The special chapter shows that Otome spent at least some time with Minato right after moving out of her mother's place. I always assumed that the main cause of their later separation was Otome needing to go elsewhere while learning to be an architect, while Minato had to stay put to continue being a teacher.

But OriginalGengar is right, from the afterword, the artist is also thinking of the drama.

last edited at Nov 24, 2015 12:27AM

I already thought that might be the case. Kinda sad, the manga was so good but the ending so bad (in my eyes at least)

Omg, this story, i love it sooooooooo much! The cuteness level is to heaven!

WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW THIS IS GREAT AND WONDERFUL
Holy fucking shit, this mangá is a SLAP IN THE FACE HAUAHUAHAUHAUHA

I need to read this again. Like right now.

The age gap is a little creepy (A 25 year old woman in love with a 12 year old girl?), but the manga is just so sweet and innocent that it's not much of an issue. It's... too... sweet... :x

I just finished it in one go for the nth time and man, this series really has a special place in my heart for some reason.... Ugh, 8 AM is definitely too early for feels.

Love this yuri manga, one of my favourites <3

Wow this manga is soo good, how could I miss until today? I enjoyned almost or maybe more than girfriends, and I usually don't like age gap or teacher/student plots, so it was very surprising!

ikr this was so beatifull sometimes sad the pace was amazing the 3rd volume special made me smile like dumb without noticing oohh man direct to favs in my top 5 yuri mangas

i actually have a sweet tooth for age gap and student/teacher unfortunately...
but its kinda gross that it started ever since otome was like 11. i wonder if it would have been a nicer story if it was all like the first 1/2 of the story and if they genuinely wanted to be mother/daughter and not in love? lol

Best story i have ever read

Meh, I'm a bit confused about the numbering of the chapters on Dynasty, and one translation that I remembered differently and compared. I probs won't explain this very well, but oh well, this is what I've noticed.
I just reread this in French and I realised that for this page the second bubble is wrong. She actually says "Is that why you're sending me to an all-girls school?"
The page/joke is now clear to me, it makes much more sense.
The context was that Minato expressed her concerns of Otome possibly finding a boyfriend in middle school and leaving her, and Otome's like is that why you sent me to an all-girls school? Minato says "uh, yeah..." and Otome's like "... points at each other..." cus theyre both girls (sending her to a girls school to keep her away from boys, but meanwhile they're both girls and in love with each other, doesn't make sense, a boyfriend isn't what her concern should be). So that was the joke I never understood.

Another thing I find a bit uh, bothersome, is that the order the chapters were published/shown here isn't the order they're placed in the published volume. Actually, the chapter numbers aren't the same either, chapter 19 isn't the "final chapter".
The chapter the 3rd volume starts with is actually this one, listed as "chapter 14" in the volume, but as "chapter 13" of vol 2 on Dynasty, which confused me at first. It's fine if you read it all in one go, cus that's the chapter that explains why they gotta move now, but volume-wise, it's the start of vol 3.

The reading order of the last chapters is different too; the final chapter, "chapter 19" on dynasty, is really just named "Final Chapter", and has two parts: A and B. In between them, is a "Bonus".
The author talks about it in the afterword, how the final chapter is broken up. Chronologically, and reading-wise, the Bonus is placed in between the two parts of the Final Chapter A&B. Perhaps Kurogane split the chapters in the volume, but published it as a whole in Tsubomi, that I wouldnt know.

Hmm so yeah, that's that. I preferred the way the chapters were organized in the volume much better, it made more sense. I guess you can't help it cus they scanlated the chapters from the magazine, and then there was extra stuff in the volumes that they cant just included in what they've already released, but some extras are just out of place., related to the chapter it immediately followed.

Meh this is so unorganized. I'm winging this post. (╯｡•́︿•̀｡)╯︵ ┻━┻

last edited at Aug 15, 2016 2:41PM

No, actually I'm glad you mentioned this. I never knew the differences in the way the chapters were organized. I also appreciate the girls school joke correction, it is funnier now, and makes more sense.
Thank you for taking the time to post this.

I'm also glad it was scanlated at all ofc, I never would have know of this series and thought of buying it if I hadn't read it beforehand, as well as how the French version is... sketchy, sometimes. (Just in case the French chpaters summary page wasn't wrong, I did compare it to the raws)

In case it sounded rude or out of line or something, I do wanna say that it's not my intention at all, I just... like things to be as faithful/accurate to the actual meaning as possible.
I'm really glad there's a scanlated version because the official French translation actually tried to censor the age gap. In the eng scans, they clearly state that there's a 13 years difference between them and I just checked the raws, I see the number 13 as well. They also mention that Otome was finishing elementary school, and going to middle school. In French, they changed it to 7 years of difference (they changed the 13 to 7 in that bubble) and edited some lines to make it seem as if she was trying to get into high school/le lycée, rather than entering middle school.
They tried, but they weren't super consistent about it tho. Volume 2 is sorta the arc when Otome goes to cram school to make up for the shit she doesn't know, to help her get accepted into a middle school Lmao, in French, they changed it to high school, ofc. In the volume 2 extra, Otome states that she's 13, and in French, in that panel she just says "I'm of age now!" (Which is ambiguous cus Otome is just implying/thinking that she's old enough. I see the number 13 in the raws too, so they voluntarily cut it out) Minato states that Otome would have to reach 18 for it to legal, and Otome is just baffled, that it'd have to be after high school (makes sense). HOWEVER, Minato then says, depressed, that she'd be 31 years old by that time. Sike. Before I checked with the eng scans to confirm if I remembered it right (7 years felt off to me, I remembered the gap being bigger/that Otome wasn't in middle school yet), this helped confirm it to me. If Minato will be 31 years old by the time Otome reaches 18, then there is indeed a 13 years age gap. I'm happy I read the eng scans before the French version, it definitely would have fucked me up.
What's weirder tho is that in volume 3, it's like they stopped trying. "high school" became "middle school" again. Guess it was just too hard to censor, since the blackmail girl is supposed to be older than her; a high school student, among other things, not to mention that when they stop living together, Otome's supposed to be entering high school. After the "Bonus" chapter in between the Final Chapter A&B, she finishes high school and comes see her a bit, before finally going to uni. That DEFINITELY would have been hard to censor/cut out, it's super messed up now. Guess they didn't know it would have been impossible to hide later on, but that really fucked up the chronology/ages, I wish they hadn't tried to censor.

tl;dr, I bought some yuri that French publishers have licensed (cus I can actually read that shit and cus thirst/wanting to own those series) but it turns out that they've taken certain liberties in their translation/it's inaccurate/sketchy, so I end up frequently having to look those series up (having read them in English before helped me realise that some stuff aren't as I remembered) and comparing the text.
It's also kinda inconvenient, how they change how characters call each other cus socially, it works differently for the French. For instance, Otome frequently calls Minato "sensei", which you can't do in French. Instead, Otome just conveniently never calls her anything (Eng: Huh? What is Sensei doing? French: Huh? What is she doing? (Hein? Qu'est-ce qu'elle fabrique?)), just "Nakagawa" once in chapter 3 iirc, which was super weird/awks tbh, and later, Minato, which works out cus first names are a ok in French.
tl;dr again, I'm having a harsh time reading and comparing the dialogues, this is actually the first time that the eng scans were wrong. I had a friend check the raws for me and confirm it.

last edited at Aug 16, 2016 2:33AM

Well you shouldn't worry that much. The translator job is to translate the work as accurate and natural as possible, but they still are only human and can make a mistake. As long as it isn't in rage (you **** how dare you **** my yuri by your **** mistranslation!) it is totally understandable to point out mistakes if you are suspecting or sure about them.

About censoring, I'd say stuff like that doesn't faze me at all, cos publishers always loved to censure nudity/taboo stuff in manga since the beginning. Though depending on the countries I think it got better nowadays. Was per chance Hoshikawa translated some years ago or is it more recent addition? If it is the first, then I'd say it had misfortune being published in times when censoring was more prominent (then again can't speak for France so maybe they still censor a lot).

last edited at Aug 16, 2016 10:25AM

amazing, after 3 year there are stil people posting commento on this! (An i am one)
I have to say that i'm almost happy there's no italian verision of this one. A couple of month ago i bought shojo sect and... my god, it is so bad that i wonder if the translator actually got a copy or just a txt with the script. With blank bubbles, mistakes and mistranslations, It have the label "Just porn, doesn't need to spend money on it" sticked all over.
Back to business, i don't think Hina is so horrible. I mean, she fell for another (underage) girl that is in love with her adult guardian. Enough to minblow her. As per the blackmailing... i don't think it was planned, she just get caught in her own flow. Same for Otome, she find herself cornered in a bad situation AND she's just a child, comply to Hina's request is the most common answer. In the end there's no proof they had sex, also the "mood" suggests they didn't.

Oh I got Shoujo Sect in French too! When ordering the books and worrying about the increasing bill, I hesitated at first, but bought it after all. There's a few translation problems/ambiguity as well, but they weren't... that bad. It was good. I never had/read nsfw(/hentai basically)in paper copies before, it was refreshing. I was probs a few years younger when I first read it/skimmed ish, I didnt realise how dramatic/heavyit was before :0 its super sexual and all ofc but, I think... there's something kinda beautiful about it? Same with Hoshikawa Ginza District 4, tho I first read it perhaps a year and a half ago. Very emotionally meaningful relationships TTvTT

I would say they split the book into 2 parts. The kanji 上 can stand for the first volume of a book, while the kanji下 can denote the last book in a series.
上<星川銀座四丁目
下<星川銀座四丁目

Every time I run across this manga I end up reading the final chapter because it always manages to bring a tear to my eye, the scenes with the neighborhood coming to help her out is just so heart warming.

THIS MADE ME DIE I LOVED IT WITH ALLMY HEART

What's a good age-gap manga.

I guess that technically their relation ship is still illegal in real life (grooming and etc). But this is fiction so fk it.

Didn't notice the Volume 3 extra till now so felt like Christmas for me. Ages since i read this too so started to reread the whole things now. The whole manga was perfect to the T (except maybe the confession was a bit too sudden, 1 more chapter of angst would have been better). But the overall slow burn was supreme

Ah, what's a good age-gap manga

Ahhh, can't believe it's been 5 years already. It's been a hell of a ride, probably should've made an account sooner but better late then never. Always gotta re-read this each year, can't help but smile and cry through this whole thing.

I always admire any manga that tackles the age gap relationships and don't make them sleazy or uncomfortable cause it's a touchy subject. But this and Dear My Teacher were two that got the tone just right when it comes to the age gap subject.

But I thought this was rather touching and very funny, and the central couple of Minato and Otome were rather sweet. The whole Hina subplot did feel out of place and a bit sleazy but it was only a chapter so it didn't ruin it for me. I loved the ending as they deserved a happy ending. Personally I don't know why they didn't knock Otome age up to 16 but those are nit picks. One of the better Yuri manga's I've read in my recent splurge.

I wish the author would have drawn a chapter or two about Otome's life at her mother's place. Also how Minato was doing during that time. We have Vol.3 special chapter which fills in some of the gaps, but it would be much better if there were more. I mean, drama sometimes can do your health wonder too (read: I'm lying :V )

Overally this is one of the best age gap series I've ever read. It's always so sad to see one's favourite series ends. Thank you Kurogane Ken. Otome and Minato, these two will be in my heart.

Pudding, a Yuri fan, 5 years after the end of a great series.

last edited at Sep 13, 2018 8:56AM

How comes nobody told me about this one?!

One of my favorite yuri for sure. 'Twas done so well, one of those where you can feel the intimacy and bond between the girls. I loved it! <3