nathandouglasdavis

...for it to come across as kind. I felt a similar type of dissonance in Shounen Houkokusho in the scene where Jun is sighing in exasperation at feir father’s lack of assertion when it comes to proposing. I have the impression that the author was intending for this scene to come across as Jun being confident and cool, but fe just came across as snotty to me. Though part of that might be accentuated by the fact that the angles of that panel are drawn very badly, making Jun’s already exaggerated pose look even dumber.

The characters are slender, and are drawn with skin-hugging clothes. I think the wrinkles and bunching up of cloth is drawn very well, but I don’t like when the screentones are used to create designs--like on the aunt’s yukata in the first scene or on Jun’s striped shirt during the second scene. There seem to be some bad screentoning in general as well. I also find the faces to be inconsistent in their proportions and largely generic in their base designs.

The aunt is a character that’s easy to hate. Fe’s judgmental and pushes feir own views of what an idealized family life should look like onto others. That said, fe also seemed entirely unaware that Ryou was Harumi’s partner, which says something about Harumi and Ryou that I don’t think the author was intending to say. Even if Harumi and Ryou weren’t married, they still should’ve made it known to their family and friends that they were together. I mean, that’s what you do whenever you’re in a serious relationship with somebody, right? You let those around you know, right? The only conclusion I can draw from Ryou not just responding to the aunt by saying “I’m not just a housekeeper and I’m…