Domestic Girlfriend | When Does a Manga Begin to Feel Like it’s Dragging

Domestic Girlfriend is my guilty pleasure, just so that the reader knows. I will read this until it finishes, I will reread it, I will eventually own the series, etc. However, it has also been dragging along for some time.

I feel like there is a sweet spot in ending a story that all writers strive to achieve. Where the characters, author, and reader are in sync, happy, and fulfilled. But I feel like I have been there before in this manga, just to be thrown back into a spiral of emotion, side stories, and bad decisions. And it is not just this story; Bleach was a terrific example of this, where every arc had the chance to end the story on a good note, until we got caught in a cycle of losing power, gaining power, several times. How many times does a protagonist have to go through the same experience, along with the reader? A sense of deja vu comes around and you stop being as invested in the story, because you know the outcome.

Domestic Girlfriend is a story about our main character Natsuo, and his love triangle with his two stepsisters. Throughout the story, he gets the girl he’s been in love with, Hina, after losing his virginity to her sister Rui. In the midst of this, the girls’ mother marries Natsuo’s father, making them all step-siblings. There are other girls in the story, but it ultimately all serves as character progression in the main conflict; which sister will Natsuo choose in the end?

It is a story a reader can get invested in, and has a clear end in sight. He has to choose one, and we know he will! And it’s the ending that we build up to, that we long for, that we are all on the ride to figure out together. Except we still aren’t there. Even after our protagonist has been in a serious relationship with both sisters.

There seems to be an issue in Manga series specifically, which I don’t really see in other forms of media, where there is this fixation to introduce a wrench into the gears of a story to continue it. And it feels forced and non-coherent most of the time. What was a taboo romance story with the daily interactions between our characters driving their development became a story with all these sub-plots thrown in for forced character development and story shifts.

Hina has a stalker, Natsuo gets stabbed, becomes a published author, loses the ability to write, Hina becomes his Nanny, they get caught up with Yakuza because of a woman Natsuo meets, just to name a few scenarios. Theses are not the spicy moments in a high school/college kids life that I was invested in. This is all “thrown-in” drama to continue a story which has had the chance for an ending already. The story no longer has a straightforward path as the author thrown in scenarios to sidetrack us from the ending.

Ultimately, the last chapter has put us back on this track. But this is after dozens of chapters of wondering how we came to this point in the story, where the hell we’re going next, and sadly, wondering which crazy scenario we’ll be placed in from here on out to further drag the story on. I’m committed to finishing this story, as I am still invested in the main characters and their development and ultimate happiness. But lately, I just have not been enjoying the journey, and I hope that changes for the sake of a strong ending.