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[JoveusMolai]

Does anyone else think that this manga's pacing is too fast?

 

Not to say that the manga is bad overall--just the first chapter got me absolutely hooked, and Yaotsukumo has already made itself one of my most favorite mangas of all time. But...

 

I do feel like the author could have paced everything a bit better. Going from "Girl suddenly finds out that the supernatural is real, she's some sort of magical McGuffin, and has a weird immortal guy following her around" in chapter 1 to "Girl and best weird immortal buddy go into the spirit world to reclaim their humanity" in chapter 7 is rather...quick. The characters, I feel, could have been more developed (or at least more slowly developed) if the author had made the events from chapters 1-8 take place over the course of, say, 30 to 40 ish chapters instead. Example:

 

Prologue/Chapter 1: Tsukumo meets Yao, finds out she's the Tokijiku, encounters the supernatural, and barely survives said encounter.

 

Arc 1: 10 or so chapters. Tsukumo wakes up in the hospital, and comes to realize that last night wasn't just a dream, and there really is  this weird, glum immortal guy constantly following her around. Tsukumo finds Yao to be stuffy and overbearing, Yao finds Tsukumo to be reckless and irritating, but over the course of several days (which includes a tsukumogami attack or two) they find out that the other isn't so bad. Relationship status by the end of arc: begrudging respect.

 

Arc 2: 15-20 chapters. Tsukumo is out of the hospital and starts going back to school. Yao gives off mixed impressions with his initial greetings ("He's really serious and weird...BUT OMG TSUKUMO HAS A BOYFRIEND OMG OMG"), but somehow or another he settles in. Conflict arises when Yao's overbearing nature/Tsukumo's reckless nature butt heads again, over Tsukumo asking Yao to teach her how to use tsukumogami powers (on her first try, she doesn't understand the extent of her powers and bad stuff happens, Yao yells at her for it, they fight). Conflict is sustained over Tsukumo feeling frustrated over being unable to reconcile the Yao she remembers with the Yao of today, and Yao feeling guilty over Murasaki's death and projecting that guilt onto Tsukumo via overbearingness. Throughout all of this Tsukumo (and thus the audience) learns about the nature of the Tokijiku, the nature of the her family, and what Yao exactly is to the Maiden. The rest of the arc is about Tsukumo and Yao learning to trust one another. Sprinkle tsukumogami encounters. to taste. Relationship status by the end of the arc: mutual trust, friendship.

 

Arc 3: 10 or so chapters. Near the end of the previous arc Tsukumo finds out about the spirit realm, and begins to lose aspects of her humanity, starting with her sense of taste. Somehow or another she finds out more about the spirit realm (maybe she goes to the Tachibana house and meets the people there, gets dressed up as a pretty princess, etc.), and finds out that the gate to the spirit realm is right at her school. Cue misadventures in finding out exactly where the gate is and how to open it. Meanwhile, as Tsukumo finds out more about Yao's past, and as Yao opens up more and more to Tsukumo, they start to develop a bond. By the end of the arc, Tsukumo finds out/decides that the spirit realm holds to key to restoring her and Yao's respective humanities. The climax of the arc is Tsukumo declaring that she and Yao will become human together, discover the gate, and experiencing the flashback from chapter 8 that shows us exactly what happened to Yao and Murasaki. Relationship status by the end of the arc: deep friendship, hints of romantic feelings. 

 

Arc 4: Spirit realm adventures. 

 

And so forth.

 

As you can see, the example above follows more or less the plot of the 8 chapters we've got so far, but spread across more chapters, giving the audience more time to get to know the characters, their struggles, their feelings about each other and their current predicament.