YMMV / There's No Freaking Way I'll be Your Lover! Unless…

• Base-Breaking Character: Mai is the biggest one. Some fans find the way she tries to be compassionate and romantic while remaining smug to be amusing and enjoy the depths given to her characters. Some readers, however, can't stand her arrogance, feeling she is too self-centered to be in a romantic relationship, and arguing that the attempts to show her more sympathetic side are just there so the series can pretend her worst flaws aren't real flaws.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Self-deprecation is a real problem and Renako's character arc is all about her surpassing it. Still, she comes up with such creative and over-the-top metaphors to describe how inferior she feels, it's hard not to laugh at them.
• Growing the Beard: Reactions to Volume 1 were... divisive, to say the least. The plot centered around the bet between Renako and Mai is seen as either a inventive way to develop their relationship or a contrivance to get two incompative characters together so the plot can happen, Mai is a huge Base-Breaking Character, and the attempted sexual assault at the climax of the volume wasn't handled very well. Still, readers who remained for the following volumes tend to have better opinions of the series, especially after Volume 4 was released. Expanding the scope of the plot to the entire quintet instead of just Mai and Renako is seen as a plus because it allows the author the explore their characters in new ways that wouldn't be possible with just the two, and the net of relationships between five friends is given lots of attention, instead of just focusing on the feelings all the girls have for the main character as some Harem Series do. Finally, Volume 4 showed the series can handle more serious subjects like Renako's self-deprecation, which is explored in detail in this volume.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • The ending of Volume 3 caused a war between Renako x Mai shippers and Renako x Ajisai shippers to erupt.
  • There are also plenty of discussions about whether Satsuki should be shipped with Renako or with Mai.
• Ship Mates: For Renako x Ajisai shippers, the easy solution for romantic entanglement of the series is for Satsuki to end with Mai, thus leaving Renako "free".
• Viewer Name Confusion: All the fan-translations spelled Mai's surname as "Ozuka" but the official English release uses "Oduka" instead. It is indeed pronounced with a "Z", but the official one is consistent with the old Nihon-shiki system. The confusion comes from how, due to Language Drift, in modern Japanese, the "d" is pronounced like "dz" or "z" when followed by "u", so it can also be romanized this way.
• Woolseyism: In the Italian translation of the manga, Renako's "There is no way!" Character Catchphrase is rended as "Mai e poi mai!", literally "Never and never!" but also alluding to the fact she's indeed attracted to Mai.

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