Says who? Current evidence indicates that the other series is simply set later on in their lives than this one.

Doesn't matter what everyone thinks for me this series and Doujin are the same just this is an early story.

Ok lol.. you can think the earth is flat too - and be happy with that as well. Personally I like to go with the evidence.

Me too! but our ways of interpreting them (evidences) are different. ;)
The Earth is a square bro. Don't you know that? :P

last edited at Jul 30, 2018 1:42PM

^Barring some explicit statement from Itou Hachi on the matter, I don’t get the sense that adherence to strict standards about continuity or “canonicity” is a very high priority with this author.

Even if some scenes get repeated, reworked, or echoed among the series, I’d guess that to the author all the scenes of these characters that she draws “really happen” to (more or less) the same degree.

EDIT FOR CLARITY: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to read the current series as if it’s a completely fresh start with no relation to the previous ones, nor is it unreasonable to imagine all the “Master & Mel” pieces as part of one big (somewhat shaggy around the edges) story. What I do think is untenable without more specific evidence from the author or some other official source is to insist that only one of those things is certainly true.

last edited at Jul 30, 2018 4:57PM

Don't you worry, Mel. Your master would never leave her lovely sex toy behind

^Barring some explicit statement from Itou Hachi on the matter, I don’t get the sense that adherence to strict standards about continuity or “canonicity” is a very high priority with this author.

Even if some scenes get repeated, reworked, or echoed among the series, I’d guess that to the author all the scenes of these characters that she draws “really happen” to (more or less) the same degree.

EDIT FOR CLARITY: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to read the current series as if it’s a completely fresh start with no relation to the previous ones, nor is it unreasonable to imagine all the “Master & Mel” pieces as part of one big (somewhat shaggy around the edges) story. What I do think is untenable without more specific evidence from the author or some other official source is to insist that only one of those things is certainly true.

That's sort of my thinking at this point. It could be that this particular story happens before that one. Or it could be the author messing around with different ideas about the same characters. Maybe the rest of this series will clarify the extent of their relationship, or maybe it'll leave things open. Either way it's not really that important to me.

The last few chapters have made me think there’s something odd (or maybe just interesting) going on with this series as compared to the doujins.

It’s often been noted in all the various discussion threads that the “Master & Mel” material in any of its forms conspicuously does not address, and in fact often seems to be willfully oblivious about, a number of basic issues or practical questions that would help to ground readers in relation to the story if only we were given more details about how this world works. But in looking at the chapters of MM&FGM,

• The first chapter sets the tone with some classic M&M lovey-dovey fluffy cuteness featuring butterflies.
• Chapter 2 gets M&M snuggling into bed together (and incidentally features some really excellent pacing and expressive cartooning in the Mel-goes-to-the-bathroom-in-the-storm sequence).
• Chapter 3 is a reworking of Mel’s origin story (what we know of it) from “Master & Me.”

But from Chapter 4 on each chapter explicitly alludes to important themes and issues that were mostly not even raised in the doujins, but does so without really clarifying those basic questions I mentioned.

• Chapter 4, in the course of giving some important backstory for Master, directly brings up the relations between “humans and animals,” and alludes to the antipathy of one species for another. But it doesn’t help us further understand the differences, whatever they may be, between humans and beastkin.

• Chapter 5 directly invokes the word “pedophilia,” as the much more sexually explicit doujins never did, but also shows Mel nearly nude and depicts the Master checking out Mel’s private parts.

• Chapter 6 gives Mel a beastkin-specific heightened sense of smell that makes her more explicitly like an animal than ever before (the stories have always suggested that beastkin were only different in their outward appearance). And anybody who wants to call that blissful smelling scene “ambiguous” is free to do so, but “entirely innocent and subtext free” is just not on the table. At all.

• Chapter 7 absolutely wallows in the human/animal dichotomy (notice how Mel’s sense of smell gets no mention at all in what must be a very rich environment of various scents at the zoo), and gives us the most overtly sexualized moment of this series when the Master licks Mel’s tears after the story has carefully prepared us to see it as Master “simply” mimicking Apollo’s repeated doggy behavior.

I don’t actually know exactly what, if anything, to make of all this. I wouldn’t say that Itou Hachi has decided to be more overt about the underlying issues in this series, because those issues are mentioned but are still not addressed in any more substantive way than when they were just being ignored.

So maybe she’s just mildly trolling us.

last edited at Jul 30, 2018 9:11PM

I think I'm going to just call Master and Mel's relationship ambiguous and go from there. That way all readers can take away what they want. Personally I think the relationship is set to simmer until Mel is of age.

On a a totally unrelated note, There is a freaking firefly in my room, and it's really freaking me out, by drifting in front of the screen with it's little butt lit up, every now and then.

• Chapter 5 directly invokes the word “pedophilia,” as the much more sexually explicit doujins never did, but also shows Mel nearly nude and depicts the Master checking out Mel’s private parts.

Doesn't make much difference, but Mel was shown to be wearing underwear a few panels earlier, so it wasn't THAT sexual of a scene.

• Chapter 5 directly invokes the word “pedophilia,” as the much more sexually explicit doujins never did, but also shows Mel nearly nude and depicts the Master checking out Mel’s private parts.

In the scene where Master looks at Mel naked, she doesn't appear to be bothered by seeing her, getting neither excited nor flustered. And her next thought is that Mel might be too cold at night from wearing pajamas that don't properly cover her. I think this is pretty much the kind of reaction you'd expect of a parent seeing their child partially naked. Without the context of the other works, I'd probably see this as all perfectly innocent. Also, with the addition of the end of volume extra, it seems that Mist accusing Master of being a child molester is just a running gag now. It's hard to tell how seriously we're supposed to take any of this.

About your larger point, Itou Hachi does seem to be addressing some larger themes in this version, first with the birds and the story about Master's past, and now with the abandoned dog. But in the end, there are still far more questions than answers, and the attempts to explore these themes are so far nothing really more than bare mentions or references. They function more as means to drive personal drama between Mel and Master than as grand statements about interspecies relations, and are completely worthless when it comes to establishing the details of how this world works.

It's hard to tell what's deliberate and meaningful versus what's there just because it's necessary to make the premise work. It's fun to wonder about this stuff, and it can be really funny when an author unintentionally (or perhaps intentionally?) creates some unfortunate implications in their cutesy fictional world. But overall, I'm certain I've spent way too much time thinking about this.

Let's not forget about the vast differences in cultural norms. Like, not too long ago I read some US lesbian romance, where they had a kid. And one of the moms exists the shower naked (or sleeps in the nude, I don't remember precisely), because she's used to it, and the 4-5 year old or whatever kid sees her.
And then the other mom is immediately scandalized and scolds her that this shouldn't be done and she is all "of course, I wasn't thinking; it won't happen again."

While in a Japanese novel the woman would perhaps have bathed with her kid naked in the first place; and even in Europe I don't think that would typically be seen as an in any way noteworthy or problematic event ^^;

^ This is why I explicitly said “this series as compared to the doujins.” (EDIT: I originally wrote “in relation to the doujins,” which is really what I mean.)

We saw the exact same “she’s completely exposed from the back” scene before in the doujin, where the overall context was Master’s barely-or-not-even-contained lust for Mel. Readers who know that one can’t help but see the echo in the new one.

Or when Collette says of the Master, “She doesn’t bite”—readers of the doujin know that she does indeed bite, leaving a hickey so Mel will be too embarrassed to get out of her sickbed to work.

That’s why I see this stuff as a gentle kind of trolling.

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 7:04AM

Okay but instead of arguing about the morality of this relationship can we instead talk about how good this last chapter was?

Legit teared up a bit at the panel of Mel crying.

Fun fact: The Latin and Greek words for "honey" (as well as the broader sense of "something sweet or pleasant", or even "darling, sweetheart" in the Latin word's case) are mel and μέλῐ méli, respectively. Coincidence?

last edited at Jul 31, 2018 8:14PM

Fun fact: The Latin and Greek words for "honey" (as well as the broader sense of "something sweet or pleasant", or even "darling, sweetheart" in the Latin word's case) are mel and μέλῐ méli, respectively. Coincidence?

In Portuguese "Mel" means "honey" or "sweet thing" xD

last edited at Aug 6, 2018 6:31AM

Fun fact: The Latin and Greek words for "honey" (as well as the broader sense of "something sweet or pleasant", or even "darling, sweetheart" in the Latin word's case) are mel and μέλῐ méli, respectively. Coincidence?

In Portuguese "Mel" means "honey" or "sweet thing" xD

Same thing in breton and miel in french

Never mind that shit, here comes a rival!

Never mind that shit, here comes a rival!

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mWLdVSWDS08/maxresdefault.jpg

They're both going to end up being jealous then things are going to work out to make everything ok. But at least it will be adorable.

Never mind that shit, here comes a rival!

Rival both ways, too.

I want to see Mel reacting to Marie flirting with Master, but I don’t think Itou Hachi does requests.

Aahhhhhhh i want more

Oh, there's a plot?

Interesting~ i want too se how this plays out~

last edited at Aug 12, 2018 5:00PM

Honestly, I'd like much more if this Stella ended up with Master. But well, dreams, dreams.

When I saw there was a new one, I didn't even wait to log in before reading it...

This is an interesting development, I wonder what shall happen?

"teacackes"

I read that as "tentacles" at first (skimming quickly) and was like hold up--

The Master is a cyborg controlled by Collette.

a new challenger approaches