First story done! I'll compile these after the second story is done, so I'll leave these be for now. Also after reuploading the first chapter...
Hopefully you enjoyed this first story. Now we're moving on to the good stuff. Oh and tell me where I screwed up so I can fix it(except the two dot ellipsis, not changing those)
While a very real possibility for wealthy families that could easily become a real world event, those parents still disgust me. I understand the reasoning, especially when that much money is involved but gods, it gives me the chills at the levels they'd go to to attack their own freaking DAUGHTER is mind boggling
Fuuga tells great stories but this is the second translated work in a row with some weird ending issues. Here it's dropped the parents are the ones harassing their daughter (including KIDNAPPING HER), the grandpa wasn't really as big a douchebag like they built him up to be, and while the twist of there being an actual inheritance is fine; the motivation of giving the inheritance to the same people tormenting her (ie the parents) is baffling. They physically assaulted her, kicked her out of their place (in the disguise of moving for her protection) so they could ransack what she left/her room, and then broke into their own family member's house and trashed her stuff there too.
It's not even really explained why we're supposed to feel bad for the parents other then they're "sick". Does that mean for the money? Physically? Mentally? If it's "sickness" for money how in the world is giving them it going to solve anything? Now they'll just turn on each other for it. Are they drunks? Druggies? They clearly don't give a crap about their daughter at all. I guess it's to show how good of a person Karen is. They are despicable people but get rewarded for it in the end for...some reason not very well explained. And worse, she says she feels bad for them and wants a relationship with them. Good lord. It's practically a battered abused child situation but not treated that way narratively.
And if you're the boyfriend/cousin/husband why would you go along with this? Money aside, you're just sitting idly by while she's being treated like absolute garbage and gives the people tormenting her everything they want and you just shrug? The hell?
@Hawk86 Karen was never assaulted unless you count the van. She seems to have developed a persecution complex from the events before the start of the story which would color her perception of everything. And Karen herself says that she could be wrong about everything, I know it's weak but it does make it unclear if those were actually her parents.
Her parents' sickness was never clear even in the raws, it sometimes even jumped from the mother being sick to both of them being sick. My best guess would be some sort of stress disorder, but who knows...
I think the problem with the endings being weird is there wasn't enough time/chapters to tell the story fully. Ani to Imouto no Jijou had split personalities/memory disorders and Daisuki na Hito has inheritance issues, topics that need way more than 4-6 chapters to resolve.
@iridesyo I'd say kidnapping her counts pretty strongly as assault. Even if they never intended to hurt her, they still took her and were physically searching her and her things before they were stopped by Naoki. Unless we take Karen as an unreliable narrator of events it's pretty clear it was the parents who did everything (or most of it) and she knew the entire time.
It sucks because the last two stories have been well executed until the endings. Fuuga's work until these has been pretty spotless if sometimes contrived. Here Fuuga has similarly done amazing work until the final bit where here it's flat and Imouto's ending was just baffling on every level.
@Hawk86 Can't really argue with you there, when I was TLing both of the endings I remember thinking "Really? That's how they wrapped it up?" to myself. My guess for the Imouto ending was trying to save the characters for future stories but that''s about it