My Cuteness Isn't Understood By Kuroiwa Medaka - Chapter 205

I usually don’t write any comments but I felt like sharing my thoughts after catching up to the latest chapters.
I think this manga had a lot of potential early on, but somewhere along the way — especially after Tomo fell in love with the MC — that potential started to slip. This will be a slightly detailed comment, so read only if you have the time.

My thoughts on characters :

Mona
I genuinely disliked Mona at the beginning. She came off as overly manipulative, attention-hungry, and obsessed with validation. A lot of her early interactions felt shallow, and the heavy fan-service (panty flashes and all) didn’t help her case either.
But as the story progresses, I slowly started liking her character — once you look past the fan-service. At her core, Mona isn’t a bad person; she’s just a girl who has grown up relying on her beauty, charm, and cuteness to gain attention and make people fall for her. That validation became her identity.
What makes her arc work for me is that while chasing her desire to make the MC fall for her, she ends up genuinely falling in love instead. And through that, she starts realizing something important: she doesn’t actually need everyone’s attention — she only wants the attention of the person she loves.
That realization leads to real growth. She begins changing, not to be more desirable to the world, but to be better for Medaka. Her feelings don’t feel forced or convenient; in fact, her falling for the MC feels like the most natural and appropriate romance in this manga.

Medaka 
I honestly feel Medaka had more personality in the early chapters than he does now. Initially, his monk background gave him strong self-control and emotional discipline, which made his resistance to Mona interesting and believable.
As the manga progresses, though, that depth fades. Instead of actively struggling with his feelings, he mostly suppresses them using his precepts. Whenever Mona does something meaningful for him, he doesn’t reflect or respond — he just shuts down emotionally.
What bothers me more is how he handles the other girls. They openly throw themselves at him, and he passively accepts everything. The Asahi kiss is the clearest example — she forcefully kisses him on the lips, and he shows almost no reaction, no boundaries, no self-respect. He just takes it.
This feels especially off because the manga has already shown that Medaka is aware of his feelings for Mona. At that point, his complete emotional passivity doesn’t feel like restraint — it feels like he’s become a wooden log for the sake of keeping the harem dynamic going.

Tomo
I genuinely dislike Tomo as a character. In my opinion, she’s one of the worst kinds of friends you could have. She knows very well that Mona is genuinely in love with Medaka — possibly for the first time in her life — and yet she still chooses to pursue him.
What makes it worse is that Tomo isn’t unaware or conflicted; she understands Mona’s feelings clearly. Despite that, she falls for the MC over something as simple as advice and proceeds as if that emotional betrayal doesn’t matter.
This shift felt abrupt and unnecessary to me. Instead of adding meaningful drama, it weakens both her character and the emotional weight of Mona’s arc. For a childhood friend especially, her actions feel hard to justify.

Asahi 
I actually liked Asahi at first. She came off as cool and cute, and the rivalry between her and Mona added some decent drama. Early on, she felt like a refreshing contrast.
That changed once the reason for her feelings was revealed. Her “love at first sight” moment — falling for Medaka because he helped her pick up some papers — felt extremely weak. At that point in the story, Medaka was an average-looking guy who barely talked to anyone. Her falling that hard, that fast, felt forced rather than organic.
I was still willing to overlook that, but she completely lost me once she started crossing boundaries. Inviting Medaka to lunch, blindfolding him, kissing him on the cheek — and the MC somehow not realizing what happened — already felt ridiculous.
Then chapters 199–200 pushed it too far. She forcefully kisses him on the lips, and Medaka, once again, offers no resistance. And after all of that, they go on a date days later because she wants an answer. At that point, it stops feeling like romance and starts feeling like the story bending itself just to keep the harem going.

What I Think Could Still Save the Manga

Right now, Medaka is on a date with Asahi, and honestly, this feels like a make-or-break point for the story.

The simplest and most meaningful step forward would be for Medaka to properly reject Asahi — not by hiding behind his precepts again, but by clearly saying he’s interested in someone else. After everything that’s happened, especially the forced lip kiss, anything less than a direct rejection feels unrealistic.

From there, I think it would make sense for Mona to find out about the kiss and the date through rumors, since it happened in public. Earlier in the manga, Mona wasn’t very jealous — she was competitive. When she first learned about Asahi’s kiss, her reaction was basically, “Then I’ll kiss him too,” which led to the beauty pageant moment.

But the recent chapters show a shift. Mona is no longer just competing — she’s genuinely jealous and emotionally invested. This would be the perfect time for her to finally break down, get hurt, and start distancing herself from Medaka altogether.

That distance should be the trigger Medaka needs. Instead of passively accepting everything, he should finally notice her absence, grow impatient, and actively approach her — not as a monk suppressing emotions, but as someone taking responsibility. A proper confession, where he makes it clear that he rejected the others and that the kiss wasn’t consensual, would feel like real character growth.
If the story doesn’t go in that direction, then honestly, it might as well commit fully the other way — have Medaka accept Asahi and own it. At least then the manga would stop pretending he’s emotionally restrained when he’s really just avoiding consequences.