YMMV / We Never Learn

• And You Thought It Would Fail: After the mixed to average reception towards the endings of Uruka, Rizu and Fumino. There wasn't much excitement for Asumi's ending, which was not helped by her lower popularity compared to the other girls. However, it ended up being more well-received than theirs due to the drama surrounding the story, better pacing, and chemistry between the two leads to the point even fans of the other heroines admit it is the best one.
• Arc Fatigue: The same as in the case back with Nisekoi: For every actually plot-relevant chapter, an average of 5 romance- and fanservice-laden filler chapters are added that serve solely to draw out the manga by relying heavily on cases of Contrived Coincidence and Poor Communication Kills. Even the original main plot point of Ogata and Furuhashi wishing to succeed in fields they aren’t talented at has been shoved into the background.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Mafuyu Kirisu. She’s one of the most popular characters in the series ^note Coming in first place in the first two Japanese popularity polls (the second one by an absurd landslide, having 5 times more votes than second place, and more votes than everyone else combined) and 2nd in the American one. but also the most divisive.
    • The split comes between those who find her increasing prominence to be the source of the Arc Fatigue of the series and her Ship Tease to Nariyuki to cross into the No Yay threshold, and those who feel like she’s the character with the most depth and the best spotlight chapters. They also say her shiptease with Nariyuki is more tolerable because they are always told to wait until he is older and out of high school.
    • On a smaller scale there’s also debate over whether her character would’ve been better as an antagonist like her earliest appearance or if her more comedic/romantic appearances are the better portrayal.
  • Takemoto was initially popular as a love interest due to being in love with Nariyuki the longest and having a lot of interesting and attractive traits (such as her earnest desire to go overseas and her extreme femininity), but fans debate whether they could still root for her after point-blank denying she likes Nariyuki when he asks her and her unwillingness to bring up her crush for chapters after that. And when she became the first winner before the Multiple Endings were announced and the fanbase exploded.
• Bizarro Episode: Chapter 119 throws the story’s realism out of the window by having Yuiga traveling back in time after Mafuyu crashes into him, with her breasts pressing against his face. Somehow, he ended up when Mafuyu was still a high school student and they go on a date at an amusement park. After returning to the present the same way, he believes that it was all a dream until he noticed a photo of them at the roller coaster, with Nariyuki’s face conveniently out of frame. Not even Mafuyu remembers who was her date back then.
• Broken Base: The concept of the Multiple Endings at all. Some fans were enthusiastic about it, thinking that it was a good opportunity for all of the main love interests (including those who would ordinarily be brushed aside in a typical romcom of its generation) to have a fleshed-out romance, and when the routes did happen appreciated the idea that their paths ended up so different. Fans against the endings saw them as a cowardly refusal to commit to an intended love interest, and the lack of heroine interaction outside of a few routes made some fans upset.
• Crack Pairing: The final chapter shows almost all the female side characters in the series being caught up in the festival jinx with the heroines and Nariyuki, giving the impression that any of them could have a route with him (or even with each other). Especially weird is that among them is Chinami Umihara, who is explicitly Kobayashi's girlfriend.
• Fandom Rivalry: In just its initial year, it quickly had one with Haruba Negi's The Quintessential Quintuplets (Weekly Shonen Magazine), as both the male protagonists are in an almost similar position (both are poor and tasked with teaching girls in order to support their family). To top it, both series got anime adaptations 3 months apart in 2019 (Winter for Hanayome, Spring for Bokuben), with both adaptations later receiving second seasons as well.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Blue Fumino" and "Black Fumino" based on her early and present series designs having different hair colors. It's also a way to distinguish her personalities during those eras.
  • Because Nariyuki has so many blushing and vulnerable moments, some western fans took to calling him "Moeyuki". His early series characterization gets called "Manlyuki", as well as when he gets more serious.
  • Fans also tend to refer to Kirisu as "Sensei" near exclusively. Asumi is likewise called "Senpai," but not as often.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Even though Rizu is a part of Nariyuki’s Unwanted Harem, you’re much more likely to find fans rooting for her to end up with Sawako. It’s noticeable that as time went on, Rizu’s focus chapters progressively contained less romantic development with Nariyuki and more teasing of Sawako’s feelings for her. Even the arc where Ogata 'wins' is focused more on Sekijo.
  • Although Sawako is mostly shipped with Rizu, there is also a portion of the fandom that ships Sawako with Nariyuki and think that she could be interesting as another heroine due to how good they get along.
• Growing the Beard: Started off rather slow. Then Chapter 18 happened with Fumino realizing she’s in a harem rom com and acting as a mentor to Yuiga. Then Kirusu and Asumi are introduced to round out the harem, and it becomes a hit.
• Memetic Loser:
  • A pocket of fans have made Uruka this, in light of the multiple routes. While a lot of buzz was had about her being Nariyuki's chosen girl, it quickly turned to mockery when she was revealed as the first route of five, starting a lot of "1/5" jokes concerning her and her route. She was also the only one of the girls to not receive a specialized Route cover for the tankoubons (although Tsutsui did make one for public use) or an audio drama, giving her the short end of the stick there too.
  • Rizu became the target of many barbs for being the "most boring" and "least developed" of the heroines despite being the first one introduced, a situation that exponentially worsened after her ending focused less on her and more on Misao and Sekijou. She was quickly mocked for not being interesting enough to carry a romance, and her ending was dubbed the "Sekijou Route" by fans.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Yuiga/Moeyuki is best girl.^Explanation Nariyuki is unusually adorable for a male harem lead, which combined with his kindness, devotion, and skill at domestic tasks makes fans joke that he'd be a better wife than any of the female characters.
  • Fumino's Dull Eyes of Unhappiness ^Explanation In chapter 28, Fumino undergoes a three-panel transition◊ from joy to absolute despair when she realizes she unknowingly revealed her bra-size to Nariyuki. Fans ran with the panel, even turning it into a roulette.◊ When the bit was adapted in the anime, it resulted in fans additionally captioning sequential screencaps from it to highlight situations where one becomes increasingly despondent.
  • Tsutsui/22i is The Chessmaster. ^note After the initial ending that had Uruka win Nariyuki's heart was poorly received because of the way it sidelined every other heroine's feelings, the fandom was elated and shocked to realize that their disappointment was an Intended Audience Reaction when it was revealed that the plan had been to give each girl an ending for a while.
  • BokuBen is a Visual Novel. ^note Having five different endings that are equally canonical is unheard-of for a manga, but standard practice for visual novels. After it was revealed that each heroine would get her own ending, fans started editing screenshots of We Never Learn to visual novel formats, or joked about how the initial unpopular Uruka ending was a case of a player getting locked onto the wrong route.
• Moe: All the girls qualify to some extent, but even Yuiga gets his adorable “want to protect” moments due to him being drawn and characterized as just as cute as his harem after the initial chapters^note According to an interview, the author draws Nariyuki with an “androgynous” vibe. His endearing personality led to quite a few English speaking fans dubbing him “Moeyuki”.
• One True Threesome: There are some fans that actually ship Nariyuki/Sawako/Rizu. Mainly due to the fact that both Nariyuki and Sawako get along well enough (Sawako at one point think that he's pretty cool). Then there's Rizu and Sawako's Les Yay moments and Nariyuki and Rizu's own Ship Tease. In chapter 81, a drunk-on-the atmosphere Rizu gets angry with the two of them for attempts that each of them made to leave her in the company of the other, and expresses a wish to be with both of them. It's not that hard to see why people started to wish for a threesome end after the Multiple Endings were announced. And for what it's worth, Rizu's ending is the closest the series can get to a threesome without it explicitly happening, since Sawako is treated as just as important in the route and post-series she's still living with Rizu and Nariyuki even after they had a baby.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Asumi was widely hated upon her debut, as fans thought that she was too similar to Rizu personality-wise and saw her side job working in a Maid Cafe as nothing but poorly-done Pandering to the Base. The English manga scan group even put out a parody chapter mocking her debut and acting like it had caused the series to Jump the Shark. However, as she lost her initial harsh side and developed into The Tease, fans warmed up to her. She is still the least popular of the heroines in Japan by a large margin, however. Her ending arc on the other hand, is considered to be the best one so far by many fans, including fans of the other girls.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat:
  • As expected of a harem show with multiple girls, viewers are split on who they’d want Nariyuki to end up with. It’s been observed in the fandom that no matter what any given chapter is about, discussion threads will eventually get around to a Nariyuki/Mafuyu vs. Nariyuki/Fumino argument. Supporters of other girls tend to be less militant.
  • This is also compounded by starting off with 2 heroines (complicating the First Girl Wins trope), then immediately sent in another girl 3 chapters later, all of them ended up being well-liked and how much the mangaka may scale the importance of the girls (Rizu & Uraka at the start, then Fumino & Mafuyu around the summer arc).
• Spiritual Successor: To Nisekoi. A Weekly Jump harem show with multiple girls and a fanbase with tons of Ship-to-Ship Combat, by same author behind the Nisekoi spin-off manga Magical Patissiere Kosaki-chan. And it also serves as a cute and wholesome counterpart to To Love Ru's spiritual successor, Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs.

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