GraPara Fans Furious After Latest Chapter Shows the Heroine Betraying the MC

Nishikida Keishi and Katsura Airi must hate their readers because of what they did in the latest chapter of GraPara. This is an ecchi romantic comedy manga (very ecchi) that began serialization in 2023.

GraPara tells the story of Shinobu Sumida, an otaku obsessed with gravure idols. One day, completely unexpectedly, he ends up living together with Sakura Katsuragi, a rookie gravure idol.

And what is the story about? Well, within the gravure idol industry there are many perverts, photographers, managers, and producers who want to take advantage of these girls. Sumida ends up watching over and protecting the chastity of his “beloved Sakura-chan.”

So we already have it established that the story is about a guy protecting a rookie gravure idol from being “devoured,” which is very typical of netorare stories.

And now we arrive at the latest chapter of GraPara, and spoilers, he failed to protect Sakura-chan. Pay attention because I won’t refer to the characters by name (except Sakura), but by nicknames. They are:

• The protagonist
• Sakura-chan (the gravure idol and the protagonist’s girlfriend)
• Glasses Girl
• Playboy

One last warning, I only read some of the early chapters and the most recent ones, so I don’t have the full context.

What happened? For context, the protagonist starts living with Sakura-chan, who becomes a target for various perverts, but until then he manages to protect her virginity. At some point in the manga the two begin dating and, from what I saw people saying, the protagonist takes her virginity.

In the most recent chapters, the protagonist ends up saving Glasses Girl from being “devoured” by another guy in the industry who only wanted one thing. Glasses Girl knows both the protagonist and Sakura-chan, and she is in love with the protagonist.

Because she loves him and is grateful that he saved her, Glasses Girl kisses the protagonist on the lips. At that exact moment Sakura-chan sees them together and runs away, convinced that the protagonist has been cheating on her for some time, which is not the case. And before you start insulting Glasses Girl, she did not know that the protagonist and Sakura-chan were dating.

The protagonist and Glasses Girl start searching for Sakura-chan, who eventually meets up with the “Playboy.” From the context I understood, he is a guy who has wanted Sakura-chan for a long time and couldn’t wait to steal her away from the protagonist.

And he succeeds. Sakura-chan approaches the Playboy and tells him that “he was right,” that the protagonist has been cheating on her, and she starts crying. Being the Playboy that he is, he takes advantage of poor Sakura-chan… finally, the betrayal happens. While the protagonist and Glasses Girl are wandering the streets and calling her phone trying to explain everything, Sakura-chan is lying in another man’s bed, ignoring her phone and being held by the Playboy.

And the result of this chapter? Disappointed readers saying they will drop the manga, that nothing good can be expected from this author, and that Sakura is a complete disappointment.

Below are some reactions. They are mixed, okay? There are reactions from Japanese readers (whose link I lost, I’ll add it later) and reactions from MangaDex.

• It took about 129 chapters for the author to finally satisfy their fetish.
• They finally did it, I can finally drop this garbage… I feel bad for the protagonist.
• WOW, just WOW. Congratulations to the protagonist I guess, at least you got her first in a netorare manga.
• Sakura belongs to the streets.
• I hope the protagonist ends up with Glasses Girl.
• This trash is finally going to end.
• I doubt anyone expected pure love from this author.
• I love pure love and hate netorare.
• I don’t understand Katsura Airi’s popularity.
• This is why netorare has no appeal, it’s just stupid women being stupid.
• Dropped.
• I’m disappointed with the chapter. I can’t believe that in the end she really cheated on him. Sakura, whom I always liked and defended, ended up being put in an embarrassing position. What a disappointment.
• There’s no defending this.
• Congratulations on destroying the heroine.
• Technically it’s only netorare if she keeps going back to this Playboy.
• I wouldn’t call her a wh*re, just an idiot.
• She’s both. Even idiots know cheating is wrong.
• This manga is a real piece of garbage, isn’t it?
• Seeing people theorize that this manga’s author is a woman actually makes sense, because the protagonist is pathetic and this author must hate men, which is crazy to me. If she hates men, why didn’t she make a yuri manga instead?
• Sakura’s reaction will be hilarious when she finds out the protagonist never cheated and that she’s actually the cheater.
• Have you seen the reaction from netorare fans? Everything is on fire because this wasn’t netorare, it was plain and simple cheating. They want the author’s head on a stick.
• So the author managed to anger two fanbases? People who like netorare and people who like pure love? That’s stupid.

Anyway, there are many comments, more than 1,000 comments from both English-speaking and Japanese readers. This chapter irritated the vast majority of people.