Yeah, VladLove is... weird. It's artistically interesting and it looks like it's actually going to be yuri, but I really didn't feel the first episode. My main problem is that it seems to be a comedy but I didn't find any of the gags (?) to be remotely funny. Characters screaming and hitting each other isn't intrinsically hilarious to me. If you like slapstick/violent comedy though, give it a try.

There was a bit of a commotion on Twitter back when this chapter came out. The Japanese fandom is mostly on the Tamaki x Yumine side from what I've seen, so they weren't sure what to take from this development. It does look like Tamaki is falling for Kayo, doesn't it? I don't know what to think. Betting on ships is futile for this series, and it's much more enjoyable if you can just go with the flow and not fixate on one pairing. Although I sometimes fail to do that myself.

In any case, the author dropping the 4koma format for the last page seems significant.

Awesome, the first Otherside Picnic omnibus arrived today ^_^ I already have the digital version, but I love this series so much I wanted to own a physical copy. Cannot wait for the anime, and before that, the release of volume 4.

If anyone here is into image editing and is looking for an alternative to Photoshop/Lightroom, Luminar 4 is currently part of a software bundle over at Humble Bundle. For less than $1 you can get Photolemur, a basic AI photo editor, and for around $20 you can get Luminar 4, a bunch of presets, and an HDR editor if you're into that sort of thing.

It doesn't replace Photoshop, but if you like taking pictures and want to make them look cooler, it's a great program. It has finally made the editing part of my worklow fun. I like it so much, I've been trawling my archives for photos to edit. Highly recommended.

Okay, advertising over.

I think a Depression tag would only really work if a character in the story had a form of clinical depression, and it was explicitly stated as such. Is there a lot of that?

Ah, you're right. I can't think of any officially diagnosed character off the top of my head, and adding a tag would only lead to people armchair-diagnosing fictional characters. Fandom already does that enough. (I totally do it too)

Oh yeah, sorry for the double post but would a Depression tag unrelated to Depressing as fuck be a good idea? Both for people who'd rather avoid it and people interested in seeing it depicted in manga. Or would that be covered by Aaaaaangst?

Hell yeah, Kanbayashi Makoto is on board with this pairing!

We hear you. Feel free to get in touch with me on Discord if you wish to give us any sort of advance notice for that series you specified, or any other work for that matter.

Thanks, will do!

Personally speaking, political discussions make me uncomfortable and I avoid the subject like the plague, except with close friends. I know that's cowardly, especially since my country is unfortunately headed down the far-right path and many of the people I interact with probably vote for them, but I'm pathologically conflict-avoidant. That said, the discussions here seem remarkably civil to me.

I don't usually talk about this, because it's embarrassing and something I'd much rather move on from, but I was heavily into conspiracy theories and alt-right nonsense in 2016.

I'm glad you got out!

"Male ally" maybe?

I think they mean "bro" in a more slang-oriented term, as in someone who's there for you and helps you out.

Yes, that was how I intended it. At least I think so? English fail on my part I guess!

I was going through the recent posts on this thread and I'd like to add my voice to that of the people who requested tags for suicide and a more general content warning. It'd definitely be helpful to many people, including myself. There is one series I'm following that ideally should get warnings for both self-harm and suicidal thoughts in an upcoming volume, and it would be great if we could add those tags before the offending chapters are released for the three people who read that series.

Can we have a bro/third wheel tag?

It's a nice idea, I'm not sure yet though, given how rare it is. Maybe best for the images section ?

"Male ally" maybe?

Love Live 11:

Ayumu working hard to overtake Riko as the gayest character of the franchise, I see. It's not a competition, honey, you can all be gay.
I caught myself, as I sometimes do, thinking "Oooh maybe this time...?" before remembering that of course not. It's never actually happening. Still, in some instances I personally think the "subtext" goes far enough we don't even need a confirmation anymore, as long as we don't get a denial. If they don't pull a Sunshine because fans prefer Yu with Setsuna or some other pairing, we can hope to get some nice couple-y moments like we did for Kanan and Mari in Sunshine S2.

Note that I don't know anything about the fandom so for all I know, ship wars could be raging right now. Or they could have decided that OT3s are good (they are).

Do you prefer reading on e-reader or physical media?

Forgot I wanted to reply to this earlier. I prefer reading a physical book, but rarely do because of lack of space to put them, so my Kindle and BookWalker apps are full of books I couldn't fit on my shelves (which are full anyway because many of the books I read don't have ebook editions). I have quite a few older manga, but I've been buying like two physical manga a year for a while now and the rest is on BookWalker. If the site shuts down, I'm screwed.

The last novel I read was The Priory of the Orange Tree, which is fantastic. I actually bought the massive, dictionary-sized physical book because I knew I'd enjoy it and I'd want it on my shelves.

Oh, cool, there was a discussion recently on the Discord server about how you got into yuri but since I'm in the wrong time zone people had moved on to other subjects by the time I checked the app.

The first time I heard of anything gay was back when Willow came out on Buffy and all my homophobic friends were disgusted. I remember not understanding why being gay was bad (my parents didn't raise me to hate anyone different), but apparently it was really, really bad. Fast-forward a few years and as I'm getting into anime thanks to a gay friend (take that, homophobic friends from middle school!), I check out Mai-HiME. When I reach Shizuru's story I'm like, wait you can do that??? Something kind of clicked into place and I went in search of other animated lesbian content, but... People who watched anime at the time may remember that it was slim pickings.

My first yuri anime was Kannazuki no Miko, which was... fine. I watched a bad quality fansub that happened to glitch right for the episode in which the infamous scene happened, so I got lucky. The yuri shows I've enjoyed the most are Simoun, Battle Athletes Victory and El Cazador (considering it yuri or good is an unpopular opinion but I can't say I care). Favorite non-yuri anime is Haibane Renmei, although you could argue it has strong subtext. As for manga, I love Strawberry Shake Sweet by Hayashiya Shizuru, anything by Fujieda Miyabi, and some works by Morishima Akiko and Otsu Hiyori. A recent series I've enjoyed is A Kiss and a White Lily by Canno.

Curiously, I've never watched Utena. I think it's such a classic that if I happened to not like it I would have to question my taste, and I'm not ready to do that.

I'm watching journalists on Twitter talk about what's going on in America right now and I don't know how worried I should be. This coup attempt is a long shot, right? Right?? Anyway, stay safe everyone.

Did Nina and Saku just hook up?

I think they got together in the background way back after the girls played matchmaker for them. I could be wrong, but they seem like an established couple here and everyone treats them like one (like in this chapter).

I'm lucky enough not to know anyone who was sick. Hoping it stays that way...

I was looking for designs with a specific bird on Redbubble and found this artist who specializes in drawing birds wearing hats. And just that. But he does that niche really well. I mean, look at this bullfinch wearing a beret! I want to buy all of them.

It was probably meant to be taken seriously, but I found the whole Setsuna accidentally falling into Yu's arms and Ayumu witnessing it sequence in the latest Love Live episode to be really funny. I'm unironically enjoying the show though, I like what they're doing this season.

My cat is very long and floofy.

What a good cat.

How can someone become a better person?

Personally, I've noticed that developing empathy for strangers helped me become a slightly better person. Also being less harsh with yourself and noticing the qualities you already have might help cultivate them.

One of my photos was featured on Flickr Explore \o/ It's a new feeling watching the likes pour in. Of course it had to happen to an old photo I uploaded without thinking... Can't link to it as it's under my real name though.

last edited at Dec 1, 2020 3:48AM

The way these last few chapters have been progressing makes me wonder if it's ending soon

It's still ongoing, volume 9 comes out in December. My guess would be that there will be 10 volumes in total.

Some great facial expressions this chapter. I completely related to Shiina relaxing when she does the dishes and doesn't have to talk to customers anymore.

Love the KayoShii friendship. This chapter kind of sunk them as a ship with the whole sister/family thing (...or did it? I guess some people are into that), but there's so much going on already yuri-wise I don't really mind.

I love how this manga has been getting progressively gayer

It has, right?! At this point if nothing actually yuri happens by the end I can legitimately be annoyed, and not just with myself for expecting something from a Kirara manga.

I'm really enjoying two shows I expected nothing from, Iwa-Kakeru and D4DJ.

Iwa-Kakeru is a straightforward sports anime, with training montages, ridiculous cartoonish opponents and hot-blooded announcers. I love it. The ED sequence hints at some yuri, but so far I fail to see any subtext. Also, girls with muscles. Girls. With. Muscles!!

My first impression of D4DJ was "Bandori but worse", but after three episodes I find it really cute! Even the main character, who was incredibly annoying in the first episode, is growing on me. Maho is adorable. Can't comment on the music since it's not what I normally listen to, but it doesn't hurt my ears at least.

Aaand bi disaster Yumine is forced to come to terms with her feelings. We've known for a while, but she was still trying to deny them. I liked how Marika took one look at the situation and deduced "Ooh, love triangle!" while Yumine desperately tried to explain things in platonic terms.

New chapter is out. I sent the upload request for Dynasty, but if anyone sees this and doesn't want to wait, they can check it out over at that big reader website, you know the one.

There are so many things I love about volume 7 and I'm excited for people to see it for themselves. If they're still reading, that is.

Wow thank you so much, TB! This was a life-changing moment for me. Less my friend, though. Funny how that works out. Sadly I don't have much to offer in return, because while I did read a lot there wasn't a ton that blew me away. Learning Curve was super good though so if you didn't read it yet you ought to!

Glad I could help. I did end up reading Learning Curve, and it turns out everyone was right, it was pretty good!
I actually found a story shortly after I posted my recs--you know that feeling you get sometimes when you read a fic and you're like, "This is it. This is my favorite fic in this fandom." ? Well, here's mine: peripheries by ethiobird. It's an ongoing collection of oneshots about Adora and Catra's relationship seen from the eyes of other characters. It's brilliant and I highly recommend it. The character voices are spot on and it can be funny, tender or heartbreaking depending on who's looking at them. I think I'm going to re-read it right now, actually.

^ I do think that some people pretended not to understand what literary theory is, but honestly, I'm still confident that most of those comments are from people who really believe "Death of the author" is a threat.

In other news, I still sometimes check the Tumblr of the author of Baggataway, a sports series I still think of fondly years after it ended (the translation is unfinished unfortunately). They still upload pics from their old series occasionally, so anyone who likes it should take a look! This is the latest one, incidentally these two are my favorite couple.