I hope that there will be more lovey dovey chapters in the future. Also, amazing credits.

This is cute and highkey the credits page is a major highlight

I wonder if this is slightly autobiographical, and the author married their friend. So the author is writing a manga about herself who is in turn writing a manga about herself.

Eh, I don't think it's boring personally. I know a lot of people on Dynasty are quick to say, "oh these slow burn wholesome stories are so boring", but at the very least I enjoy them.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it isn't the slow burn that I find boring, actually I kinda prefer slow burn over rushed romance. It's just for me manga like this tend to be filled with chapters where little to nothing happens until the last few chapters, and I prefer stories with actual plots. It's great if others get something out of it, but it just ain't my cup of tea.

Why do I hear Bee Gees - How Deep is Your Love

If a straight male coworker of mine came into work tomorrow and told me he married his platonic female friend just cuz’ I would tell him that was the most insane shit I’d heard in my life

Also I don’t know if you live under a rock or at the Elvis themed chapel in Vegas but thats not how marriage usually works “these days”

There exist couples who get into amateur BDSM and need to call the police to get them out of handcuffs, people who take shits on each other every Sunday, people who get into heterosexual marriages to conceal their homosexual liaisons, people who use websites to track marriage partners or put ads in the paper so they don't end up single post-30 and people who get hitched because they had sex at midnight in a gas station bathroom, but live in a country where abortions are illegal. Surprise, surprise, diverse situations and individuals exist, and the planet doesn't end at the edges of your neighborhood.

Regardless, my original post explains the issue from an angle that examines and justifies the tropes put into use and acknowledges the way premises and demographics work for romantic fiction. Your post draws on your own hyper-subjective experience, which I'm guessing is not relevant here, and from a mildly condescending conclusion about how marriages work everywhere, which I'm assuming is also subjective. So maybe take a second to think carefully about you're what reading before lobbing rocks at people for not seeing 2-dimensional lesbians in the same way you do.

There exist people who cover themselves in mountain dew before taking a shit, who only fuck during full moons, who think a garbage bag will protect them covid.

This somehow justifies this stories leaps in logic which everyone in the story views as completely normal and is definitely not a total non sequitur, I am very wise

It's a bit like arguing how ridiculous it would be to write a story about a guy who got mauled by a bear because it is such an admittedly rare and improbable event. It doesn't change the fact people do in fact get mauled by bears and thus it's a perfectly logical premise for a story.

The one part of this story that is quite fictitious is the bit about there being a same-sex couple legally married in Japan because our real world is a bit more backward than the world this story takes place in. Aside from the legally married bit and the overall kinder attitude of society towards same-sex couples, the world of this fiction really isn't different than our own. That's a pretty low bar to clear for the necessary suspension of disbelief to make this story work. I imagine there are more real-world female partnerships out there involving a straight woman and lesbian than there are people who get mauled by bears. It probably isn't by a small margin either.

Basically, this is just two very close female friends living together long term where one is straight but mostly uninterested in sexual relationships and the other is a lesbian with a crush on her friend. I have seen WAY weirder real-world pairings than this.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 11:47PM

Everything will be fine as long as Ruriko doesn't teach Kurumi any stretching exercises.

That train scene was so precious!

It's also quite revealing when someone comments on how marriage works that reveals Western-centralism and especially the wealthy, white view on marriage.

That aside, the main barrier to same-sex marriage in Japan is, surprise surprise, the old people's control of laws. Opinion on same-sex marriage is extremely large between older and younger generations, but that's not something that'll likely change things for a while. The only plausible avenues for near future changes are either pressure from foreign businesses, and it's questionable how desirable that is, and an ongoing lawsuit.

last edited at Mar 7, 2021 10:16AM

This district court judgment isn't the actual change to the laws, but it does remove one of the barriers to making the change. Not to discount the difficulty of persuading the Diet to care, but there is progress.

It's a bit like arguing how ridiculous it would be to write a story about a guy who got mauled by a bear because it is such an admittedly rare and improbable event. It doesn't change the fact people do in fact get mauled by bears and thus it's a perfectly logical premise for a story.

Oh fuck. Now I want a video of Werner Herzog watching Marimite and just appearing horrified at how slowly everything is moving yet how dramatic every given moment is

Kurumi and Ruriko live in a strange parallel universe where not only is same-sex marriage legal in Japan, but people do not spend all day everyday texting friends and lovers basically every thought that pops into their heads. I was surprised when that daikon didn’t end up on IG / in the group chat on Line.

Also, the whole thing in manga where a character fugues out and talks to the person next to them like they’re their bff or partner or whatever even though they know they’re not around strains credibility for me in a major way.

Made an account real quick just to say it looks like Kurumi went to Aizu-Wakamatsu Station. Page 7 matches what you see on Wikipedia of the station entrance and the "pig figurine" is an akabeko which the region is known for.

more! give us more!

but people do not spend all day everyday texting friends and lovers basically every thought that pops into their heads

Not everyone does that.

thanks Ushimitsu! (and Kyhkaen!) -- there are new notes to reflect the details of Kurumi's trip now~ hopefully people who haven't caught the chapter yet can learn like I did^^

last edited at Apr 9, 2021 8:52PM

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It’s cute that they’re both thinking of each other all the time even while apart. It looks like Ruriko has had more of an impact on Kurumi than she may think. I hope that we get to see Kurumi slowly letting Ruriko into more parts of her life, while keeping up her personal hobbies. Kinda like How Rin from yuru camp started to enjoy camping with friends because of Nadeshiko, but still enjoys solo camping too. There can be room for doing stuff alone and together.

Don't worry everyone, smallpox is one slip of an abandoned Soviet bio facility from being back on the scene! Those pigs will come in handy again one day

Kurumi and Ruriko live in a strange parallel universe where not only is same-sex marriage legal in Japan, but people do not spend all day everyday texting friends and lovers basically every thought that pops into their heads

This kills a level of suspension of disbelief for me in most media. I always wonder what media would look like if it was more accurate on this depiction. Even if not everyone does this all the time, no media seems to capture our relationship to technology and even including the way they're an extension of our minds authentically in small ways would dramatically alter most media. It's absence in fiction and non fiction is very, very weird

It's a bit like arguing how ridiculous it would be to write a story about a guy who got mauled by a bear because it is such an admittedly rare and improbable event. It doesn't change the fact people do in fact get mauled by bears and thus it's a perfectly logical premise for a story.

Oh fuck. Now I want a video of Werner Herzog watching Marimite and just appearing horrified at how slowly everything is moving yet how dramatic every given moment is

We need a Werner Herzog yuri. Pre-Fitzcarraldo. Though maybe Two Spirals or Restart from Zero are those yuri

this is so cute omg

Seems to me I've seen a fair bit of anime and manga that use cell phones (calls, texting) quite extensively, when set in modern Japan. For western webcomics, Dumbing of Age does too. El Goonish Shive has used computer messaging, though less so phones. (One issue is that I follow a lot of long-running webcomics, that starts when cell phones let alone smartphones weren't so ubiquitous.)

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it isn't the slow burn that I find boring, actually I kinda prefer slow burn over rushed romance. It's just for me manga like this tend to be filled with chapters where little to nothing happens until the last few chapters, and I prefer stories with actual plots. It's great if others get something out of it, but it just ain't my cup of tea.

I'm with you on this. "Slow burn" works when there are gradually surmountable obstacles to the romance and you can see the path of progress. As someone else said, this is a story about a straight girl and her lesbian friend. There's nothing to burn slowly here until the author suddenly decides to deus ex machina flip the gay switch on the straight girl.

Aside from that, the story isn't even about what it suggests it will be about. What part of "marriage" are they trying out? This isn't a manga about legal structures; I don't think discussion of their family registers or property rights are going to be chapters. If we're talking about marriage from a spiritual perspective - the binding commitment of people to each other because of love and/or sex - well, they don't have sex, they're not starting a family, and their lives are no more intertwined than roommates. So... what are they "trying" exactly?

And the only reason we have to think about any of that is the story is boring. Ruriko is a doormat that we're supposed to think is noble because she loves Kurumi for who she is and rationalizes gestures that barely qualify for "casual friend" as fulfilling enough for her to be content with the relationship. I hate the opposite trope too, where couples get jealous and stupid if their partner doesn't text them immediately or spend every waking minute with them, but this is not better. Marriage can mean many different things to many different people, but I don't think anyone conceives of marriage as two opposite, financially independent people who live completely separate lives, spend very little time together, with no physical intimacy, and nothing else tying them together (like kids or family pressure or immigration status).

So yeah, I think this has reached "pass" status for me as well. There's just nothing here to hold on to; it's about a relationship that barely exists and two people who seem to be pretty happy with it that way.

last edited at Apr 10, 2021 3:15AM

There's just nothing here to hold on to; it's about a relationship that barely exists and two people who seem to be pretty happy with it that way.

Seems to sum up what this story is all about.

There's just nothing here to hold on to; it's about a relationship that barely exists and two people who seem to be pretty happy with it that way.

Seems to sum up what this story is all about.

Which I don't think is a bad thing? The main message is that they still care about each other, appreciate each other, think of each other, but they don't always need to be around each other or always talking. I think the relationship humble and wholesome.

Thanks for the Translators credit page. So much cool info. Love stuff like that.
The manga is also cute af.