thechampionmike95 posted:

How did this get a yuri tag? Yeah Sayabliked her friend but they never went deep enough to go beyond subtext. Her reactions show attraction but it's too early to call it yuri. New Game and Urara have more yuri in it and neither of them are tagged as yuri. Also there's not enough from Mei to say she likes Saya in the same way as well. Unless this continue I think it's too early to give this a yuri tag. Overall thought the story was pretty meh and had too much unnecessary fanservice.

It doesn't need to be reciprocated to count as yuri. All it really needs is verified feelings from one party.

thechampionmike95 posted:

How did this get a yuri tag? Yeah Sayabliked her friend but they never went deep enough to go beyond subtext. Her reactions show attraction but it's too early to call it yuri. New Game and Urara have more yuri in it and neither of them are tagged as yuri. Also there's not enough from Mei to say she likes Saya in the same way as well. Unless this continue I think it's too early to give this a yuri tag. Overall thought the story was pretty meh and had too much unnecessary fanservice.

It doesn't need to be reciprocated to count as yuri. All it really needs is verified feelings from one party.

True but here it's not verified from either party. It's implied something is there but never confirmed that it's there from either of them. This is subtext at best. I'd compare Saya to Retoree from Show By Rock and I wouldn't say that's a yuri series but a subtextual one.

thechampionmike95 posted:

I'd compare Saya to Retoree from Show By Rock

To me Retoree was gay af and totally in love with Cyan.

Never really believed in the idea that there was fan service that only worked for one gender but I find it plenty believable that some is targeted at one gender over the other regardless. I don't like fanservice. If you do, fine. but the fact that the frame is literally oriented to show characters a certain way makes me cringe. It's like when a romance story is full of contrived nonsense. It takes me out of the story. Makes me want to drop the book and I do more often than not.

That's just how it is for me. Some are like, well this story is for luls. Fine. It doesn't amuse me though. But if its your thing, fine. I try to avoid these works but there isn't exactly a lot of choice in yuri and sometimes it shows up after you've started.

Fan service aside, this was just another story I didn't like. There are so many of those in this genre. Many with no fan service at all in fact.

last edited at Jul 1, 2017 9:04PM

I think applying western concepts to japanese authors is a dangerous thing to do. As it was said already, the author is female. There's a lot of pervy female author in the yuri genre.

I figured. Sometimes people are just making things they want. Some of NSFW material out there is made by women. Got nothing against that. Certain things just don't appeal to me when done a certain way but I certainly don't think people shouldn't be allowed to or that their gender should preclude them from telling stories any way they want.

Also remember how the female author of Sakura Trick actually asked the anime production to focus on the girls' tights and boobs. It was her wish, above all.

I respect that but it was so grating for me it became a large part of why I dropped the show. Again. Not saying the world should revolve around my tastes or anything.

last edited at Jul 1, 2017 9:19PM

Wlfking posted:

Never really believed in the idea that there was fan service that only worked for one gender but I find it plenty believable that some is targeted at one gender over the other regardless. I don't like fanservice. If you do, fine. but the fact that the frame is literally oriented to show characters a certain way makes me cringe. It's like when a romance story is full of contrived nonsense. It takes me out of the story. Makes me want to drop the book and I do more often than not.

For me fan service is a tolerable annoyance (I don't think there's any situation where it actually adds anything to a story) but in a story that's already got story issues it's a death sentence. It's tolerable in something interesting and well written such as Each Other's Guardians.

I think applying western concepts to japanese authors is a dangerous thing to do.

It isn't like these are western-only concepts, and it isn't like the Japanese aren't in contact with western ideas. They're pretty basic ones, and to say "well, they don't think that way" comes close to stereotyping Asians as exotic and "not like us".

Never really believed in the idea that there was fan service that only worked for one gender but I find it plenty believable that some is targeted at one gender over the other regardless.

I think this is really at the heart of what's being discussed here. Manga, or really any media, often gets made with a particular audience in mind. It'll be made differently from stuff made with a different target audience. These approaches in a popular medium that's been around quite a while, like manga, will often be gendered, and will often be entrenched. The assumption that the male audience wants this, and the female audience wants that, and the stuff is made with that in mind.

Keep in mind it doesn't matter if some women like stuff aimed at males, since they're a bonus. Not part of the calculation, but it's nice to get extra sales. And it's not a matter of "ew, males are gross because they're complicit" since it's really got nothing to do with that. The point is that it's aimed at what they think that audience wants, and to be fair this sort of stuff gets positive feedback so it's not as if this comes out of nowhere. Even the fact, mentioned earlier, that it's a female author doesn't really make much of a difference since women learn their craft in an industry that makes that sort of assumption the same as male artists do. None of this stuff happens in a vacuum, y'know?

As to fan service, it can be amusing if done in an amusing way (I remember reading Air Gear back in the day and the fanservice there was gloriously ridiculous), and sometimes, if rarely, the artist manages to make it look genuinely sexy. Neither is the case here, and it just ends up looking like they're trying too hard to get boys to buy it. Or maybe the author was copying ideas from manga that does, i dunno.

I agree that fan service isn't all bad. Nothing is wrong with adding a little sex appeal while still telling a story. My problem here is that the fanservice is used to get people ro buy the manga instead of being something to give the manga a tad bit of sex appeal. The plot is two girls buying crepes while one blushes and questions if she likes her friend or not. There's no major plot here and the author was banking on the sexy drawings to het people to buy it. The problem here isn't whether fanservice is good or bad but whether it's good or bad that some author's believe fanservice has greater value than plot solely because they target a certain demographic. It's not the fanservice that pisses people off here but the fact that the author only added it in to appease and sell to a specific audience that makes people mad.

The problem here isn't whether fanservice is good or bad but whether it's good or bad that some author's believe fanservice has greater value than plot solely because they target a certain demographic.

You've got to admit though, it can be pretty effective. I'm sure we can all think of an anime or five - or twenty - which do well without much going for them but fanservice.

I believe the only anime I've seen that can make Fan-service relevant to the plot would have to be Kill La Kill.

The plot is two girls buying crepes while one blushes and questions if she likes her friend or not. There's no major plot here and the author was banking on the sexy drawings to het people to buy it.

Well, this is the authors first manga (or at least one of their first). So I don't really think that it was their intention to lure in a horney male demographic. They just wanted to make this doujin for fun.

last edited at Jul 2, 2017 10:30AM

There are a lot of possible reasons for why this doujin was created. Maybe the author's just trying to cash in on male gaze. Maybe they want to create deeper yuri stories, but aren't confident in their ability to do so and want to try something shallow to test the waters.

I'd give the author a chance to build an actual oeuvre before trying to read into their motivations.

For now, I'll argue that if this author were going for the former, they could have just made one of the characters a completely featureless, male, wish fulfillment vehicle.

last edited at Jul 2, 2017 10:46AM

There are a lot of possible reasons for why this doujin was created. Maybe the author's just trying to cash in on male gaze. Maybe they want to create deeper yuri stories, but aren't confident in their ability to do so and want to try something shallow to test the waters.

Maybe, like a lot of new artists, they tried to copy what other authors do and it happened to be something that legitimately tried to cash in on male-gazey fanservice. Hard to really say without them saying a lot more about the story.

In the end, what we know is she crammed in an awful lot of fanservice of a certain sort into a story that normally wouldn't call for it at all so it sticks out like a sore thumb.

I'm willing to see where the author goes from here, if nothing else.

last edited at Jul 2, 2017 11:25AM

I want to give the author the benefit of the doubt but considering she draws a lot of hentai on her pixiv page I can't help but think this was made to draw women looking sexy. But as other people say it is too early to tell. Maybe the author is so used to drawing girls looking sexy that was what they went with in their first story. That does happen with doujin artists who make manga.

It isn't like these are western-only concepts, and it isn't like the Japanese aren't in contact with western ideas. They're pretty basic ones, and to say "well, they don't think that way" comes close to stereotyping Asians as exotic and "not like us".

What I meant is that maybe their female artists have a different view than western ones. But then again, I remember there's a lot of female artists on west do the same.
I do know that "male gaze" exist, even on japanese things. But this is mostly a commercial concept. Actracting buyers by putting scenes that they'll like to see. I don't think it makes sense to apply the same concept to doujins, since they usually do things they like. I know they sell it, but no doujin artist ever consider making a living of drawing doujins. Rather, it's like a hobby.
So I wonder if it's supposed to be "male gaze" when she's not doing it thinking: "I'll draw like this, so a lot of male buyers will buy it", but rather: "I'm drawing it like this because I like it."

lol panty shots. I think my expectations went down drastically after seeing that haha

Yeah the story was pretty threadbare here. How can you accidentally kisses someone when youre both sitting down on a bench?

The ending made me laugh though, not that I think that was intentional. Saya: oh man today was intense i love her so much
Other girl: WOW ME AND SAYA ARE SUCH GREAT FRIENDS

hahahahaha

last edited at Jul 3, 2017 2:42AM

Typical problem with full colour manga, the colouring takes so long there is no time left for proper plot or character development. Still, something is better than nothing.

I read the bio of the characters and this is basically citrus right?

in Citrus the calm one is the troublesome mess while the active one is the one trying to keep the world together, here its the opposite

The problem here isn't whether fanservice is good or bad but whether it's good or bad that some author's believe fanservice has greater value than plot solely because they target a certain demographic. It's not the fanservice that pisses people off here but the fact that the author only added it in to appease and sell to a specific audience that makes people mad.

I came two years later just to say I agree with this. Even for a first try, the yuri was pretty bland and almost non-existent-
Characters was really cute, tho... I would like to see more of them-