Ahaha, I was just thinking that Love Live seemed uncharacteristically fluffy for Takemiya, and sure enough, she says she hadn't been watching until the middle of season two. That she'd have that kind of start, and end up getting into it enough to write a direct yet restrained story like this... Sounds about right, somehow.

It'll also give you better context on the actual pairings. (I'd love to get into Touhou, but I suck at the franchise and don't know where to start :()

I also felt like this, interested in the stories but reluctant to dive in without seeing the source material, but having since played several of the games, I can promise you 100% that they are of no help whatsoever. It's basically like the entire Star Wars expanded universe wasn't based on a series of movies, but on the dancing minigame in Star Wars Kinect. You won't get any kind of foothold whatsoever.

Honestly, if you want a fun and easy place to begin, go find the Reimu x Marisa tag, and just start reading stuff. They're pretty much the main playable characters of the series, so they're pretty straightforward and involved with most of the cast, and if someone else seems interesting, you can go read some stuff about them, too.

The wiki is pretty good for finding more comprehensive details about characters or events, but for the most part, if you just roll with it and pick things up as you go, you'll quickly get a sense for things. There's not really any meaningful continuity or linear timelines between events, so just go for it.

last edited at Nov 24, 2014 2:34PM

Hm, premise sounds kind of questionable in a number of ways, but maybe it'll be interesting.

first page

nope bye

I like how this is tagged Keine x Mokou, even though they don't have a scene together, and what they do say doesn't seem particularly affectionate on the surface. At first, I wasn't sure how to understand Akyuu's conversation with Mokou - "greed is a scary thing" seems especially out of place - but it's subtly completed by Keine's request at the end to not tell her about it. Mokou understands that Keine is troubled, but she also understands exactly what would make her act this way; she wants to help, but if it involves someone else having feelings for Keine, she gets jealous, and doesn't want to hear about it. She allows herself to be deceived by Keine, who, even after everything is settled and a clean rejection has been given, doesn't want Mokou to hear about it, although it's not entirely clear if that's only because she herself would find it troubling, or if she's thinking about how troubled Mokou would be, as well.

Also, for Mokou to rely on Akyuu to resolve the situation is kind of running away, but it also shows a remarkable amount of trust not only in Akyuu herself, but also in the friendship between Akyuu and Keine, which turns out to be exactly what those two needed to affirm.

Well, that might just be me overthinking things, but still. I came for Keine x Mokou, and even though they didn't say a word to each other the whole time, I'm feeling pretty satisfied.

last edited at Nov 17, 2014 11:57PM

I like how the actual incest gets foreshadowed in really subtle ways, like the mother getting all fuzzy watching the daughter suckle on her breasts and rubbing the daughter's head without thinking. The exchange of "Weren't you against this?" "It was instinctive!" is mostly fine from the reluctant-but willing stepmother angle, and works better in the context of accidentally breaking character during roleplay, but it makes perfect sense given their actual relationship. It's a weirdly sweet and cozy moment on the second reading, and is partly why the multi-level plot twist works as well as it does.

Although, the fact that I can see something like that as "sweet and cozy" is one of the reasons I'm going to hell for sure...

last edited at Nov 5, 2014 2:15PM

I'm not entirely sure what happened, and I still don't really understand any of the characters, but the ending still felt somehow fulfilling? Maybe it's just because the story was already so strange and uncertain from the beginning, but with the epilogue, it feels complete. I have no idea whether I enjoyed this series at all, but it's not that often that I'm still this interested in a story even after it's finished, so I guess that's something. I'll read this again, after it settles down a bit in my head.

This is kind of difficult to read. It's warm, but unsettling; I'm too conscious of Michiru's runaway habit to fully trust the cozy atmosphere, and Maya's so afraid of tying anyone down that I don't know how if she'd even have the confidence to get back together with Michiru if she could. Even then, there's too much unknown about Michiru to even guess what kind of feelings she has towards Maya... I guess what I'm trying to say is that this manga is doing a SUPER good job at getting me involved with the characters and their insecurities.

i really enjoy reading this manga! it's a lot different from the usual yuri mangas :)

and guys Maya wasn't a tomboy or anything like that. she is a trans woman.

Oh, now that's quite interesting. Certainly, from the few flashbacks shots of her in school, it did look like she was wearing a boys' uniform, and with that framing, her character is super easy to identify with. You've gotten me kind of hopeful, now.

last edited at Oct 13, 2014 1:38AM

In part one, the tall girl was worried that volleyball senpai had some residual feelings for bread senpai, but from this chapter, I guess it really was as simple as volleyball senpai just needing to come around to the idea of girls being with girls.

I like how this author creates these kinds of interconnected short stories. Say what you will about inexplicably convenient groupings of lesbians, but I really like the feeling of having various protagonists playing supporting roles in each other's lives, with single events having different ramifications for different people. It feels delightfully substantial.

"By the way, this may appear to have a happy ending, but I realised later that it really doesn't. None of their problems are resolved."
So says the author, in the afterword. It's a little bitter, but it's such a refreshingly frank way to look at it that I end up liking both the story and the author that much more.

last edited at Oct 7, 2014 5:00AM

...How many letters did that girl eat before she thought to try writing one of her own? I guess she was really holding out for a verbal confession. Still, painfully cute. I feel like the author thought "love letters sure seem delicious" one day, and came up with the entire premise of an animal-people world and goat girls in love purely as supporting context for that one idea. Such beautiful focus.

and suddenly all that child abuse doesn't matter because the dad is cool with it

ugh...

You just HAD to be that guy...

Would've been me too pointing that out :p

And honestly, don't need to over-boost drama to such extent to provide a story like this.

To be fair all we saw was a bad slap. Calling it "all that child abuse" is a bit overboard. Not sufficient evidence to suggest as much since we got a glimpse into what could be the father's true wishes at the end (what the heck is with that comment: "you take good care of Maki, now"? Like is he leaving?).

But yes, I agree it was not as neatly trimmed and polished a story element as it should have been.

Given the degree of terror Maki regards her father with on several pages, and her deep-rooted sense of being a puppet with no place or purpose outside of what her father decides for her, I'd say that child abuse is a perfectly appropriate way to describe how she's been treated. Even if that was literally the only time he ever touched her, the effect he's had psychologically is a perfect picture of an abusive household, violence or no violence.

Cute, but it felt kind of aimless when it brings up Sayaka's unresolved feelings towards Kyousuke for the sole purpose of inciting Kyouko's jealousy, and then drops it without another word. Even then, it's not clear if Sayaka resolves to pay more attention to Kyouko from now on, or if Kyouko accepts that Sayaka is still going to think about Kyousuke sometimes, or anything. It's not bad, it just feels unsatisfying like this.

We do not aim to categorize every bit of content perfectly - we aim to reasonably capture the content of a story so that it may be noticed or avoided by persons interested.

THANK YOU. Between the people in this thread who say they hated it because it felt like NTR and the people who say they were totally into it because it felt like NTR, whether or not it's absolutely precisely accurate to the dictionary definition is a side issue. I really appreciate this kind of flexible practicality.

I hope the author doesn't really think that girls ejaculate eggs...

Yeah, um. If you want to actually extract an egg sample, that process isn't going to look anything like sex, and you sure as hell ain't doing it by hand. Like, it's not really the point, and it didn't hurt the story too much, but it feels like the story either started out with a male protagonist and then had him roughly cut out and replaced with a girl without changing enough dialogue, or the author has some REALLY questionable ideas about anatomy.

I feel like the scenario itself isn't really "cheating" or NTR in the strictest sense, but it seems like it was very much intentionally written with those concepts in mind. The childhood friend pair is pleasant and huggy and they kiss sometimes - the very picture of an innocent, childish love. I think the reason people are getting NTR vibes is not just because Kanako "cheats" on Ayaka with a senpai, but because the sexual, slightly kinky relationship is explicitly framed in opposition to the platonic one, and that Kanako's sexual awakening is portrayed as a corrupting or degrading influence that results in her losing interest in her ostensibly pure relationship with Ayaka. Moreover, Ayaka's reaction of feeling betrayed yet unbearably aroused and guilty about it is also a fairly typical NTR progression.

I think the story itself could have been told as a love triangle complicated by a disparity of feelings and sexual awareness, but I think the NTR vibes were a deliberate and intentional choice on the part of the author. I don't think it's supposed to be an emotionally complicated story about childhood friends failing to get together; I think it's supposed to be about an intensely sexual relationship proving so much more satisfying than a pure and innocent one, and the audience is almost supposed to revel in the corrupt eroticism of the situation.

I didn't like it, to be honest. It felt cheap, emotionally, and I was uncomfortable with the framing. Given what I think the author was trying to do, though, I guess it was reasonably successful as a work, and I can't really criticise it in that respect. Sure made me feel like shit, though.

I didn't realise because the artist is different, but the... "themes", so to speak, are VERY Masamune Shirow.

last edited at Aug 11, 2014 4:35PM