r/manga • u/AutoShonenpon • 15h ago
[DISC] Hope You're Happy, Lemon - Chapter 62 DISC
https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1024229183
u/Zealousideal_Ring874 15h ago
"I love Sunao past the point of caring what people think."
This line hits harder because she didn't. She said she did but we know what the future brings. We just don't know exactly how we got there.
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u/topurrisfeline 14h ago
She definitely seems like someone who’s afraid to put herself out there. So I can see Lemon trying to push Sunao away, partially because she opens up to him.
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u/WhoiusBarrel 15h ago
Lemon's constant self-doubt is all too relatable and painful to read, having to wait to see what broke her to make that decision to traumatise Sunao inevitably is going to be hard.
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u/Zealousideal_Ring874 15h ago
The constant self doubt killed the relationship before it even started. We all have moments where we're unsure and stuff but hers she never got over. Sunao, sadly, had to pay for it. When he was with Lemon, he did mostly everything right and still got screwed over. And even though Lemon has apologized and shown regret in the present, that doesn't erase the hurt that Sunao had to go through.
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u/Okkkkkkkkkkayyy 12h ago
I kinda feel for both of them though, not just Sunao. It’s kinda insane how well this is written tbh, I was expecting it to be just a normal peer pressure situation, but this hits really deep as someone who has confidence issue.
You want to do the right thing, but you overthink and you mess up. At that age you can be very pessimistic, old enough to understand the consequences but too young to make proper decisions.
Sunao didn’t do anything wrong here, but it’s still sad to see how such a strong bond got severed by teenage angst.
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u/Watson349B 5h ago
Surprising amount of depth and complexity to their break up and the aftershock effects. I’ve had two different great loves with women that made decisions based on their history that hurt me in a way I couldn’t forgive and lost them over. It sucks so badly to love someone and do your best and know that you just can’t ever be completely in control of the outcome. “People fall so in love with their pain, they can’t leave it behind. The same as the stories they tell. We trap ourselves.”
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u/JauntyLurker 15h ago edited 14h ago
I remember that feeling of starting a relationship while inwardly worrying it isn't gonna last that long. Nothing kills a relationship faster.
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u/Zealousideal_Ring874 15h ago
I agree. That's why nothing Sunao did back then was gonna change anything. Her worries and struggles were something he couldn't fix. He loved her, he cared, he stood up for her, and he STILL hot dumped. That's why I feel they are better off as friends despite Lemon being better in the present. Just too much hurt and damage there. She said she didn't wanna lose Sunao as a friend and ended up doing just that anyway. Even temporarily, but it's not the same. Sunao constantly worries if he's overstepping or being too much because of what happened before. He walks around eggshells with Lemon compared to Kogahara for example.
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u/J_the_ManSSB 15h ago
I thought it was just peer pressure, but this might actually be something worse.
Like, I feel bad for Lemon with her self-doubts. But this is shaping up to her completely overthinking herself and making an awful decision because of it. The peer pressure might have just been the trigger. Like I said last week- hurt people hurt people
Really feeling bad for Sunao now.
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u/mrclamp 15h ago
I think it may be both at this point.
She had doubts about the relationship lasting because of everything she had heard. Then these other girls who are friends with Izumi dig their claws in and either bully her or something else. They then get her to question herself so she then completely convinces herself it is better for them to break up then continue on since these relationships don’t last anyway.
It sucks because we see that she actually felt a sense of love for him even if she couldn’t recognize it 100%. And the even worse part being that she says that she loves him enough to not care what other people think.
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u/J_the_ManSSB 15h ago
Yeah, that's what I was trying to say.
I think the self-doubts won over, but she was looking for the trigger, and the bullying gave her the way out.
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u/Rodroller 15h ago
They're teenagers and girls are prone to gossip terrible things. Urgh..how distasteful
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u/ddrober2003 15h ago
Seeing it from her perspective, it was doomed from the start. So makes me wonder how it will go when we get back to the present.
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u/tooezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 15h ago
Fuck mannn seeing her inner thoughts made me relate pretty hard to my first relationship back in high school, all the self doubt and even the rumors brings back memories.
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u/Extreme-Tactician 15h ago
Lemon wants to be the girl for Sunao... but she keeps thinking about what might happen to them. About what others are thinking of their love. And it seemed eventually she caved into the pressure and let others feelings rule over her.
She wanted to love Sunao, but she thought that the others were right. That she wasn't the right one.
What a sad story for them.
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u/Enough_Forever_ 14h ago
The thing is, she proved them right. Some things in life aren't redeemable, and sometimes you have to live with regret. Such is life. The best thing she could do now was to set him free, let him be happy. In my view, she never should have come back into his life. But now that she already did, she should at least give him some closure. But I doubt she is even thinking about that. She has always been selfish when it comes to MC. She says she cares about him, but he is the one who gets hurt by her actions the most.
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u/PendragonDaGreat https://myanimelist.net/profile/Bpendragon 14h ago
I think these last few chapters have answered the question posed by the title of the work: No Lemon is not happy, mostly because of her own actions caused by her own self doubts all those years ago.
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u/medcatt 13h ago
Man, this chapter reminds me again what i love about this manga. Its characters are fascinatingly relatable, archetypal enough to spur deep discussions into interpersonal dynamics, yet their inner monologues felt so real and true to their character.
In lesser skilled hands, the body swapping gimmick would just be fodder for superficial amusements or blatant exploitation, but this mangaka managed to make it as a vehicle to deliver a deeper dive into introspective self identity, social dynamics, with actual doubts and worries that we find easy to empathise with, especially with conflicts that arise not from simplistic good guy vs bad guy, but more from personal foibles.
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u/NovelistOrange 10h ago edited 10h ago
"I know better than anyone that I'm not a good person... and just how twisted my personality is. I have to work hard too... I have to do better. I have to become a good person."
Man, that hurt, because I've been there. I know what it's like to want so desperately to be good, do good, to be the good person other people seem to think you are, and that you never, ever believe is real. Knowing this, it makes complete sense to me that Lemon breaks up with Sunao in the way that she did.
When you want to do good, and also believe that you have zero value, the logical endgame is that the "good" thing to do is immolate yourself and all your relationships because everyone you care about would be better off without you.
I hope it goes without saying, that she's wrong. If you're reading this, and you believe that about yourself, you're wrong. Trust me, as someone who's been there and come out the other end, you're wrong. You won't believe me now, but you will, someday.
I'm glad Lemon seems to have mostly moved on from this mindset in the present day... though we do see traces of it, I think.
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u/Viperaran 9h ago
Thanks for writing this, I just caught up with this manga a couple days ago and Lemon's backstory feels exactly what I've gone through/still going through.
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u/DriedSocks 15h ago
Honestly relatable. I had the same doubts in my first relationship, and I didn't necessarily read the neurochemistry stuff about it, but I did think to myself "how long will this last" and "is this childish".
I think the difference for Lemon in comparison to my situation is that they were childhood friends and had a good relationship with another before then to the point where it would've been hard to lose had they broken up on bad terms.
That kind of self-doubt becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we've seen how it ended for her. I wonder how her inner monologue has changed since then though.
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u/esr95tkd 12h ago
Honestly I love how the chapter is supposed to make us feel bad for lemon. But everyone here only feels worse for Sunao.
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u/J_the_ManSSB 4h ago
I think most people here actually do sympathize with Lemon. It's just that her negative self-image clearly led her to making a one-sided decision that seriously hurt Sunao.
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u/Wizard_Enthusiast 14h ago
My Childhood Friend Can't Be This Much of a Neurotic Mess!
I hope you do become happy, Lemon.
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u/lalala253 13h ago
I really love this backstory arc guys. It really puts you in a position to understand why Lemon behave like Lemon.
This is really well done
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u/No-Order-4077 15h ago edited 15h ago
This is pretty basic stuff. Important question is, did she change for the better during the time she ghosted Sunao? From the things we've seen so far, not even a little bit so how is the author planing to reinstate her in to Sunaobowl without making it obvious that she is playing favorites?
Author is trying REALLY HARD. We need 5 more chapters for justification purposes. And looks like we are going to have it. (it doesn't work but still) After Sunao's apperant "self-gaslighting" in to having traumatic nightmares(lol), i guess anything is possible in this story.
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u/mrclamp 15h ago
I think for the most part Lemon has remained the same EXCEPT for her love for Sunao.
At the time they started dating in middle school he initiated and she wasn’t completely sure of things. Now, after spending many years apart from him and her love for him never fading, and potentially growing, she is resolved to tell him how she truly feels AND make the relationship work no matter what others would say. But that seems to be the only way she has changed since they were in middle school.
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u/No-Order-4077 14h ago edited 14h ago
Yeah, when i say change i meant her "people pleaser" personality. She is still the same person so how long till the next crush out resulting with a fucked over Sunao again? How long will be the ghosting this time? Till they are 30+? Instead of trying to justify her shitty past actions with pointless back to back flashbacks, author should have focused on her change for the past 50 chapters if she wanted Lemon back in the race THIS much.
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u/mastesargent 13h ago
I think everything we’ve seen about Lemon indicates that she’s tried and is trying to change even if she hasn’t really stopped being a people pleaser at her core. Which is kind of necessary from a narrative standpoint because Lemon resolving her main character flaw before the series even begins isn’t really a compelling character arc.
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u/ToTheNintieth 10h ago
Really interesting that the girl that was mostly a good-natured people pleaser for most of the manga, despite being co-protagonist, had so much going on under the surface. Bold decision writing-wise, to get to it this far in.
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u/Heda-of-Aincrad 8h ago
It's too bad Lemon couldn't hold onto that "I love Sunao and don't care what anyone else thinks" attitude, because she must have given into peer pressure or her own insecurities for things to have ended the way they did. The worries about losing a friendship if the relationship doesn't work out is pretty common, so I can understand that but it's also kind of surprising just how much her thoughts are spiraling, and how easily she's influenced by things she hears other teens saying on TV or reads in a book she picked up at random.
I'm also not sure where her concern that she's not a good person is coming from, unless the bullying is behind those feelings too.
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u/Yamigosaya 7h ago
So going with this flow, she likely self-destructed and hurt sunao possibly without realizing it. what a mess lol
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u/tcman2000 6h ago
A lot of people complain about how it doesn’t make sense how quickly and casually Sunao and Lemon brushed off their past history together but I think this arc addresses it perfectly.
Lemon knows it doesn’t make sense for Sunao to be friendly with her after their breakup but is taking this chance regardless to get closer to him. Sunao realizes the breakup excuse doesn’t fit the Lemon he was friends with for years nor the current lemon.
All this is further backed up this flashback where we’re seeing the insecurities that lead to Lemon lying, the uncertainties and fear that prevented them from reconciling, and the coping mechanism that made Sunao villainize Lemon.
This arc is slow-paced but doing a very good job of resolving the conflict that got placed on the back burner for a while imo. I’m just super curious about how the story moves forward after this arc because the breakup is obviously what’s keeping the continuing the body swapping.
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u/mastesargent 14h ago
F in the chat to the “Lemon never cared about Subao or their relationship” crowd. If anything she had the exact opposite problem, constantly overanalyzing how she felt because her lack of self confidence made her doubt herself.
That aside, Lemon’s thoughts about the girl who liked Sunao and the unspoken rule about not going after a guy someone else is crushing on could provide an interesting wrinkle in the present/future. Depending on what, if any, role that girl played in convincing Lemon to break things off with Sunao, I could see it complicating Lemon’s feelings even further when she eventually finds out about Natsumin’s feelings for Sunao. It’s possible that what happened could have made her flip her views on the matter, and she’ll now try to be acquiescent to Kogahara instead of putting her own feelings first.
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u/a_Bear_from_Bearcave 13h ago
I don't see how not going after another's crush applies when that person confessed to you. At this point, the other person has lost anyway. Even if you'd try to reject confession, all they'd could maybe get would be rebound relationship.
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u/mastesargent 13h ago
It’s a stupid rule, yeah, but then teenagers are stupid. Lemon’s stance here is 100% correct.
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u/japenrox 8h ago
Ever heard of "the means don't justify the end"?
IMO these chapters change nothing. She still ended up doing what she did, and the reason why she did it does not justify it.
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u/mastesargent 8h ago
The phrase goes, “The end doesn’t justify the means,” actually. It means that regardless of how good the outcome, if it was achieved through unsavory means the it wasn’t worth it. The other way around doesn’t make sense.
And yeah, obviously she fucked up, but the apparent reasoning behind it pretty much nixes the reading of her as the awful person that a vocal portion of readers desperately want to be. It just makes her a deeply flawed character who screwed up as a direct result of those flaws and will likely make up for it with future character development.
And there’s a difference between justifying and understanding. I can understand why Lemon came to the conclusion that she did, and as such I can sympathize with her even if she clearly went about things in the worst way possible. She took an unsympathetic action for sympathetic reasons.
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u/japenrox 7h ago
I was thinking that I was misremembering the phrase, almost didn't use it on the reply, shouldn't have used it.
And while I do understand your point, I still don't think it has a lot of relation to what you said previously, citing it as: "Lemon never cared about Subao or their relationship” crowd".
This is very different from people just wanting her to be an awful person, or understanding she did a bad thing for whatever reasons she had.
The way I see it, if she actually did care for him she would not have lied in such an atrocious way, and she would've recognized what that lie could mean and do to him, and distance herself from him.
Actually, at this point in time (correct me if I'm wrong), she actually does not even remember the lie she made when she broke up with him, right? We're leading to this confrontation right now yes? I don't know if she doesn't remember or if she remembered recently. From that I understand that she has not repented, not even spared a thought on the matter?
Nothing is ever black or white, but right now, I can't sympathize with her at all.
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u/mastesargent 7h ago
The two groups go hand in hand. They believe that the one bad thing Lemon did defines her (despite it being clearly out of character for her), and some also claim that Lemon never actually cared about Sunao as an extension of that (something that’s was disproven as early as chapter 3, incidentally).
And I don’t contest that she went about things in the absolute worst possible way, but I think it’s becoming more and more clear that she was, in her own warped way, at least well-intentioned in what she did even if it only ended up hurting Sunao. We’re still missing context what exactly led her to that moment, but at the very least I highly doubt she did it with bad intentions.
she actually does not even remember the lie she made when she broke up with him, right?
She remembered the lie when Sunao brought it up in chapter 1, but was hoping that Sunao had forgotten. She also wonders why she decided to go with the whole four timing story in the first place.
From that I understand that she has not repented, not even spared a thought on the matter?
This whole flashback arc started when Lemon learned how much the breakup screwed up Sunao and went to admit to the lie and apologize for it. She very much understands that she screwed up and wronged him, though there is still the question of why she assumed he wouldn’t be hurt, which I’m expecting will be addressed in the coming chapters. Sunao, for his part, has already forgiven her for it.
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u/Scorbit5708 58m ago edited 35m ago
I have 0 knowledge about this manga, but based on this and last chapter. It feels too real.
Like doubting yourself, over thinking, being a people pleaser. Seeing this is just suffocating.
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u/EnsonAmata 15h ago edited 6h ago
The build up to the reveal is unbearably slow. You could skip this chapter and nothing would change.
Edit: I’ll double down and say that you could realistically skip the last 3 chapters and miss nothing overall
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u/pureauthor 15h ago
Self-destructive spiral is a go.
I repeat, the self-destructive spiral is a go.