User blog comment:Jopjopjop/Volume 18 Spoilers/@comment-16281343-20140623041636/@comment-4829046-20140623172016

Quite right. DOWN WITH ZE EDITORS!!! >:)

And yeah I know, I just brought up the usual cockblock pattern in harem series. I have said this before, I don't want to expect too much from Ise since he is still in High School and yet has to deal with all this crap. Realistically, the guy should keep the time for his harem management till later. But then you are reminded that this is an action shounen not even seinen and so focus is battles and such and most probably it will end when his high school life is over so I want at least SOMETHING cementing the harem route before then. Currently I don't know where this might go despite it being 18 volumes in. Other series with similar or greater number of volumes at least gave a rough idea. Zero no Tsukaima made it certain that the two mains were meant for each other and whichever ending could never destroy that pairing and couldn't result in a proper harem ending, since his thoughts would be on her and not always the others. Toaru Majutsu no Index put it so that Touma might be forever alone, at least romantically. While he has a big harem, he doesn't particularly love anyone nor is he wishing to get "intimate" with them. According to observation though, if he does choose, only 3 are available for having most chemistry and unprejudiced tolerance for him.

Now Ise's problem is that he is in a more troublesome situation but strangely he can make it work better if he plays his cards right unlike other examples. He does have the capacity to pay attention to each one equally and most probably does in his free time, just that this isn't a super slice-of-life heavy series and Ishibumi shows it in considerable instances. If these novels were written and published under different circumstances, then maybe we would have gotten more than this.