Fair warning now, I will talk about spoilers. I am going to talk about things all the way up to chapter 220 and the anime, as of episode 6, has only covered about 20 chapters.

Enjoy a hungry Rui before we get deep into spoilers.

After around 70 chapters of Hina drama, Sasuga Kei, the mangaka for Domestic Girlfriend, has managed to plant a seed deep in our hearts which started sprouting at chapter 115. That seed then spent all of the following chapters growing into a strong firm tree that we believed would never come down. That tree bears the name “Rui.”

From 115 onward, Sasuga made sure to make Rui shine. Literally makes you forget everything about Hina and leads you to believe that these two will be an inseparable pair. And then the infamous chapter 215/216 comes along.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Ruined. The world is ending.

And that is the moment I realized, Sasuga has accomplished everything the main character Natsuo wants to achieve. Natsuo’s overall goal is to move people with his writing. He wants to weave stories that stay with people. Sasuga has done just that. Her audience has grown so attached to Rui that when she broke it off with Natsuo, everyone was put on suicide watch. Friends of mine were about to completely drop the manga after 200+ chapter.

In the week between 216 and 217, the world was turned upside down for Rui fans. They were all trying to reason with this. They were predicting what will come next (I’m guilty of this too) and with virtually no future knowledge, only what we picked up in previous chapters, everyone came to their own conclusions. There was one common thread in all of them, “Fuck Chefboi.” Everyone was taking their anger out on this one singular character who almost literally did nothing wrong to disrupt the Rui ship. Everyone was also grasping at straws saying Chefboi fixing Rui’s broken mug from Natsuo was symbolism that he would help mend their relationship, but literally 3 pages after that moment he’s clearly seen realizing he has feelings for Rui.

The Domestic Girlfriend subreddit was on fire for a while. Essays were written, rants were posted, the manga as a whole was deconstructed from the ground up by everyone desperate for more. And then comes the aftermath and we’re suddenly greeted with a new face at the end of a chapter.

Misaki shows up. Everyone is up in arms, my friend Kevin being one, that the manga is getting “artificially extended” because a new “love interest” is introduced. I nearly threw my phone across the room after reading this chapter. A handful of people I know that have been keeping up now decided to just let the chapters build up and binge them after a few months, but I honestly feel this new arc is worth keeping up with. Natsuo is clearly, 100% not interested in anything romantic with her but his discovery of her past is sparking something within him. What is it though? Is it a new fire for a story? Is she going to help him realize his shortcomings and ultimately, in the end, help him figure out how to patch things up with Rui?

Kenny is still reading though. He totally lied.

Misaki is pandora’s box right now, and we’ve just begun to crack it open. Where Sasuga decides to take the story now is a complete mystery and only time will tell what Misaki will bring into this saga. We’ve learned of her unfortunate past and a bit about her character in the latest chapter, 220, but she still has some mystery to her. Especially her shady deals with this stranger. Every time Sasuga introduces characters, they’re usually either here to create drama or solve a problem (sometimes both!), and Misaki here definitely is not here to start some fires especially considering she only forced herself on Natsuo because she wanted to cheer him up.

Sasuga Kei is writing a masterpiece here. She had moved so many readers, made them feel the pain Natsuo is suffering. When your readers are emotionally hurt reading 2 characters break up, you know you’ve written something good. I look forward to how Sasuga will finish this story. I am excitedly waiting to see how she gets Natsuo and Rui back together (fight me Hina fans).

Come back Rui. I miss you.