Greetings everyone! New here. Read the comic initially in the past but I guess I felt a little too sympathetic for Gary back then. Now been catching up with all the chapters since the start for the past 3 days or so (do, ho, ho, 5 years worth of reading in 3 days).
I'm lately depressed quite a bit, so I'm afraid I may not have appreciated the humor from every situation, but I do believe that given the characters are meant to be involved in a scenario that's more or less meant to be a comedy we shouldn't be too serious with their motivations or hard on them.
Nevertheless, certain things can rub is in the wrong way due to personal values and as such we're likely to wish some characters bad >:)
As far as characters go, I'm currently afflicted with a strong bout of Zii hatred/dislike, which may be a little uncommon, but honestly.
The girl gets taken in without much question by Gary simply because she seems fun, he immediately gets her a job just so she can support herself in sharing the rent, and... what happens.
Let us see. I recall her promising to get him some ladies, while in fact the initial 100 strips or so she's busy tapping everything that moves, cock-blocking him and attempting to get him to become homosexual or bisexual to get real life eye candy and masturbation material. Heck, she's even content doing stuff to an attractive married woman while leaving him outside along the way, and she inexplicably stops Didi from trying to fix the issue. While Gary's lack of spine and interpersonal skills is an issue, I seriously doubt he's immature enough to take what's happening the way she feared it'd go.
The only chick she ever sends Gary's way is someone she's already banged twice, and that's without telling her most of the story so essentially it'd be cum and go once Sonya realizes how much of a poor sex-starved virgin Gary is. Gary doesn't even lose his virginity through her help; he does so because he manages to find one girl who doesn't mind him respecting her and being kind to her. What's more, Zii, like other characters, cannot stand the notion that Gary might've pleased someone more than she did, so it's pretty much *guaranteed* that she'll try to sleep with whomever he forms a relationship with and she finds attractive.
And then what do we have. She enters a relationship in which she leeches of her boyfriend's resources after coming to the conclusion that she's going to kill him for having kissed another girl, and a little bit further along the way she fires the "Oh my Gosh I never desired anymore as much as you Didi!" cannon. I don't know if Eric is lucky to have seen it and be able to realize what is going on, or whether I should feel sorry for him for another kick in the manhood (Yup, the person his girlfriend most desires is the girl who dumped him through a text).
In short, Zii's one giant emotional screw-up that's only worthy getting Yuki with worse psycho issues than she has had earlier, not one that is better.
She has enjoyable traits, but as far as I'm concerned, that's a little devil right there. I do keep in mind that she might've honestly wanted Gary to also "learn to take care of things" on his own, like she suggested during their car drive, but so far the gist of her underachievements goes to her. It'll probably pass, and she's still a pretty fun character to read about SOMETIMES, though she is way too lucky with all she does compared to most characters save for Yuki.
I share a similar dislike for Yuki. I think after Gary-Yuki relationship I do not even have to explain why. Another reason why the most I feel for Gary these days is this weird wish for him to get better mixed with pity.
Now, there are certain characters I've come to like over the course of the comic, though.
- Amber! There's something cute about a redeemed pornstar and about how she immediately realizes how fucked up Gary's relationship situation is and tries to fix things (even if she mistakes Didi for Yuki and thus overestimating her opponent). She does have her flaws , mostly being a little bit selfish and an airhead in the beggining (trying to bed her way up at the start, fooling Gary, *not* managing to stop Dillon from intervening with her "helping", etc.). I wonder how things would've gone if she hadn't mistaken Gary for a bi-curious homosexual/homoflexual/bisexual person... and if she knew just how bad the entirety of his situation was! It should be noted that parts of her "flawed treatment" of Gary does come from her knowledge of her friend being in love with him. Also other than Yuki, Sonya, and Kiley (and, well, Dillon) she's the only character that has serious intentions of having a relationship with Gary instead of a short sexual adventure.
- Senna, currently. She's like a transsexual, less geeky, more sympathetic (yes, I've said it) Zii-type lil nympho. It's clear she appreciates "nicer" guys, has a slight towards-guys bent in her sexuality so far (at least when shown in MA3), and she provides a lil bit of comic relief just by being herself (which is, unfortunately, often the entire point of transsexual characters in fiction). Plus, it appears she also went through the effort of learning at least a little about him/his interests while flying over to Paris (though she was pouring alcohol into him at the time), and still retained a decent degree of interest in him.
Unfortunately for Gary, she also has other qualities - while apparently quite affectionate, she also shares this affection *way* too freely, basically jumping from flower to flower in a Zii-like fashion (it seems her interest in Gary may be dropped or superseded by another as fast as it happened), and while not lying to people she tries to bed about herself, she clearly has no trouble taking advantage of lowered inhibitions (though by that time, her own inhibitions are lowered as well, and Gary clearly is attracted to her beforehand and doesn't regret *too much* afterwards). If she indeed turns into a complete "Bang and discard" type a'la Zii my sympathy here will probably be lost. On the other hand, nothing wrong with being sexually liberated in and of herself, and if Senna goes in a little more "fair" direction instead, we're good.
-Didi! Poor is the girl who realizes she is not bisexuelle, but is denied orgasms more than Gary's denied a virginity loss! She portrays quite well what happens when an overall regular, but somewhat ditzy and non-mindful of other's people's feelings, person gets gifted with a little *too* much attractiveness and physical gifts. She proves she's really sympathetic on most occasions and it's been long since she dumped someone by phone... which is kind of her way of trying to be fair, while still obsessively pursuing the release she craves - if only she remembered she should respect others' feelings enough to do it face to face... I kinda want to see if the much craved sexual release will push her in the right direction or the wrong one! I do kinda feel sorry that her and Matt never got to do it properly. Similarly to Senna, the sympathy may be lost if her "flaws" continue to be shown in certain ways.
- Dillon. Really, the only problem I have with him is that he didn't let Amber bang Gary's brains out like what was much needed by that point. He's promiscuous and his feelings for Gary guarantee he won't *always* have his best interests in mind, but he's also caring and attempts to do the right thing for his friends even if it compromises him. He's also the only character whose efforts actually help Gary (oh the swirly!), regardless of how much he intended this to be the case.
- Kiley. Despite (me) being male, she's the character I identify with over Gary emotionally, which may in turn not say good things about my sanity. Also she's the only girl who actually wanted to pursue a relationship with him, save for Sonya whose attempts were doomed from the start, after seeing both his good and bad points (Yuki never really had sex with him, and neither did Amber, plus Amber knows remarkably little of him). Not to mention, surprise devirginization of our male lead (or, well, that's how it felt like in the beggining) was a very fun move ^^
- Eric. Why? Despite his flaw of being ridiculously rich, he turns out to be the only normal one of the group (maybe Sandra and Junghan deserve the title too). Good relationship with a sister, tries to be independent, realizes that initially Zii is much better for him than Didi was, and yet dumping her sorry ass as soon as she deserved it. And HE'S ALL RIGHT WITH MMF THREESOMES!
Sorry for any potential wall-of-text treatments brought by this post
