this is absolutely adorable I love it.

im dumb in love with the bird

Besides being cute and adorable (which is just another way of saying “Itou Hachi”), this chapter is, like, both serious development and crucial backstory.

I love the chapters of industrial-strength cuteness, but this one suggests the possibility of the story actually going somewhere.

my this story is way too adorable.

"I'm not scary am I?"

Proceeds to tell young girl her entire traumatising backstory

Omg it’s being translated again!!! :D

GanbaRuby, Mel!

Omg omg omg omg i am sooo happy right now! Thank you so much for the translation!!!! Mel And Master are so cute!!! Master blushed for the first time And we finally can see why master is like that. It is such a beautiful story! Sadly Itou finished It so soon.

This series is so cute. xD

Child slavery is not cute.

As far I know, this got 8 chapters (unless a 9th is already made) but this just gonna get cutier :3

Child slavery is not cute.

For you

Having lousy day
Read Itou Hachi
Life is good

Child slavery is not cute.

Mel is not a slave.

Child slavery is not cute.

Mel is not a slave.

Mel certainly seems to be willing, and we saw that nobody told her to do any work until she requested it.

However, the whole situation with the beastkin is either deliberately creepy or hilariously tone-deaf. They're raised in a very strict school and taught basic work skills from a young age. Then, while still children (12 or so) they're "adopted" by someone who they refer to as their master.

More than anything else, this sounds like something similar to slavery. The way the governments of the US, Canada, and Australia forced native families to send their children to dormitories so they could learn how to behave like proper civilized folk, and be taught their subservient roles in society, comes to mind.

Maybe not all beastkin are treated this way, but these are orphaned girls, and maybe all orphanages in this world operate this way, not just the ones for beastkin. Maybe the organization has very strict standards for potential "masters" to make sure none of them will abuse their wards (and they'd probably have to do continuing check-ins as well).

Maybe, through whatever means, this whole system we've seen somehow makes sense in Itou Hachi's world. There are no abuses, and all beastkin are well-treated and happy. I'm perfectly willing to accept that. We haven't been given very much information, and the story is cute. But it doesn't change the fact that what we've been presented so far looks very much like they're a subservient race whose lives are controlled by humans, who are free to use them for their own purposes.

last edited at Jul 2, 2018 8:20AM

There are no abuses on screen, you mean. I recall one of the doujins was about Mel almost being kidnapped.
But yeah, I also got creeped the hell out when the author made that school background story for Mel, with implications of selective breeding. Specially since it seemed the author's intentions was to make Mel look more adorable.

last edited at Jul 2, 2018 9:30AM

There are no abuses on screen, you mean. I recall one of the doujins was about Mel almost being kidnapped.
But yeah, I also got creeped the hell out when the author made that school background story for Mel, with implications of selective breeding. Specially since it seemed the author's intentions was to make Mel look more adorable.

The kidnapping appeared to be just a random occurrence, not really related to her species. Some bystanders talked about how kids were being kidnapped, and they should look out for their children. That's not really what I'm talking about.

But now that I think about it, if you include the doujins, then some of the shit her master pulls would certainly be considered abusive if it happened in real life.

Anyways, I'm fine with it, it's just a story, and it's cute. It's just kind of funny to think about. It's even funnier when you consider, like you said, that it seems like the whole dormitory thing was written with a complete lack of awareness of how it looks.

last edited at Jul 2, 2018 11:04AM

There’s no doubt, as I have said here before in some detail, that there are marginally creepy and disturbing undertones to certain aspects of this story. There are other aspects that may or not be disturbing except we don’t have much information about them (like much of anything about beastkin families of birth, for example), and since Itou Hachi as a storyteller never seems particularly interested in detailed world-building, we probably never will.

Age-gap stories always involve a certain degree of squick, and it would take some much more mathematically minded person than I am to calculate the squick-multiplication factor of an interspecies, same-sex, age-gap, unequal-social-and-economic-status relationship.

That said, some of the discussion here reminds me of the question that came up about Nakatani Nio’s “Commearication”—does fondling a person’s fox ears count as sexual? It’s just kind of hard to extrapolate the ethical implications of that from everyday life because human beings don’t have fox ears.

(I hope that last assertion did not require a spoiler tag.)

last edited at Jul 3, 2018 3:50AM

I’m just wondering whether all works of the author are in the same universe (well not taking sayuri and kindred spirits into account). Because in other works the Beastkin are portrayed to be from some far away country that are distinguished by their ears and their acceptance of gay-marriage, not that they’re bred selectively to be sold as slaves. I thought Mel was just from an orphanage of some sort but oh well, maybe I’m just mixing things up or don’t have them correctly in mind :c

I’m pretty sure that in this case, Itou Hachi’s creative process went something like:

• There should be little girls with furry ears and bushy tails. Cute ones.
• And in a maid costume.
• If a maid, then a boss, who is a woman, because yuri.
• The maid should climb up on things then slip and fall so the master can catch her. Cutely.
• The maid should be an orphan or something like that. A cute one.
• You know what else would be cute?—a cute yet mildly S&M collar to go with the cute maid costume.
  
• A cute grandma to bring tea.
• Butterflies.

Without denying in the least the somewhat disturbing nature of the implications of this story’s premises, I think the detailed social, economic, and cultural substructure of this fictional world is way down the list of the author’s priorities for this story.

In short, the primary answer to the question “where do the beastkin come from?” is: from Itou Hachi’s desire that there be cute little girls with furry ears and bushy tails wearing maid’s aprons.

And yuri. Cute yuri.

Agreed. Itou Hachi knows enough to prioritize the important aspects of story-telling.

I'm sorry, but I have to firmly disagree. I think butterflies would have to be above cute tea grandma, in Itou Hachi's mind.

I'm sorry, but I have to firmly disagree. I think butterflies would have to be above cute tea grandma, in Itou Hachi's mind.

Oh, granted—that was just a back-of-the-envelope list. I would remind you, however, that without grandma Collette we don’t have someone to cover Mel and Master with a blanket when they fall asleep together on a bench in the garden.

Just saying.

I like this chapter, her friend is the real voice of reason.

Hey, the world runs on cute grandmas