(L) 5-Toubun no Hanayome

[Hirayui]

Originally Posted by Lex79

I think you are focusing too much on the planning thing. Not everything has to be explicitely shown to be planned beforehand. Sometimes people act on impulse. Sometimes we are given their motivation in a flashback.

Ummm why you think Miku did kissing is act on impulse? For people act on their impulse need some trigger to be happen exactly JUST BEFORE THE MOMENT THEY DOING THEIR ACTION. Now what her trigger is? If she overjoyed herself like the way you spoken up before. Shouldn't she kiss him after she hugging him on chapter 67?

You should realise how out-of-character Miku is to do something like kissing itself unless it because her impulse. Also it pretty clear from chapter 68 that The kisser herself is the one who approaching Fuutarou from far away so unless she actually planned to do it in first place, there is no way the bell-kissing is an act on impulse when there is no trigger for it exactly at THAT MOMENT. Now if she planned it without the reader knowing any of information about it. Doesn't that mean it's asspull writing on Author part?

[Tenzen12]

Originally Posted by Sixth

Do you really hate First girl that much? So much you don't even bother to list her name in your list.

What has Itsuki done to the point you hate her so much? Is she because she lied and betrayed her sisters for her own benefit or because she drugged someone that she doesn't like?

You don't need dislike character to hate idea of them being end girl... though in case of Erotora it's probably real unwatered hatred toward anything first girl related.

For me it's Miku > Ichika > Nino > Yotsuba.

[Xero8420]

I would say Miku is out from the list. Not only it would be out of character for her to go for the kiss straight away after when she thought she has already taken care of her love for Fuutarou, but also due to Fuutarou able to recognize Miku's face already by now.

I even think Ichika is unlikely to be the kisser either. Given her current mental state of slipping down to her possessive & yandere tendencies, you can notice she has becoming more desperate than usual & even getting sloppy with her underhanded tactics.

[RedWingFM]

I wonder if Negi really take that First girl as a main girl... to be honest, the battle is very good and many sisters had the chance

[Tenzen12]

I agree. That Negi might not go for first girl trope and it seems like it might be the case, but Itsuki indeed does get some privilege associated with it, which why she get some mild backslash.

[Lex79]

Originally Posted by Hirayui

Ummm why you think Miku did kissing is act on impulse? For people act on their impulse need some trigger to be happen exactly JUST BEFORE THE MOMENT THEY DOING THEIR ACTION. Now what her trigger is? If she overjoyed herself like the way you spoken up before. Shouldn't she kiss him after she hugging him on chapter 67?

You should realise how out-of-character Miku is to do something like kissing itself unless it because her impulse. Also it pretty clear from chapter 68 that The kisser herself is the one who approaching Fuutarou from far away so unless she actually planned to do it in first place, there is no way the bell-kissing is an act on impulse when there is no trigger for it exactly at THAT MOMENT. Now if she planned it without the reader knowing any of information about it. Doesn't that mean it's asspull writing on Author part?

We know that Miku loves Fuutarou, that she is extremely happy he was able to recognize her, that she is willing to suddenly have skinship with him. While a kiss is obviously on a different level than a hug, there are enough elements to think that her finding the courage to go that far isn't an asspull from the author.

Originally Posted by Xero8420

I would say Miku is out from the list. Not only it would be out of character for her to go for the kiss straight away after when she thought she has already taken care of her love for Fuutarou, but also due to Fuutarou able to recognize Miku's face already by now.

I even think Ichika is unlikely to be the kisser either. Given her current mental state of slipping down to her possessive & yandere tendencies, you can notice she has becoming more desperate than usual & even getting sloppy with her underhanded tactics.

Fuutarou haven't yet mastered his Miku detection still, if we assuke that he wasn't able to see through Ichika's disguise in the penultimate chapter. It's not a stretch to think he wasn't able to recognize her, especially if she did something unexpected like a kiss.

[WingedAccelerator]

Originally Posted by Hirayui

Could you show me where did she plan to kissing fuutarou? or atleast the line that implied she going to kiss him?

Because i found nothing about it in that arc.

Chapter 68: "I'm going to find that something that will make him fall for me."

She got recognized a chapter ago, she was even fine with the student and teacher relationship afterwards, because that doesn't mean that she can't change things or things will be the same between them forever.

If Nino's idea about kissing him to make him conscious of her make sense to you, then Miku going back and trust Fuutarou's LOVE power again in the last moments of the trip with a kiss in disguise, hoping that he finds her again, and if he does, the kiss could end up as that "something", should also make sense to you.

[Schpittfeuer]

I just don't see why people would think that Miku couldn't have kissed him. She's literally the first one to be visibly interested, and the love built up through all the chapters. It is easy for me how she would do that in an emotional outburst. Keep in mind she's the most quiet and introverted of all quintuplets. And the cutest if you count personal opinions here

It's totally possible for me it was Miku. If I was to guess who it was NOT- most likely Yotsuba/Itsuki (the latter being my 2nd favourite girl btw)

[WingedAccelerator]

Having reread Scrambled Eggs, I found a detail, which could go against Nino as the Bell Kisser.

Nino realized that kissing him as Itsuki might not be effective, so she changed her plan: She wanted to met up with Fuutarou alone, in front of the bell at night. The implication is, she deliberately chose the place of the bell to fulfill the legend with Fuutarou there, the same way she wanted to dance with Kintarou during the Field Trip. If only a kiss would have mattered to her, then she could have just said any part of the inn to meet Fuutarou there, like the courtyard's case with Miku and Itsuki.

However, despite the location, the Bell Kisser only cared about a kiss, and ringing the bell was an accident thanks to Fuutarou slipping there. Even if appearances doesn't matter to Nino anymore, she could have just grabbed Fuutarou's arm as Itsuki, ring the bell, then kiss him. Even if I take the "bad kisser" thing into account, the legend still probably got fulfilled. So she would have no reason to worry about being a bad kisser, even with ther pride and such, if the greater objective was cleared.

Negi even referenced the bell at night in Chapter 75 again, while still hiding from us what Nino's letter specifically contained. If that thing ever resurfaces, my bet is that it's gonna have something about the legend written in it, not just a simple meet up message.

[256]

It's cool to try and prove which of quint did it, but proving which one didn't is a fools errand.
All of them could do it. Trying to feverishly discredit one of them because of how you think their state of mind was at the moment is just a bad look.

[256]

Originally Posted by WingedAccelerator

However, despite the location, the Bell Kisser only cared about a kiss, and ringing the bell was an accident thanks to Fuutarou slipping there. Even if appearances doesn't matter to Nino anymore, she could have just grabbed Fuutarou's arm as Itsuki, ring the bell, then kiss him. Even if I take the "bad kisser" thing into account, the legend still probably got fulfilled. So she would have no reason to worry about being a bad kisser, even with ther pride and such, if the greater objective was cleared.

Negi even referenced the bell at night in Chapter 75 again, while still hiding from us what Nino's letter specifically contained. If that thing ever resurfaces, my bet is that it's gonna have something about the legend written in it, not just a simple meet up message.

I see what you mean.
Between the start and the end of the arc, the bell only appears when Nino is waiting for Fuutarou to arrive for their meeting, so I think that the possibility of Nino having the legend in mind is quite high.
Plus her fixation on doing it before the trip ends even when she had Papa and Grandpa in her way.
About the kiss itself. There might be many explanations.
Maybe the original plan was to kiss and then ring the bell? I'm not sure if she'd want to force Fuutarou to ring it with her. During The Legend that Binds she told Kintarou the whole thing and the implications. I don't think she would just try to trick, or force him to do it.
It's not like they know that those legends really seem to work, either.

Besides the letter, I was also thinking that maybe Nino and Papa have talked about something when he caught her that night.

I thought that the bell legend would work in Nino's favour, but now your interpretation has me worried, haha.

[MK-95-]

Originally Posted by 256

It's cool to try and prove which of quint did it, but proving which one didn't is a fools errand.
All of them could do it. Trying to feverishly discredit one of them because of how you think their state of mind was at the moment is just a bad look.

Not really a fool's errand tbh. We can easily surmise that Yotsuba is eliminated as a suspect. Like I previously said, she's the only one of the five that if it's revealed that she was the kisser, then readers would be justified for considering that an asspull.

The other four are a little more difficult to pinpoint, but this is how I reason it:

Itsuki is a tossup tbh. On one hand, we have her shippers who use the excuse that her most likely being KG makes it okay for her to be the kisser since all of that would fall under "foreshadowing". However, if one were to follow the natural flow of events and not play mental gymnastics with the writing, then the likelihood of her being the kisser is rather small. As it stands, there's really no plausible way for Itsuki to be the kisser without some kind of shenanigans or bad writing being involved.

Ichika is out by process of elimination because of her current actions. Her ship is basically sunk and her chances of winning this shipping war are really slim. Despite my overall opinion that she's out, I still include her in my list of suspects as a formality because after Miku/Nino, she's the only other one who can be the kisser with a valid and justifiable reason.

We can easily make the biggest and most plausible cases for both Miku and Nino. I won't reiterate these points that comprise said cases because they're littered throughout the last two or so pages of this thread.

[Hirayui]

Originally Posted by WingedAccelerator

Chapter 68: "I'm going to find that something that will make him fall for me."

She got recognized a chapter ago, she was even fine with the student and teacher relationship afterwards, because that doesn't mean that she can't change things or things will be the same between them forever.

If Nino's idea about kissing him to make him conscious of her make sense to you, then Miku going back and trust Fuutarou's LOVE power again in the last moments of the trip with a kiss in disguise, hoping that he finds her again, and if he does, the kiss could end up as that "something", should also make sense to you.

1. Here lies differences: You know Nino's motives already spelled out from story itself while Miku's motives simply because you rationalizing on something that doesn't exist inside story. That itself actually very big difference. For bell-kisser turned out Miku requires Author had to fill the explanation word by word on something that we don't have any slightest information on Miku's side. That also mean the author has purposely fooling us the reader which is sound pretty bad writing for me.

2. For Miku being Bell-kisser also require her conquer to her own courage which is again we don't any slight information of this. That means she did gain character development offscreen when her current self still unable to telling her true feeling to Fuutarou which again is sound out-of-character for her and pretty asspull for me.

3 Also there is big trivia that you guys ignore. Miku has pretty weak constitution. The author even deliberately draw her panel where she is panting her breath after simple mountain walk at start scrambled eggs. As what we know there is quite gap of distance between Fuutarou and the quints before the bell-kisser approaching him from FAR away. For Miku being Bell kisser require her to do some running and not panting her breath at all which pretty unthinkable for her character. Which is again sound very bad writing and asspull for me.

[MK-95-]

^You're placing too much emphasis on directness. Developments don't always need to rely on directness. As a matter of fact, authors who fail to implement subtlety and foreshadowing into their writing can only be described as amateurish because there's no depth or layers to their writing.

If you're going to discredit the other girls' chances and use "in Nino's case, X development was more blatant/direct than Y development was for Miku" as the crux of your reasoning, then you're looking at this from a very closed-minded perspective.

Do not confuse subtlety with mental gymnastics. Subtlety is when the author seamlessly weaves new plot developments/sub-plots or inserts minor details into their writing that becomes relevant or even game changing at a later juncture in the story. Mental gymnastics is when readers come up with convoluted and complex reasons to bend the writing to their will and try to give justification to otherwise unjustifiable arguments. With Miku, there's no mental gymnastics involved. There are hints and small details included in the writing that supports our arguments. We're not making shit up and Negi doesn't need to fill in anything, it's already there.

Tl;Dr, stop relying solely on directness as the core of your reasoning. It isn't the only method a writer can use for building a heroine. Going by your logic, then the Itsuki shippers should just drop this manga right now because any and every case you can possibly build around her involves subtlety... -_-

[WingedAccelerator]

^^
1. What you say here essentially is that since Negi spelled out reasons for Nino being the Bell Kisser, if Nino doesn't end up being the kisser, it's bad writing to you, because it's a misdirection, and Negi didn't show the information that lead to Miku, and any other non-Nino quint go for that kiss. Mind you, I gave you examples that similar things happened already in this manga. What you could hope is that the mystery here is that there is no mystery, which is usually not a Negi thing to do, but who knows...

2. Once again, the lack of information doesn't mean it's automatically asspull. MK already told you why Yotsuba and probably Itsuki as well would be asspull candidates, if you really want to use that word for the Bell Kisser's identity. But outside of this, Miku is possibly the quint with the least insight in the entire manga, one of the points some of us time to time address. Negi even posted a sketch about her called "mysterious girl". My explanation and what the others in the thread already said about why she could have done it seems pretty acceptable to me.

3. Don't twist her lack of stamina like she would just die from that distance. The bell was still in visible sight from Raiha after the incident, while the group was also close to Fuutarou before the kisser came. Miku had no problem running away from him as Fake Itsuki, nor does Fuutarou managed to catch her in Chapter 4, where she clearly run way more than the distance from the group to the bell before the exhaustion came.
And if her lack of stamina being fixed is an asspull to you, then surely you cross out Ichika immediately because of her leg injury, right?

I don't want to go for another round, cause I feel like we are running in circles. Just feel to accept or dismiss my opinion in your mind, and let's both of us move on from this topic for the time being.

Originally Posted by 256

I see what you mean.
Between the start and the end of the arc, the bell only appears when Nino is waiting for Fuutarou to arrive for their meeting, so I think that the possibility of Nino having the legend in mind is quite high.
Plus her fixation on doing it before the trip ends even when she had Papa and Grandpa in her way.
About the kiss itself. There might be many explanations.
Maybe the original plan was to kiss and then ring the bell? I'm not sure if she'd want to force Fuutarou to ring it with her. During The Legend that Binds she told Kintarou the whole thing and the implications. I don't think she would just try to trick, or force him to do it.
It's not like they know that those legends really seem to work, either.

Besides the letter, I was also thinking that maybe Nino and Papa have talked about something when he caught her that night.

I thought that the bell legend would work in Nino's favour, but now your interpretation has me worried, haha.

Thanks 256! At least some Nino fans not entirely dismiss anything that might go against her.

[amasposu]

Chapter 76:

Spoiler for 76:

Finally bought the newest issue of Shonen Magazine.

[256]

^^
Well, it's no use trying to hide from it. All I can do is to throw in some ideas and maybe someone else will be able to notice something I have missed.

So, I went back to check how the bell legend goes exactly and it's:
"The man and woman who ring this bell together will be bound together for eternity".

The image that pops into my mind after reading this is: a man and a woman holding the rope together (maybe even interlocking fingers) and ringing the bell while deeply looking each other in the eyes.
Unnecessary details aside, what I have in mind is the keyword "together".
Can Fuutarou ringing the bell as the result of slipping as the result of the quint leaning on him be considered as "ringing the bell together"?
It might be another failure in that quint's eyes.

Ringing aside, I'm wonder if the legend even took effect. In the case of the Legend that Binds we were reminded of it's words over and over again. Even the scene of quints holding Fuutarou's hand during the bonfire had the legend spelled out just before it.
There's nothing like that for the bell legend. It's never brought up since it's introduction and the bell almost never appears until it's ringed.

[Kuroageha]

Originally Posted by amasposu

Chapter 76:

Spoiler for 76:

Finally bought the newest issue of Shonen Magazine.

Was Fuu drugged I wonder.
Despite he mysteriously fell asleep during the test he got 3rd place while Takeda with cheats still lost to him. Dad acknowledges he is exceptional.

[WingedAccelerator]

Originally Posted by 256

Ringing aside, I'm wonder if the legend even took effect. In the case of the Legend that Binds we were reminded of it's words over and over again. Even the scene of quints holding Fuutarou's hand during the bonfire had the legend spelled out just before it.
There's nothing like that for the bell legend. It's never brought up since it's introduction and the bell almost never appears until it's ringed.

There was a theory I shared regarding this issue, where the theory crafter more or less depicted how the Bell Kisser girl won't necessary be the winner, and it contained solid points. One of those were the description of the legend not matching what ended up happening as the fulfilling condition if we take the description literally.

[Lex79]

Originally Posted by 256

^^
Well, it's no use trying to hide from it. All I can do is to throw in some ideas and maybe someone else will be able to notice something I have missed.

So, I went back to check how the bell legend goes exactly and it's:
"The man and woman who ring this bell together will be bound together for eternity".

The image that pops into my mind after reading this is: a man and a woman holding the rope together (maybe even interlocking fingers) and ringing the bell while deeply looking each other in the eyes.
Unnecessary details aside, what I have in mind is the keyword "together".
Can Fuutarou ringing the bell as the result of slipping as the result of the quint leaning on him be considered as "ringing the bell together"?
It might be another failure in that quint's eyes.

Ringing aside, I'm wonder if the legend even took effect. In the case of the Legend that Binds we were reminded of it's words over and over again. Even the scene of quints holding Fuutarou's hand during the bonfire had the legend spelled out just before it.
There's nothing like that for the bell legend. It's never brought up since it's introduction and the bell almost never appears until it's ringed.

Prophecies becoming true in an unexpected way is a very common trope and it applies here as well. Besides, at the beginning and end of the scrambled eggs arc it's stated that that time was Fuutarou's and the bride's first kiss. Only way to esxape this is that if we assume that the girl with him is not the real bride, but ilthat doesn't seem too likely to me.