If Touko -is- to the point that she's ready to accept someone's feelings for her and enter a reciprocal relationship, then she'll be, at some point, reconsidering whether she wants to stay in a relationship where the other person is (as far as she knows) aromantic. Partly because she honestly wants to be kissed by the person she loves, and because of the loneliness of a one-sided relationship like that,

I don't think that fits the story so far, or Touko's personality. Touko doesn't feel lonely at all. In fact the reason why she's with Yuu is because Yuu accepts her and doesn't ask anything of her. If she had the kind of personality that relies on others to drown her loneliness, she'd have accepted every confession that came her way regardless of hating herself or any of that.

but more than any of that, I believe she'll expect it to be a relief to Yuu. Touko has expressed several times her inner thoughts of imposing on Yuu, of Yuu being patient with her desires and "putting up" with her. I can easily envision a scenario where she agrees to go out with Sayaka because she thinks releasing Yuu from their relationship is a favor, oblivious to the hurt it will cause.

This could happen. But the story doesn't seem to be going down that route. Touko has explicitly said, even in recent chapters, that she is in love with Yuu. I don't expect her heart to be so fickle she'd switch Yuu for Sayaka in a heartbeat. Unless she somehow starts feeling that their relationship is dragging Yuu down, and starts to feel guilty about it.

Maybe someone from school could see Touko kissing Yuu. The two of them would suffer a backslash from all lesbophobia out there, and in order to spare Yuu from that, Touko could say that she actually forced the kiss on Yuu. Kinda cliché, though, so I wouldn't bet on that.

Touko has explicitly said, even in recent chapters, that she is in love with Yuu.

Touko’s love for Yuu is sort of the black box of the entire series—its origin is mysterious, or at least highly unusual, and a central dynamic of the story is that the love has been interdicted from being reciprocal—Yuu has essentially been forbidden to be in love with Touko, and Yuu has explicitly promised that she would not fall in love with Touko.

But we know that Yuu has broken that promise. (It was a crappy thing to make someone promise anyway, and Touko is damn lucky that Yuu has broken it.)

So what happens to that love after Touko’s change of attitude about herself? I’ve resisted the temptation to put ‘love’ in quotation marks, because Touko’s feelings for Yuu have always seemed to be quite sincere. To suddenly drop everything now would diminish the whole previous story, making the relationship between the two main characters into a hollow simulation, a mere crutch to prop up Touko’s dysfunctional psychology that can now be discarded.

Touko has taken her relationships with both Yuu and Sayaka quite seriously; I just don’t see her suddenly giving Yuu her walking papers and Sayaka a free ticket out of the friend zone because she now feels better about herself.

But what now happens to that romantic attraction when she discovers that Yuu returns it remains the primary mystery of that black box.

Touko accepting Sayaka would be contrived as hell. Even if she rejects Yuu, she has never shown any kind of romantic/sexual feeling towards Sayaka, so dating her out of the blue would be weird and ruin their friendship, and I doubt Touko wants that since she appreciates what they have.
And I have the feeling Touko already knows or at least suspects that Sayaka sees her as more than a friend and is ignoring it on purpose because she feels comfortable with their relationship as it is.

last edited at Jul 16, 2018 11:43PM

so in short, this is about an ace girl's story of falling in love? It'd be nice if the mangaka would continue making Yuu analyze every situation rather than just go along with it without questioning things. This is interesting.

I don't think she is asexual but rather aromantic because in the last chapter of the 3rd volume Yuu says that she does enjoy being kissed just like anyone would. So I think that means that she does feel sexual attraction or at least enjoys it but doesn't feel romantic attraction. Perhaps she is gray-romantic or demi-romantic. I guess we will see.

shes not asexual or aromantic. she just believes that romance happens like in shoujo manga where someone shows up and sweeps you off your feet and that it would happen to her like that. she gets confused about her feelings because that didnt happen between her and touko and she did not know that you could gradually come to love someone over time.

so in short, this is about an ace girl's story of falling in love? It'd be nice if the mangaka would continue making Yuu analyze every situation rather than just go along with it without questioning things. This is interesting.

I don't think she is asexual but rather aromantic because in the last chapter of the 3rd volume Yuu says that she does enjoy being kissed just like anyone would. So I think that means that she does feel sexual attraction or at least enjoys it but doesn't feel romantic attraction. Perhaps she is gray-romantic or demi-romantic. I guess we will see.

Have you even read all the chapters so far? It's clear she likes Touko romantically, hell chapter 33 has Yuu indirectly asking her sister about advice regarding confessing. Honestly at this point there shouldn't be anyone questioning whether Yuu is asexual/aromantic or not, anyone who pays a little bit of attention would quickly figure her out.

last edited at Jul 20, 2018 11:46AM

I don't think she is asexual but rather aromantic because in the last chapter of the 3rd volume Yuu says that she does enjoy being kissed just like anyone would. So I think that means that she does feel sexual attraction or at least enjoys it but doesn't feel romantic attraction. Perhaps she is gray-romantic or demi-romantic. I guess we will see.

Have you even read all the chapters so far? It's clear she likes Touko romantically, hell chapter 33 has Yuu indirectly asking her sister about advice regarding confessing. Honestly at this point there shouldn't be anyone questioning whether Yuu is asexual/aromantic or not, anyone who pays a little bit of attention would quickly figure her out.

Read that comment again. They're suggesting Yuu could be demi-romantic, and this isn't impossible. She did develop strong romantic feelings for Touko, but it took her time, didn't it?

Although there's one bit of evidence which speaks against it. Back at the very beginning, right after Maki-san joins the student council, he sees Touko kiss Yuu and later confronts her about it. Yuu asks him not to say anything to Touko, and from that Maki says that Yuu does indeed like Touko. That's back in Chapter 7, so I'd assume Yuu has always liked Touko, but for a long time she simply wasn't aware of her feelings.

(No way to say whether Yuu is asexual, though, unless we get some real development or she says so herself)

last edited at Jul 20, 2018 3:28PM

I'd assume Yuu has always liked Touko, but for a long time she simply wasn't aware of her feelings.

That's the central point, I think. As Yuri Guy says, Yuu starts out expecting a sudden magical experience--to feel as if she had "sprouted wings, like I was floating on air," and she isn't aware that real feelings can grow slowly over time. And her initial belief about what love would feel like is reinforced even further by Touko's spectacular attack of Sudden Onset Yuu-itis.

It's also reasonable to think that if she ultimately will be mostly or entirely attracted to women but starts out unaware of it (she's surprised to find out it's actually a thing when she hears that girls have confessed to Touko), when she's unmoved by the first boy's confession she might take that as evidence that she couldn't feel romantic attraction at all. She has always liked that boy as a friend, but as we used to say back in grade school, she knows she doesn't like like him.

Since evidently there's a way to place anyone on a scale according to their degrees of sexual and romantic inclination, there's going to be some term for where Yuu falls, but I suspect we don't have enough evidence to determine exactly where that will be quite yet.

last edited at Jul 20, 2018 11:48PM

Since evidently there's a way to place anyone on a scale according to their degrees of sexual and romantic inclination, there's going to some term for where Yuu falls, but I suspect we don't have enough evidence to determine exactly where that will be quite yet.

I stand my ground that Yuu's Toukosexual.
(After all, we're all expecting her to end up with Touko, so it matters little to the story what her actual orientation is).

Since evidently there's a way to place anyone on a scale according to their degrees of sexual and romantic inclination, there's going to some term for where Yuu falls, but I suspect we don't have enough evidence to determine exactly where that will be quite yet.

I stand my ground that Yuu's Toukosexual.
(After all, we're all expecting her to end up with Touko, so it matters little to the story what her actual orientation is).

You’re certainly correct—at this point Yuu is a poster child for:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleTargetSexuality

But, understandably, people who feel underrepresented in culture are interested in finding figures they can identify with, and Yuu has had the potential to be one of those,

So if anyone here knows japanese, next chapter's title is 零れる. Does that mean what I think it means? Knowing that this is the end of a volume, I think it strongly suggests that we're gonna have a confession.

last edited at Jul 26, 2018 1:47AM

So if anyone here knows japanese, next chapter's title is 零れる. Does that mean what I think it means? Knowing that this is the end of a volume, I think it strongly suggests that we're gonna have a confession.

koboreru, meanings spill, scatter, roll (tears), overflow, escape. These are not good words

God, it's that time of the month already?

Since evidently there's a way to place anyone on a scale according to their degrees of sexual and romantic inclination, there's going to some term for where Yuu falls, but I suspect we don't have enough evidence to determine exactly where that will be quite yet.

I stand my ground that Yuu's Toukosexual.
(After all, we're all expecting her to end up with Touko, so it matters little to the story what her actual orientation is).

You’re certainly correct—at this point Yuu is a poster child for:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleTargetSexuality

But, understandably, people who feel underrepresented in culture are interested in finding figures they can identify with, and Yuu has had the potential to be one of those,

eeeh i wouldnt say yuu is is a poster child for single target sexuality. i dont think shes even had a "i dont like girls, i like touko" moment. shes just, again, not aware that you can slowly fall in love with someone. she simply never gave anyone enough time for any feelings to develop as she has always expected to be swept off her feet.

last edited at Jul 26, 2018 5:08AM

Psychoanalyzing fictional characters is always a bit silly, but I think the term that best describes Yuu's behavior is demi-sexual. Demi-sexuals are people who only develop a sexual attraction to others after they have formed a strong emotional connection with that person.

Some low res raws are out. looks worrying

Well at least it happened. Oh my god...

eeeh i wouldnt say yuu is is a poster child for single target sexuality. i dont think shes even had a "i dont like girls, i like touko" moment. shes just, again, not aware that you can slowly fall in love with someone. she simply never gave anyone enough time for any feelings to develop as she has always expected to be swept off her feet.

That’s why I specifically said, “at this point.”

Yuu potentially may or may not turn out to be many things, but we have actual concrete evidence for only one thing: she likes Touko.

Yagakimi full raw in HQ
https://imgur.com/a/bawenUd

Yagakimi full raw in HQ
https://imgur.com/a/bawenUd

• Gulp *

Yagakimi full raw in HQ
https://imgur.com/a/bawenUd

I can read not a word of Japanese, so maybe I’m completely wrong.

But the pictures tell me it’s going to be fine.

Yagakimi full raw in HQ
https://imgur.com/a/bawenUd

I can read not a word of Japanese, so maybe I’m completely wrong.

But the pictures tell me it’s going to be fine.

lmao no. the storm is here

So if anyone here knows japanese, next chapter's title is 零れる. Does that mean what I think it means? Knowing that this is the end of a volume, I think it strongly suggests that we're gonna have a confession.

koboreru, meanings spill, scatter, roll (tears), overflow, escape. These are not good words

but well, it's true that we got a confession tho

last edited at Jul 26, 2018 2:11PM

Yagakimi full raw in HQ
https://imgur.com/a/bawenUd

I can read not a word of Japanese, so maybe I’m completely wrong.

But the pictures tell me it’s going to be fine.

lmao no. the storm is here

As I’ve been saying all along that it would be and really should be. Going directly from the play to moonlight-and-roses would have been completely inconsistent with the rest of the story, and in fact would have trivialized Touko’s basic psychological dilemma. This is the storm that was always going to have to blow itself out before smoother sailing could become possible.

Psychoanalyzing fictional characters is always a bit silly, but I think the term that best describes Yuu's behavior is demi-sexual. Demi-sexuals are people who only develop a sexual attraction to others after they have formed a strong emotional connection with that person.

We've already debated this in an earlier post. We have no idea what Yuu's sexual attraction is like, we only know about her romantic attraction. If you argue Yuu developed a romantic attraction to Touko after a long time getting to know her, then you could say she's demi-romantic. But Maki-san has stated right at the beginning of the story (chapter 7 I think) that Yuu was also in love with Touko, even back then. So it's not like she and Touko were just friends and she slowly began to develop romantic feelings for her, those feelings were always there, they just grew stronger and more evident with time.

Also, thanks everyone for using the spoiler tags. I really don't want to read spoilers to this next chapter.

http://yagakimi.com/ posted new anime visual