Good Ending (GE)

[Mizuno]

The problem with this manga is that it is too realistic. Girls being attacked by guys in school and couldn't say a thing about it; girls being shallow and indecisive. I can understand people rage when the protagonist seems hopeless in landing a girl while the potential love interests seem to be getting into the boxers of some random guys. I guess people just look for the ideal, cute stuff to escape the cruel reality but this is what they get. The mood in this story, virginity aside has continue to be depressing. This manga should definitely belong in the seinen category.

[Waven]

honestly this controversy will keep up this series and its sales for quite a time I think...

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by Waven

honestly this controversy will keep up this series and its sales for quite a time I think...

Controversy does not always help with sales. In fact there are numbers of it where it ended in quite opposite - fans allienating from the source and thus reducing the sales.

Considering the situation, I don't think it will help with sales. I just wish it would remain at least equal in terms of number and not suffering a major drop that would put the whole manga in danger of being forced to end too soon.

Originally Posted by Mizuno

The problem with this manga is that it is too realistic. Girls being attacked by guys in school and couldn't say a thing about it; girls being shallow and indecisive. I can understand people rage when the protagonist seems hopeless in landing a girl while the potential love interests seem to be getting into the boxers of some random guys. I guess people just look for the ideal, cute stuff to escape the cruel reality but this is what they get. The mood in this story, virginity aside has continue to be depressing. This manga should definitely belong in the seinen category.

I don't think it is too realistic, If reality would bee so painful and so many screw ups after screw ups we would most definitely have a much higher suicidal rates than we do now.

Yes real life is dark, and can show ugly side of it from time to time, but it is not realistic that shit after shit after shit after shit keeps landing on you and you do not have even a sightliest break from that.

Usually at least some minor good things happen from time to time, but in this manga they try too hard to make it dark. Yes realistic painting needs black in it, but when the whole painting is just black it sort of looses the touch of reality as well. Life is not sun and roses, but it is not just rain and nettles either, and this manga tries hard to convince us of the latter, thats what I find to be unrealistic.

[kanon78]

Let me start by saying that I hope the "outrage" of some otakus wich caused the mangaka to close her blog won't result in forced rewriting of the plot or even worse a discontinuation/axing of the manga. That would be really sad, especially since Ux2 is (still) on hiatus and I really want to read more of GE.

A couple of months ago I was looking for an interesting romance manga to read and I came across GE. I don't care about subgenres like seinen, shonen, shoujo or even josei as long as I like/ am captivated plotwise by the story.
When the male lead was introduced in the beginning I was a little sceptical, because I don't like that type of "whiney" characters very much (I prefer male lead like from Ux2) but storywise I was sold after the end of the 1st chapter. Utsumi grows slowly under the wings of Yuki from his "apathic&seclusive" self to someone who gained more self confidence and is able to socialize with Shou on a daily basis. This was all made possible by Yuki who forcibly made Utsumi join the tennis club when she caught him "peeping" on them during tennis practice. After the initial encouragement from Yuki the male lead gradually changes himself for the best and it really shows in his interactions with both Yuki and Shou as well as Eri (chapter 9&10).
Also the reason(s) for Yuki to help Utsumi to confess to Shou and her growing closer to Utsumi (even if they are still in the friend zone) created the possibility for an interesting love triangle emerging from this all.

Now after chapter 11 it gets a little tricky with some revelations about Yuki's past and the fact that Shou

Spoiler for Shou:

chose her sempai over Utsumi

What happened to Yuki is still speculative because we don't know much beside 2 little frames wich are open for different interpretation as seen earlier in this thread. About Shou's decision

Spoiler for Shou:

to cancel her date with Utsumi and go out with her beloved sempai

I don't like it either but Dark Mage has given a very conclusive&convincing view on this in several threads so I won't get into it again.
I consider the above plot twists a form of spicing up the already interesting story and all this made Utsumi and Yuki grow closer while the male lead is no way near the person he was in the beginning of the story.
The fact that not every girl throws herself at him is a relief. His unrequited crush on Shou and deeling with his lingering feelings for her makes that the relationship between Utsumi and Yuki has to grow gradually further to get out of the friend zone and even might have to face some dark hurdles from the past.

Spoiler for Yuki:

I won't be surprised if Yuki's ex boyfriend will show up soon

And then we still have the possibility of Shou being played by her crush and reaching to Utsumi (for comfort/love?) in the near future, wich makes the story all the more engaging and thickens the romance plot more by creating a believable and captivating love triangle.

I hope Utsumi ends up with Yuki and proves to be capable of forgetting Shou, helps Yuki get over her emotional scars from her past and will be able to make Yuki look at him as a man and not only as a friend.

[SageGaiGar]

Good points.

While Shou and Utsumi kinda/would've made a cute couple, they both are a little too similiar, atleast at the start. These developments though should help them to both grow seperately.

The non forced 'X'ing is kind of refreshing.

[typhonsentra]

Seriously, I can't believe this many people would prefer the comfort of the familiar over this. Having her date other men or even having one of the other characters have sex doesn't make this non-shonen either, nor inappropriate for this specific magazine. There was sex in Suzuka you know. I've always assumed WSM simply skewed older than Jump (High school-aged teens).

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by typhonsentra

Seriously, I can't believe this many people would prefer the comfort of the familiar over this. Having her date other men or even having one of the other characters have sex doesn't make this non-shonen either, nor inappropriate for this specific magazine. There was sex in Suzuka you know. I've always assumed WSM simply skewed older than Jump (High school-aged teens).

Did Suzuka have sex with other man or with the main character?

That is the problem. They are not angry about the notion of sex, shounen has it, but it is the notion with whom that changes the genre because it breaks the dream.

The main heroine doing it with main hero is ok, simply because many readers identify themselves with the main guy, but the problems rise and make it inappropriate when the main heroine has sex with someone else than hero. Having sex with hero does not break the dream since the reader identifies with the hero to begin with. While doing it with someone else other than the hero...

I only see that in seinens. In shounens its either with main hero or she is not the main heroine to begin with.

So is it impossible to make a shounen with non-virgin main heroine?

It is not, however, you would have to present her non-virgin state since the beginning (like she is a widow etc.), however usually even such themes are mostly exploited in seinens rather than shounen's. Yet such presentation would not cause a big overreaction even from shounen, since simply readers would not feel close to the hero and heroine, seconds the most rabid ones will be driven away since the beginning, and third they will not feel 'betrayed' when it happens if such development happens in the middle of the story, since by then the readers are connected to character and the non-virginity feels like breaking ones dreams of innocence.

I don't think they actually care about virginity as physical fact, but rather as the one of psychological one because virginity symbolizes innocence and pureness, they are more pursuing the innocence of the dream, escaping the reality, rather than virginity as physical fact.

Shounen is mostly ideal, dreamy thing while seinen deals with more down-to-earth stuff. Innocence is also part of the dream that. How many of them do you think read the manga to escape the reality and how many to be reminded of it?

Exactly. The number of escapees is bigger, its not necessarily a bad thing, fairy tale book is also an escape from reality after all.

Well anyway, presenting a non-virgin heroine for shounen while prevents from ovverreactions may prove to be too costly as most shounen readers will just drop you and you better of as a seinen then, thats why even such possibility is almost always actualized in a seinens rather than shounens.

[typhonsentra]

I understand the otaku mindset (As others have said, same as what happened with Kannagi.), it's just with the way you made the distinction between shonen and seinen it seemed that you were saying the content wasn't age-appropriate.

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by typhonsentra

I understand the otaku mindset (As others have said, same as what happened with Kannagi.), it's just with the way you made the distinction between shonen and seinen it seemed that you were saying the content wasn't age-appropriate.

It is not. But what it makes like this is not the sex (heck in senpai's case we do not even see sex just a hickey), but with whom it is done.

Thats what makes it age-appropriate or not. Weird I know, but sex itself does not scare otaku's its with whom it is done that scares them and also what changes shounen and seinen, and thats what this manga did.

You can say it does not match label so what? Cliched or products that follow labels blindly are booring...

But thats where the problem is. Labels are the information you need to judge from to save your time and money.

As in, you want to buy sugar. When you go to shop do you open the pack and taste if its a sugar? No you do not, you trust the label and buy it as sugar. But when you come home it seems that someone put in a sugar pack the salt. Thats what is the problem - you wanted sugar, but you wasted your money and time for something that is not what it is lebeled as.

You can ask - be more open minded and just use this salt as its also a valuable product, but you cannot criticize people for not being open minded and being angry and feeling tricked.

What we can criticize is the way they choose to express the dissatisfaction, but not the dissatisfaction itself as it does have a ground (the way I see it).

[typhonsentra]

I think it's fair to judge their dissatisfaction if it's based on an unfair concept of how women should and shouldn't behave (By that I mean expectations not limited to shonen comics). If these people (A large portion of whom, if not a clear majority, probably aren't themselves "shonen".) objected on the grounds of this being too harsh for young kids in the vein of religious conservatives in America (Whom I also tend to dislike) that'd be one thing but their objections seem to be more about a supposed betrayal of them, as if a non-virgin woman is no longer good enough for "Them" (In this case, Utsumi.). Idealization vs. conflict is not something that has to be age specific, would you say Bambi shouldn't be considered a children's movie because it carries harsh themes which it forces the audience to deal with?

[Arturro]

Originally Posted by typhonsentra

I think it's fair to judge their dissatisfaction if it's based on an unfair concept of how women should and shouldn't behave (By that I mean expectations not limited to shonen comics). If these people (A large portion of whom, if not a clear majority, probably aren't themselves "shonen".) objected on the grounds of this being too harsh for young kids in the vein of religious conservatives in America (Whom I also tend to dislike) that'd be one thing but their objections seem to be more about a supposed betrayal of them, as if a non-virgin woman is no longer good enough for "Them" (In this case, Utsumi.). Idealization vs. conflict is not something that has to be age specific, would you say Bambi shouldn't be considered a children's movie because it carries harsh themes which it forces the audience to deal with?

I think you're wrong. What you have said is mostly true, but it's not a reason why some people, like Darknemo2000 or me, are angry. Darknemo2000 tried to explain it, but IMHO he is using wrong example .

Most of people like to read stories they expect to read. When I'm depressed I like to read light hearted comedy, when I need some excitation, I read a horror, when I'm bored I'm looking for action story. When I'm depressed I'm reading comedy or light romance, if that story suddenly turns to be depressing and smut story I tend to be pissed of! I was deceived by the author! It doesn't matter if story was realistic or not, interesting or not, the problem is story doesn't meets my expectations. Only a few authors are able to make a good, interesting, genere shift in their stories. GE failed to do it in a good way.

BTW I have a feeling that now there is no, expect Umi no Misaki, good romance manga in scanlation. Even if something starts as good it soon changes it's genere into something not interesting for me, or going nowhere. Just have to said, that my current no 2 scanlated romance is Kinnaru Roommate (It's a hentai, still better plot and characters than most of romance manga today).

[typhonsentra]

"Smut" is pretty over-the-top, don't you think? One girl got a hickey from her current (Possibly first) boyfriend and another may or may not've had sex with her ex-boyfriend whom she says she loved. If anything the smuttiest thing in this manga has been the cover pages which have been running since chapter 4.

As for your other point, this never pretended to be a comedy did it? I never took it that way, it always seemed to lean more towards the drama since chapter 1. Coaxing sympathy for the main character in a romance comic isn't even something new to this magazine, Suzuka too made the main character as pathetic as possible time and time again and forced drama in, I dunno how you can say you were mislead. Yeah it's funny from time to time and yes the first chapter had some exaggerated expressions (Though never SD bodies) but a straight-forward comedy?

[asaqe]

For it doesn't really matter, I just don't feel the same "idealism" that most Otakus do, some people like me don't like a coat of idealism from the trauma they face, instead they want "realism", basically a more realistic if not deconstructive take on the romance genre. Since her ex is coming back, I am bringing the popcorn for the spectacle that is about to happen.

[Darknemo2000]

As Arturro said - some people want to read idealized stuff. And it did pretend to be a light romance - check the first chapters - pretty typical which builds the certain shounen expectations in there.

Suzuka was mix - and still was an idealized version of life (she had her love but was never fulfilled and she found her true love and gave her innocence to him). Besides it did not shit on the main character chapter after chapter after chapter, I don't remember a strings of misfortunes happen to the same level as here.

Suzuka was a shounen. More mature - but it still was as it kept the idolized existence. Added some reality aspects but did not really threw you down into the mud of reality either, the 'reality harships' where all idolized in the end, GE on the other hand has nothing to do with dreams and shounen romance anymore - it is a seinen, and since the genre changed from what it was supposed to be it is natural to be dissatisfied.

It may not looked like pure comedy, but again shounen romances are not always pure comedy either, and it most certainly it did not look like a seinen emo fest it turned into now too.

I am calling it emo fest, and not a real reflection of reality, since in this case the author tries too hard to show the hardships, but its just too much - if real life would be so screwed up as it is portrayed in this manga we would have a lot of suicides going around, thus it still fails to be realistic.

It feils to build a tension either because you stop expecting anything new - but just another way to screw the main guy.

Yes aque, and those poeple who are like you go to read seinen. That is the genre for you. And this is what the problem is since it is aimed towards the audience who 99 from 100 do not want a seinen but rather a shounen, if they would want a seinen they would just go to read seinen magazine. Thats why the problems here come due to missaimed label. It is not an innovation of the same genre, but its a switch to another genre, that is where the problem lies.

[Sakuyakun]

I'm gonna agree that this manga is in the seinen category. And the age of the audience is the reason for the raging that's going on.

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by Sakuyakun

I'm gonna agree that this manga is in the seinen category. And the age of the audience is the reason for the raging that's going on.

I don't think the age is actually the problem. This magazine targets older audience than WSJ, the problem is that even if it is more mature people still expect a shounen, and they get seinen instead which is labeled as a shounen, naturally they feel disappointed, some though, step over the limits with the way they express their dissatisfaction.

[typhonsentra]

Even in Suzuka though....

Spoiler:

Honaka ultimately ended up breaking up with the main guy both times they were together (He ended up crying the second time too, didn't seem to care much the first time.). Hell, the time he first confessed she flatly rejected him and he ended up crying all night in his room. Yes the end he ends up "Happy" (Though not in a situation I'd consider ideal, nor with a woman I'd consider ideal.)

.... but that's only when you view it in the context of a complete work.

Besides, it's not like the comic has been focusing endlessly on his sadness either, right from the chapter where he's rejected they move right into having his friends comfort him and him exploring new options. He's not sitting alone in his room listening to MCR.

[Darknemo2000]

Originally Posted by typhonsentra

Even in Suzuka though....

Spoiler:

Honaka ultimately ended up breaking up with the main guy both times they were together (He ended up crying the second time too, didn't seem to care much the first time.). Hell, the time he first confessed she flatly rejected him and he ended up crying all night in his room. Yes the end he ends up "Happy" (Though not in a situation I'd consider ideal, nor with a woman I'd consider ideal.)

.... but that's only when you view it in the context of a complete work.

Besides, it's not like the comic has been focusing endlessly on his sadness either, right from the chapter where he's rejected they move right into having his friends comfort him and him exploring new options. He's not sitting alone in his room listening to MCR.

Rejecting =/= sleeping with the other guy, you know. Thats why we are talking about different genres here.

And after the chapter 11 he does not have any real breaks, even when Yuki tries to cheer him up it does not seem like she succeeds (and it is hard to think that she could considering how much of a hypocrite she made herself look in this chapter).

[Arturro]

@typhonsentra - after reading your post, I've re-read mine, and I must admit, I made my post unclear.
GE was at first heartwarming. It is not anymore, it's depressing now. My point is not that I don't like depressing, serious manga. One of my all time favorites manga is Bitter Virgin. By comparison GE is still heartwarming .
I expected to read something heartwarming, not depressing. I feel deceived.

[Dark Mage]

Originally Posted by Arturro

@typhonsentra - after reading your post, I've re-read mine, and I must admit, I made my post unclear.
GE was at first heartwarming. It is not anymore, it's depressing now. My point is not that I don't like depressing, serious manga. One of my all time favorites manga is Bitter Virgin. By comparison GE is still heartwarming .
I expected to read something heartwarming, not depressing. I feel deceived.

I dont know about you, but I always knew GE wasnt gonna be that much of an innocent, heartwarming story you were expecting from the beginning, I expected a dark past from Yuki, I expected alot of heart-breaks and depressing situations for Utsumi, alot of obstacles in Utsumi' and Yuki's way which they would overcome bit by bit by slowly having an effect on one another, I expect alot of drama and hardships ahead of them as well. So I m getting exactly what I expected from the beginning, right from the very start it gave me an UnbalancexUnbalance, or Suzuka feel to it, i'e lots and lots of drama.

This doesnt mean its not heartwarming, to me what's heartwarming to see how Utsumi is slowly starting to effect Yuki enough to mellow out more and more, become softer and doubt her own beliefs and the most heartwarming thing for me would be when she finally, completely steps out of her past shadow and enters the light guided by Utsumi at her side. For me, what's heartwarming would and is, Utsumi learning, developing, maturing into a fine man from learning from his many experiences. I am getting exactly what I thought the story would be like, so I am not surprised.

However, I would be lying if I said, I expected them to show/mention Yuki having sex with another guy, so even though I expected a dark past I must say, I was kinda shocked but I got over it as it gives the story a new meaning, but Shou's situation doesnt bother me the slightest as she is free to do what she wants. I dont agree with Utsumi being shitted on chapter after chapter when Yuki and him are gradually becoming closer and closer even in the last raw, there were some positive things for Utsumi, that came out of Yuki's mouth while talking to Eri, but Utsumi didnt stay to overhear the whole thing, otherwise it wouldve cheered him up.

I mean, you cant expect a girl like Yuki, who comes with a heavy baggage to fall for you in a day, you have to slowly get into her heart and mind, and take the small bits and pieces as progress and consider them as giant steps and most of all you have to be sure and confident about your own feelings if you are persuing a troubled girl like Yuki, and not let your own past haunt you and come in the way