C’mon guys—no calling names. We’re all just trying to have fun here, albeit sometimes in some bizarre and incomprehensible ways.

I have very little patience or interest in trying to engage with people who lie about their own opinions in order to troll people. I said what I meant and I meant what I said, and now I'm done with it.

I have very little patience or interest in trying to engage with people who lie about their own opinions in order to troll people.

Oh, I agree with you there, and didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. What anyone gets out of that that they think is worth getting, I’ll never know.

That's so stupid I need to stop your efforts right here lol I've been trolling (and I'd guess others also unless they are delusional readers) and you take it seriously to this level, amassing evidence to prove that some couple from a fictional story is meant to be. What do you want with this, to "enlighten the masses" or feel satisfaction that you won an argument that has a self-evident correct answer? WTF lol I appreciate your effort actually but you don't need to go to that extent, we already know.

If this is the case, then I expect you'll be showing yourself out now.

matsuri_wins posted:

That's so stupid I need to stop your efforts right here lol I've been trolling (and I'd guess others also unless they are delusional readers) and you take it seriously to this level, amassing evidence to prove that some couple from a fictional story is meant to be.

That is rich coming from someone who insist other couple in other fictional work must be a end goal because otherwise entire story would be waste of time.

How about: Yuu is adorable. Sayaka likes girls. Sayaka corners Yuu in the equipment shed. Hijinks ensue.

I ship that like you would not believe~

last edited at Jan 6, 2019 7:45PM

This. Plus the fact loving someone does not entitle that person to anything. Not a single one of them "deserves" something in this situation, that entire question is basically nonsensical. If Touko is not into Sayaka, and I am struggling to remember what would indicate otherwise, then that is that.

You're not wrong. But I framed it that way in part because my first response in this conversation was in regarding the idea that it would be distasteful for Touko to accept Sayaka's confession after rejecting Yuu. Obviously Sayaka isn't owed anything, but neither is Yuu. Should Touko accept Sayaka's confession it has nothing to do with Yuu.

I disagree, it has everything to do with Yuu. Not in the sense that Yuu herself is owed anything, but in the sense of what she means to Touko. Bear in mind that Touko did not actually reject Yuu, she was too surprised, too shocked to even properly answer, the "I'm sorry" line was her apologising for hurting Yuu with her stance on reciprocated romance, it was not a rejection. Touko is still in love with Yuu, and showed no such interest in Sayaka. Never mind that accepting Sayaka's confession would make no sense, it would also not be fair towards Sayaka herself.

The bizarre nature of the basic “contract” imposed on their relationship by Touko not only complicates finding appropriate evaluative terminology (“deserve,” “owe,” “fairness,” whatever), it also makes it almost impossible to come up with an analogy or parallel situation that can’t be nitpicked as being inexact (and believe me, I’ve tried).

Nevertheless, Touko certainly did repeatedly insist to Yuu that she couldn’t be with anyone who loved her back. Moreover, although her “I’m sorry” was misunderstood as an “official confession rejection,” at this point that’s a distinction without a difference—she explicitly says, “I can’t return Yuu’s feelings.” So to abruptly respond positively to being loved by Sayaka would indeed shed a backwards light on the Yuu-Touko relationship, one that I have difficulty interpreting as saying anything good about Touko; in such a case Yuu would have every right to feel rather manipulated and emotionally used.

I don’t anticipate Touko doing that, of course, and if Touko has recently changed her attitude toward reciprocated love, we have no evidence as to what that change might be. As I and a number of others have been saying, we’ve been excluded from Touko’s interior life ever since her “I miss Yuu” line, and there’s certainly been no indication that she’s changed in any way that would favor Sayaka.

Moreover, although her “I’m sorry” was misunderstood as an “official confession rejection,” at this point that’s a distinction without a difference—she explicitly says, “I can’t return Yuu’s feelings.”

True, but the way it was presented, with all the sadness and "but... I miss her..." as the final thought, it feels more like she is trying to convince herself she can not return Yuu's feelings, rather than that being a concrete decision.

In short, beside all the complicated psychological issues Touko has, which also work against Sayaka, there are two far more simple factors. One being that she is already in love with someone else (whatever her decision on a possible relationship turns out to be), and the other one is that she does not seem to be hard determined on a course of action regarding Yuu.

last edited at Jan 6, 2019 9:40PM

Moreover, although her “I’m sorry” was misunderstood as an “official confession rejection,” at this point that’s a distinction without a difference—she explicitly says, “I can’t return Yuu’s feelings.”

True, but the way it was presented, with all the sadness and "but... I miss her..." as the final thought, it feels more like she is trying to convince herself she can not return Yuu's feelings, rather than that being a concrete decision.

True, and this points to the glory and despair of doing literary criticism (for this is what we are about, call it that or no) on in-progress serial narratives. It’s a basic premise of interpretation that those readings are strongest which take into account as much of the text as possible while leaving out as little as possible, which of course isn’t completely achievable with unfinished works.

That makes a lot of critical discourse speculative and predictive about an unknown text, which is a lot of fun in a puzzle-solving way, but also leads (as we see in these discussion threads) to a lot of contrarianism, highly selective readings, and general competitive opinion-having rather than attempts to come to terms with the work itself.

Which is to say that eventually we’ll understand the significance of the sequence where Touko:

• says there are now other places for her other than by Yuu’s side [bad for a Yuu-Touko reconciliation]

• takes the aquarium talisman off her bag [bad for Y-T, etc.]

• starts to put it in her pocket [bad]

• says “Yuu is no longer special to me” [very bad]

• pulls talisman out again [good for Y-T reconciliation]

• says “I miss her” while all but kissing talisman [very good]

Depending on what ultimately happens, this scene could legitimately become dispositive evidence that the Yuu-Touko relationship had run its course OR that a reconciliation was inevitable.

EDIT: And on reflection, it’s possible to do a (very unkind and unsympathetic) reading of this sequence as Touko essentially saying, “[In large part thanks to Yuu] I now have places to be other than by her side; therefore Yuu is no longer special to me. In addition, she has changed in ways that I did not want and specifically told her not to do. But I’m lonely . . .”

Not a place this story wants to go, I feel certain, but a place nonetheless.

last edited at Jan 6, 2019 10:29PM

It seems what Touko was saying there was not "I miss her" but "I feel lonely" if you see the more literal meaning (寂しい). Not sure why 4s translated it like that, although it's true that 寂しい gives the feeling that something is lacking, but I prefer "lonely" since it also fits with the title of chapter 35. "I miss her" takes the nuance and the implication away imo, since it's a bit stronger. Of course they miss each other, but I prefer implied things to remain implied.

last edited at Jan 6, 2019 10:22PM

NxY posted:

YagaKimi was in 16th place for blu ray sales last week with 2,849 sales https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-12-25/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-december-17-23/.141303

This is so sad... So if you want to success in sells you have to make it about idols, but what's the problem with idols? they can't fall in love(for real) so no yuri.
But really, I was expecting around 4000 to 6000

YagaKimi just out december 21, and got that sale. It’s pretty good in my opinion compare to other. And with the update sales, it already reached 3k at the moment. Let’s be optimistic it’ll reach 4k at least.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-01-05/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-december-24-30/.141675

20th for the latest week, total 3723.

NxY posted:

YagaKimi was in 16th place for blu ray sales last week with 2,849 sales https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2018-12-25/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-december-17-23/.141303

This is so sad... So if you want to success in sells you have to make it about idols, but what's the problem with idols? they can't fall in love(for real) so no yuri.
But really, I was expecting around 4000 to 6000

YagaKimi just out december 21, and got that sale. It’s pretty good in my opinion compare to other. And with the update sales, it already reached 3k at the moment. Let’s be optimistic it’ll reach 4k at least.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2019-01-05/japan-animation-blu-ray-disc-ranking-december-24-30/.141675

20th for the latest week, total 3723.

Only 20th? Urrrgh... If I wasn't broke, I'd buy as many copies as I could, just to ensure it gets in the top 10... but this isn't a "what if / alternate reality" scenario.
grips hand in frustration

last edited at Jan 7, 2019 4:30AM

As far as I know it reached 4k now for its total sales http://www.someanithing.com/10378 It wasn’t the best like shounen, but for it’s genre it’s kinda satisfying.

last edited at Jan 7, 2019 7:46AM

C’mon guys—no calling names. We’re all just trying to have fun here, albeit sometimes in some bizarre and incomprehensible ways.

I have very little patience or interest in trying to engage with people who lie about their own opinions in order to troll people. I said what I meant and I meant what I said, and now I'm done with it.

To be fair, it's not only to troll people. I do think the series is overrated and the main characters are a bit too bland in behaviour, although the narrative itself is well constructed. I also think if Nakatani wanted to answer the question "What is love?" realistically, she shouldn't have setup Yuu and Touko as OTP, but rather left it open enough so that other people such as Sayaka can come and go into the story as serious contenders until Yuu and Touko stabilize in a relationship, because that's what actually happens in real life.

She could also take the opportunity presented by the script to show that love can at times be quite exploitative and confusing, for example by adding the twist of Touko dating Sataka for a while, in order to escape the fact that Yuu would like for her to change and she is still resistant to it. Those are all things that could legitimately happen in this story, but won't happen not because they wouldn't fit in with the theme and structure, but because readers attach to a given OTP so strongly that manga authors are afraid of displeasing them. The folks here hiding behind "what the story has presented so far", are either simply afraid their OTP could be temporarily in trouble, or are indeed simply saying what's likely to happen in the story given that manga authors are deathly afraid of displeasing readers and adding twists and turns. Still, it would be a much better story.

So I am indeed giving my true opinions. The trolling part is because I find interesting that people are so worried that Yuu and Touko will somehow not end up together, or so enamoured with what the story IS, that there is no discussion on what the story could be, if it was better. The thread is like a big circle-jerk of how amazing the story is, except for a few dissidents :P

Stop projecting about why other people are saying what they’re saying, matsuri_wins. You’re not a mind reader. I have my own opinions on why you feel the way you do, equally based on nothing and equally as unhelpful as yours.

But that’s just my opinion.

@matsuri_wins
If you'd like to make a counterargument about how @Blastaar said you aren't a mind reader, try guessing what I'm thinking about.

It seems what Touko was saying there was not "I miss her" but "I feel lonely" if you see the more literal meaning (寂しい). Not sure why 4s translated it like that, although it's true that 寂しい gives the feeling that something is lacking, but I prefer "lonely" since it also fits with the title of chapter 35. "I miss her" takes the nuance and the implication away imo, since it's a bit stronger. Of course they miss each other, but I prefer implied things to remain implied.

One of the difficult things about translating from another language is that quite often a literal translation -isn't- a literal translation. Words have usages in language that don't carry over if you just look them up in a dictionary.

For example, if I say "Man, that girl is hot!" any english speaker immediately understands that I mean she is attractive. But if you just look those words up in a dictionary and translate it to
男は、あの女の子は暑いです, (Literally, "male, that young female is hot (as in physically warm)") that meaning is not only gone, but the new sentence is gibberish. It has none of the meaning that the original sentence had, and wouldn't make any sense as a direct comparison.

So you wouldn't translate it that way. You'd translate it to something like うわ～！彼女はイケテル。 or 彼女はセクシーね。

寂 as a kanji by itself carries a meaning of "lonely." 寂しい means something like "I'm lonely" "This is lonely", or "I miss (something)" A japanese person, with the given context, would immediately understand that Touko is lamenting that Yuu isn't there. She's clutching the keychain from the date, she's specifically thinking about Yuu's absence. "I miss her" is closer to the natural japanese reading of the expression than "I'm lonely".

It seems what Touko was saying there was not "I miss her" but "I feel lonely" if you see the more literal meaning (寂しい). Not sure why 4s translated it like that, although it's true that 寂しい gives the feeling that something is lacking, but I prefer "lonely" since it also fits with the title of chapter 35. "I miss her" takes the nuance and the implication away imo, since it's a bit stronger. Of course they miss each other, but I prefer implied things to remain implied.

One of the difficult things about translating from another language is that quite often a literal translation -isn't- a literal translation. Words have usages in language that don't carry over if you just look them up in a dictionary.

For example, if I say "Man, that girl is hot!" any english speaker immediately understands that I mean she is attractive. But if you just look those words up in a dictionary and translate it to
男は、あの女の子は暑いです, (Literally, "male, that young female is hot (as in physically warm)") that meaning is not only gone, but the new sentence is gibberish. It has none of the meaning that the original sentence had, and wouldn't make any sense as a direct comparison.

So you wouldn't translate it that way. You'd translate it to something like うわ～！彼女はイケテル。 or 彼女はセクシーね。

寂 as a kanji by itself carries a meaning of "lonely." 寂しい means something like "I'm lonely" "This is lonely", or "I miss (something)" A japanese person, with the given context, would immediately understand that Touko is lamenting that Yuu isn't there. She's clutching the keychain from the date, she's specifically thinking about Yuu's absence. "I miss her" is closer to the natural japanese reading of the expression than "I'm lonely".

The more you know - the less you knew. Or, as my father says:
One learns while one lives.

EDIT: By the way, I used this post of yours for a #DDM comment. Thank you!

last edited at Jan 7, 2019 9:35AM

@Heavensrun
One of the more fascinating things about translation is the difference between high- and low-context cultures. I find myself (as not only a low-context US person but very much a “word” person by inclination and training) tending to over-emphasize the words themselves in comparison to the visual context(s).

(Partly that’s because relevant context is functionally unlimited—our understanding of, say, Touko’s potential response to Sayaka’s confession is influenced by everything all the way back to the first shot of Yuu in her room, reading her romance novels. But you’ve got to bracket things off somewhere.)

And in the case of the line in question, Touko’s posture and expression are at least as significant as the words she’s saying to herself.

last edited at Jan 7, 2019 9:46AM

Following up admitted trolling with an inflammatory post featuring emotionally loaded language. Sounds legit.

Can we just assume matsuri_wins got the argument they seem to be angling for and just move on to the next thing? It would save a lot of time.

^^^ Like I said, the implication of a feeling of loss and lack is present in Touko's sentence. I just prefer implications to remain implications, a matter of preference I guess. "I miss her" is too strong when the expression is softer, which also emphazises the contradiction between Touko saying Yuu is not special to her anymore and then feeling lonely without her (a word that has been used by both Touko and Yuu in several chapters).

^^^ Like I said, the implication of a feeling of loss and lack is present in Touko's sentence. I just prefer implications to remain implications, a matter of preference I guess. "I miss her" is too strong when the expression is softer, which also emphazises the contradiction between Touko saying Yuu is not special to her anymore and then feeling lonely without her (a word that has been used by both Touko and Yuu in several chapters).

Following up my previous post about non-verbal cues, by “expression” do you mean ”the verbal expression being translated” as opposed to Touko’s facial expression?

Because the latter says to me either, “I have a fetish for small replicas of marine invertebrates” or “I miss Yuu.”

So I got sidetracked by Matsuri_Trolls the other night, but I did want to come back to this. I'm assuming -you- are being sincere

What are you even talking about? I never said there are no stakes, I said that Sayaka winning in the end is unlikely because it doesn't fit the narrative. There are still stakes -within- the narrative, the end result just isn't difficult to predict, because the author has spent five full volumes so far setting it up.

You said Sayaka was an "obstacle" and I'm still wondering how. For as long as your post was I'm impressed you evaded the one simple question I asked. If you're saying there's basically no chance between them... what's the point? And where are the stakes?

When I watch Star Wars, I know the Death Star is not going to succeed in blowing up the planet with the rebel base on it. That doesn't mean there aren't stakes. Lots of people are on that planet! Princess Leia and C-3PO are there! The leadership of the entire rebellion! Those are high stakes!

But I know the bad guys aren't going to win, because it's not that kind of movie.

In a good story, there is always a moment of maximum tension before the resolution. We feel satisfied with the resolution -because- we went through that moment of tension. That moment when "all is lost". The Rebels are beaten and battered. All of Lukes squadron is dead or retreated. He's all alone, they've already failed once, the rebel headquarters is in range, the Death Star Laser is spooling up, Vader is zeroing in on Luke and preparing to fire...This isn't just true for action movies. You can take pretty much any well-told story and find the "all is lost" moment right before the main resolution.

Now, where are we now? Yuu and Touko have broken up, Yuu is regressing and denying her feelings, Touko is confused and afraid, they're physically seperated by the school trip, isolated and alone, and Yuu's primary romantic rival just laid down a super slick and effective confession that, seems to have a decent chance of having worked.

Our protagonists are split up and emotionally battered, the rival seems to be winning, the focal relationship we've followed the entire series is threated on multiple fronts, internal and external. That's a hell of an obstacle! If things don't go right, Yuu could spend the rest of her life afraid to love again. Touko could be stuck with regrets about Yuu for the rest of her life. Hell, even from Sayaka's perspective, she has no idea she's trying to get into a relationship with someone that is hung up on someone else. I've been there. that shit isn't fun. Those are stakes! Those are pretty high stakes, to a teenager.

So yeah, Sayaka's confession is an obstacle, contributing to the tension of the main story.

Sayaka's role in -this- story is a tragic one. She doesn't get the girl. There's somebody like that in -most- romances, I don't know why you seem so incredulous about this.

I just fundamentally disagree with you. I don't get why you seem to be taking it so badly.

I don't think I'm taking it badly, I just don't get how anybody can read this series and think it's not clearly and explicitly about Yuu and Touko's relationship, with Sayaka as an obvious side character whose crush on the protagonist isn't going to work out.

I get -wishing- Sayaka would win Touko, I just don't see how anybody can actually think it's going to happen. I mean look at the post about the title pages. This is -obviously- a manga about Yuu and Touko.

If you mean you don't get why I'm arguing the point...Because I think you're wrong. And kinda because I think you're setting yourself up for a massive disappointment in a chapter or two when Touko hits the turning point that I know is coming. Because you seem to think Sayaka has a chance, but, again, this -isn't her story-. And it'd be a shame to see someone walk away from a well constructed and well set up romance narrative because they deceived themselves into expecting something that was never there to begin with.

And even if you -are- just trolling, well, I have fun talking and thinking about it anyway, I learn and realize new things by going over it over and over, and maybe -somebody- will learn something constructive from my posts.

You're writing pointless paragraph after pointless paragraph telling me I don't understand the story and so on yet you're defending your interpretation a tragic character (who has 2 spines, 3 if we get to chapter 9) who you're saying is tragic... pretty much just for the sake of being tragic. To me that's an example of bad writing, not a slow buildup into a triangle. If Sayaka's story had been buttoned up 2 or 3 volumes ago I'd probably agree with you. Where we are now, not so much.

I can't even parse this paragraph. Spines? If you mean story spines, the main story spine has clearly been Yuu and Touko's. The author has -said- this in interviews.

What I will give you is that an author can run the risk of losing the audience who wants their ship to sail. But as I see it there's no clear path from Touko to Yuu either right now, or at least not one that doesn't involve Touko making a grand romantic gesture or acting almost completely out of character.

That's the point. At the climax of the story, everything has gone wrong, all is lost, the bad guys are winning (or if there aren't "bad guys", which there really aren't in this story, at the very least the protagonists look set to lose everything that they've worked for the entire story. That is the moment when something changes.

The only question is whether we're at the bottom yet. If we are, then in a chapter or so, Touko will make a decision that she's going to get Yuu back. If we're not, maybe Touko goes out with Sayaka for awhile, things continue to spiral, Yuu becomes more detached and depressed, Touko gets frustrated and also depressed...The fan base gets exasperated....

Either way, though, at some point, and I bet it will be soon, one or both of the main protagonists will resolve to fight for the relationship they've been building and the story will heat up, and yeah, there probably -will- be some kind of grand romantic gesture involved.

The dilemma starting now would be a terrible structural mistake. What you are describing is a complete narrative flip 6 volumes into what is probably an 8 volume series, according to hints that have been dropped by the author.

You don't read/watch many triangles do you...

Yeah, I do. I've been reading stories with romance in them (and explicit romances) for decades. I've also rarely been wrong about the outcome of any of them. But this series is not about a triangle. This series is about Yuu and Touko. Sayaka is a rival character, not a protagonist.

Sorry, not sorry.

last edited at Jan 7, 2019 10:27AM

^^^ Like I said, the implication of a feeling of loss and lack is present in Touko's sentence. I just prefer implications to remain implications, a matter of preference I guess. "I miss her" is too strong when the expression is softer, which also emphazises the contradiction between Touko saying Yuu is not special to her anymore and then feeling lonely without her (a word that has been used by both Touko and Yuu in several chapters).

You're missing my point. There's a difference between "implied (but ambiguous)" and "implicit". The original japanese phrase is about feeling lonely because she's missing something. That she is missing Yuu is -implicit- but it is not ambiguous. Translating that to "I'm lonely" would -add- ambiguity to a scene that would not be ambiguous to a native japanese speaker.

Also, the contradiction IS the point. She's talking about how Yuu isn't "special" anymore, but she is demonstrating that she actually -is-. This is about how Touko doesn't understand her own feelings.

Heavensrun, the same poster’s astounding assertion to me that this is a “plotless slice-of-life” story explains a lot. As I’m sure you know, it’s certainly the case that many manga romances, in particular ones where, as in this one, a couple gets together early in the story, can swerve around considerably, with potential rivals appearing at any point, or with long-festering love triangles keeping everything up in the air before the ultimate resolution, and even with resolutions that were not on the table for long stretches of the series. Sometimes those swerves do seem to be in response to reader feedback, or to an unexpectedly popular side character emerging as a legitimate protagonist.

This is especially true of Korean dramas, which revel in love triangles (and love-exponentially-more-angles), abrupt acts of Noble Idiocy, and sometimes even replacement protagonists (literally, as when a lead actor gets sick or just gets fired for being an asshole).

There are stories like that. But the mystery to me, and obviously to you, is why anyone would think that this story is, or could become, one of those. The charge of structural over-engineering, although I disagree with it as an evaluation, is actually based in the text, which is remarkable for its focus and methodical development. If someone wants to call that “bland and boring,” well, as the Irish say, “That’s true for you.” Lots of manga series derive their energy from being all over the place and fostering a sense that “anything can happen—stay tuned!” If someone thinks this series is remotely like that, however, there’s not much common ground for discussion.