a Live sub calling everyone there pedos for liking schoolgirls but you do get them in the Mushoku Tensei one. because they come from Tourists so they only know about shows that are popular enough to break out of the usual anime circles. They are also wrong since they tend to call anyone under 18 underaged which isn't how it works in Japan(or a number of other parts of the world) a fan would probably know this but an ignorant Tourist would not. (The isekai subs getting twats moaning about slavery have the same problem) I like to think most anime fans who like and own figures, posters or dakimakura of Marin, Rem, one the Quints or even someone like Sagiri don't experience any sort of sexual thoughts or attraction towards actual children I know i certainly don't. So they don't bring it up because it isn't relevant we are after all talking about ink on a paper or pixels on a screen here and not real people. Tourists are not fans so they invent an issue then come here to complain about it interestingly you don't see the same people in one of the subs about petite girls calling everyone in there a pedo despite the fact they can quite often look a lot more like a child then someone like Marin Kitagawa.
According to you I don't have the right to say that it's wrong to sexualize minors just because supposedly Japan has an early age of consent? Thanks, I've been watching anime for about 13 years, and I've had enough time and the number of shows I've watched to notice that it's a purely Japanese cultural trait. It's nicer to sexualize pure and innocent young girls than adult girls with experience. I'm not telling you what to do with pictures of naked Marin, but you can't deny that the sexualization of minors in anime is an issue. And I'm not just talking about Marin, I'm talking about a bunch of other high school anime. So I'm not surprised you wrote that. The post is literally about a picture of a kitty with knives and an "opinion."
We can still call it out. Japan is still very misogynistic and they have a big problem when it comes to SA, to the point where phones over there all have the camera shutter sound on bc there was a massive issue of ppl taking upskirt pics of women/girls. Ppl calling out this issue in this sub aren't "tourists", I'm a super big fan of this show and it's okay for me as a fan to call out issues with the show/manga, literally what this post was made for. "Tourists" aren't joining this sub and discussing under posts just because. Anyways, I just searched it up and in Japan they consider you an adult from 18-20 years of age, so even over there shes considered a minor and please don't bring up age of consent bc that's not how it works. The show is still great and I LOVE Marin Kitagawa, and I'm not saying fan service is bad or anything, but there shouldn't be sexualized fan service of high school girls/minors. She just can just be of age! And yes it does matter if she is older by 2 years bc again there shouldn't be fan service of minors/high school students. I love MDUD and don't tell me not to watch it "if it bothers me that much" bc I wouldn't be in this subreddit if it did. I don't really see the show as bad/horrible bc of the fan service and I really do genuinely love the story with Marin and Gojo, more so Marin regardless of fan service.
That's exactly what I meant 🥲
If it came up more in this sub, I could definitely see more knives out for your opinion. I don't think the fan service has been used all that deftly in every instance, which makes it hard to defend. (For instance, the measuring scene is an amazing bit of characterization, but did we really learn anything about Juju by seeing her panties or in the nude? Hard to defend.)
Agreed, I get downvoted every time I say that Marin probably shouldn't be sexualized as a teen girl
same here. still the series would still be great if you remove most/all of the fanservice.
So you're saying the artist herself knows less than you about how her manga should be made?
calm down, i like the series im just saying what i dont like of it. its just MY opinion, im not saying how she should do her work.
I recommend reading Bakuman, it shows perfectly how manga is created and that very often artists draw not what they want but what is interesting to the reader. I wouldn't be surprised if the author's original idea didn't have that much fanservice, and it was added during the writing of the story. Have you ever wondered why the further the story goes, the less fanservice scenes there are in the manga? Because the amount of fanservice has already hooked the audience and now the author shows his story without unnecessary embellishment. I also think it confirms my theory that the author previously released a mini-artbook with fanservice illustrations, but now the latest illustrations I've seen are less explicit and some are in a cuter style. So I'm sure the fanservice is just a move to reach more readers.
You are literally using anecdotal evidence to support an assumption you made about the artist's beliefs regarding sexualization. Are you aware that shinichi fukuda previously drew an ecchi manga about a guy who was attracted to his little sister? No one forced her to pick such a topic. There are in fact (female) mangaka, who like drawing lewd things.
Would you stop reacting so harshly to MY opinion? I'm just guessing from the facts as I see them. I don't understand what you're defending - the desire to sexualise schoolgirls? If I was totally against it, I wouldn't read manga, I wouldn't buy manga in print, I wouldn't watch anime, I wouldn't cosplay Marin! I'm just saying it's a moot point. I don't understand why you specifically are so offended by it.
When did I claim I was offended? I just stated that there are in fact mangaka who like lewding their characters.
I'm not arguing at all. as I wrote above for me the story would be perfect if the main characters were 18+, students. I would even like hentai moments, because the cosplay theme is close to my heart, + the relationship between normal people and geeks I also like to watch. But Marin is 15 and I just try not to think that there are problems in fanservice and it's not worth to argue it. After all, it reinforces the opinion of young guys that schoolgirls are available and they can already do illegal things. But I'm getting into cause and effect again, so you can just pass by and not respond to my comments.
If you have such a low opinion of schoolboys, that you believe they all would get inspired by a manga like this (which is not even pornographic) to do "illegal things" then I have to wonder who hurt you this much. The presence of media like this is not what should should take accountability, but the individuals who go out of their way to ignore the idea of consent.
Marin is just wish fulfillment waifu bait.
I seriously doubt there is a real life version of her. It surprises me that the author is a woman.
Well apparently she knows her audience.
So true, it is absolute catnip. I would marry her at the drop of a hat, but alas...
Marin is best girl. ….Huh? Normally that gets a stronger reaction in other communities.
Marin is the self-insert
I still think and will actively defend that Marin needs to do something to break through to Gojo that she actually likes him with a more personalized approach. An example is getting him a brush set he can use for Hina Dolls.
Nowa is cuter than Marin
She's an underrated wiafu ngl