I wish there was so much content for me to consume that there would be some real competition here but there's not.
So sad, but so true. The lack of original yuri series is agonizing.
whu? I mean I have my hang ups. I'm picky as hell. but I don't think I'd go as far as to call it agonizing. huh.
This might depend on how much time you have on your hands. I currently have too much free time and not enough money so there needs to be a LOT of content to begin ruling things like this out. I mean, if there was as much Harlequin Romance for lesbians as there are for straight women, I could suddenly be a lot choosier. ESPECIALLY, if the public library stocked oodles of them like they do Harlequin style books.
So the perception of how good the content flow is is altered by the amount of free time and the ability to fill that free time with other enjoyable things such as money for outings, close proximity to friends (okay I moved to a place with no one immediately in my age group and no money soooo this has been trashed), available dates, etc.
Writing this has made me think maybe I should go to the library and check out some straight Harlequins even though I have zero interest in dating men.
Don't do it! Not because you shouldn't read straight romance, just that Harlequins (and actually, most mass-market Western romance) are crap. Read some straight Josei or shoujo manga or something instead.
Writing quality as such aside, Harlequins aren't really romance. What they are typically is a sort of wish-fulfillment, typically through a patriarchal lens. That is, they fulfill the "wish" of women to land the ultimate male--big, strong, rich, forceful, the undisputed boss of the chimp troop. "Fifty Shades of Grey" is actually a pretty typical Harlequin except the dominance themes are more explicit. And what the female leads feel for these males is typically not, or not mainly, love. Generally it is lust, passion, a magnetic attraction to the dominant qualities of this male, combined with gratification that they were the one chosen and often a certain triumph at putting a leash on the big wild game. Often in fact attention is drawn to their active dislike of the person's actual personality, which they get over because they cannot resist the animal magnetism schtick. In a way it's love as greed, very much the romance of unbridled capitalism.
There is a strand in romance manga that can be kind of this way, but it's not dominant. And even the bad ones--there have been some Harlequins that were translated into romance manga, and when you read one of those you really see the difference. Most shoujo and even josei romances actually focus on emotion and personal connection. There's something sweet and touching about many of them that just isn't part of the Harlequin-et-al formula at all.
heh. And some comment here I glanced at a week ago had me wondering if romance was at all something I should bother reading given all my hang ups and particulars!
Another enjoyable chapter. Way to use the old friend of a friend thing. The ending was funny. That surprise relationship may only be surprising in that it was revealed so soon.
Oh. And I'd like to thank all the translators! Even if I don't like the title. I hope someday you are all immortalized in a manga about translating manga. To save to world! (of course)
