Forum › A Love Letter for the Marching Puppy discussion
AAHHH God this wait is going to be torture. So darn cute.
This certainly is a world filled with cute girls and women. Except for a couple of middle-aged shopkeepers (and the men), everybody is quite cute indeed.
The only problem that creates is believing that Indou’s face is so stunningly cute that everyone is immediately taken with the way she looks. Don’t get me wrong—she is incredibly cute, but that’s as much because of her intrepid-puppy personality as it is her exceptional looks.
On another matter, the story has been hinting that the (light-haired) former officer Miharu is looking for is Kagami’s mother, but we learn in this chapter [EDIT: actually in Chapter 8] that Miharu does remember the woman’s name.
Is “Kagami” such a common Japanese family name that Miharu wouldn’t connect that woman with her senpai? Or is this yet another mystery woman from the past?
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 5:08PM
On another matter, the story has been hinting that the (light-haired) former officer Miharu is looking for is Kagami’s mother, but we learn in this chapter that Miharu does remember the woman’s name.
Is “Kagami” such a common Japanese family name that Miharu wouldn’t connect that woman with her senpai? Or is this yet another mystery woman from the past?
I was lost for a moment there since we didn't learn that in this chapter and it had been a while since the last update - after re-reading the chapters so far, we learned this in fact in chapter 8.
It is a good question, though - and while it may be Kagami's mother, the lack of name recognition is now joined by Shinobu not recognizing her from the picture, although it being Miharu drawing from memory, it may not have been as similar to the actual woman as she thought, no matter how well drawn.
Another thing that comes to mind after re-reading it all after this chapter is Kagami wondering why her mom would suddenly want to come to see her in that same chapter 8 - which may well be a change brought on by Shinobu's letters.
I was lost for a moment there since we didn't learn that in this chapter and it had been a while since the last update - after re-reading the chapters so far, we learned this in fact in chapter 8.
Quite right—I mixed up those two similarly staged “the girls outside the gate” scenes as I was writing.
EDIT:
It is a good question, though - and while it may be Kagami's mother, the lack of name recognition is now joined by Shinobu not recognizing her from the picture, although it being Miharu drawing from memory, it may not have been as similar to the actual woman as she thought, no matter how well drawn.
And it’s highly likely that Shinobu knew Kagami’s mother only as an ojou-sama rather than as a military officer—so the visual effect would be very different.
Lots of open questions, and I look forward to learning more about them.
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 5:14PM
OMG this is a monthly release isn't it? God KILL ME. So slow, but it sucks cuz it's so good. ;_;
It's hilarious that Kagami would have known about Shinobu if she had just come home now and then. Hehe.
Someone please help these gay babies /o\ >_<.
This keeps getting better and better
I so love this series. Kagami's face is to die for. I can't wait for the next chapter.
She better fucking NoT mean it literally I swear to god--
~
Oh, god. Please be incest!
There's two kinds of people in this world.
That's definitely a false dichotomy.
I'm routing for option 3, the alien bestial necrophiliac ending. The title of the story is a dead give away that Shinobu aka puppy is really a hyper intelligent alien dog cleverly disguised as a little girl to infiltrate human society. Also the reason Kagami has on occasion referred to Shinobu as being puppy like is actually just a Freudian slip and a subconscious projection of her secret bestiality fetish and lust for canines.
I foresee an end game where they both finally get shipped off to war and Shinobu ends up valiantly diving on a grenade to save Kagami's life. The grenade badly damages Shinobu's high tech little girl suit revealing her true identity as an alien cannine. After a heartfelt confession of mutual love whispered using Shinobu's dying breath the heart broken Kagami scoops up the body of her fallen love and takes it home to her family's estate.
There she locates an unused meat locker in a little used wing of the mansion where she can store her lover's corpse in the freezer to slow the decay so that she may indulge in her necrophilia and bestiality fetishes for years to come. Fade to black with Kagomi whispering sweet nothings to her dead lover with soft squelching sounds in the background.
It's so beautiful it practically writes itself.
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 6:41PM
Auntie..... Didn see this coming, so we're gonna go 2 Incest now. I hope not, still damn what an surprise
I’m not sure what the raws say since I haven’t seen them, but considering “oba-san” can mean either “aunt” (blood related) or a respectful way to refer to an older woman
Aunt can be written as 叔母さん or 伯母さん, and older woman as 小母さん, if the author wants to be 100% clear. Here it's spelled with kana (おばさん), which can refer to all three, so technically it's ambiguous. However, the obvious reading is still aunt. E.g. here ("That's what my aunt told me"), she uses just oba-san without any explanation. If she meant "old lady", the conversation wouldn't make sense.
I agree that she isn't using the word the way you might use it to refer to a random old lady, but it's also worth mentioning that just because you call someone "aunt" doesn't necessarily mean they're your actual aunt. I'm "Uncle" to my friend's kids, because my friend just wanted his kids to see me as family. I suspect that's what's going on here.
I’m pretty sure Indou was just a stray puppy picked up by Kagami’s mother.
Shinobu's and Kagami's mothers were both army officers. The simplest explanation is they knew each other, and that's how Shinobu and "Auntie" know each other too.
More to the point, it's a yuri manga, and judging by what we've seen so far, it's almost skirting the "men not found" trope and the "everybody's gay" trope, so Shinobu and Kagami's mothers were probably close.
Now, "Auntie" was the one who recommended the Academy. Why didn't she just take Shinobu in? I don't think it would be controversial to adopt the daughter of a well-known officer, and it's not like they have money issues... Find out in the next chapter, I guess.
Unless Shinobu had other family that took care of her, in which case she would be expected to stay with them, and her non-blood-related "Auntie" who she admires and respects would be likely to just exchange letters and occasionally visit to check up on her.
@LookingEast: or not.
^ There’s no way that Shinobu has ever been part of the Kagami household in any way.
Besides the evidence previously cited, the extras between Chapters 5 & 6 contrast Shinobu’s academy daily schedule with her previous lifestyle, which was extremely rural (up at dawn, bed at sunset), home-schooled (two study sessions a day, overseen somehow by someone), and marginally subsistence-level (her main activity of the day was “secure the next day’s food”—snakes and wild boar evidently being welcome entries on the menu).
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/a_love_letter_for_the_marching_puppy_extras#3
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 9:20PM
I feel the need to remind everyone that relationships between cousins is really only considered incest in the United States. Across the vast majority of the world, marriage between first cousins is perfectly legal. There's very little scientific basis for outlawing it as well.
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 9:30PM
SWEEEEEET HOOOOOOME ALABAMAAAAAAAAAA
lmaoooooo, this got me rolling.
But tbh, cousins marrying ain't a big deal. My uncle on my mom's side is married to their cousin. Cousins marrying is normal outside of the US. And the only reason incest is not encouraged is because of the genetic mutations that might occur with recessive genes (and it's real weird if the blood relationship is close). Cousins are only 1/8 related to you anyhow while siblings are 1/2 related to you. 1/8 vs 1/2 is a big difference from a genetic probability standpoint. Anything closer that's 1/8 gets kinda weird especially if you take into account the emotional aspect of it
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 10:00PM
@LookingEast: or not.
^ There’s no way that Shinobu has ever been part of the Kagami household in any way.
Besides the evidence previously cited, the extras between Chapters 5 & 6 contrast Shinobu’s academy daily schedule with her previous lifestyle, which was extremely rural (up at dawn, bed at sunset), home-schooled (two study sessions a day, overseen somehow by someone), and marginally subsistence-level (her main activity of the day was “secure the next day’s food”—snakes and wild boar evidently being welcome entries on the menu).
Kagami has refused to meet her mom, or even return home, since entering the academy; that's about 2,5 years. During that time, her mom went to Imahashi and settled there for a couple of years and became Indou's "not-blood-related auntie" (in Indou's own words) and gave her teaching and training specifically to enter the academy. OF COURSE Kagami, who never was home and refused news from her mother, had NO CLUE about this. As for Indou, she didn't have the real name of her "auntie", only an address.
Why Madam Kagami did this? Because Indou's mother was important to both her and her daughter; the reason, we don't know in detail yet.
It's really way too simple, doesn't warrant to spark such a debate.
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 10:04PM
It's really way too simple, doesn't warrant to spark such a debate.
Sorry to be unable to live up to your standards.
It seems highly unlikely that Kagami’s mother had extensive physical contact with Shinobu, let alone relocated from her present home to live with or near her.
As has been pointed out a number of times, immediately prior to attending the academy, Shinobu was living a life of extreme poverty and borderline malnutrition. Yuki the domestic servant did not recognize Shinobu, and seemed to recall “Indou-sama” as a distant memory.
We need further information on all these matters, but occasional contact between Madame Kagami and Shinobu seems much more plausible than Kagami’s mother raising Shinobu in dire poverty.
last edited at Jun 16, 2019 10:36PM
We need further information on all these matters, but occasional contact between Madame Kagami and Shinobu seems much more plausible than Kagami’s mother raising Shinobu in dire poverty.
That's the only piece that really doesn't add up. If Shinobu had enough contact with auntie for her to tutor her up to speed for the entrance exam it seems unlikely she would have left the poor girl in such poor condition. There must be something we are still missing.
last edited at Jun 17, 2019 12:02AM
I feel the need to remind everyone that relationships between cousins is really only considered incest in the United States.
It's quite legal in a decent portion of US states too actually.
pleasedontbeincestpleasedontbeincestpleasedontbeincestpleasedontbeincest...
well that came out of nowhere, are we gonna add an incest tag to this now.
We need further information on all these matters, but occasional contact between Madame Kagami and Shinobu seems much more plausible than Kagami’s mother raising Shinobu in dire poverty.
That's the only piece that really doesn't add up. If Shinobu had enough contact with auntie for her to tutor her up to speed for the entrance exam it seems unlikely she would have left the poor girl in such poor condition. There must be something we are still missing.
She didn't say she tutored her, she said she told her what to study. In fact, Shinobu had problems with her grades at first because while she memorized what she needed for the entry exam, she didn't actually understand any of it and had to learn from square one when studying with Kagami. I almost wonder if Auntie just gave her the answers to the test.
Even if that's not the case, she said she was told what to study, not that she was tutored directly.
NA-ni?!recent chapter making me think they're cousins's!
Even if that's not the case, she said she was told what to study, not that she was tutored directly.
True, the pre-admission cramming could have been “distance learning,” but Shinobu and the aunt have had enough contact, and recently enough, to visually recognize each other.
WHAT?
What's with all the people arguing about incest? Indou looks nothing like Kagami's mom and if they were related wouldn't Kagami have known that they are related?
In some asian countries it's normal to call a woman thats NOT RELATED to you 'Aunt/Auntie' and that's like a typical sign of respect to a woman older than you
Wow
What's with all the people arguing about incest? Indou looks nothing like Kagami's mom and if they were related wouldn't Kagami have known that they are related?
In some asian countries it's normal to call a woman thats NOT RELATED to you 'Aunt/Auntie' and that's like a typical sign of respect to a woman older than you
Your main point is correct, but the appearance thing is irrelevant—one side of a family can look very different than another. Indou resembles her mother; who knows what her father looked like?
The real questions for me are: Who raised Shinobu?
She knows almost nothing about her parents (Chapter 1, p. 27), she has been living in the countryside with very little to eat, and she was not living with “another relative” (besides the aunt she mentions) (Chapter 4, p. 114).
I had been assuming that the “aunt” she continually mentions and to whom she is writing the letters was the same person who raised her. She wishes for her presence several times, mentions that she smells good when you hug her, and says that she taught her “with great zeal.” But the evidence now suggests that the “aunt” (who may not be a blood relation) is in fact Kagami’s mother, which seems completely incompatible with the way Shinobu was living.
Which leads to the second question: Why doesn’t Shinobu connect the family name of her “auntie” with that of her senpai?
I know that there are many common Japanese family names, but is “Kagami” so common as to be completely unremarkable in these circumstances? In the West little kids learn the names of relatives (or honorary honorifics for family friends) as “Aunt/Uncle + first name,” but wouldn’t it be “Auntie Family Name” in Japan?
EDIT: it seems that neither “Kagami” nor “Indou” is in the top 100 most common family names in Japan.
last edited at Jun 18, 2019 7:13AM