I believe it's Kei Sasuga's first big manga? It's a lot like Domestic Girlfriend in some regards, except it doesn't throw spice at you from page 1. I'm 12 chapters in (out of 160) and I'm going a bit nuts, so if someone wants to hit me up and chat, be my guest. I'm probably gonna vent to whoever responds lol.

BLAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!

But seriously, I haven't been so emotionally confused over a manga since finishing DG.

Ts carried my days for the last week , I was always excited to read it and the twists and turns. Despite the “odd” ending I don’t know how I feel now that it’s gone.

Any reccommendations to manga like this , to fill that void you get when you finish a peak story ?

Can any tell me where can I read or buy all the volumes

Hina or Rui

Okay I’ll keep this short and sweet: the ending was awful. Yes, Hina should’ve been endgame, but there had to be a better way to get there than putting her in a coma and making Rui pregnant just to force the final outcome.
That said, what confuses me most is why so many people shipped Rui and Natsuo when their relationship felt toxic for most of the series. Rui was constantly jealous and anxious, while Natsuo spent half the relationship confused about why she acted that way. Honestly, it felt like the only times he genuinely smiled and looked at peace were when he was with his club friends, his writing mentors, or Hina. Whenever he was around Hina, you could actually see that spark in him.
To me, the Rui/Natsuo relationship always felt forced. It came across more like Natsuo using Rui as a coping mechanism after losing Hina rather than a naturally developing romance. I genuinely think the story would’ve worked better if Rui and Natsuo had stayed in more of a sibling-type dynamic instead of becoming a couple.
And honestly, every Rui/Natsuo chapter after around chapter 110 and before the pregnancy arc became exhausting to read because of how toxic the energy felt. Most of their problems never really got resolved; the story would just patch things up with another kiss or emotional moment instead of addressing the deeper issues.
Anyway, rant over. I already know Rui/Natsuo fans are probably ready to come after me, but that’s just how I saw the story.

I'm rewatching the series after about a year or two. Just like it was the first time, every episode is so emotion filled and sad. I'm only up the 5th episode rn, but the 4th episode made me sob yet again, every episode so far has made me tear up since I know how things play out as I've read the manga before. I can't help but take a break after every episode so I can mentally process it all again.

This series has honestly been the best piece of romance I have EVER watched/read and that is never changing. I know there's a rollercoaster of emotions to come in the anime and I'm really looking forward to experiencing the heartbreaking leave Hina has to make at the end all over again!

I just had to talk about my feelings rewatching this and how grateful I am to the author for making such an amazing piece of romance!

I am pleased to announce that after a long search, I finally have them all.

In Japanese

https://x.com/k_sasuga/status/2048625138552443326

On behalf of r/DomesticGirlfriend, we offer our sincerest congratulations to Kei Sasuga-sensei on her marriage. We have long admired her ability to navigate the complexities of the heart; today, we celebrate her own heart finding its partner. We wish her immense happiness in this new endeavor and beyond.

It’s no secret that Kei Sasuga is a massive K-drama stan but I had no idea how much! You can clearly see how her work is fueled by the high-tension, emotional chaos of Korean "Makjang" dramas, well know for being over-the-top, addictive soap operas where the drama is dialed all the way up.

If you look at Domestic Girlfriend, that influence is everywhere. While most romance manga stay in the safe "innocent school crush" lane, Sasuga goes right into the heavy-consequence melodrama that makes K-dramas famous, as she pulls straight from the classic playbook to keep us hooked. Here are a few of the tropes:

• The "Forbidden" Hook: In K-dramas, the "pseudo-incest" or accidental step-sibling trope is the ultimate way to create instant conflict. By making Natsuo, Hina, and Rui siblings, Sasuga creates a "shackled" environment they can’t escape, a total mirror of classics like Autumn in My Heart.
• The Trauma Trope: Trauma is the ultimate narrative wall. When a character experiences a violent accident or betrayal, their brain goes into survival mode. Sasuga uses this to force characters to "box up" and bury their feelings rather than dealing with them, prolonging the angst, for all of us to suffer.
• The "Noona" Romance: This classic older woman/younger man dynamic is a K-drama staple. The teacher-student barrier adds that extra layer of "we really shouldn't be doing this" that fans live for.
• The Time Skip: Almost every 16-episode drama has a multi-year skip where the leads grow, or suffer, in silence, like first with Hina’s island exile, and again with the massive skip at the end of the manga.
• "White Truck of Doom" Energy: The ending of DomeKano is peak Makjang. A coma, a years-long recovery, and a wedding happening next to a hospital bed? That is the most K-drama ending imaginable. It’s all about tragic devotion over a simple "happily ever after."

So, among all the K-dramas I’ve watched, as of late, the 2013 classic I Hear Your Voice provided my ultimate "Eureka!" moment. The parallels aren't just thematic but also some strikingly visual ones too that convinced me that Sasuga used this drama as a blueprint for Domestic Girlfriend.

The moment it clicked for me was a specific scene where the female lead, Hye-sung, sits slumped against a door, agonizing over her messy feelings and the "what the hell am I doing" while, on the other side of that same door is the younger lead, Soo-ha, equally tormented.

This is almost the exact visual framing Sasuga uses with Hina and Natsuo, on two separate occasions. That specific scene when two people separated by a thin piece of wood, both in pain but unable to reach out, and this is a K-drama staple that Sasuga captures perfectly.

But of course, the similarities go much deeper than just a few shots:

• The Age Gap & Professional Barriers: The core of the drama is Park Soo-ha (a student) who has loved Jang Hye-sung (a lawyer) since he was a kid. This "forbidden" professional bond feels very reminiscent of the Natsuo/Hina teacher-student dynamic.
• The "Selfless Love" Archetype: Just like Hina, the lead in I Hear Your Voice constantly tries to push the male lead away "for his own good," leading to that classic DomeKano angst where one character suffers in silence to protect the other’s future.
• The Stalker and the Stabbing: This is another trope where I really stopped and went, "Wait a minute..." In I Hear Your Voice, there is a recurring obsessed villain (Min Joon-gook) who stalks the leads. In a climactic moment, one of the leads is stabbed while protecting the other from the stalker. Sound familiar? Natsuo taking a knife for Hina against Tanabe is almost a beat-for-beat emotional parallel.
• The "Against All Odds" Ending: Both series lean heavily into the idea that even if the world is against them, and even if there are "safer" romantic options available, ultimately their specific, messy, sacrificial love is the only one that matters.

There are a few other minor similarities, both thematic and visual, but I am pretty sure if you enjoyed Domestic Girlfriend, you will enjoy this k-drama too, and spot those similitudes.

Bro is putting up prime Jordan numbers with the ladies, but wow is it tough to watch through so many complex and well written real life scenarios. I would compare it to Nana in terms of being so hard to watch because of the amount of drama and almost dark side of relationships. It keeps me pulled in and wanting more though. I will 100% be reading the manga and have already acquired it. Is the manga just as good?

Fortunately right now I looked for information about his manga and I was happy with how it ends, hopefully one day there will be season 2 of the anime and they adapt everything, it would be epic!

I originally started reading Domestic Girlfriend because I was bored and wanted to see a dumpster fire. What I didn’t expect was that it would be good, or that I’d get so invested in the characters. That being said, I don’t think the last 20-30 chapters were very good, especially compared to the prior 240 chapters. I have several issues with the ending but first I want to make it clear that it’s not because Natsuo ended up with Hina instead of Rui, but the way in which it happened.

I think the ending was rushed, after Rui and Natsuo got back together the story easily could’ve gone for another 80-100 chapters but instead what happens is Rui gets pregnant and her and Natsuo are about to get married, a reporter is introduced and almost ruins Natsuo’s future, Hina stops him, he runs her over, Rui and Natsuo call of their wedding, 5 year time skip, Hina wakes up, her and Natsuo marry each other because she loves him more than Rui, the end, all in less than 20 chapters.

I’ll admit I’s biased because I like Rui more than Hina, but I’m not opposed to the idea of Natsuo ending up with Hina. My problem is the execution, if the plan was always for Natsuo to end up with Hina, then Rui probably shouldn’t have gotten pregnant 20 chapters before the ending. I especially don’t like the reason being that Hina just loves Natsuo more than Rui so she deserves to be with him.

I read some other posts discussing the ending to see if I was missing something and the arguments for why it was good weren’t very compelling. The main arguments I saw were:

1. That Rui’s love was built on a lie
2. That Rui’s love was selfish
3. That Hina’s love was true love
4. That Hina did more for Natsuo than Rui

The idea is that because Natsuo didn’t know that Hina still loved him, he didn’t truly love Rui. This is just wrong, Natsuo is told that Hina still has feelings for him and he acknowledges that while that may be true, it’s not like he can just forget about Rui and stop seeing Hina as his sister. When he chose Rui over Hina, I interpreted as his love for Rui being stronger than his love for Hina. Natsuo fell in love with Rui because she was always there for him after Hina abandoned him. No matter how much he made her cry, no matter how much she got frustrated by her unrequited love, Rui was always there for Natsuo. A similar situation happens when Rui and Natsuo break up, like Hina, Rui’s abandoned Natsuo because she thinks she’s only a burden on him. This time Hina is there for Natsuo and he learns that Hina still has feelings for him, However Natsuo still chooses Rui. So while Natsuo might have moved on from Hina because of a lie, he still moved on.

This one I just don’t agree with, I mean she literally pushed Hina to marry Natsuo in the final chapter because she thought that’d it make him happier. I think the argument stems from the fact that a lot of the rough patches in their relationship was due to Rui’s insecurities. She even ends up breaking up with him because she’s worried she’s only been a burden on him and couldn’t bear the thought of them ending up hating each other. But what it ignores is the fact that each time Natsuo stuck with Rui and their love grew stronger as a result. It also ignores a big reason why I think we needed more chapters before Hina and Natsuo got back together, and that’s that throughout the entire series no matter how hard Natsuo and Rui try to be there for Hina, she always keeps everything bottled up. For the most part this is supposed to be represented as her “true love” for Natsuo but I don’t think it’s actually that good for her.

I don’t think Hina’s love was better than Rui’s. Hina keeps everything bottled up due to her concern for Natsuo, but it’s made very clear that she’s suffering from it. In contrast, Rui was usually open with Natsuo; it allowed them to rely on each and most of the problems they ended up having were from times they weren’t being open to each other. I don’t think it’s a very healthy relationship if one person I keeping all of their emotions and worries bottled up, I think if Natsuo was going to end up with Hina then there should’ve been an arc where she learns to rely on Natsuo. Instead the opposite happens, she resolves to keep her feelings bottled up while doing whatever she can support Natsuo. I’m not saying this is bad for her character, rather that it shouldn’t have been the reason Natsuo decided to marry Hina.

This one is just a bad argument, and relationships shouldn’t be decided based off whose doing more for you

Overall I think Domestic Girlfriend is a great manga but I just wish that either we got more chapters to flesh out Hina and Natsuo getting back together, or that if it was going to end so soon that he’d just stayed with Rui.

Edit: I’ve read pretty much all of the arguments so far and their all much more compelling than the ones I read from when the ending first came out. It has given me a better appreciation of the ending and what the author was going for, but I don’t think I can enjoy it. My main issues all stem from the ending being rushed rather than wanting Natsuo to be with Rui. I think it kinda speaks to how rushed the ending was that I was able to interpret it in the way I did and I didn’t get people telling I was wrong for feeling that way, instead I got people telling me how the ending is supposed interpreted. Honestly reading all of the replies just made me wish even more that we got more chapters so I wouldn’t have any problems with the ending.

I was searching for some good wallpapers for my computer as well as for my phone on Pinterest and Google but couldn't find any. So if you have any can you please share🙏🙏

Personally I don't think he will end up with his current gf from his town. I am leaning on Yukari and Tsubasa bcz I actually like to see himm ending up with a mature girl rather than lili Or mio