Jun 09, 2025
To:Orionless
I always appreciate a proper yap! And I appreciate some proper honesty even more.
For the characters being introduced, for the first volume their main role in the story was to become members of Tani's club, they were kind of introduced as checkpoints towards that goal. But their personalities and friendship are meant to help Tani's character growth by tapping into very specific traits that he had gotten rid of after his dad died in order to achieve his goals. I personally feel like the club members at least have been shown or featured enough to do that as far as side characters go. For Anita's servants, yeah they went into the background right after they showed up, which sparked the internal conflict for Tani that brought about the date with Ume and moved the story along as well. The phone call Anita received in Icelandic the last chapter and her wanting to talk to him about it will continue down that plot line and the final obstacle for Tani to overcome. I figured I should have made that seem like more of a bigger deal but I kinda blew it.
I'll admit that after Ume and Tani's date I could have moved along the results of that night a lot faster, but to me it would have felt wrong without exploring Ume and Tani's former relationship, and what he caused by being selfish and leaving his friends behind. Because the person he knew is the same, but also very different because of what happened during that space of time specifically in regards to Higahara. Now that Higahara is back, he'll take on a role that will again, affect and change Tani in some way.
Alas Tani is the MC, so all the world and the characters in it have to play a part in his growth. I do wanna give all of them their flowers as well and I'll get there, but it might seem discombobulated at times otherwise the story would drag on even more than it already has.
I do worry about essentially having 6 straight chapters about Ume though, cause it makes Anita a bit forgotten until her conversation with Tani coming up.
I'll try to explain my thought process like this, and hopefully it makes a little sense.
The first volume was about how Tani utilized his skills in order to start his club, with Principal Togashi and the obstacles created by the school rules as the protagonists. In this current volume we're leaving school grounds and into the real world where the stakes will get higher, and he'll have to be uniquely creative in dealing with them. In the final volume the stakes will be big enough that it's worthy of his lofty goal of being the Secretary General of the UN.
Blahh, I hope I'm not too ambitious in going down this route. I wish I was a better and faster writer, cause even though I only plan on another 15-20 chapters before the story ends it feels very far away and potentially impossible to do well
