@Arkansas Comments like this made me curious to read the first chapter. Oof. 80% of it was pretty good!

@Joel Wish fulfillment fantasy + writer not building motivations enough to be convincing. It works if the characters already have history, or if the person who gets attracted has an obsessive/troublesome personality that becomes a plot point and explains the behavior. Characters who are supposed to be mostly normal pushing this much right after meeting MC is a little over the top. I prefer when behaviors fit the setting. Stories like Golden Time or "Ookami Shounen wa Kyou mo Uso o Kasaneru" handle characters developing feelings well...and the latter pulls it off in spite of a ridiculous premise.

@ANIME ZENKAI This relationship was doomed before she even asked for partner swap. That request only confirmed something that should have ended sooner. The best thing MC could do is get with anybody else. It doesn't even matter if she regrets losing him because she's selfish or if she is really genuinely crazy enough to live on fetishes and doesn't care. It doesn't matter because he should have no part in it. There is such a thing as too much pride. There is also such a thing as too little. MC going along with this for any reason other than to sleep around is unacceptable, and even THAT isn't a healthy motivation. You probably won't find a good partner from other people who agreed to this, and that seems to be what he wants. If he were attempting revenge by agreeing to this or something I could stomach it...but that doesn't seem like the case...

@Cid Lunius The story probably should have ended already. If Hanabi absolutely has to have a story still, I hope she does something that requires strong character, apologizes one last time, and F's off with the goal of being a better person.

Her becoming a romantic interest in any way would be a character assassination of MC and ruin the story. Her only possible "redemption" is to out the other liars and then leave the guy she wronged alone. That wouldn't make her likeable, but it would show some character growth and be a tolerable ending to her part in the story. I'm not sure how much story is left anyway, though.

@1 1 I think it could have been more plausible w/o changing the essence or progression of the story much:

- Make the school inclined to cover it up/avoid the problem generally to avoid bad PR. They don't act against MC for this reason, but also don't support him in any particular way.

- Give teacher a backstory where he got cheated on in the past, or hates popular guys, something like that. Something that gives him a vendetta and makes him more inclined than usual to back MC.

- Make bully antagonist less over the top cartoon villain in motivation. Still plenty of room for him to be a genuinely bad person w/o being "high school Skeletor" The mother backing her child strongly is reasonable. The cheater feeling bad but refusing to risk her own reputation by telling the truth is realistic (some people are actually that irredeemable, and this makes for a nice antagonist to hate).

As for random student reactions in school, I don't know. Someone was actually accused back when I was in high school. Unlike this story, only the two people there knew for sure. His friends backed him, hers backed her. The rest of the school broadly doubted him more than her, but didn't escalate to bullying. I was among his doubters and kept that to myself. I just didn't know either of them well enough. Now that I'm less naive, I just doubt them both in retrospect. Japan's culture might be so different that it would be very different there, no idea. Manga does not depict things accurately all the time, to put it mildly, and I don't have a pulse on what it's actually like there.

@totmes He's claiming all of this is a book he read.  It's weird for it to cause this much existential angst in a teenager though.

@totmes It's nice that in this chapter, he at least considered another path.  Would be a pleasant surprise if his approach goes more consistently measured.

@Trevor Wellington To a degree.  He's so over the top it's hard to take him seriously.  I think he would have worked better if he were more subtle with smugness while still being genuinely awful.

@Vernon Avaritt I think anything other than him making his choice would betray his characterization so far.  Maybe he hesitates a bit longer.  Guess we'll see.

@gawed What Luna's done to this point is already a little messed up.  Another delay would probably make it a pain point in their relationship.  Certainly a way to cause drama and keep the story going, though I'm not sure that would be the best for the story.

@NamelessGoblin There's another reason that's easy to forget: at least some of the audience will be her age, or even younger.  Many authors cast a wide net, probably don't much care if the reason someone likes a character is normal or weird.

I am several times older than characters like Sailor Moon or Asuka from Evangelion.  However, those stories are old!  When they released, all of those characters were older than me!  Fictional character age is weird like that.

As for this story, it leans more into the "everyone likes the guy" fantasy than a realistic portrayal of what the world would be like.  But it seems to at least try to portray the latter as well.  He has everyone from a middle schooler to an office lady after him to cover the fantasy.  Might as well give their perspective then.

It also makes sense in a dating market that's is extremely like this story that girls would basically take any half decent guy they could get.  Consider how rough dating can be in the real world right now.  There are selective pressures, and unreasonable expectations.  It's pretty hard, even though the ratio is close to 1:1.  In a hypothetical world like this story, the 80% gender would be desperate.  The average 20% would take them for granted and treat them poorly, which the story portrays.  MC, simply by being a relatively normal person, is the best chance these girls will likely get for many years, unless they want to jump in as someone's 4th wife or w/e.  Of course they're going to try for it.

@Wrantheim True, but it would be a little too meta for MC to think that way, haha.  If he knows anything about her he can rule it less likely too.

@RecklessSavage Nah, they're both pretty bad.  Lots of stuff gets tracked on the floor, even indoors, especially in public places.  Can have a wide swath of not-great stuff.  With hair, you MIGHT get lucky and the person washed it that morning, but there are certainly no guarantees.  It's a good idea to avoid both of these things.

@Nah She was a dark horse from the start, but the author has done an excellent job making the girls likeable.

@RecklessSavage MC has been pretty decent so far, but yeah that was rough.  Better than the floor, not good.  It's creepy too, but plausible that someone who already really likes him wouldn't frame it that way.  Makes sense he's not perfect yet, but should still not eat dirty stuff lol.