[larethian]

Originally Posted by Chandalen

I have no idea who most of the people are, or previous events in the novels but:

GO CHIWA! ~waves banner~

...then reality sets in and I realize this is a romance death flag so I go cry in a corner.

I'll fill in as best as I can, from memory.

Spoiler for Saeko:

Eita's aunt. She's the sister of one of the parents, and took in Eita when his parents split up. She works in galge company and an expert in galges, and always make analogies of the real world to galges with respect to girls. She's a workaholic who can survive long periods of time without sleep

Spoiler for Asoi Kaoru:

Kaoru is Eita's best friend in class. IIRC, he sits behind him. Throughout the various volumes, it's hinted that Kaoru might be a girl. The evidence is strongest in volume 4. By the way, Kaoru is the best friend of Fuyumi Ai, one of the girls who like Eita.

Spoiler for Akishino Himeka:

A short-hair girl who calls herself Hime, which also means Princess. She is a Chuunibyou (Chuuni for short). A Chuunibyou is essentially a fantasizer and enjoys living in their delusions. They are not crazy as they are usually aware of what they are doing. To make it easy to understand, famous examples of Chuunibyou include Okarin from Steins;Gate, Kuroneko from Oreimo, and Kobato from Haganai (from the top of my mind). She debuts in volume 2. She once saw Eita's Chuuni behavior when young a long time ago, and fell for him. In her current setting, she is the XXXX Burning Princess (I can never remember XXXX and I'm too lazy to check) and Eita is a Knight (Burning Fighting Fighter) belonging to some clan related to dragons. In her setting, she and Eita are lovers in their past lives. As such, in the story, her role is that of an 'ex-girlfriend', though in truth they have never dated before. She is socially inept, but after joining Masuzu's JiEn-Otsu club, she gradually improved and can talk with some of her classmates. She is extremely pure and innocent, even more so than Chiwa.

Spoiler for Fuyumi Ai:

A long hair girl from the Public Morals & Ethics Committee. She is a complete Tsundere who debuts in volume 3. She and Eita were actually childhood friends for 1 year in kindergarden (6 years old) before Eita met Chiwa. When they were kids, Eita and Ai made a marriage agreement. Thus, in the story, she has a dual 'role'. In public, her 'role' is the same as Chiwa, ie. childhood friend. However, since no one else except Eita knew about the marriage agreement, in Eita's narration, her 2nd 'role' is fiancee. Unfortunately for Ai, Eita does not remember the marriage agreement. Neither did he recognize her when he first met her in high school. In volume 3, they attended cram classes together during summer vacation, which also includes Kaoru. Kaoru was blackmailed by Ai to help her in her romance quest. But she kept screwing up, because when in Tsun mode, she's dishonest, and when in Dere mode, she's too nervous. In order to show off to the other girls in JiEn-Otsu, she lied that she has a hunk boyfriend in Tokyo University, though at times she botched up either in creating a too unbelievable setting, or she forgot she was supposed to have a boyfriend. Only Masuzu caught on to it of course. Because Chiwa and Hime want to be real popular, Chiwa calls Ai coach, and Hime calls her master. Towards the end of volume 3, Ai and Eita went to the summer festival together, and Eita managed to remember about her. Finally, she joins JiEn-Otsu as the fifth member to 'watch' over them so that they don't spoil the public image of the school.

Spoiler for Natsukawa Mana:

Younger sister of Masuzu. She appeared in volume 2 on orders from her father to report on Masuzu's activities and try to bring her back to Sweden. She has twin tails golden hair. She kissed Eita in front of Masuzu, which caused Masuzu to go into shock. Later she almost drowned while swimming (it's still not clear whether she can swim or not, even though she says she can. Even in v4, she did not swim). Eita did CPR on Masuzu in v2. Later, she gave the reason for why she almost drowned to be due to seeing Mana kiss Eita. Eita then told Masuzu, that Mana's kiss has been overwritten since he had done CPR on her. Mana had also threatened Masuzu to go back with her or she will use their Dad's power to make her and her friends miserable. Later, Mana came to wreak havoc on their clubroom, with her bodyguard brute. Eita got injured in the process but did some cool things and said some cool lines to resolve everything. Even though Masuzu and Mana's relationship appeared to be irreconcilable, it seems like Mana loves her big sister, which became evident in volume 4.

Hope I didn't miss out anyone.

Originally Posted by starlol

Some of my questions about the first volume.
I only read up to chapter 4. Reading chinese translated version.

Spoiler for Volume 1:

Does the part about the club ends in volume 1?
If no , does it spend lesser time on 'trying to make Chiwa popular' from volume 2 onwards?
Does the story get better?
Story heading towards MasuzuxLead Guy ending?

Thanks.

If you are already reading the Chinese translations, then I suggest you read on, since most of the answers will come as the story progresses. As to whether the story gets better or not, it depends on what you're looking for. In my opinion, the story gets better and for this particular genre, harem love comedy, I'll rate it 8 out of 10 for the following reasons:

Spoiler:

1. The writer sticks to his core themes in his writing. One is Shuraba (Mayhem/Carnage) situations, the other is JiEn-Otsu (play acting). Every character has play-acted, Chiwa in volume 1, Hime as a Chuunibyou, Ai on her fake boyfriend, Kaoru as a guy, and Masuzu's life is an act itself. And of course, I don't need to explain the Mayhem situations since they are quite obvious.

2. The jokes are mostly manzai and antics style. They are available in a healthy amount and yet not too excessive.

3. As explained in (1), the writer is consistent in his writing, and the story does not seem to be haphazard in nature, unlike some other harem love comedy series. It seems like he's writing with a clear purpose with a plan in mind. Shuraba and JiEnOtsu are merely settings and his story revolves around characterizations, most notably Eita, Masuzu, and Chiwa. There are some series which are more of a step-by-step kind of story, which means the author doesn't plan too far ahead, and takes it one step at a time to stay published. For unskilled authors, this sometimes results in a glaring inconsistency of the unfolding of the story and characterizations, weak hooks in plot, and even some obvious pandering to fans. OreShura does not seem to be such a story, at least up till this point.

Other info to continue below.

To answer your question, the club continues, as JiEn-Otsu (自作自演おつかれさま) is a core component which the author uses in the story for various situations and even character development.

As to whether it's heading for a Eita x Masuzu ending, you have to read it and judge for yourself.

Spoiler for my speculation:

I've already posted in a previous post why I think Masuzu is cannon.
Yes, if you have read the novels, and you don't just read novels at the surface level (I know some who do from the 2ch comments I've read), you will most likely agree with me that a Masuzu end is extremely likely. However, I'll not discount the possibility of a Chiwa end for several reasons.

But first, I want to point out an important point, and that is most good writers (when I say good, I mean story & characters, not language ) write with some objective. They are not just writing a story for readers to ship girls in a harem war or something. The best way to try to guess the ending is to try to understand why the writer is writing what he's writing.

Why Masuzu end is extremely likely:
1. Eita and Masuzu has the same value system with regards to love.
2. Masuzu can read Eita's mind.
3. Eita and Masuzu has kissed in every volume.
4. They share a common interest in JoJo (this is minor though)
5. Masuzu knows the most private things about Eita from his Chuuni notebook, and only Masuzu knows.
6. Masuzu gets decent amount of screentime even in volumes 2 and 3, when Hime and Ai are the central characters in those volumes. In fact in v2, she gets some serious development in background. Even in those volumes, Masuzu is still the central character in the overall story.
7. She's the founder of JiEn-Otsu, and compared to everyone, she is the greatest JiEn-Otsu since she's basically living a lie. This very much makes her the central character.
8. Check out Eita and Masuzu's dialogue in volume 4 chapter 12 again. Even though he thinks he's acting, what he said is so true. They are a match 'made in heavenhell'.
9. The author clearly gives Masuzu a lot of focus in the story. In volume 4, you can see that it's Masuzu vs the others. And Masuzu always manages to get time alone with Eita. She is already one of the main characters in volume 1, and please see point (6) again. Finally, in the afterword of volume 4, the author says this:

Natsukawa Masuzu moved for "the sake of Running Away from Love". At the very least, she believed that. However, she couldn't escape it by herself, and as such, got Kidou Eita, a man with the same value system as her, involved, and continued running away from love. It was not an "Escape of Love"[1], but an "Escape from Love". Where can these two run to? And what will they go through when love catches up to them? I'll be happy if you can continue following it to the end.

Please note bold red. If this is not telling us that Eita and Masuzu are the 2 central characters which the story revolves around them in a straight-ball romantic development, then what is it? The story about 2 people with the same value system faking the people around them, and becoming real in the end as they overcome what they need to overcome inside of them, with the Shuraba situations with the other girls giving flavor. This is what I see as the true nature of the story, not a harem/shipping comedy.

Why then, if the ending seems obvious, the story stills makes for an interesting read? Because, the writer still keeps open a window of possibility that it might be a Chiwa end. Thus I want to read on and to see whether or not this happens. Aside from that, even if one is sure that it's going to be a Masuzu end, it's interesting to see the process on how this is achieved. The way I see it, even if they start realizing clearly that they are no longer fakes in the relationship, the author can probably create plenty of situations that will generate mistrust easily with the 'resources' he has at his disposal, especially since they originally already have a warped value system of being anti-love, so I foresee more problems for them to overcome.


Now that, my Masuzu shipping is done, I have to be objective enough to speculate about the other possibility, ie. a Chiwa end.
Why a Chiwa end is possible:
1. Chiwa is different from Eita, her light can drive away his darkness (about love).
2. Chiwa has been with Eita for a long time.
3. Eita stopped his Chuunibyou behavior and started focusing on his studies to become top of the cohort, all that is for the sake of becoming a doctor to cure Chiwa's hip. The timeline coincides and his last entry in his Chuuni notebook was "To cure Chiwa".
This doesn't change the fact that Masuzu is a central character. However, Eita and Masuzu can become the catalysts of each other's change throughout the story, and overcome their baggage in love together, and finally parting ways after overcoming their issues with falling in love, and finally resulting in a Chiwa end.

Frankly, if it's a Masuzu end, I'll feel bad for Chiwa who has worked so hard in so many things. But if it's a Chiwa end, I'll feel even worse for Masuzu. T_T

As for Hime and Ai, they have too little development tied in with Eita (even when they each get almost a whole volume for themselves, they are weak heroines), and even if they do have more development in future, it is unlikely for them to become central characters, based on several core ideas presented in the story. Note that I never say impossible, just unlikely.

I do feel a little bad for Hime, since she seems a little reliant on Eita, and she's even willing to become number 2 or number 3 in Eita's harem. Any Tsundere lovers will sympathize with Ai; she's a pretty model example for Tsundere.

Note that all these are purely speculative, and even though I try to point out some facts, I can't guarantee that I'm not being biased (even though I don't think I am ). If you can read the Chinese translations or the Japanese LNs, read them and make your own judgement.

Originally Posted by Mentar

Larethian, you're a hero ... what a great way to start a new year!

Do you think you might find the time and nerve to touch down on the best earlier Masuzu scenes some day? Summaries are very helpful, but especially when it really counts, true translations are in a different league. And lord knows that this volume has been a huge treat!

Again, thanks!!

That is quite impossible because of:
(1) Time, which I don't have, I'll be retiring from LN translation this year, pretty soon.
(2) Motivation, which will allow me to create some time (though there are limits). In fact, I never planned to translate anything from volume 4 at first. It's because of how satisfying the last few chapters were, that I was motivated enough to take some time out to translate snippets of it. And volume 4 already has by far, the best of Masuzu.