This is such a great book. It's obviously NanoFate (as is only right and proper) but doesn't ignore that Nanoha has other people she cares about and who care about her — and that her loved ones care about each other, too. Fate really should be studying for her enforcer's exam, though (I think she failed it twice while Nanoha was recovering).

I like the look at Vita, too — her psychology is always fascinating, as a six-year-old who is older than civilizations. Her manifest guilt, both as the one present when Nanoha was injured, and as a person literally created to be a protector, is really something to see. Hayate is great as disability senpai, and at giving the little workaholic an excuse to rest.

Nico is the only one whose family isn't pretty affluent, really. Hanayo's family, at least in the SIDs, has a yard with a shed in it, there in Akihabara; Nozomi's parents both work and move a lot because of it, but I get the feeling that they're workaholics and neglectful, rather than needy. Honoka's family's manjuu shop is pretty big and well-established, if not constantly bustling. Rin is an unknown quantity, but seems solidly upper-middle class. Maki's family is obviously richer than any of them, but you don't get the picture that Umi's is too far behind — or at least, is not behind in terms of pride.

Y'know, I completely understand the comments about this being frustrating — but damn, girls being useless at each other is such my jam. I guess it's something about the tension.

That said, I kind of expect this Eli to wake up some time later and realize the true nature of their relationship, but possibly only after they've moved in together, gotten a joint bank account, and adopted three kids and a dog

Just reread chapter 20 — and it's hilarious how, immediately after the chapter directly stating that Nico's bust measurement is 71, her profile still has her fudged measurements.

That said, I love the original conceit of School Idol Diaries — that it's sort of an exchange diary, that each of the girls is writing their own feelings about the random events as things go on, and the text version even had other girls' comments afterwards. It's a concept that almost immediately falls apart, of course; I think the text version stops making sense as soon as Kotori says "Instead of Umi being dashing, I kind of want to see her defeated and looking up at me through crying eyes — kyun — but I could never tell her that!" And even here, Nico in particular is being way too honest for me to believe that she knows that anybody is reading these. Ah, well.

last edited at Jan 20, 2020 12:59PM

Mm, candy gal X smooth bookworm. A well-established ship (they're at least besties in the Theater comics, anyway) that doesn't get enough love.

The (apparently) canonical answer is in the School Idol Diaries, the manga chapter of which is Season 1, Chapter 9, "Rin and Kitties" (here: https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/love_live_school_idol_diary_ch09 ).

Short version: it started after she and Hanayo found a newborn litter of kittens trapped under a shed in a snowstorm; they managed to save some of them, and Rin wanted to adopt them, but found out that she's allergic to cats. Sad. (The surviving kittens were placed with a relative of Hanayo's in the country.) But because of talking to the mom cat and kittens so much, Rin apparently never stopped meowing.

Why does Maki and Nico always seem to be squeezed into every Love Live doujin somehow even when it's not about them.

To actually answer this question, I think it's a matter of story mechanics. When you want to explore a single character, one of the most effective way is by writing also about their "foil" — another character who shares some traits in a contrasting manner. (This is part of why rival or lancer characters work so well.) When the story is about a relationship, it's convenient to do the same thing, to compare to and contrast with another couple. NicoMaki is a relatively straightforward relationship, in their tropes of Tsun-to-Tsun combat and such, and they come from the fandom pretty much preformed and ready to pop in; you want to spend your time as a writer on the coupling you actually set out to explore, so not needing to spend effort establishing a relationship to compare against is a win.

Well, they're both low-hanging fruit, as far as concepts go; KyouSaya shipping was instantaneous, and Mami/Charlotte shipping started pretty much as soon as the witch life cycle was revealed.

I feel like Dai/Yuuka only makes sense under the fan theory that Yuuka is what you get when a fairy — well, ascends (or exalts or ennobles, depending on your opinion of the process): that fairies, as embodiments of nature energy, can become something more if they dedicate themselves to something and gain sufficient power. In other words, Yuuka is the destination that Cirno is headed towards.

Mika has strong big sister game. (And you can practically taste the defeat at "You can call me Arisu" — "My name is Tachibana" is practically her catchphrase.)

But whats up with the last page? I too don't understand any of the last half.

Whats the switched from juice to wine group mean? Is she referring to herself as the wife of the house? Seems an odd way to call yourself. Whats the letter and why does neither Kotori or her mom need it any more?
Why did she need to borrow money of Maki's mom?

It's a little convoluted, but — well, remember the beginning, how Kotori just woke up, unclear on how she and Eli got there, but mentioned smelling alcohol? Yeah, I think it's implying that Kotori's mom swapped their juice for a sweet wine so that they'd get drunk and, well, this would happen. It seems to be a gambit to keep Kotori from her overseas study, and hence to keep µ's intact, and then use µ's to keep the school open, with financial support from the Nishikinos. (At least, that's how I'm assembling the puzzle pieces.)

last edited at Jan 19, 2020 1:30AM

Yeah... she was, effectively, using her own consciousness/soul (gem) to puppet Sayaka's corpse. If I understand it, Kyouko's justifying it to herself as maintaining the body against the hope of recovering Sayaka's soul and reversing the witch transformation — hence the eating (and excreting), since she doesn't have access to hospital-type IV support. (Ironically, Sayaka was the one with magic that could do that, if I get everyone's affinities right.)

It's worth noting that some kinds of birds can perform parthenogenesis, where a female lays a viable egg without fertilization, often after essentially going through the motions of mating with another female; the child is a clone of the mother (give or take any mutations).

I don't know if Corvidae are among those kinds, but this process would explain the tendency of Touhou kids to look like miniature versions of their mothers.

The implication of giving the ribbon is "something to remember me by", and I'd wager the setup here is one I've seen elsewhere, where the highborn young heiress is set to be omiai-ed out once she graduates.

Even without that fillip, she doesn't want keepsakes, she wants Dia — and if she can't have the latter, there's no sense in having the former. Kinda better to make it a clean break.

last edited at Jan 15, 2020 8:54PM

Actually, Eli probably just has pelmeni breath.

Shanghai's size and, to be honest, anatomy, are pretty variable in fanworks. It's common for her to be depicted as something close to a Barbie-sized BJD, but the games seem to envision something closer to one of those creepy Victorian porcelain dolls.

Anyway, the bigger she is, the more effective the Artful Sacrifice, right? (For the confused, "Artful Sacrifice" is Alice's move where she makes the dolls blow up; she fills them with gunpowder, you see.)

@blopa This image predates Undefined Fantastic Object, sadly. (Danbooru's copy of the original was posted in 2008; becoming a nun stopped being the safe option in 2009.) Given that Nitori didn't make the list, it probably goes back to before Subterranean Animism.

@BV And that's probably the answer to your question, too, unless you're thinking of Flan or one of the less-explored options. (Yuuka? Sakuya? Youmu, maybe? I mean, these are all ships I've seen, so...)

last edited at Jan 10, 2020 3:06PM

That's— a really weird take, tbh. Forbidden Scrollery changed Marisa's characterization not one whit. You could make an argument that Wild and Horned Hermit portrayed her as devoted to Reimu, but I think that's an artifact of the whole manga being structured around the shrine (and Kasen's disdainful view of Reimu).

Anyway, ZUN is still writing everything official, so blaming a work-for-hire artist for character changes, or worse yet, fandom trends, is kinda gross.

The thing that makes the relationship between Mika and Miria less squicky to me is that, while Mika plays up the whole "sexy gal", woman-of-the-world, playgirl image – on stage and off – she is in fact quite innocent. (This is mostly played in the game commus and the comics in how much she'll kind of self-destruct in romantic situations, and how Rika thinks she has all kinds of experience that she just doesn't.)

I'll be honest – the trans Honoka is great, but for my money, the best thing here is the loving view of dealing with a partner's narcolepsy. :-)

I think the meaning there is less "apps in Twitter" and more "apps for Twitter".

Also, A++ for the extended Grappler Baki reference.

To answer this question super-late, that's Reinforce — the guiding intelligence of the Book of Darkness — and Nachtwaal, the personification of the corruption of the Book of Darkness. The A's movie, which this seems to be set after, changed the plot around a bit from the series, making the Book's corruption more of a character and less of a boss monster. The snake is there 'cos Nachtwaal has snakes.

Kinda nice to see her paired with someone besides the asshole slacker, lol.

Yeah, this way she's with the other asshole slacker. We just need some Kirari X Syuko for the triple crown.

I'm mostly kidding; this is a great story and a believable relationship.

(I also can't believe that I hadn't considered that, while Kirari definitely has a fixation on little and cute things, she's large enough that every other idol can fit in that category. This realization has me wanting to see her pick up and cuddle Takumi.)

It's always a little weird when you realize that a translator missed a reference that you caught — but that last page's mention of "Marvel Phantasm" is probably meant to be "Marble Phantasm", a Type-Moon reference.

(I'm not complaining; translation is hard, and nobody's going to catch all possible references and memes. It does remind me of the old TokyoPop translation of Sailor Moon; at one point, a character reads or quotes W. B. Yeats "The Second Coming" — y'know, the poem that goes "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world". But the (pro!) translator didn't recognise the Japanese translation that Takeuchi was using, so just translated it back into English literally and came out sounding a bit like a Google Translate round-trip.)

I purely love Chika's mikan-segments pendant. I will purchase a dozen.