4th episode of Shigofumi, which revolves around lesbian couple

Oh, that's a throwback. I remember being surprised by the yuri episode back when it aired. It's funny though, in my memories the girls were confirmed to be a couple. Weird how the brain plays tricks on you. Just goes to show how close to explicit their relationship was. In any case, Shigofumi was a pretty good show.

In case anyone was wondering, the girls' baseball anime Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine doesn't appear to have the self-insert from the game. There is a female teacher who helps the girls with some things, so without knowledge of the source material it feels like she may have replaced the game's protagonist. Other than her, the girls are on their own.

I love these two and I wish they had more subtext. It should be criminal to come up with such a great pair and then not do anything with it >:(

In probably non-yuri news, I thought the first episode of Fairy Gone wasn't half bad.

Basically the text on the guitar means "play it (the guitar), play it, let me hear that song once again".

Thanks for the translation ! Ooh, foreshadowing~

These two chapters had some great facial expressions, and Murakami's social anxiety is just as relatable as this season's Hitori Bocchi.

^ Okay, I guess I missed it. I think at one point I decided this wasn't going to have any yuri and dismissed the potential subtext until it hit me in the face for the other pair in the last episode. I do remember one ironic (?) "I love you".

The Price of Smiles/Egao no Daika ended last week and it was... okay. Not sure who it was for, though? People who liked the characters probably bailed when they started dropping like flies, and those looking for a gritty war drama must have really hated the generic ending. I do recommend the first two episodes for that pants-pissingly hilarious twist (sorry?), but I'm not sure it's worth watching beyond that.

The Magnificent Kotobuki/Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai ended today and it was a really fun show overall, although it sometimes felt like it had simultaneously too much plot and not enough and more time could have been spent on the characters. Those battle scenes were amazing though.
In terms of yuri, I'm fairly sure Reona and Zara are together. The last episode went all in on the romantic entanglements when everyone thought they might die and theirs was the closest to an actual onscreen relationship compared to Saneatsu's one-sided crush, Naomi's reluctant caving to what's-his-face's courtship and Johnny's pining for his ex-wife. There isn't a lot of material for this pair, but I don't think I'm reading too much into it, either. Zara's suggestion that she and Reona ditch their friends and fly off together before the last battle was hard to see as platonic. Also, the classic "You hurt my girl and I'll make you pay" makes an appearance here with highly satisfying results.
In addition, I read Julia and Loulou as exes because I can, but there isn't actually anything in the show to support that theory.

All right, thanks for the reply. I have some time on my hands, so let me know in the series' thread if you need anything.

^ Is it a matter of people being too busy IRL, or would another pair of hands help? I have some (minor) cleaning/typesetting skills and can learn to suck less if needed. That manga is a favorite of mine and I'd love to see more of it translated.

^ Huh, that's weird. But in any case, don't worry about the delays. I'm glad you guys are still working on it.

So /u/ is picking this up then? I wonder what the trouble was with SNSbu, shame they seem to have dropped it.

I actually was looking forward to this chapter because it's so good! Seki is such a good friend and I love that Fujikawa is a realistically flawed asshole teenager. And the foreshadowing from chapter 49 paid off; turns out the flirty character archetype has had recurring nightmares for a while.

cloba.U said to pay attention to the small text on the guitar on this page, but it's unreadable on the tiny-ass digital raws. Here's a slightly bigger version. I think I can make out 弾いて (play me), but that's it.

To be fair a LOT of anime that aren't explicitly romances have low key het pairings with romantic subtext that is never properly confirmed.

Fair point! Although in those cases almost everyone agrees it's meant to be a romance. But I think it's encouraging that there are more technically non-yuri series with serious subtext than ten years ago, and some that try to be different. And I'm sure it's going to get better.

Bermuda, the gay mermaid show finally had its showing of its first in-universe movie, a yuri Musical is a fitting choice.

Is the show worth watching for non-yuri reasons, though? I didn't hear very good things about it during the premiere weeks

It's cute, but very slow-paced. It could help if you have trouble sleeping, I guess.

Because yuri doesn't sell. As long as it isn't confirmed, otakus can imagine them as their waifus and ignore (or not realize) all the subtext you throw at them. Not confirming yuri relationships is a calculated move by studios to make sure to not alienate the biggest part of their audience, male otakus who actually spend all their money on their stuff.

Oh yeah, I know that. There are people who watch Manaria Friends, or Flip Flappers or Princess Principal, and think that the two girls really are just friends, and their money is important. What I should've added is that I don't understand why some few and far-between series do include canon yuri, since it doesn't sell. I guess we should just count ourselves lucky that there are exceptions at all.
But that's good news about Manaria Friends.

however, if they don't make them kiss or confess to each other at the end and brush it off with the friends bullshit, then this anime would be a massive waste of time and money.

I'm not expecting it to confirm anything, which is what's hard with this kind of show--managing expectations. If there's so much romantic subtext and we're obviously meant to see it as such, why is it so hard to actually spell it out? I'm personally fine as long as they don't outright deny it in-universe, but yeah, it can be frustrating.

Im loving how much orginal content wataten added to the anime. They should just get married already, legalize yuri loli marriage.

I'd say Wataten is good even for people who aren't fans of onee-loli. The interactions between the kids are cute and there's some well-written comedy. Hopefully it does decently in terms of sales.

I ended up watching SSSS.Gridman after reading the discussions here. It's a solid show, and I didn't think we'd get that amount of subtext. Yuuta's feelings for Rikka were set up like they would play an important role (since he's, you know, the main character), but that never went anywhere. A pleasant surprise.

So Manaria Friends is about a young couple who recently started dating, right? Either that, or they're attracted to each other but clueless as to what they should do about it. A friendship reading makes no sense so far.

I've been enjoying The Magnificent Kotobuki by the director of Girls & Panzer and Shirobako. The 2D/CGI hybrid animation takes a while to get used to but it's worth the effort, the aerial battles are tense and really well done and the Western-like setting is intriguing. And two of the girls have a nice vibe... honestly I'm not expecting any yuri (or het) from this one but the subtext I've been seeing in my head is a pleasant bonus.

Same person as Nawowowowowowo.

And here it is: https://pastebin.com/9BYEXzdR

Once again, thank you for such a wonderful treat. I can certainly see why this issue was sold out.

No problem, thanks for your work on the translation. I've actually been buying Kirara monthly since that issue and I probably will for the coming year (not sure after that), so if the vol. 6 digital raws have some unreadable small text, let me know in this thread.

Reading a text file of translation doesn't do much for me. Hopefully, someday, it will come out when the manga translations reach that point.

(I still think the pictures are very much worth looking at, but I get it)

Posted the raws over at /u/. I don't think Dynasty has any rules against linking to them here as well, so here they are : Link
Goggled Anon already posted a translation (that was fast!)

Again, it was published around the end of volume 5 and should be in the upcoming volume 6, but I don't think there are any massive spoilers that would prevent anyone from reading it now. The Eiko x Kiyose chapters kind of do their own thing anyway.

We'd love to have the RAWs. I've been translating the magazine chapters ahead of the typesetter anyway so do pop by /u/ sometime.

Okay, it'll take some time but I will. Hopefully in a few days. I just hope I don't mess up while figuring out how /u/ works.

It could be that they just skipped that chapter for Volume 5 and it'll be in Volume 6. It wouldn't be the first time for Slow Start either. Volume 6 comes out at the end of February, so we'll know then.

That's what I'm hoping. I also hope the bonus chapter that was just translated will be included in a tankoubon... at some point.

You mean the one that no one can even get their hands on cos that issue of Kirara's sold out everywhere!?

January 2018, the one with Eiko and Kiyose on the cover? Well, I have it! We could wait for volume 6 to come out to see if the chapter is in it, but either way you'd probably want the color pages.

last edited at Jan 8, 2019 7:21AM

Sometimes the Eiko x Sensei material almost feels like it's part of its own timeline separate from the main series. There was one really shippy chapter in the magazine last year that straight up didn't make it to the tankoubon. (if needed, I can probably get my hands on a scanner when /u/ reaches the end of volume 5)

it could even be that it's a publicity stunt to stir up controversy or something to drum up interest or support from less conservative young people.

If you don't mind me butting in, there have been cases of seiyuu pretending to be into women for PR. Most notably, Itou Shizuka and Nabatame Hitomi pretended for years to be dating with each of them having their own harem of cute voice actresses on the side. They even held a wedding ceremony (to sell CDs). It was fun but pretty obviously fake. Of course, they both got married to men.

I agree with everyone else, Kitta Izumi's case feels different. But I'm not aware of anyone in the seiyuu industry being openly LGBT anything. It might still be considered career suicide. In fact, I'm surprised she has the stones to even dare to name a lesbian character after herself.

^ Did you reach the part where the alternate Yu, who's openly horny for every version of Asuka, is introduced? Well, it turns out that the "main" Yu also has feelings for Main Character Asuka. She admits it at a crucial moment and they have a heartfelt talk before kissing (only seen from a distance, but it was clearly not a hug).
It's a ridiculous show and the silliness is not for everyone, but I've come to enjoy how it embraces just how ridiculous it is.

Okay, you guys should watch Akanesasu Shoujo. It's a lot more fun than the first couple episodes would lead you to believe. Also, canon yuri. Definitely didn't expect that, but I'm not going to complain. Technically the world isn't saved yet, but I'd be very surprised if it got a tragic ending.

And yeah Release the Spyce went full drama this week. Not sure how I feel about it yet.

I fucking love Zombieland Saga. I don't know how this episode managed to be both heartbreaking and hilarious but it pulled it off.

I really don't understand what was the fucking point of making Connie all like a crazy bitch in the anime instead? when she's shown to be really nice with her team maters?

Yeah that was ridiculous, but I'd say that Connie actually got off pretty easy compared to what they did to Nagisa in the first two episodes and Ayano in the second half. In any case, definitely stick with the manga.

Also, their shared secrets made me worried about stuff like "I like X-kun from next class" T-T that was just me?

I had that thought, but I figure that if one of them had mentioned a boy the other would have teased her way more over it. Remember, Hinata still teases Aoi about some guy from grade school! We got some nice subtext this season, my favorite episode in terms of yuri was the first one with the night hiking definitely-not-a-date.