After the skip it suddenly turned a questionable romance with Rin developing feelings for Daikichi. It was rather out of the blue (although some would say otherwise) and ridiculously rushed. Not only that, but the mangaka put in a rather flimsy excuse that Rin is not actually blood related to Daikichi. I can only guess the mangaka did that so it wouldn't offend too many people of 'incest'. The problem for me is not the age gap, but rather the fact that somehow Daikichi transformed from a parental figure into a romantic one in Rin's eyes.

i personally think the way the mangaka portrayed rin's feelings to develop in to love for daikichi was understandable. the way things turned out kinda just make it seem like it was something that would just happen, especially after the obviously frustrating mess between nitani liking rin but messing up, and daikichi liking his mom, since it'd be weird either way that worked out. so this happening as a result is kind of oddly normal in a super not normal way (not normal being how they have a parent child relationship). i think if you read the manga without bias or any thought of how typically this is taboo, you can kind of just let things mesh and see how strangely naturally the mangaka makes the development kinda just work.

TRUE! Or at least in my case it was... Rin and Daikichi DO get married. Ugh... but as mind-blowingly disturbing this is, I'll first state the positives and emphasise that, before the ending, the time skip half of the manga is not a complete train wreck!

Positives:
1. Everybodys characters are believable grown up. Rin is mature and smart as expected, Reina sweet and a bit on the thoughtless side, Kouki (although his character design took a bit of getting used to at first) is also believable. Daikichi coud definitely have used more screen time but the parts where he shows up are the highlights of the chapter imo (plus, his involvement in Kouki's life serves to show how much of a surrogate father he becomes to Kouki too).
2. Yes, another "high-school" manga *groan*... BUT it surprisingly didnt hold the endless Festival-Christmas-Valentines Day madness as shoujo mangas normally thrive on. Instead, the kids actually spend most of their time studying! Lol, can it be more realistic? :P
3. The way the romances for Daikichi/Kouki's mom and Rin/Kouki was dealt with. I think its safe to say that everybody was rooting for both these pairings (the former more than the latter maybe; Kouki's feelings for Rin felt more like puppy love to me). I was really sad when both pairings decided they couldn't be together, but I felt it was dealt with in a very mature way. Daikichi and Kouki's mom agreed to put their kids before themselves, reminding one that in reality all romances hardly ever get their happy endings, and in Rin/Kouki's case, it serves to show their strong trust in each other when they manage to easily fall back into their sibling-like relationship, and that for them its always friendship first, love second.
4. More on Masako and whats happened with her recently which proves really interesting.
5. Despite the *cringe* feelings that Rin starts to develop for Daikichi, I really empathised for her. Definitely confused, torn with herself, had not the ending been executed as poorly as it was I might have forgave her her state of affairs considering she realized the implications of it fully and didn't even want Daikichi to find out in the first place.

And now... to the negatives (in order of negative-ness!):
1. Kouki's mom remarries. WHAT?! After saying that she felt too old for marriage and too taken up with Kouki to even consider it, WHY would she remarry anyway? No sufficient reason is given for it and I feel that its just unfairly put forth by the mangaka to give her character's relationship with Daikichi some sense of closure so he can "move on" to Rin.
2. Kouki actually encourages the relationship between Rin and Daikichi. This was really horrifying to me, especially the line he gives to Daikichi, "Better you than Yunohara (orwhateverhisnameis)". HOW CAN IT BE BETTER THAN THE OTHER GUY?? Daikichi is as much a surrogate father to Kouki as he is to Rin, so this pretty much killed the character of Kouki for me somehow...
3. The ending. Sigh, well the closest I've come to this sort of a relationship in any other manga is in Inuyasha, with Sesshomaru and Rin. Now that I've read the ending to this manga, I can *now* totally understand why some fans of Inuyasha hated the idea of the two becoming romantically involved with each other when Rin grew up (I was all for it :P). But given the quality of execution in Inuyasha, I feel its safe to say that I'd have loved if Takahashi showed them ending up together anyway, and I'll tell you why. Sesshomaru, no matter how kind he becomes towards Rin, never REALLY is the father figure missing in her life the way Daikichi is towards this Rin (lol I just realized I've been talking about 2 Rins all along here, sorry for the confusion ^^;). So yeah, Daikichi, even when its proven that their blood relation doesn't exist (where did that come from all of a sudden? O_o), and despite the fact that I don't have much of a problem with age gaps in relationships (hey if you could stomach the Souichi/Masako relationship way in the beginning, you could stomach this too), is still for all intents and purposes Rin's FATHER! And then Daikichi's response towards Rin... ugh totally killed his character for me too. Where's the resistance? Why this sudden caving in and whats your reason for loving Rin that way now *two years gap be damned*??? People say they should have shown more romantic gestures towards each other like kissing and holding hands to justify their new relationship, but I disagree. Given the talk abt pregnancy in the last chapter, I was disturbed enough about it without adding a kiss or two between the couple.

The story started out very good. The plot was heart warming, lots of nice details, lots of appropriate occurrences to capture the readers. I was absolutely in love with the story at the beginning.

Some may say the second part of the story ruins it. I wouldn't agree (not yet). The second gives us a more realistic story as the characters have grown. Lots of us would also want some developments and stories to satisfy our curiosity. If it ends with just that, even if it's a meaningless plot, I'd still love it.

But no, the author has to make it into a romance with a huge age gap. Honestly, the age gap isn't an issue. The issue is the original relationship that the characters have with each other, before the 2nd part & the end. I felt utterly betrayed and horrified by the thought that I'd have romantic feeling to my own father and be married to him, who took care of me since I wet the bed.

I felt so betrayed that I haven't even re-read the story to give it another chance...

The ending is capable of being justified on Rins part, thats fine and dandy. But Daikichis decision made no sense. It was basically an "well Im single anyway, doesnt matter that I consider myself her father." No, if you have that mindset about someone it should not change. Also, I usually dont bring science into manga but considering people are citing woody allens rather...special case here: Psychologically this doesnt work. They have done studies proving that living with someone raises contempt. This is one way nature keeps us from inbreeding.