Looking back in this, I feel like it's clear that Sasuga intended Hina to be endgame. But I feel like she wrote herself into a hole that she couldn't get out of. She gave us a hundred chapters of RuixNat that, personally, were the best for me. Then the fucking breakup--which I understood and let slide. But the issue was that instead of focusing on setting up Hina for the endgame, we got Misaki/Miyabi/Kajita/Togen/Reporter. Then she fucking brings back Rui, and the worst part is that there's an unexpected baby. I think the baby is what pisses me off the most actually-- I probably wouldn't have minded this ending and Rui bowing out. As it stands, Natsuo's children will be sibling-cousins. What a fucking mess.
Exactly. It was just too much side-tracking. You can't have a character who says for a 150 chapters "red is my favorite colour", just to switch to "blue is my favorite colour!" for the last five chapters.
I love Sasuga's art, and I have a lot of respect for her as a mangaka. I'm just so disappointed the more I look back on this. Natsuo KNEW Hina still had feelings for him before he went to NY (Shuu told him) and he consciously CHOSE Rui. There were no threats to life, babies, or anything of the sort. Then all of a sudden, in one chapter, he flips to Hina just became Kobayashi (bartender) reveals Hina's still in love with him? I cannot see this as a win for Hina fans either because it feels like he's with her out of pity. Either way, at this point, they deserve each other. All I want is for them to leave Rui out of it so she can go and find her own happiness.
Well..."we got an ending" I would say :D
It's not that I can't live with Hina "winning", probably because of how angry it makes those "over the top" Rui-fangirls who praise her for no reason at all. What makes this such a bad ending is that it was just one turn too much.
After Rui broke up with Natsuo like a self-centered bitch...sorry, getting carried away here...anyway, after she broke up with him, there were three choices: Getting back with Hina, getting back with Rui, getting together with Serizawa. Author choose to get him back with Rui, which was fine and kinda cute and everything. But then bloody stick with that decision and don't make a last second change back. It's weird and uncalled for. If you have such trouble deciding for a girl (or just were fed up with fans liking another of your characters more than "your maingirl") just write different endings for each of them.