History Webcomic / RedString

* AbortedArc: Most of the characters not named Miharu, Reika, and Fuuko had their open story arcs cut short to end the comic early. By the author's own admission, she had intended to continue several of these open arcs in side stories similar to Maya's, but they were cut for time.

* AllThereInTheManual: The Maya subplot is resolved in the short story "Maya's Match," though this isn't that important to the progression of the main story. However, Hanae's backstory, which ''does'' get some cursory nods in the continuity, is in "Hanae's Story". Both stories were sold as premium downloads through the site's store, but these no longer exist and it’s unclear if they were ever included in the omnibus editions.

* ArrangedMarriage: The title couple, as well as several others.

* BishieSparkle

* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: Eiji and Reika.

* {{Delinquents}}: Miharu is called this but she isn't really one. Actual delinquents ''have'' been shown and Miharu's original high school apparently has a reputation for attracting them.

* HollywoodPudgy: InUniverse Hanae thinks she is, and she is drawn as heavier than most other characters. Fuuko doesn't have a problem with her weight, though, and the only people we actually see calling her fat were being jerks, so all in all it's something of an aversion.

* InformedAttribute: Despite many people in the story and even the author herself declaring that Makoto possesses the noble trait of "self-sacrifice", he is ''never'' shown actually doing this. He relentlessly pursues Miharu while she is engaged and even when trying to make things with Karen work is clearly still using Karen as a pretense to keep spending time with Miharu. [[spoiler:Even the presentation of him quitting his job at the restaurant at the end is not a sacrifice since it just frees him up to date Miharu full time. Plus his parents have already ensured he will have no actual repercussions and in the original script, were even paying for him to travel the world with the girl his quit his job for.]]

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: With the loss of a dedicated home for Red String, all of the side stories not included in an omnibus edition have disappeared entirely. This includes all of the 18+ materials.

* NotWhatItLooksLike: Ken'ichi's skanky fiancee Aiko comes on to Eiji to make Ken jealous. Eiji is freaked, but Reika takes it the wrong way when she and Ken'ichi walk in on them. Then she slaps Eiji when he tries to explain. Pretty par for the trope, actually.

* SatelliteLoveInterest: Yosue Makoto is a controversial character due to lacking a well-defined personality aside from cooking, jewelry making, and obsessively pursuing Miharu [[spoiler:to the point of unexpectedly quitting a stable job with good prospects in order to one-up a rival for Miharu's affections.]]

* TheirFirstTime: Constantly teased with Miharu and Kazuo, after numerous distractions prevented them from it. They finally did, spurred on at least partially by Kazuo secretly being upset about his father wanting him to break up with her. He still did, the next day. This storyline later received even more attention from the author with the publication of Bound XOXO, an adult short comic showing the scene in greater detail.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl -

After a site crash in 2017, the comic and its entire archive went offline. Eventually in 2019 the official website came back but only to advertise the published omnibus collections. You can see those [[http://redstring.strawberrycomics.com/ here]]. Biggs announced she would not be restoring the Red String archive so at this point the only way to read the comic is to buy the books.

* AllThereInTheManual: The Maya subplot is resolved in the short story "Maya's Match," though this isn't that important to the progression of the main story. However, Hanae's backstory, which ''does'' get some cursory nods in the continuity, is in "Hanae's Story". Both stories are sold as premium downloads through the site's store.

* LoveDodecahedron: Between numerous unrequited emotions and marriage arrangements, there's a lot of still unresolved love issues. Even the title couple has complications that pop up throughout the series, at points leaving them up in the air and the readers guessing.

* NoBisexuals: Subverted. The story appears play this straight when Maya hooks up with Yuuki instead of Fuuko... but completely reverses it when Maya's lingering feelings for Fuuko continued to wreak havoc on her relationship with Yuuki. The short story, "Maya's Match", eventually resolved this plot arc. [[spoiler:Maya ends up with her male gym teacher after graduating, but only after seriously dating several men and women during college.]]

** [[spoiler:Makoto originally made no mention of how he was going to afford to quit his job and fly all over the world and wine and dine with Miharu. This led to the obvious conclusion that his parents were basically letting him quit a job they'd invested a lot of money and time into and were on top of that paying for him to screw off with the owner's daughter. This was changed to Makoto saying he had "savings".]]

* ParentExMachina: Makoto's parents seem to exist solely to remove any potential obstacles to his one goal in life--dating Miharu. [[spoiler:Pushed to its ultimate extreme in the finale when they, off-camera, arrange for Makoto to quit his job, have another chef take his place, buy the restaurant, and pay for him to date Miharu full time and travel restaurants around the world with him. Without him even needing to hold down a day job.]]

* PerfectlyArrangedMarriage: Initially played straight... until Kazuo is forced by his father to break up with Miharu. He initially resists, but one punch later and he breaks up with Miharu. They have yet to get back together and suddenly Makoto and Miharu are ''significantly'' closer than before.

* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Kazuo and Miharu.

* UptightLovesWild: Miharu and Kazuo's relationship.

* AlphaBitch: Sayuri Morita, although later a FallenPrincess. Sayuri was once [[FormerFriendOfAlphaBitch best friends]] with [[CoolLoser Miharu and Reika]] up until the end of their middle school years, when she became jealous of them after they landed an appearance in the [[FictionalCounterpart ''Kyoto Walker'']], a popular teen magazine.

* SenpaiKohai: While Biggs by and large forgoes most Japanese {{Honorifics}} she retains this one. The other one used is Reika's nickname for Miharu, Mi-chan.

* CosmicDeadline: In the midst of the final chapter, the author announced a firm end-date to the comic. Many story elements, including entire unresolved character arcs, were dropped and relegated to [[TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised epilogues found elsewhere]] in favor of a controversial settling of the OfficialCouple.

* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The early end to the comic's run resulted in many [[AbortedArc Aborted Arcs]] being relegated to other mediums.

* AlmostKiss: Teased a few times between [[EveryoneCanSeeIt Reika and Eiji]]. Luckily, TheyDo later.

* TheyDo: Reika and Eiji eventually get together. Also, Kazuo and Miharu finally have sex after several misses [[spoiler:and break up the next day.]]

* SempaiKohai: While Biggs by and large forgoes most Japanese {{Honorifics}} she retains this one. The other one used is Reika's nickname for Miharu, Mi-chan.

[[caption-width-right:300:[[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters This isn't even half the main cast.]]]]

Along for the ride is a [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters gigantic cast]] of supporting characters including friends, family, and schoolmates, many of whom have their own complicated relationships and love-lives. The series shows the struggle against the traditionalist Japanese culture, Miharu fights to retain her independent spirit while succeeding in a society that frowns upon change and individuality.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: To the point where the vast majority of them suddenly and inexplicably dropped out of the strip in the final two years, several of them with their plot lines unresolved at all.

* HairColors: Averted - everyone has normal hair colors. Abnormal hair colors are clearly stated to be through dying and bleaching. Miharu's own hair color becomes extremely significant to her character development - being forced to have black hair again became a symbol of Miharu's loss of identity and a victory of the establishment against her. Then her freedom for the summer is heralded by bringing back the blond.

* SchoolgirlLesbians: Fuuko felt this way towards Maya, leading to massive drama as Maya tried to work through her own feelings towards Fuuko. Fuuko later moved on to an actual intimate relationship with Hanae when she changed schools.

* StripBuffer: The only reason Gina kept her work from falling prey to ScheduleSlip for so long was her open policy of writing at least three weeks of pages in advance. Notably, in the final year of the comic and her sprint to the finish line, this completely vanished and Gina switched to rushing the pages out mere hours before they were scheduled to update, leading to many criticisms of the sudden plunge in what had once been a consistently good art style. By the end, Gina literally never knew how much she'd be able to write, and Kazuo's epilogue was literally an afterthought thrown together at the literal last minute.

** Maya and Fuuko, though this took on some other qualities as the SchoolgirlLesbians angle developed.

** By the end of the comic, Miharu became this for Makoto. Any personality traits she had had before their hook up vanishes and she turns into a limp noodle that caves to Makoto's wishes, no matter how absurd. In the end, Miharu became the very thing she didn't want to be: a nail that gets hammered down.

Can be found [[http://redstring.strawberrycomics.com/ here]].

* AccidentalHandHold: Miharu and Makoto [[http://www.redstring.strawberrycomics.com/index.php?id=1269 brush hands while reaching into the same snack bowl]]. They then embark on a hot and heavy make-out session.

* JerkAss: Kazuo's father Kenta, a rude, abusive asshole who mistreats virtually everyone in his family and whose sole motivation in life seems to be getting richer and more successful by any means necessary, including forcing his son to break up with Miharu so he could marry into a richer family. The fact that he ''fails'' at these objectives and still abuses his family only rubs in his general unlikeable nature. He's [[http://www.redstring.strawberrycomics.com/?p=3205 outright stated]] that he doesn't care much about Kazuo because he views him as useless.

** [[http://www.redstring.strawberrycomics.com/?p=3486 And Hanae's mom too.]]

* NoblewomansLaugh: Morita does this in a [[http://www.redstring.strawberrycomics.com/?p=769 flashback strip]]. Fits her personality.

* ShipperOnDeck: EVERYONE for Reika and Eiji.

* ParentExMachina: Makoto's parents seem to exist solely to remove any potential obstacles to his one goal in life--dating Miharu. [[spoiler:Pushed to its ultimate extreme in the finale when they, off-camera, arrange for Makoto to quit his job, have another chef take his place, buy the restaurant, and pay for him to date Miharu full time and travel restaurants around the world with him. Without him even needing to hold down a day job.]]

* NumericalThemeNaming: The Hayashihara brothers fall into this, not too uncommon in Japan: Ken'''ichi'' (Strict, One), Ei''ji'' (Honor, Two), and Saburou's name just means third son.

* KarmaHoudini -

* InformedAttribute: Despite many people in the story and even the author herself declaring that Makoto possesses the noble trait of "self-sacrifice", he is ''never'' shown actually doing this. He relentlessly pursues Miharu while she is engaged and even when trying to make things with Karen work is clearly still using Karen as a pretense to keep spending time with Miharu. [[spoiler:Even the presentation of him quitting his job at the restaurant at the end is not a sacrifice since it just frees him up to date Miharu full time. Plus his parents have already ensured he will have no actual repercussions and in the original script, were even paying for him to travel the world with the girl his quit his job for.]]
** Ironically, Kazuo's flaw is described as him being too willing to let others control him. In other words, Kazuo actually ''does'' practice the concept of self-sacrifice to the point where he actually sacrifices the things he loves most in pursuit of a magical solution that will keep everyone around him happy even if he is not. And unlike Makoto, he has nothing to show for it at the end of the comic... which seems to suggest that [[BrokenAesop giving up things for other people is a terrible trait to have and being completely selfish is the more noble trait to have.]]

* EasilyForgiven -

* CompassionateCritic: Kenta really seems to think that belittling Kazuo will make him into the man he wants him to be.

* CosmicDeadline: In the midst of the final chapter, the author announced a firm end-date to the comic. Many story elements, including entire unresolved character arcs, were dropped and relegated to [[TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised epilogues found elsewhere]] in favor of a controversial settling of the OfficialCouple.