https://twitter.com/FluffyYuri/status/910684141489881088

last edited at Sep 21, 2017 2:41PM

I just really can't pass the fact that I would be watching NTR lol, too bad for those who like it, they won't get a s2

last edited at Sep 21, 2017 9:16PM

For a moment I thought this was one of those Mochi Au Lait-esque super-long titles

For a moment I thought this was one of those Mochi Au Lait-esque super-long titles

It wasn't just you...

last edited at Sep 22, 2017 7:48AM

There's one element in there I found really interesting, that Kodama really likes soap opera type stories. I wonder if that's one reason why western fans seem to hate the series so much, while it's clearly popular enough in Japan to keep running, get an anime, have other mangaka doing fanart, etc.

Soap operas aren't really the same sort of story as romance, even though they deal with a lot of the same subject matter. There's a lot more of what folks here might call "forced drama", cheating, and tend to be a lot more convoluted. Most yuri we see is romance (well, or porn), where it's about the conflicts the main couple must deal with to get together.

I'd be surprised if much of the western yuri audience watches much in the line of soap operas, whereas unless I miss my guess, the Japanese yuri audience has more familiarity with them. So there's a much different expectation for what makes a good story in the first place.

Nezchan posted:

There's a lot more of what folks here might call "forced drama", cheating, and tend to be a lot more convoluted

That is how most of shoujo mangas works. Instead of development and progress, we got sudden conflicts and obstacles to generate tension and drama to keep reader reading and wanting to know if things will turn out ok. So yes, Japanese audience is much more used to that kind of stuff, because that is how most of their romance stories goes and they love it, if popular shoujo mangas are any indications. NTR and (especially) Citrus uses very similar tactics and way of story telling, that is why I'm not supersized they are very popular in Japan.

I'm a big fan of Kodama Naoko. But I think things like Cocytus (and Moratorium), A World Without Freedom, and her oneshots work better than Netsuzou Trap. She relies a lot on strong emotions (especially self-hatred) and surprise revelations, which works fine in shorter formats but gets really stale if it continues chapter after chapter. I still enjoy Netsuzou, but it's hard not to laugh at how extreme it gets, and when you're laughing at a drama, you don't feel invested in the characters at all.

From reading her author's afterwords in various works, it's clear she's very self-aware regarding the stories she likes to tell. From the Moratorium note:

I drew this while thinking, "I wonder what's the difference between feelings of love and strong friendship?" I've been on the topic lately, but I still want to see if I can draw this theme from a different angle. Women like Mao really bring "troublesome" to a new level. I love that kind of character! haha