1069 comments already? isn't Stretch is now the second most popular manga after Citrus. But honestly, it's stretching too much, I think I'm gonna loose it?

Citrus is in a weird position, actually. Some people love it and some love to hate it, so a good part of it's comments are similar to the discussions and complains in Lemonade thread (I apologize I had to remind you of Lemonade).

Stretch is also in a weird position. It's really popular here despite the fact it literally has no yuri, unless you look at it in a certain way. Everyone just let's it follow it's course and join for the ride. The mistery about the character's past also boosts the popularty.

last edited at Nov 1, 2014 9:26AM

Citrus has been going on for a longer time, so i'd say Stretch is actually more popular and i'm totally not being biased for being one of them Citrus hater

and i'm totally not being biased for being one of them Citrus hater

dont feel bad over THAT, it isnt worth worrying about <-- totally not citrus hating

It's so blatant teasing right now, that i suspect more than 99% of following readers must be yuri fans... (I heard that it was not published in a yuri comic?).

Ran and Keiko, stop hiding behind the senpai-kouhai relationship. Your gayness is making even rainbow look straight

last edited at Nov 2, 2014 1:43PM

It's so blatant teasing right now, that i suspect more than 99% of following readers must be yuri fans... (I heard that it was not published in a yuri comic?).

As far as I know, it's released in Big Spirits Comics (Yawaraka Supiritsu). I don't know if Big Spirits has ever released any gay(yaoi)/lesbian(yuri) themed series or one shots before (can someone confirm or deny this statement please?).

Ran and Keiko, stop hiding behind the senpai-kouhai relationship. Your gayness is making even rainbow look straight

lmao. now that would be a sight to see ;-)

It's so blatant teasing right now, that i suspect more than 99% of following readers must be yuri fans... (I heard that it was not published in a yuri comic?).

As far as I know, it's released in Big Spirits Comics (Yawaraka Supiritsu). I don't know if Big Spirits has ever released any gay(yaoi)/lesbian(yuri) themed series or one shots before (can someone confirm or deny this statement please?).

No idea about this - but I did take a look at the currently running series, and none of them seem to be yuri, or yaoi. Genre-wise, they all seem to be on the gag, slightly weird, or slice-of-life side of things, so there isn't really romance so far as I can see, though I think one centres on a housewife...?

Also, look at this: TAKEMIYA JIN TWEETED ABOUT STRETCH, GUYS! SHE CALLS IT WONDERFUL, HAS THAT SLIGHT BLUSHING THING GOING ON, AND RECOMMENDS IT!!

...Sorry for the all caps, but it's great to see that it's making the rounds in the right quarters. >:)
And if people who follow her start reading it, then the yuri fanbase for it is simply gonna grow!

Edit: Not to mention the difference is rankings is pretty obvious this month as well - here's the top three:

last edited at Nov 3, 2014 3:32PM

It's so blatant teasing right now, that i suspect more than 99% of following readers must be yuri fans... (I heard that it was not published in a yuri comic?).

As far as I know, it's released in Big Spirits Comics (Yawaraka Supiritsu). I don't know if Big Spirits has ever released any gay(yaoi)/lesbian(yuri) themed series or one shots before (can someone confirm or deny this statement please?).

No idea about this - but I did take a look at the currently running series, and none of them seem to be yuri, or yaoi. Genre-wise, they all seem to be on the gag, slightly weird, or slice-of-life side of things, so there isn't really romance so far as I can see, though I think one centres on a housewife...?

Also, look at this: TAKEMIYA JIN TWEETED ABOUT STRETCH, GUYS! SHE CALLS IT WONDERFUL, HAS THAT SLIGHT BLUSHING THING GOING ON, AND RECOMMENDS IT!!

...Sorry for the all caps, but it's great to see that it's making the rounds in the right quarters. >:)
And if people who follow her start reading it, then the yuri fanbase for it is simply gonna grow!

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Pretty sure it would look like some character she already made for the third time

last edited at Nov 3, 2014 3:43PM

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Pretty sure it would look like some character she already made for the third time

Yup yup, nothing like greeting positivity with artist hate. Good job.

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Pretty sure it would look like some character she already made for the third time

Has she even had that issue recently? cause if i remember she got over that ages ago, no need to be hatin'

Citrus has been going on for a longer time, so i'd say Stretch is actually more popular and i'm totally not being biased for being one of them Citrus hater

I actually liked Citrus before the third party came into picture.. you know, Yuzu's other little sister... I forgot her name.. And I kinda didn't like the part when The little sister arc came to an end so quickly, I think they wanted to get rid of that girl as soon as possible but still wanna give her a nice look, I mean, if they wanted to get rid of her so easily then why even bother showing her??

As opposed to this manga (Stretch), I think the story came out as some flat story, into something very dynamic and complex story. One thing that I didn't like about this manga is that it didn't continue to the Keiko and her ex fiance arc.. After Ran and the ex fiance talked and kinda drank together, that was it. I didn't see any follow up story after that. I didn't see what happened next after that. I wanted to see more... Maybe they're gonna bring that back up. I hope. And another thing,, THE FREAKING QUEER BAIT... WE'RE BEING QUEER BAITED AND MANY OF US TOOK THE BAIT ESPECIALLY ME...

But all in all, I think Stretch is better than Citrus, (just in my opinion)....

As opposed to this manga (Stretch), I think the story came out as some flat story, into something very dynamic and complex story. One thing that I didn't like about this manga is that it didn't continue to the Keiko and her ex fiance arc.. After Ran and the ex fiance talked and kinda drank together, that was it. I didn't see any follow up story after that. I didn't see what happened next after that. I wanted to see more... Maybe they're gonna bring that back up. I hope.

I'm pretty sure it's going to come up again; it's probably just that it's still trying to masquerade as a normal slice-of-life series where nothing happens at the moment. The serious drama always comes between long stretches (haha) of nothing in particular happening... And seeing as we saw that Ran's father did actually die, which was subtly hinted at earlier, I think Shou's not going to drop this plot point so quickly - especially since it is highly relevant to the yuri subtext.

And another thing,, THE FREAKING QUEER BAIT... WE'RE BEING QUEER BAITED AND MANY OF US TOOK THE BAIT ESPECIALLY ME...

Yep, I'm being happily strung along... Thankfully, we know that Shou did at least write "Prism", so it's not like he's necessarily against serving up any actual yuri, though I guess it really depends on the editorial department in this case. I really hope they cave in and give us what the majority (I'm guessing - this ain't backed up with statistics) want!

As opposed to this manga (Stretch), I think the story came out as some flat story, into something very dynamic and complex story. One thing that I didn't like about this manga is that it didn't continue to the Keiko and her ex fiance arc.. After Ran and the ex fiance talked and kinda drank together, that was it. I didn't see any follow up story after that. I didn't see what happened next after that. I wanted to see more... Maybe they're gonna bring that back up. I hope.

Well the thing is, it's not an "arc" manga. It's not one of those where everything is straight, clear, has a beginning and a closure. There are no ex fiance arc, all is mixed.
Up to now Shou didn't put useless hint so yeah as kiriactor said he will surely bring it back

last edited at Nov 4, 2014 8:15AM

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Soft moaning here.
Ahem, sorry.

Anyway, for those who think Shou cares about what people on this forum want; it's the japanese readers that make his money, not us. But then, if you feed the comments on his webpage to google translate the words lesbian and lily pop up. So not only Takemiya is interested.

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Soft moaning here.
Ahem, sorry.

Anyway, for those who think Shou cares about what people on this forum want; it's the japanese readers that make his money, not us. But then, if you feed the comments on his webpage to google translate the words lesbian and lily pop up. So not only Takemiya is interested.

I bet comments there are similar to the ones here.

Oh wow, how awesome would it be for Takemiya Jin to do Stretch fanart?

Soft moaning here.
Ahem, sorry.

Anyway, for those who think Shou cares about what people on this forum want; it's the japanese readers that make his money, not us. But then, if you feed the comments on his webpage to google translate the words lesbian and lily pop up. So not only Takemiya is interested.

I bet comments there are similar to the ones here.

Just putting it out there that I wasn't talking about Shou caring about the fanbase on Dynasty, but in Japan. I'm not stupid enough to expect he'd even know this site exists.

Which web-page are you referring to, his blog? Because that doesn't even appear to have a commenting function...? If you're talking about the dedicated Yawaraka Spirits page, though, there are certainly some references to yuri in the comments, but only a very low proportion - less than twenty in one thousand entries (I was simply searching for the term itself, so more subtle allusions would have escaped me). Those who do refer to it generally mention it in the context of "this feels yuri", "this chapter was particularly yuri", "it'd be nice if there was more yuri", and "I thought it was yuri, but it wasn't"... So basically yes, the same as us. Interestingly, I did a search on Twitter, again looking for explicit mentions of yuri, and found a much higher proportion - around 10% (18 or 19 of about 145) of the tweets seemed to contain the term, despite the fact that a large number were "blank tweets" containing only the default tweet text, without any further commentary. The reference frame I used was from present back until November 8th, since that's as far back it would allow me to go.

It's certainly not enough to say that a majority of the readers are looking for yuri in it, but we know at least that there are Japanese fans out there seeing the same things we are, and that those tweeting about it are more interested in the yuri than those on the site for whatever reason.

Also, yuri manga-ka and active doujinshi-ka Kitao Taki tweeted about the mildly infamous chapter 25, jokingly calling it a 'special for those who like yuri (?) lol', so Takemiya's definitely not the first yuri creator who's interested...

last edited at Nov 4, 2014 7:06PM

Just a general assumption about how it was received.

I wonder to which extent the Japanese artists are actually ignorant about the fans outside the country? I mean, yeah of course it's in English.. not to mention they are less likely to pay... but this could still be valuable feedback, interesting ideas, etc. So what are the odds Akili reads this thread? Is it really that close to 0 as we think?

I wonder to which extent the Japanese artists are actually ignorant about the fans outside the country?

There is - surprisingly - some degree of ignorance surrounding scanlations (referring to the final question), but I think it's safe to assume many artists are aware of their overseas fanbase, and to some degree the places they gather.

Of artists featured on this site, two that stand out in memory are Dowman Sayman, who's re-blogged numerous translations of his work on tumblr, and Ogu (loli warning) has re-tweeted translations of his work and also gave the scanlation group's logo a cameo appearance in one chapter. There are other pretty cool instances of this, but I can't think of them at the moment.

There are more than a few artists who display a decent grasp of English on twitter/pixiv, and they seem to at least know of sites like danbooru or MAL.

I mean, yeah of course it's in English.. not to mention they are less likely to pay... but this could still be valuable feedback, interesting ideas, etc. So what are the odds Akili reads this thread? Is it really that close to 0 as we think?

It's still probably pretty close to 0. I'm sure he's a busy person!

last edited at Nov 5, 2014 6:01PM

Given Takemiya Jin is active on Twitter, I'm sure she's aware that there are a lot of Western fans following her work. Certainly she'd be seeing a lot of non-Japanese names following her.

Ogu (loli warning)

At first i was all: why does loli need a warning?
then i realized which manga this guy makes, i need more brain bleach now.

I wonder to which extent the Japanese artists are actually ignorant about the fans outside the country?

There is - surprisingly - some degree of ignorance surrounding scanlations (referring to the final question), but I think it's safe to assume many artists are aware of their overseas fanbase, and to some degree the places they gather.

Of artists featured on this site, two that stand out in memory are Dowman Sayman, who's re-blogged numerous translations of his work on tumblr, and Ogu (loli warning) has re-tweeted translations of his work and also gave the scanlation group's logo a cameo appearance in one chapter. There are other pretty cool instances of this, but I can't think of them at the moment.

There are more than a few artists who display a decent grasp of English on twitter/pixiv, and they seem to at least know of sites like danbooru or MAL.

That's true, but you've got to admit that while they may be aware of the existence of scanlations to some extent, the idea that they would know this specific site - which, let's face it, is probably not all that well-known among people who aren't interested in yuri - is a bit unlikely to me. "Decent grasp of English" must also be qualified: I've seen people replying in English, but the responses are rarely long enough to display anything beyond a very basic knowledge of the language. And I can't think of any instances which involved slightly more complex ideas, either. Naturally, levels vary, but on the whole the Japanese education system has been rather poor at teaching people English.

I mean, yeah of course it's in English.. not to mention they are less likely to pay... but this could still be valuable feedback, interesting ideas, etc. So what are the odds Akili reads this thread? Is it really that close to 0 as we think?

It's still probably pretty close to 0. I'm sure he's a busy person!

You can probably guess what I'd say judging by my earlier comments, but I think it's next to zero. Even if he did know of this website, even if he did know of this thread, I really doubt he'd be reading through forty-five pages of messages written in a language he is likely to be fairly unfamiliar with. It would take too much time and effort to do so.

More like totes. And in Keiko's case, the spicy curry seemed to have lost its spiciness after that phone cal

omg. I laughed so hard at this.
Actually though. Keiko seemed like she was fishing for an excuse to call

^those goggles are awesome.

And wow, the yuri got dangerously close to canon this chapter. "There you go acting like it's none of your business", huh? Now just why would it be Keiko's business? And then when Keiko doesn't seem to get what Ran's implying, Ran hangs up quickly, as if her feelings were hurt.

^ this

Wow, that was hard core. I mean, they got her drunk and pliable and then two of them were stuffing their meat into her at the same time while she ineffectually moaned "Not all at once..." and the onlookers got all hot and aroused by the intense action.

Well, when you put it like that ...

fans self
I thought this too though.
Random question: That doesn't seem like a formal reunion. It's not the school funded type, I think? Cos those usually happen every 10 years, right?

Also, to whomever who brought up the whole "first thing Ran did was check her phone and then she immediately got on a bullet train back home to Keiko": Yes. Thank you for pointing that out.

As a great eeerrr master of the force once said, "the yuri is strong with this one." Maybe in the next few chapters we will finally see the yuri awakening.

http://yawaspi.com/stretch/comic/030_001.html

new chapter