They read like Japanese cops to me. Japanese police are very friendly and helpful, and Japan has a 'problem' of "too many police officers, not enough crime", so they often have time to kill... buying lewd dakimakura covers, I suppose, like any respectable person with time to kill in Akiba.

I do like the hat theory, though. We need more yuri with hats. That's what's great about Touhou, ZUN is a creator who truly understands the importance of girls in hats.

This. It's funny, I think we're so used to dramatic police shows where there's a murder every five minutes that when we see a story about police that reflects a more realistic crime level it seems unrealistic.

That is an awesome movie title.

I do think it's going to turn out that her parents are bad and she's having trouble with problematic guy relationships and she's screwed up on the inside and all that jazz. And I won't go so far as to say I don't give a damn. But whatever her situation is, it would probably be a lot better if she hadn't adopted a strategy of deliberate worthlessness.

And as a reader, knowing that the writer is going to busily turn around the initial impression and try to redeem her just makes me more annoyed, really. I wouldn't mind having an annoying character so much if I didn't think the mangaka was about to tell me "No, you can't consider her annoying because we're shaping the plot that way" when sorry, she's bloody annoying and nothing the storyteller can do is really going to fix that.

To me she stinks of "Progress is moving too fast, editor thinks we need to stall, so add a random character to create some complications". And for me that's an unnecessary story approach anyway. Assuming we have 2X chapters left, I would much rather spend X chapters getting to the confession and then X chapters on nice relationship stuff, than X chapters on complications with annoying side character and then X chapters getting to the confession, the end.

But this girl has made a decision to be useless and dependent. She only needs help because she has explicitly chosen not to do anything that would make her not need help.

??? She's just unemployed? There's plenty of legitimate reasons someone might be unemployed. This is pretty excessively harsh on a girl we still know very little about.

Not unemployed. "funemployed". Asked "Are you planning on paying rent" she didn't say either "Yes" or "As soon as I find a job", she said "'Course not". She didn't want to be a normal, pulling-your-weight roommate, she wanted to be "adopted". And her past situation was the same, apparently she never paid any rent while she lived with Ruriko before: Ruriko notes that she treated the two differently because "She pays rent and you were a useless freeloader". There is no indication she has any interest in or intention to find anything like a job. Nor does it sound like she contributed to the maintenance of the household while she lived with Ruriko before, instead making extra work for Ruriko (leaving her socks around etc).

Her basic position seems to be "I'm cute, so let me stay with you and be useless (wink, giggle)."

You know, I believe in helping out friends when they need you. But this girl has made a decision to be useless and dependent. She only needs help because she has explicitly chosen not to do anything that would make her not need help.

I have no problem with laziness, I'm lazy myself--if I could live comfortably without either working or IMPOSING ON OTHER PEOPLE, I would. But it's unethical to say, I'm going to do nothing, and sponge off my "friends" hard work. So like, make them work harder to support me. That's not a friend, that's a sponge. An ethical lazy person understands that everyone has the same right to laziness; if I don't like work, it's wrong to impose extra work on others. This kid wants not only to sponge off them, she wants to be high-maintenance while she does so. To hell with her.

YES ADOPT THE FLUFFY AIRHEAD!!!!

Tbh I'm a bit shocked at how many people don't like Rio and this situation. She seems like a fun character who will undoubtedly speed up the progress of these two, what's not to like?

That she's an annoying pushy self-centred useless brat?

The issue here isn't even that Aya did this. It's that there is no commentary from the author. It wouldn't be the first relationship that has had a terrible moment that can be salvaged, but it's treated both in the manga and the LNs as just another event between them. I'm not asking for moralizing from author, but some kind of acknowledgement that that was really fucked up.

Honestly, I don't believe this is worse than your standard shoujo smut fare.

I read quite a bit of shoujo. Standard shoujo smut fare has changed in that respect since the 90s. You don't get much like this any more.
Not going to take a position on the scene in general, just thought this point specifically was inaccurate.

I love the balance of the hair and the roses.

Once again, capitalism's brutal working conditions rear their ugly head and aim to destroy the joy of two lesbiabs. Woe.

Yes, they should have looked in Venezuela....

Well, it's true that trying to adopt an economic system which will cause the world's biggest military, espionage and economic power to go after you is unlikely to work out well. But that has little to do with the specifics of what you're doing, and mostly to do with the empire not liking you.

By the way for anyone who is unaware, this seems to take place in a “cultivation” novel setting, which is kinda like wuxia but cranked to 11.

If wuxia can be described as a historical(ish) martial artists and the use of “qi” energy, then cultivation novels would be in the xianxia genre, which takes the martial arts and internal energy base from wuxia, but takes it from low fantasy to high fantasy.

Hmmm . . . for people that dig the term "high fantasy" in its own context, that might be a bit misleading. I'd say more "takes it from low fantasy to powergaming fantasy". I would consider "high fantasy" to normally be less about big power levels and more about high concept--mythic symbolism, large events, a certain seriousness. So for instance, the archetypal "high fantasy" is The Lord of the Rings, revolving around a Fellowship of nine people, of whom: Six (including the MC) have no magical powers whatsoever, one has crucial but minor and specialized healing abilities, one is only "magic" in the sense of being an elf, and one is a wizard who casts few and minor spells. Four of them aren't even worth much as fighters. They have two magical weapons, one magic chain shirt, end up with some nice ropes and nifty camouflage cloaks, one magical flashlight. Eventually turns out the wizard has a magic ring that is very important but whose actual powers are so subtle as to be unspecified. But as high fantasy goes, it's STILL the highest.

last edited at Sep 6, 2022 10:37PM

Well, anyhow, I liked the chapter.

That's one of the biggest problem in Japan. If you're not a college graduate of "something", you basically can't be hired for a desk job. Especially women. Even if it's a job you can do without any degree. The classic: no diploma no hiring, no hiring no experience, no experience no hiring.

Western job market is a bit more flexible, but Japanese companies hire almost exclusively graduates. And hiring non graduates would probably provoke anger in the already hired staff ("I bust my ass to graduate, why is this person getting the same job as me") even if the person is uber-competent and it would lead to workplace bullying.

I was looking at a video for people wanting to live in Japan, and the guy was like: have a degree. It'll make things for you MUCH easier. People will respect you. If you don't, they'll look down on you and you'll have a hard time finding a job.

Wow. And I thought we had credentialism.

I'm so glad this isn't in the horror genre because the very existence of a "demon nun" would scare the shit out of me. Few things are more horrifying to me than demons posing as holy people and successfully fooling others.

Frankly, I find demons less horrifying than plenty of "holy people". Spiritual belief is OK I guess, but organized religion has a strong tendency to vicious hierarchy devoted to perpetuation and intensification of unjust status quos and advocacy of vile prejudice and oppression. There's plenty of indigenous North Americans that I can guarantee fear nuns more than demons.

The one thing I don't understand at this stage of the story is why both Evie and the readers all seem to be assuming that the nun just turned out to be a demon, like all along. I kind of have the feeling maybe that's how it is, but on the face of it, isn't it just as plausible that the nun used to be a human, who was then killed or captured and replaced by a demon impersonator relatively recently? Just because on being discovered she played it cool and worked hard to give Evie the impression that there's nothing to see here, doesn't mean it's TRUE.

last edited at Sep 5, 2022 1:54AM

i thought this was supposed to be a wholesome story, not one that highlights the soulless, brutal reality of life in a modern capitalistic world and the hopelessness of it all

I actually find this particular problem a bit odd. Are there really a ton of recent college grads beating a path to sleepy little islands to compete with our pair? I can see having trouble finding jobs, but more just 'cause there ain't hardly any. There aren't a lot of jobs in little rural places because their economies tend to be shrinking, few customers in the shops, few opportunities to start something new because there wouldn't be demand for whatever your product. But I wouldn't expect most of the job offers that exist to be looking that askance at college dropouts.

This almost certainly wasnt the authors intent but Xiaoen feels very nuerodivergent to me, I think its cool even if its unintentional

I think it's already fair to say Xiaoen isn't neurotypical.

Maybe it's cause I'm old, but the current obsession with labeling everyone to death turns me off. She is who she is. Can't someone just be a little unique without getting categorized?

Can I just say in ch. 60 I found the bit where she's using her hair-tentacle-ness to brush her back-of-head teeth totally adorable?

I’m gonna say meh on that.. there are tons of instances where people, even young people get interested in something from a begone era… Like jazz or classical or ska… plus for the last 5-10 year’s you’d see teens in the us wearing “vintage” themed tshirts spattered with Beatles, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC logos… also the ironic part of this in connection to grunge retro is grunge and a lot of the music of the first half of the 90s was filled with retro throwbacks.. grunge is just punk mixed with 70s heavy rock like Black Sabbath, Blue cheer and Death, then when grunge died you had a swing fad followed by a 2nd ska revival and then you had the whole Brit pop thing which was again rooted in 60s and 70s stuff.. also.. aerosmith was huge at that time…. My guess because of the retro love mixed in the current bands of that time like the black crows and G&R (who sound like aerosmith most of the time anyway).. things cycle around over and over again..

I agree.

I'm not sure if I said this before, but it seems like an odd objection given that clearly the MANGAKA is interested enough in that kind of music to put people who like it in their story, and the MANGAKA seems to be exactly the kind of person it's been objected it's implausible that they could be into that music. In short, if the mangaka can like it, so could the characters--so not only is it plausible, we have an actual real-world example.

last edited at Sep 4, 2022 1:24PM

Hurrah for the power of Love! (and large caliber weapons)

Dang. Not like, a slap. Not a childish shove in anger. A full on DECKING TO THE FACE.

Just what he deserved.

Damn straight.

Get wrecked, nerd.

Wait, say what? You dissing my tribe? That little bastard ain't a nerd. He's the kind who bullies nerds.

Looks like Ichigo's gonna take all of her firsts.

You know what I like about chapter 5? The MC's honour. She's an honourable girl who won't betray someone. Good on her stonewalling that unpleasant person.

EDIT in regard to Kiri-kun's post below: Given that the yuri side character has been stepped up to MC in this story, I'll be interested to see how, or if, the treatment of Shiki here qualifies the interesting, and rather acerbic, take in this article:

https://heartsoffuriousfancies.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/14-sai-no-koi-yuri-iyashi-and-the-lives-of-others-part-2/

Now that is quite a grumpy article. It almost seems to be annoyed that Japanese romance readers are sublimating their desires into this kind of fluff when their attention should be on REVOLUTION. Which, I mean, it's not that I disagree, but that's hardly the manga's fault . . . kinda goes rather far afield from whether 14 Sai no Koi is a good read.

Judging by how they seem to be famous now, the flirting probably counts as fanservice for the other girls.
I can imagine them saying "Sasuga handsome duo" while sticking their ears to the door.

Totally. Trying hard to restrain themselves from busting out in giggles.

Actually curious: Has there ever been a school council vice-president in the history of the yuri genre who wasn't at the very least crushing on the (current, former) president? Cannot think of any off the top of my head. :-/

Pretty sure it's a requirmement stipulated for postulating to that position. I remember a couple of years ago a small group of activisits in Japan were complaining about this discriminatory practice against heterosexual students that wanted to become the vice-president.

There's plenty of shoujo, and probably shounen too, where a hetero guy is the vice-president and crushes on the president. So, the requirement is ironclad, but does not seem to have gender orientation sub-requirements.

Yay!