I agree with the sentiment that putting the series into hiatus so she can go back and improve what she's already published is a huge mistake. The slow and irregular update schedule already had us restless, trying to pull a Murata will kill all the momentum she's build upon now and alienate a considerable amount of her readers. That said, it is commendable that she has a genuine interest in improving her old work but that shouldn't come at the expense of putting the continuation on hold.

It's really a slap in the face to the readers who have stuck by for so long to not get a conclusion to the story.

That argument had slightly more merit if 99% of her readers on her just read the entire thing for free. She's got no obligation to anyone here whatsoever.

I feel worries are justified but ultimately we don't know what's going on. It might be that she just got completely stuck on the 2nd half because she's not set up things the way she wanted to, and that the only way out of that blockade to her right now is fixing this issue. It happens. This wasn't done with some professional editing support (and even with it how many writers get perpetually stuck?), and sometimes you just need a new iteration to go forward.

So, yeah, I do think it's fair to worry from a reader's perspective and obviously nobody ever wants to wait for New Stuff(tm) but when it turns into some weird sense of entitlement that's going too far.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 3:47AM

It's really a slap in the face to the readers who have stuck by for so long to not get a conclusion to the story.

That argument had slightly more merit if 99% of her readers on her just read the entire thing for free. She's got no obligation to anyone here whatsoever.

I feel worries are justified but ultimately we don't know what's going on. It might be that she just got completely stuck on the 2nd half because she's not set up things the way she wanted to, and that the only way out of that blockade to her right now is fixing this issue. It happens. This wasn't done with some professional editing support (and even with it how many writers get perpetually stuck?), and sometimes you just need a new iteration to go forward.

So, yeah, I do think it's fair to worry from a reader's perspective and obviously nobody ever wants to wait for New Stuff(tm) but when it turns into some weird sense of entitlement that's going too far.

as much as i hate the thought of having to wait for something new, i kinda agree. i didn't even know the author was self publishing til now, which is amazing in and of itself, and here we are getting to read it for free. so while we are emotionally invested (this is the first mother x daughter manga i read that's really got me hooked like this. all the others--like 2 lol--i was just bleaugh) we don't really have a right to complain since we are not financially invested ;) but then again what about the people who have been buying it? kind of a situation that has no real right or wrong answer.

@Pyoro I dont really agree that makes any difference. When you pay for a work of fiction, you do so at your own risk- you have presumably done research or know you want a product first, most of the time- but you get whatever the author/artist made with no guarantees you will find it worth your money. The author doesn't 'owe' you more because you bought it. You only deserve the production quality to be of a minimum.

BUT- whether a work is bought or free- it is not ONLY the authors belonging any more once they put it out there.
Sure, it is in a literal sense. They can stop working on it half way through and bin it all if they want- but they are NOT just writing it for themselves- they could leave it all in a cupboard if they dont WANT to share it.

Once they put it out into the world to share with others, they form a kind of contract with the readers- like it or not.
The readers expend time and energy in it- they get emotionally attached and vested in the story and characters.

Delaying it hugely WILL cause emotional pain and upset / anger to some readers. It is not being mindful of them - or even considering them in my opinion- because this edit could have easily been done AFTER part 2 was finished.

I support their right to do this edit still as the author- in that it is their work and they need creative freedom to do whatever they feel they need to. BUT- I feel it is the WRONG move- not just for the readers, but also the author and whatever reasons they think they need to do it for will probably turn out false and for the worse unfortunatley.

I'd say they have no better than a 1 in 4 chance of this working out :( I'm worried It will either be abandoned entirely or they will drop the rewrite and go back to the story- or it will just turn out to make the story worse.

They should have finished it and left it as is and used all this time and effort on the NEXT work- which can be better for all they learned writing this one.

If this does go ahead long term then I hope for the best- and that I will be proved wrong- I'm just going on past experiences.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 8:05AM

Delaying it hugely WILL cause emotional pain and upset / anger to some readers. It is not being mindful of them - or even considering them in my opinion- because this edit could have easily been done AFTER part 2 was finished.

As somebody who really wants to see this continue and will miss it a great deal if the revised version is delayed for an extended period, I say: so what?

Such readers, me included, will just need to get over ourselves.

This is an artist (in the widest sense of the word) who is committed to improving her craft and to creating a work of art that lives up to her own standards. We have been privileged to watch her first attempts at rendering her vision, most of us doing so for free. That's as "mindful" of the readers as the artist needs to be (more so, in fact).

I dont really agree that makes any difference

... I actually agree with you on that it doesn't make any difference, but I didn't want to get sidetrack but that debate as it's not applicable here anyway ;)

Anyway, I disagree with everything else. Nobody owns an artist. It's your right to disagree with them. It's your right to stop reading them. It's your right to never read anything by them again.

But you don't have any right to them finishing their work in the way you want them to. That's their decision and theirs alone.

^No, you dont have a 'right' to anything- but they DO have a duty to have some consideration for the feelings of their audience, because it was the author that got them invested by their action of publishing their content. A creator who consistantly ignores their audience or disgruntles them will soon have no audience.

Also, the vast majority of creators, no matter how much they like or not their own work- will largely judge its worth and be happy based in large part on the feedback they get from others.

As I expressed it's still their call ofcourse- but surely the author doesnt WANT all their readers to naff off- otherwise why bother have social media accounts and makes posts etc.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 10:46AM

^No, you dont have a 'right' to anything- but they DO have a duty to have some consideration for the feelings of their audience, because it was the author that got them invested by their action of publishing their content.

This sounds Hell of a lot like merely giving the exact same sentiment a new wrapping, just sayin'...

^How so? there is a difference between demanding you get something like you are owed it, and just expecting your feelings to me taken into consideration. If they do so and go ahead with something they know will be unpopular anyway then thats fine- as long as they dont complain about the inevitable complaints some will give or a loss of readers etc.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 10:41AM

^How so? there is a difference between demanding you get something like you are owed it, and just expecting your feelings to me taken into consideration.

A terribly academic one when the end result is the same.

Sorry to interrupt this serious discussion but Taiyaki just posted on twitter which were already uploaded to mangadex. Can't wait to see the images here. Taiyaki does NOT hold back. I fully support her decision and more power to her and her mother x daughter fantasies.

I like that Taiyaki is going to take her time on the 2nd part of 1 x1/2. The worst thing a storyteller can do is it just rush the plot leaving it filled with enormous plot holes.

I just hope her artwork quality doesn't go back down again cause when you don't practice you ending up getting rusty, at least for me anyways. I'm lookin forward to the re-mastered parts of the first half of 1 x 1/2.

My heart immediately sank when I read AXED in one of Asuka's speech bubbles. It got me for a few sec there. lol Thank goodness this is a self published doujin and not under the control of a hard nosed Manager.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 10:51AM

^They are not taking a break- they are gonna redraw everything published up to now.

By time they finish in a few years, their art will be better I'd assume not worse.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 10:56AM

Sorry to interrupt this serious discussion but Taiyaki just posted on twitter which were already uploaded to mangadex. Can't wait to see the images here. Taiyaki does NOT hold back. I fully support her decision and more power to her and her mother x daughter fantasies.

I love her work too and hope they stick with it - and I also hope they dont make major changes to make it more publishable- for example make her an adopted daughter or some kind of cop-out.

^They are not taking a break- they are gonna redraw everything published up to now.

By time they finish in a few years, their art will be better I'd assume not worse.

oh damn, now I'm worried again.

shit @_@

^How so? there is a difference between demanding you get something like you are owed it, and just expecting your feelings to me taken into consideration.

Have to agree that this is a distinction without a difference--you seem to think that you are "owed" having your feelings taken into account.

No author would do this without to some extent considering the effect it might have on the current audience. If our feelings are hurt because the author appears to value future (potentially paying) readers over current (non-paying) readers, well, as I said, we just need to get over ourselves.

I mean, In her defense, it isn’t like she’s re-drawing everything just to make it look better. She said when she originally drew the story, there were things she had to skip over and leave out for some reasons (I think it was time constraints, even though this is a doujin, she would probably want to bring new chapters to conventions oand stuff), and she wanted to go back and add in the extra plot that she originally had left out. The majority of us on here dont pay a DIME to read her stuff, so it really takes away our right to complain. I’m sure she’s thinking about this in the long run: she’d probably rather have new readers read a better work than she gave us (she mentioned that her first few chapters were only written with a pen) and once she completes this work (which I really think she will, she made the decision to redraw because she said she would never be satisfied if she didn’t tell the story to the fullest) readers that pick up her work once it is complete will appreciate it much more, as maybe there will be less holes and better art. It isn’t like she’s even leaving current readers hanging- she appears to have been posting redrawn stuff on her pixiv account, so people who financially support her ARE getting manga from her, whether it’s new plot, or reimagined pages.

In my mind, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what she is doing. She has said that she’s tried to get her work published in a magazine, but has been turned down due to the nature of the content. That is a valid reason to turn away a work, but she may be trying to redraw in order to make her work good enough to be an exception in those magazines. Us readers, especially readers that don’t financially support the author, have no right to be critical of a choice we have not even seen the results of yet. All it may end up doing is turn yourself and others away from a story that is obviously good enough to merit this much of an outrage.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 11:50AM

In my limited experience, reboot perfectionism is unlikely to ever finish. The two most prominent examples are Tolkien on his Silmarillion material (never finished or published before he died), and the artist who did Heliothaumic - he rebooted his thing twice before burning out for the third time.

Yes, she's been really transparent about the work she's been doing on the redraw (she's moving very quickly on the drafts) and writing a lot about the changes that were made. I think maybe there's a desire to prove that the work is technically good enough to be published, but I don't think she has any illusions that that would happen. When she brought it in to publishers in February, it seems like it was already well received, but the blanket prohibition on the theme made it impossible. I think it's closer to "if I'm going to stay self-published, and if I'm going to continue the story from here, I'm going to make the foundation of the work consistent in quality before building on it further", and while you can argue whether or not that could be demotivating/is too much work, make it feel too polished, etc, it seems like a pretty well-reasoned decision to me.

I'm honestly kind of curious - would a Vol 10 that just wraps everything up neatly have been preferable? I guess that's kind of a false choice, but I always got the impression that that was Taiyaki's original plan before this, and I was worried that there really wasn't enough space to give any satisfying conclusion. When she announced the redraw, she explained how it's not just a "yuri work", but even if that was all it was, I'm always a little disappointed when series end without really exploring the new relationship and its dynamic, and I can't imagine it would do much justice to this story.

last edited at Aug 16, 2020 12:48PM

In my limited experience, reboot perfectionism is unlikely to ever finish. The two most prominent examples are Tolkien on his Silmarillion material (never finished or published before he died), and the artist who did Heliothaumic - he rebooted his thing twice before burning out for the third time.

I only get the author's statements second-hand here, but I don't get the impression that some kind of paralyzing perfectionism or authorial second-guessing is what's going on with this.

In fact, it strikes me rather the opposite--that as time has gone on and what she's done has been well-received, the author has become more committed to the project and more excited about the possibilities of her own growing skillset.

Don't get me wrong--I personally don't see the necessity of upgrading the earlier parts, and I would much prefer to see it continue on as it is to the finish. On the other hand, I have to respect an artist who wants to improve her craft (for whatever reason) and who wants to put out the best work she can do.

Pixivy update

kissy, kissy

Tfw guest artwork looks way better

I wish Taiyaki-sensei the best of luck on her rest and redo. As others have mentioned, I have seen this happen many times in fan fiction where the redo dies in infancy. But I would like to put my trust in her and patiently await what comes. Though disabled and on a small fixed income, I hope to participate in funding assistance when she starts up again.
Does anyone know if she reads or takes email/messages from fans in english? It is almost impossible for me to find places to send fan supporting messages to many mangakas I am fans of as I don't know the Japanese language, but always buy the English versions when they are for sale here in the U.S. Twitter and most fan sites are always in Japanese and though I translate the webpage into English, I have tried to use Google and Microsoft translation programs to send messages but have no way to know if they are even read and some have told me that those are junk apps, yet have no other suggestions. I would like some of the self-published mangakas to know that there are English only speakers that always try to support them and do enjoy their work.
I personally have no problem with incest in Manga above certain age limits and not rape (if it is not to my taste I just don't read it) nor do I irl as long as all parties can and do legally consent (irl you cannot consent if you are not of legal age within the laws of that country or reasonableness, i.e. NOT reasonable are some country laws allowing 13 year olds to marry is what I'm getting at). Those of you who decry the Japanese culture for producing such forms of works for many years, ought to take a close look at the fact that they have historically had an extremely low sex crime rate per capita than most developed nations. My country of the U.S. tries to flaunt it's religious purity crap and we have huge amounts of sex crimes in this country. Not saying this should be all that shapes one's opinion, just check out some stats on things sometimes and you might be shocked. It amazes me how righteous some people act around these types of works, but say nothing about the children who die in Africa of starvation every 4 or 5 minutes, I believe.
Anyway, if Taiyaki-sensei were to read this I would wish her to know I enjoy her work very much, her art is good and the storyline is compelling and interesting to read, bringing different emotions at different times. Thank you ma'am.
Jay

"the fact that they have historically had an extremely low sex crime rate per capita than most developed nations"

Well, maybe. Particularly for sex crimes, low rates may reflect low rates of reporting. If reporting a rape means you get publicly humiliated and the rapist probably gets off, you're likely to not report the rape.

Also Japan is infamous for groping on subway trains, to the point that they have special women-only train cars during peak hours.

The US has crime victimization surveys ("Asking as a harmless researcher, have you ever experienced X?") which acts as a cross-check on police reports.

'Round here both the police and assorted support organisations officially estimate they only ever hear of a fraction of sex-crime cases, and we're talking about a country that consistently rates among the best in the world in both gender-equality issues and popular trust in the authorities.

Tolerably sure Japan sorta kinda really fails at least one of the latter, to speak nothing of all the fun and games characteristic of "shame cultures" where keeping up appearances tends to be paramount and things are majorly prone to getting swept under rugs to avoid looking bad.

Given all the issues with differences reporting, definitions, societal and official attitudes etc. about the only crime statistics that can be internationally compared even vaguely reliably are outright homicides as even the shitty excuses of cops in chronically mismanaged third-world shitholes tend to at least record those somewhat consistently.

last edited at Aug 24, 2020 4:13AM