Spotted Flower

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I don’t get why Spotted Flower makes everyone so upset, this shit is amazing.

Okay, maybe I do understand. It’s the messy one, a questionably-canon take on the Genshiken cast in their thirties working, having kids, and keeping in touch with one another. Maybe a little too in touch. This is a manga to remind Genshiken readers that the author’s first love was not otaku culture, but cheating dramas. And it’s so much fun for it.

Genshiken’s unspoken forte has always been in depicting the complicated emotions of those who have feelings towards their friends and will not ever share them, just letting it all stew forever ... instead. There’s some real bittersweet interiority there, and Spotted Flower is kind of an entire manga of that! Some of the romantic relationships are swapped around so that the losers from Genshiken actually ended up with who they wanted to. Are they happy now? Well, sometimes. Either way, a giant web of cheating and drama ensues. If Genshiken is het, and Genshiken Nidaime is about yaoi, then Spotted Flower is the yuri one. Few can truly appreciate all three, and in this case being able to do so is a sign of a balanced media diet and good taste.

A lot of people treat the actions of the Spotted Flower cast as completely out of character to their Genshiken incarnations, but I think it’s all pretty grounded, as long as you able were able to grasp everyone’s unvoiced desires and not just what they were saying to each other’s faces. Also, did you really think that the crossdresser everyone had sexuality problems with *wouldn’t* be a homewrecker. If this was a big enough betrayal that your scanlation group dropped the manga, then that’s on you, sorry.

I wouldn’t care about this kind of drama if it was all characters I’d never met before, which is why Spotted Flower's ties to Genshiken are so important. It’s a space where we can witness these characters finally acting on their desires, come what may. It’s liberating and hilarious and made my jaw drop more than once. Another direct Genshiken sequel wouldn’t have made sense – we’d be so many years removed from the original cast that keeping them around at all would eat into their own agency. This is the best-case continuation.

To me, Genshiken has always been about experiencing a college friend group kind of ferment and evolve over time, as people join and graduate and reach new stages of life at different paces. Eventually, more than a few people begin to have Realizations about sexual orientation and gender, there’s ingroup crushes, and things get messy. I’ve lived this! Which makes it so cool to see reflected in media. And while I can’t say that the exact sequence of events in Spotted Flower have happened to me, I maintain that it’s far too maligned for what it’s doing.

If you are into harsh turns of events, then this manga might be something for you.. otherwise most likely not.

The story follows a lovey dovey married couple who are expecting a baby. It mostly focuses on the issue that the husband can't get excited over her anymore, which entails many funny situations of how his wife tries to change this. Nothing too dirty or oversexualized though.
The couple is cute, characters have a nice chemistry together, it is a light read without requiring you to follow deep interactions or some complex storyline... if it wouldn't be for the (currently) final chapter, which simply throws everything ... over board.

Said plot twist left me with a bitter taste about the entire story, so that alone already was a big minus for me. What troubled me the most though, was that (at least from what is shown about the characters so far) that turn of events felt completely out of place for me. Sure, a good plot twist should be unexpected, but it should not go completely against a characters behaviour up to that point, unless there would be a good reason to it.

Was a pretty enjoyable "Alternate Universe" spin off story, but not as compelling as the author's other works. Started to fall in love halfway through until the author decided to take a COMPLETE left turn and jump the shark in the last couple chapters.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say it completely ruined everything up to that point and kind of bothers me now knowing it is hinted as being a future into the Genshiken storyline.

Even if it isn't canon it leaves a bad taste in your mouth for sure. :/

I'm hoping this is just some bad bizzaro timeline ... and that Kio develops it more, though I doubt it'll make up for how much of a slap in the face that twist turned out to be.