I just think it would be funny, obviously it would be like a slap in the face for the reader if it happened.

I actually visited this town when I was in Japan 2 years ago and man, is it a load of nothing. Not even quaint nothing, just nothing. I could maybe understand choosing it over Tokyo if there was a really cute senpai around, otherwise nah.

Next chapter, Koyuki and Konatsu meet again in Tokyo a few years later and introduce each other to their respective girlfriends: the girl with the same uniform as Konatsu that Koyuki came across on the school trip, and the gloomy girl Konatsu met in class on the first day of senior year.

Im no longer as invested in this as I was at the beginning so if they did this it would be a big lol for me and probably a big slap in the face to everyone else

Also the "youre my frog" line is so cringe, like oh my god you two. It's not even gay cringe because they mean it in some "beyond friendship but still definitely not girlfriends" kind of way

Why do I read this, I should really stop

Real talk though, this has been broken since before the midpoint, and I suspect the editor didn't like the yuri under/overtones so that's when the depression arc started. Ever since the manga weirdly split off from their fun on the island, it's been incredibly weird. This is blessedly going to end now. The depression arc threw me for such a huge loop. It still doesn't make any sense to me and one would likely have to go back to read and reread it to get it.

These were such good characters but I don't understand what the central conflict of this entire story was? One girl was lonely? While the other stopped talking to her all of a sudden because?

It's cool that people want to read in this ambiguous masterclass in undertone drama, guess I missed it. I don't really care for most of the replies on here, I just had to vent about how poorly this turned out after starting out so amazing. I hate that they pulled out the yuri roots and left nothing but two girls who kind of know/talk to each other sometimes when they're not busy.

This is much the same way I feel about it as well. There did seem to be a large tonal shift somewhere in the middle of the story, and then after that I found the plot and character development very hard to track. I kept having to step back 2 or 3 chapters every time a new one came out, to get caught up on what tentative threads of story I was supposed to be watching evolve from chapter to chapter. The salamander and frog imagery was frustrating to have to keep tracking in that way, and I don't feel like it delivered a very meaningful metaphor in the end. I don't personally care if the story turns out Yuri or not. But I found it increasingly hard to suss out what Koyuki's problems were, or what I was supposed to be making of all her dizzy staring into space. There is a point in there, I think, where the subtlety of the story stopped being impressive and started becoming tiresome. At the end now I find it really grating. In the middle of the story somewhere––probably around the arc the previous poster is talking about––the narrative stopped having any forward momentum, and the manga became mostly characters staring at each other with embarrassed looks on their faces, hoping for minute reactions from other characters, and reading an absurd amount of meaning into those faint acknowledgements. Honestly? It just got boring, and harder to appreciate as the author struggled to keep the story precious and delicate, and paced at the same ploddingly "realistic" cadence. I'm still reading for the characters, and essentially trying to pay off my initial investment in the series, but I feel like the series has run very long now on not much steam left. And I think the relationship between the two lead characters has very little of its' early vigor remaining. I guess that's life, or something. But I would have liked for the later part of the story to have more interest in it, and for it to be clearer in its' plotting and easier to follow. Just a little didacticism would have gone a long way. When the author started committing precious page time to Koyuki's brother, I really started feeling the drag of this thing. It's definitely a book that felt, for me, at least, sharper earlier on, funnier and more lively, and then increasingly listless as it progressed. One thing I have to say I grew to hate was the repetitive chapter headings. Holy cow, was that a clear marker of a plodding pace, and the kind of listless sleepwalking the story did late in the game.

And while I really do not mind one way or another whether it's a yuri story, it certainly seemed to be leading towards one early on, and I'm inclined to believe the idea in the quoted post that there was the beginning of a yuri story, and it got removed, or it just never quite materialized. I realize the author and made these statements about always wanting to do it this way, or that way, but authors make those kind of statements all the time, papering over their own uncertainty––or sometimes outright failure to bring about what they intend––and making it seem like this is what they planned from the beginning. I'm no more inclined to believe an author's statement of intent than I am a reader's theory on how things went. Author's statements these days are pure public relations exercises lots of the time, and it sounds to me just as likely that the author had to assuage some frustrated fans. Unless the author stated before starting the series that it was never going to be yuri. But I didn't think that was what was said. Well, whatever. In the end I just didn't get much from the storytelling aesthetics of the second half of the narrative. I feel like the pace of Hana ni Arashi has accelerated to a brisker clip than this story did, and I don't see any noble point in keeping things so turgid and low-key in the later part of the story. And like another couple of commenters on here, I just don't find myself of the same mind as the readers who have found so much continued quality in the story. I don't want to say that it "wasn't for me," because the first half of the story was very much my bag. Maybe next chapter will wrap it all up in a way that retroactively changes everything for me. But I doubt that.

I agree with everything being said here. This series lost me somewhere in the middle. It felt like reading a whole different story like the author just abruptly changed her mind and decided to aim for a different end.

This story was a hell of a ride. I’m going to miss it when it ends.

Ok, the story aside, is no body gonna talk about the drastic change/drop in quality this chapter?? Did I miss something? It doesn’t even look like the same artist drew this chapter.

This could be particularly jarring to me because I was recently reading the first few chapters of this manga, but it just looks alittle off

last edited at Feb 28, 2021 5:42PM

It's more that her artstyle has changed again in the past few chapters, you can see it in the previous chapter as well when Konatsu tears up at the café table. It looks off because it's happening right at the end, but the author even said on twitter that she put her all into drawing the last two chapters in particular.

Real talk though, this has been broken since before the midpoint, and I suspect the editor didn't like the yuri under/overtones so that's when the depression arc started. Ever since the manga weirdly split off from their fun on the island, it's been incredibly weird. This is blessedly going to end now. The depression arc threw me for such a huge loop. It still doesn't make any sense to me and one would likely have to go back to read and reread it to get it.

These were such good characters but I don't understand what the central conflict of this entire story was? One girl was lonely? While the other stopped talking to her all of a sudden because?

It's cool that people want to read in this ambiguous masterclass in undertone drama, guess I missed it. I don't really care for most of the replies on here, I just had to vent about how poorly this turned out after starting out so amazing. I hate that they pulled out the yuri roots and left nothing but two girls who kind of know/talk to each other sometimes when they're not busy.

This is much the same way I feel about it as well. There did seem to be a large tonal shift somewhere in the middle of the story, and then after that I found the plot and character development very hard to track. I kept having to step back 2 or 3 chapters every time a new one came out, to get caught up on what tentative threads of story I was supposed to be watching evolve from chapter to chapter. The salamander and frog imagery was frustrating to have to keep tracking in that way, and I don't feel like it delivered a very meaningful metaphor in the end. I don't personally care if the story turns out Yuri or not. But I found it increasingly hard to suss out what Koyuki's problems were, or what I was supposed to be making of all her dizzy staring into space. There is a point in there, I think, where the subtlety of the story stopped being impressive and started becoming tiresome. At the end now I find it really grating. In the middle of the story somewhere––probably around the arc the previous poster is talking about––the narrative stopped having any forward momentum, and the manga became mostly characters staring at each other with embarrassed looks on their faces, hoping for minute reactions from other characters, and reading an absurd amount of meaning into those faint acknowledgements. Honestly? It just got boring, and harder to appreciate as the author struggled to keep the story precious and delicate, and paced at the same ploddingly "realistic" cadence. I'm still reading for the characters, and essentially trying to pay off my initial investment in the series, but I feel like the series has run very long now on not much steam left. And I think the relationship between the two lead characters has very little of its' early vigor remaining. I guess that's life, or something. But I would have liked for the later part of the story to have more interest in it, and for it to be clearer in its' plotting and easier to follow. Just a little didacticism would have gone a long way. When the author started committing precious page time to Koyuki's brother, I really started feeling the drag of this thing. It's definitely a book that felt, for me, at least, sharper earlier on, funnier and more lively, and then increasingly listless as it progressed. One thing I have to say I grew to hate was the repetitive chapter headings. Holy cow, was that a clear marker of a plodding pace, and the kind of listless sleepwalking the story did late in the game.

And while I really do not mind one way or another whether it's a yuri story, it certainly seemed to be leading towards one early on, and I'm inclined to believe the idea in the quoted post that there was the beginning of a yuri story, and it got removed, or it just never quite materialized. I realize the author and made these statements about always wanting to do it this way, or that way, but authors make those kind of statements all the time, papering over their own uncertainty––or sometimes outright failure to bring about what they intend––and making it seem like this is what they planned from the beginning. I'm no more inclined to believe an author's statement of intent than I am a reader's theory on how things went. Author's statements these days are pure public relations exercises lots of the time, and it sounds to me just as likely that the author had to assuage some frustrated fans. Unless the author stated before starting the series that it was never going to be yuri. But I didn't think that was what was said. Well, whatever. In the end I just didn't get much from the storytelling aesthetics of the second half of the narrative. I feel like the pace of Hana ni Arashi has accelerated to a brisker clip than this story did, and I don't see any noble point in keeping things so turgid and low-key in the later part of the story. And like another couple of commenters on here, I just don't find myself of the same mind as the readers who have found so much continued quality in the story. I don't want to say that it "wasn't for me," because the first half of the story was very much my bag. Maybe next chapter will wrap it all up in a way that retroactively changes everything for me. But I doubt that.

I agree with everything being said here. This series lost me somewhere in the middle. It felt like reading a whole different story like the author just abruptly changed her mind and decided to aim for a different end.

Series being lowkey gay or subtext is fine but it surely does lose its way in the middle of the story.
Not sure what the manga even about now.

We technically just got a slice of life with a girl trying to get over her loneliness and over-exaggerated "Friendship".

Well, I don't remember the manga being about robots or aliens in the first volume? it's been about dealing with loneliness from the start, you didn't forget the tale of the frog and the salamander right? the core of the manga that keeps being mentioned each volume from the very start?

Is not that one day the characters woke up and decided to stop talking JUST BECAUSE or they just feel sad and jealous for no reason, there were several chapters talking about it, is really gross how you act pretending that didn't matter or that it was a random act. I think you were just mad at that infamous tweet taken out of context, it was probably around that time that you thought "this story is all over the place!" or something like that or you just skipped all the text looking for a kiss you thought you deserved to see. I'm sorry to inform you but is just that you didn't pay attention or you stopped caring after the tweet. that or just trying to make the manga look bad and incoherent by pretending ignorance, all you'll get is sympathy from the people who were also "betrayed" by the tweet.

I don't think the manga changed the theme, the goal or the characters, but because you weren't promised a wedding at the end, your judgement became unfair and your patience ran out.

last edited at Feb 28, 2021 10:08PM

It's more that her artstyle has changed again in the past few chapters, you can see it in the previous chapter as well when Konatsu tears up at the café table. It looks off because it's happening right at the end, but the author even said on twitter that she put her all into drawing the last two chapters in particular.

ah, thanks for clearing that up. i personally prefer the old style, i thought it was so cute.. but as long as she is giving it her all its all good.

idc what anyone has to say this was such a beatuifull story from beginning to end, i guess saying the whole salamander and frog thing out loud wasn´t really necesary, it was pretty clear that they both undertood each other at that point but you know what if enjoying such a beautifull pay off makes me cringe so be it

This manga was never meant to be yuri. Author and editor said that from the start. I don't know why anyone expected anything.

That's what we're told, but it just doesn't jive with what we're presented with. The manga, when taken at face value, starts out as a fragile love story between two awkward teenagers, and either the author did not consciously do this and tried to weasel her way of out this by changing direction, or she got told off by her editor to cut it out in order not to hurt sales. Of course this could also have been a deliberate decision from the start, which would make it even worse.

It's a shame how this charming tale of teenage love gets dropped half-way and veers off into a vague narrative about depression because one girl feels lonely because she doesn't see the other as much anymore, or whatever that nonsense was supposed to be. Unfortunately this type of development is not uncommon in Japanese media, which seems to be fascinated by same-sex romance but can't seem to get over the hurdle of institutionalized homophobia.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 5:35AM

^
The 'girlship' meme was born from the official term used to describe the manga from chapter 1, and it came from 'girls + friendship'.

It's a shame how this charming tale of teenage love gets dropped half-way and veers off into a vague narrative about depression

I feel this criticism is dishonest and chooses to ignore everything in the story that doesn't fit your expectations from the beginning, including the story's entire inspiration.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 5:58AM

motormind posted:

vague narrative about depression because one girl feels lonely because she doesn't see the other as much anymore, or whatever that nonsense was supposed to be.

Good to know you never felt true loneliness.

That's what we're told, but it just doesn't jive with what we're presented with. The manga, when taken at face value, starts out as a fragile love story between two awkward teenagers, and either the author did not consciously do this and tried to weasel her way of out this by changing direction, or she got told off by her editor to cut it out in order not to hurt sales. Of course this could also have been a deliberate decision from the start, which would make it even worse.

I mean all yuri goggles stuff aside, the girls could literally just be heterosexual. Their in-story experiences don’t become any less real or disappointing or whatever because the author did not want to make a romance. The story from chapter one has been about the relationship between the salamander and frog between the two characters, which is interpreted in many different ways. Just because it isn’t in a homosexual way doesn’t make this story bad, even if it failed to meet your individual expectation. (Realistically speaking, it kinda just avoids that trope of two leads having to fall for each other for no reason, this new chapter helps us understand that the relationship was more like the first step in expanding who to communicate with, and becoming a more social person).

I can totally understand people being upset about the pacing, or hating certain aspects of writing (there are legitimate flaws within the storytelling in some aspects) but a lot of the hate is simply because it depicts a relationship that isn’t what that reader wanted, which is a valid criticism, but isn’t really something that can be supported with anything other than the reader’s own opinion.

This manga was never meant to be yuri. Author and editor said that from the start. I don't know why anyone expected anything.

That's what we're told, but it just doesn't jive with what we're presented with. The manga, when taken at face value, starts out as a fragile love story between two awkward teenagers, and either the author did not consciously do this and tried to weasel her way of out this by changing direction, or she got told off by her editor to cut it out in order not to hurt sales. Of course this could also have been a deliberate decision from the start, which would make it even worse.

It's a shame how this charming tale of teenage love gets dropped half-way and veers off into a vague narrative about depression because one girl feels lonely because she doesn't see the other as much anymore, or whatever that nonsense was supposed to be. Unfortunately this type of development is not uncommon in Japanese media, which seems to be fascinated by same-sex romance but can't seem to get over the hurdle of institutionalized homophobia.

Literally nothing in your post is correct in any way, shape, or form. Both BeanBeanKingdom and Palmfire already adequately covered the actual points, so I will not waste time on repeating them. I will however draw attention to something that I personally find hilarious. The "author and editor said that from the start" part is not even new information. Scanlators themselves clearly stated this on their website ages ago. In fact, I pointed this out and even linked said webpage in this thread three years ago or some such. A couple other people also tried pointing this out. But we got blasted by the "lololol it is obviously yuri lololol are you blind lololol the story elements are more than clear" crowd.

I am guessing people mistook our attempts as... trying to supress yuri? Trying to ruin people's hype? When in point of fact we were just trying to caution people against doing what you obviously did in the end. Which is building wrong expectations despite clear and direct warnings, and then later shitting on the story when it inevitably does not deliver what it never intended to deliver in the first place. The problem is with you, and not with the story.

I’m firmly in favor of this story however the author wants to tell it. As I’ve said before, I think the most impressive thing about it psychologically is that the author avoids the “to realize a personal problem is to solve it” trope.

Realizing that you’ve been stunted and isolated from others by trying to be perfect is important, but it doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly able to open up and be comfortable interacting with other people—it’s just the first step in what is likely to be a long, hard (and often scary) slog, and there will be inevitable setbacks and backsliding along the way. In that regard this series is considerably more sophisticated than most “teenage personal growth” stories in popular culture.

All that being said, there are indeed many points at which, as a yuri reader, I want to say, “Just fucking kiss already, you fucking useless lesbians!”

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 9:47AM

a lot of the hate is simply because it depicts a relationship that isn’t what that reader wanted

Ah, the good ol' "you're only mad because you didn't get what you wanted" shtick, used to defend every example of gay-baiting since... well, ever.

The fact is that this story follows all the beats of a romance, then makes a sharp turn and starts being about something completely different, leading to a confusing mess. The author spends chapter after chapter clearly depicting the two female characters as being in love, only to go "Whoops. Sorry about leading you on. This story is about unspecified existential dread instead. Enjoy!"

And if this were only this one work in which this happens then I would shrug it off and contribute it to either executive meddling or the author's own repressed homosexual desires. As it stands though, this kind of attitude is pervasive in Japanese popular media, and it frankly sucks.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 10:06AM

motormind posted:

This story is about unspecified existential dread instead.

I love that you ignored me pointing out that what this story depicts exists and is actually not that uncommon.

a lot of the hate is simply because it depicts a relationship that isn’t what that reader wanted

Ah, the good ol' "you're only mad because you didn't get what you wanted" shtick, used to defend every example of gay-baiting since... well, ever.

I'm talking about this story specifically. What I said wasn't a general statement, I've read my fair share of stories where the two leads are literally dating until they graduate and then go off with some obligatory male insert character just so the author can say "well see, it's not gay". This is not one of those stories. The fact that there was no cheap cop-out man to somehow invalidate how deeply the two main character's feel for one another just goes to show that the author isn't trying to make being gay (or whatever Konatsu and Koyuki are, both orientation wise and to one another) some sort of phase that passes by in high school. People are literally mad on other sites (not so much on this one) because the main characters didn't kiss, or didn't explicitly say that they were romantically into one another. My point is that this kind of justification for why the story is "trash" is completely invalid, since it has nothing to do with the actual story. It's like hating on Naruto because he doesn't get with Sasuke at the end of the series.

The fact is that this story follows all the beats of a romance, then makes a sharp turn and starts being about something completely different, leading to a confusing mess.

This is something that is actually somewhat debatable. You can argue and discuss things about the change in pacing, and whether the introduction of the main conflict was jarring or not, you can call it a mess because of specific things that occur that you've picked out.

I'm not saying that this story wasn't similar to a romance, it chose to explore a specific type of relationship that is very similar to one. One can even argue that it reveals a lot about what's wrong with romance stories today- just because two characters are awkward around each other doesn't mean that they're forced to fall in love with one another. I'm specifically commenting on readers who designate this story as a bad one because it didn't meet their personal expectation of it being a romance, disregarding the actual content of the story and designating this as 'bait' because they went in with an expectation that was never going to be met from the start.

And if this were only this one work in which this happens then I would shrug it off and contribute it to either executive meddling or the author's own repressed homosexual desires.

Personally I find this argument very demeaning and close-minded. You can be gay and still write a bad story that features gay leads. You can be a man and write a great story with an all female cast. You shouldn't make assumptions about the author based off of the contents of their writing, just stick to criticizing the writing itself. There are people who refuse to read great Yuri stories like Otherside Picnic because it's written by a man. Good authors do their research so they can write whatever they want to write.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 11:14AM

And if this were only this one work in which this happens then I would shrug it off and contribute it to either executive meddling or the author's own repressed homosexual desires. As it stands though, this kind of attitude is pervasive in Japanese popular media, and it frankly sucks.

Except for all the yuri stories, of course.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 12:24PM

Ah, the people who held out hope despite that the "girlship" label was slapped onto this work early on are self-destructing. Stop getting overly invested in melodramatic friendship stories.

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 12:07PM

Can't we just wait and see the last chapter as well before deciding how it'll end?

Can't we just wait and see the last chapter as well before deciding how it'll end?

If one's opinion of the story were to drastically change based on whether the protagonists kissed or not in the final chapter, it would make that opinion pretty shallow. But I can't say I haven't seen some people hold the series to that exact warped standard, of it only being eventually worthwhile if it became explicit.

i don´t really get why people are so mad honestly, if you choose to keep reading after the official tweet and got disappointed that´s on you, it´s funny how people decide to read stuff that they know they will not enjoy
And even if we agree that the manga is in fact yuribait (wich i don´t) the author already said that you´re free to interpret their relationship the way you want, is not like they sudenly put male characters and force a relationship, is not that big of a deal

last edited at Mar 2, 2021 6:03PM