This is my first time running an offshoot for an ABBC pick at the difficulty level of Horimiya.
For beginning readers, a slower pace is better.
For seasoned readers, splitting a chapter across two or three weeks can be disruptive.
I’m trying something a bit different from usual.
Rather than splitting a chapter across weeks, I’ve spread chapters across weeks.
Chapter 7 spreads across the first three weeks. You can ask about anything from chapter 7 during this time, but be sure to mark spoilers for those who are not as far along.
Each chapter after spreads across two weeks.
Unlike the ABBC with a new thread for each week, this thread is for all Volume 2 questions and discussions.
They know Remi is useless, that’s why they push all of her work onto Hori. Yet somehow when it turned out one of the documents was missing, they believed “I dunno, I didn’t check” Remi over “everything was definitely there” Hori, and somehow it became Hori’s responsibility to come in early and re-do it? No, that’s your job. All of it was your job. And the fact that Remi’s establishing character moment is throwing Hori under a bus, that colours all of her future interactions as the type of character who would throw another under a bus at the slightest provocation. And to make matters worse, they then confront Hori in public, right in the hallway! And then they start gaslighting her! “Just come clean, we won’t be angry.”
I mean, some of this is plain old Early Installment Weirdness - the series is in the middle of transitioning between the “Hori and Miyamura have a lovey-dovey romance based on a shared secret” of volume one and the “Hori and Miyamura have goofy adventures with their goofy classmates” of later volumes - but still, this is the establishing character moment for the student council. These first interactions are meant to tell us exactly who they are. And who they are doesn’t look great, in this chapter.
I didn’t even realize that, as I originally had it as “Chapter 7” etc, but changed it last second.
If you have any recommendations on how to make it less confusing, let me know! But maybe it’s something that once past that initial confusion, it’s good going forward for each individual?
I haven’t reached this part of the manga yet, but remember that I found the same thing irritating when I watched the anime. It was also a bit jarring that after this part, the student council members become more sensible and likeable so fast that in retrospect, their behavior in this chapter seems almost OOC.
It’s nice to be back with Horimiya after the break. I began this weekend, and the start felt a little rough after having read some easier books. The longer sentences and text density take some getting used to (again), as well as the small font size. Still, the story will surely hold my interest and help me push through. I especially enjoyed the そうね on the first page.
I’m going to post my questions, just to check my understanding.
p.5
宮村：生徒会の手伝い？
堀：新役員決まったばかりで人手が足りないって言われちゃあね
Miyamura: What about the help with the student council?
Hori: The new president has only just been decided, and I/we are being (unfortunately) told that [we’ll be short on manpower]?
My comprehension felt shaky, especially since it’s the beginning of a new chapter. Miyamura’s later comments gave me some clues. He said he’d help, if he weren’t terrible at it. So that clue me in to the fact that there’s not enough people. I’m not sure how that relates to the new president, but that’s probably a what-ever, or something that may become clear later.
p.7
クマ！
Is this a way to draw someone’s attention when their attention has drifted off? “Watch out, a bear!”
p.10
なーんで 生徒会の仕事を堀がやんのよー
“What do you mean? You have to do the student council work, right?”
I had to do some googling and found that やんの is short for やらなくてはいけないの. Very short!
引き継いだばかりだし生徒会も大変なんでしょー
“I just took over and it’s (also?) hard.”
What’s the も doing here? They were already talking about the work for the student council, weren’t they?
This question is about what she’s doing. It’s more like “You’re helping out the student council?”
It’s not just the president, the whole student council is newly-elected, and I figure there’s a whole lot of paperwork to do for the transition, though exactly what it is that Hori’s doing is never made entirely clear. The fact that they’re so critically short on manpower that Hori needs to do two entire folders full of paperwork doesn’t really come up again, even though we never meet any more members of the student council besides the three we see in this chapter.
The other funny thing is that of the entire student council Remi might actually be the most emotionally mature, it’s just that at the same time she is also prone to bouts of extreme selfishness lmao
I decided to join the club and just caught up! I enjoyed the first season of the anime, though I haven’t watched the second.
Chapter 7 story comments, including @Jintor's comment about the original web comic story
It’s super interesting that the student council is malicious in the original work. I wonder if the person who did the story for the manga made them not bad people in order to have more non-villain characters to work with? Or maybe they just weren’t interested in a story with that kind of conflict between characters.
People tend to get angry when anime doesn’t follow the manga it’s based on though. I wonder how fans of the webcomic reacted to the changes.
