@Megumiaki

While I do like this series, I just don't see it as good enough to even compare with YagaKimi. It is good, but I wouldn't put it as the best ongoing yuri manga either.
But again, YMMV

last edited at Sep 17, 2020 5:34AM

Man, I've been kinda ambivalent about this series, but after that kiss, I'm all the way in. That's all it took. I'm so easy.

Understandable, this series has some of the hottest kissing scenes I've ever seen, and somehow while looking classy rather than raunchy.

True.

Mayuki tops Akira

@Megumiaki

While I do like this series, I just don't see it as good enough to even compare with YagaKimi. It is good, but I wouldn't put it as the best ongoing yuri manga either.
But again, YMMV

Understandable, I definitely wrote that while I was still on the high of having just read Chapter 7, haha. I'm honestly not sure if it's at YagaKimi level, but I was noticing lots of structural similarities between the two (thoughtful plot, unique and compelling subject matter, complex and engaging character interactions) that led me to draw that comparison. I'd still love to see this as an anime, though.

I have to wonder what happened for Canno’s characters to get this… horny. AnoKiss’s girls (especially early AnoKiss) were ridiculously chaste by comparison. It might be Kawauchi’s infulence.

I have to wonder what happened for Canno’s characters to get this… horny. AnoKiss’s girls (especially early AnoKiss) were ridiculously chaste by comparison.

I know, right?
Tbh, I have ambivalent feelings towards most of Canno's work.
I never liked AnoKiss (dropped it midway, in fact).
I never liked UNOs 2 either.
I totally hated Cider and Crybaby.
I did like Mushoku to JK, tho... pity some chapters were never translated.
The balance is mostly negative... obviously, I didn't have high hopes for this series... and yet it turned out to be a masterpiece!!!!!!
Looks like you can't really predict a yuri manga by the previous work of the author. I gotta give it to Canno, totally took me by surprise with this one.

According to the extras, the plot will keep getting bigger and better with the pass of time

Canno did seem to forget that Akira was supposed to be the designated oppai of the three. It would make me laugh if even Mayuki ends up like that somehow.

A sudden growth spurt? °3°

Seems like a good thing I missed chapter 5 and 6 when they first came or I too would be irritated with Akira. As is I can totally understand she would get selfish, irritated and irrational when the girl she's head over heels for not only loves another girl, but that girl is basically Akira's little sister, who Rin is supposed to be tutoring and have kissed only once. Like anyone wouldn't go WTF at that.

With this latest chapter I think she'll be over thinking mean and condescending stuff about Mayuki. Rather she'll probably be very confused and the three of them will have a difficult time sorting this triangle out because, let's face it, they are all young teenagers.

And can I just say the kisses in this series are amazing!

Just wanted to say same. Reading these three chapters in a row like this, my feelings on Akira went on a roller coaster ride.

So... They got filled with love?

Mayuki tops Akira

yeah. i was way into that.

akira had a shitty attitude towards mayuki, and i feel like in this chapter she realized that she's way behind her when it comes to love. so mayuki topping her was a really good way to cap that learning experience off. :P

not only is the girl you like into her, but now she's also making you melt...

Okay. Damn~ :3 this is the one yuri manga that really makes me go (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄
Can't wait for the next part of the journey!

Akira knows everything now...

Ahhhhh, hell. I don't like Akira that much. She is so selfish. I want Rin ans Mayuki to be together in the end. Tsk.

Well... you know... in a poly ending they would be together... and that's what the story is clearly heading for from the beginning.

(Ch. 7) I don’t understand people holding YagaKimi so highly, clearly I’ve gotta check it out again. It felt really abstracted from the emotions it addressed, like it was explaining them or talking about them as ideas. I feel like Canno really understand the characters in this story but more importantly has a really strong grasp on how emotions work and how to portray them, and the setup is a lot more human and less... “this is a plot point”-y. Anyway, yeah, gotta read YagaKimi again start to finish to remind myself what folks are talking about.

My prediction:

1) Akira goes to Mayuki and tells her that she has found about the kissing lessons with Rin. She says that she will be the one giving Mayuki kissing lessons from now on.

2) Mayuki totally freaks out -- because Akira is the one she loves, and she wanted to become a good kisser for Akira's sake! But since she can't bring herself to admit that, she accepts Akira's suggestion.

3) Akira has actually never kissed anyone in her life, and doesn't know the first thing about how to teach kissing. Thus, when the lesson starts, Mayuki (who has become pretty good thanks to Rin) ends up being the one giving a very thorough kissing lesson to a dumbstruck Akira.

4) The karmic retribution delivery boy says: "Miss Akira? One large order of humble pie for you!"

I believe this is how it's going to go.

Well, shit... i think you hit the bullseye there. though the full karmic humble pie looks like it'll come in Ch 8.

Mayuki tops Akira

yeah. i was way into that.

akira had a shitty attitude towards mayuki, and i feel like in this chapter she realized that she's way behind her when it comes to love. so mayuki topping her was a really good way to cap that learning experience off. :P

not only is the girl you like into her, but now she's also making you melt...

Yes, this. i was way into that as well. Mayuki topping Akira (and delivering a gut punch to her ego) was a nice slice of karmic humble pie. i figure we'll get the rest of the pie in the next chapter.

i know i shouldnt double post but multi-quoting is really finicky orz

(Ch. 7) But anyway, speaking to this chapter—I really like Akira actually, she has a lot of dark emotions and demons running about that she never seems to have faced. I bet we get to see more into those, and watch her work through them, as they’ve started to do here.

This chapter is one of the most satisfying “bridging the gap” moments I’ve read in manga so far—I absolutely love how Akira is able to put her ego and bad frameworks aside when she hears what Mayuki did. She could have just gotten jealous and angry hearing that Rin cried with Mayuki, but she stopped, reflected, and realized what was going on, and where her failings were—I love the image of her being emotionally and personally way behind Mayuki. I think she’s now dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance, because on the one hand she’s awed by Mayuki, but on the other she seems to have leaned heavily on the idea of her academic and sports prowess setting her above others as a coping mechanism, and it seems her past kindness toward and relationship with Mayuki is deeply tangled in that morass, hence the nasty things she’s thinking as her beliefs are challenged. She’s starting to realize that being good at sports and academic just makes her good at sports and academics, and doesn’t make her a better person—she was confused that she couldn’t get Rin because of how strongly her frameworks turn around prowess, with Rin seemingly being the only time she’s wanted someone more than they’ve wanted her. At the same time, she’s been really isolated, and I totally get the pain of feeling like you can’t hold on to the people you really do want close to you, that despite all the things you’ve done to try and make yourself likable and desirable you can’t find the stability and assurance you believe is promised to you when someone doesn’t choose you—it exposes the fact that the frameworks you’re using don’t reflect reality. And Mayuki is poised to smash into these frameworks by her foundational place in them, her kindness, and of course her “adult kissing” abilities. Whew, I can’t wait.

Also, I think people are giving Rin a bit too much credit here. I think her relationship with Mayuki is similarly maladaptive, but people are giving her a free pass because it’s not showing up in ugly thoughts about someone else. She’s really been putting Mayuki on a pedestal as a solution to all her problems, and she’s really not being open or honest with her about her feelings. As touching as some of their scenes together are, Rin really isn’t treating Mayuki as an equal either—it’s just not showing up ugly through jealousy and a superiority complex.

last edited at Sep 18, 2020 1:23AM

(Ch. 7) and yeah, as people are saying, all of Mayuki’s passion, dedicated work, and sheer drive coming out such that she devours Akira and totally ruins her, despite being the “earnest, naïve kouhai” is, uh, really really hot.

(Ch. 7) But anyway, speaking to this chapter—I really like Akira actually, she has a lot of dark emotions and demons running about that she never seems to have faced. I bet we get to see more into those, and watch her work through them, as they’ve started to do here.

This chapter is one of the most satisfying “bridging the gap” moments I’ve read in manga so far—I absolutely love how Akira is able to put her ego and bad frameworks aside when she hears what Mayuki did. She could have just gotten jealous and angry hearing that Rin cried with Mayuki, but she stopped, reflected, and realized what was going on, and where her failings were—I love the image of her being emotionally and personally way behind Mayuki. I think she’s now dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance, because on the one hand she’s awed by Mayuki, but on the other she seems to have leaned heavily on the idea of her academic and sports prowess setting her above others as a coping mechanism, and it seems her past kindness toward and relationship with Mayuki is deeply tangled in that morass, hence the nasty things she’s thinking as her beliefs are challenged. She’s starting to realize that being good at sports and academic just makes her good at sports and academics, and doesn’t make her a better person—she was confused that she couldn’t get Rin because of how strongly her frameworks turn around prowess, with Rin seemingly being the only time she’s wanted someone more than they’ve wanted her. At the same time, she’s been really isolated, and I totally get the pain of feeling like you can’t hold on to the people you really do want close to you, that despite all the things you’ve done to try and make yourself likable and desirable you can’t find the stability and assurance you believe is promised to you when someone doesn’t choose you—it exposes the fact that the frameworks you’re using don’t reflect reality. And Mayuki is poised to smash into these frameworks by her foundational place in them, her kindness, and of course her “adult kissing” abilities. Whew, I can’t wait.

Also, I think people are giving Rin a bit too much credit here. I think her relationship with Mayuki is similarly maladaptive, but people are giving her a free pass because it’s not showing up in ugly thoughts about someone else. She’s really been putting Mayuki on a pedestal as a solution to all her problems, and she’s really not being open or honest with her about her feelings. As touching as some of their scenes together are, Rin really isn’t treating Mayuki as an equal either—it’s just not showing up ugly through jealousy and a superiority complex.

Hmmmm. You make a good point here. I know codependency because I’ve been through it. I was like Rin before. The reason why Rin isn’t being ugly is because she never had hatred for the two friends, but the friends disliked each other. And so Rin hasn’t dealt with possession and jealousy simply because she hasn’t been put on the spot. Because this is the first time someone isn’t looking at her, I think she’s definitely a little star struck like at less than I can make her happy.

Rin I think definitely knows she’s poly, she probably thinks Mayuki is too because the context is different. Akira is only looking at one girl, just like Rin’s old friends. So because Akira didn’t know how much that they tore her down, Akira really was so close to hurting Rin without knowing how. Glad she reflected and thought about someone else’s feelings. Rin is thinking too much of others’ feelings, making their happiness hers

last edited at Sep 18, 2020 1:47AM

Sabruness posted:

i know i shouldnt double post but multi-quoting is really finicky orz

lol, quoting doesn't even really exist like on a normal forum. it's just using markdown > for quote. you can just copy and paste and put a > at the start. :P

some people bother to manually link the post they quote, like this:

[**username** posted:](https://dynasty-scans.com/link/to/quoted/post/)
> I'm way too lazy to do that every time tho...

maybe one day i will bug the relevant people and we can figure out a way to automate that.

Rin is thinking too much of others’ feelings, making their happiness hers

I think this specifically is gonna be a really important thing they need to address. Rin’s trauma around being poly is making her think it’s dangerous for her to want and so she’s distorting around it. It’s making her be weird with Mayuki, she’s putting up a strange emotional distance between them even when they’re getting intimate, and it’s preventing her from communicating.

Also, I went back and read the section where Rin leaves when Akira externalizes her insecurity at her, and it’s clear on re-read that Rin isn’t intentionally setting boundaries by disengaging after getting some gross stuff put on her, but rather running away because she’s afraid she’ll lose Akira’s interest or make her hate her. In other words, Akira and Rin are both afraid of loosing each other, which makes a really interesting dynamic, and you can see how they might come together.

At this point I’m not sure if Rin has a really minor crush on Akira that she’s suppressing which is causing her to lead Akira on, or if Akira is just jumping at normal things because this is her first crush, but I hope we’ll see.

Also people are talking a lot about how the kisses in this story are really intense despite not involving anything explicitly sexual, etc.—if I had time I’d go close-read the passages and make a comment from that, but I don’t, so suffice it to say it’s because 1) each scene is really strongly grounded in an emotional context both through the background we have about the characters and immediate setup right before it, 2) the artist really understands the physical acts of making out, how it feels, how it happens, and what it looks like, and can accurately depict this and 3) they have a really solid understanding of desire, and especially different versions of giving desire (Rin’s “I can’t help my self, I need to spoil you” attitude during thr adult kissing scene, Mayuki putting everything into doing her best to please Akira) which is itself naturally compelling and emotionally resonant.
All this is to say that Canno creates scenarios that are emotionally charged and grounded, and depicts them in a very expressive, verisimilitudinous way. I think this story is uncommonly good, and I usually hold off judgements until I’ve read to the end but this is shaping up to be one of the best yuri manga out there, period.

One thing I like about Canno's work is how it captures emotions, a lot of which are messy, complicated, and sometimes ugly. So, I love Akira's bitter ass. It made me so excited to see her jealousy and other, meaner emotions explored and how it's already resulted in consequences for her. Can't wait for the next chapter!

Seems to me Akira's pretty much someone who hasn't really known failure - she's so ridiculously overspecced that so far she's probably been able to achieve essentially anything she's set her sights on with enough effort. Not surprising that this has gone to her head a bit, really.

Then she abruptly slammed headfirst into something where all her awesomeness is completely irrelevant. Now she's trying to get her bearings way off the map, having to come to terms with the limits of her till now unassailable competence with due ramifications to her self-image while coping with unfamiliar and intense new passions.
Growing up is hard to do.

To her credit she promptly recognised her jealousy for what it is and did her best to suppress it, and her initial knee-jerk ire towards Mayuki at the time of the revelation (which no doubt involved a vague, obviously irrational feeling of betrayal) has already simmered down to mere pouty "okay fair enough the kid tries her hardest but I'm still better, hmph."
She may be as volatile as any somewhat self-absorbed teenager grappling with all the messy business of youth, but she's also a basically good person who can't hold unreasonable grudges.