I have to admit that the constant unrelatable angst in the middle pretty much killed my enthusiasm for this one, and it ended about how I expected. Oh well.

Did they finally pulled the trigger? And it took ONLY 34 chapters? Well, we finally have some confirmation on Konatsu-chan and Koyuki's friendship status, personally speaking I never doubted for a sec. Also, Makoto-sensei waited 34 chapters to introduce this story's most interesting character, Saya-sama is gonna be missed, hugely. on a more serious note, this could have been a great story, apart from that stupid drama that never made a lick of sense, development and character-wise, I mean what you trying to hide, sensei, they're friends as heck, anyway, I like Makoto-sensei, but I'm sure as hell not be following her next story, especially after that little preview.

Well, I'll be following which depends on how the story goes.
Though, I will be trashing it right in 1st chapter if I found it perfectly predictable.

This manga used to has good pacing in the first half, Not sure what happened in 2nd half with the characters exaggerating these dramas and angst for 2-3 volumes.
welp, one of this year greatest disappointment and pretty much predictable right after author say "it's not yuri".

Guessing it had to do with the manga actually being used to advertise the small town where it was based, like another commentor predicted a while back. Can’t be too gay o4 you’ll scare off tourists

last edited at Mar 28, 2021 10:15PM

Did they finally pulled the trigger? And it took ONLY 34 chapters? Well, we finally have some confirmation on Konatsu-chan and Koyuki's friendship status, personally speaking I never doubted for a sec. Also, Makoto-sensei waited 34 chapters to introduce this story's most interesting character, Saya-sama is gonna be missed, hugely. on a more serious note, this could have been a great story, apart from that stupid drama that never made a lick of sense, development and character-wise, I mean what you trying to hide, sensei, they're friends as heck, anyway, I like Makoto-sensei, but I'm sure as hell not be following her next story, especially after that little preview.

Well, I'll be following which depends on how the story goes.
Though, I will be trashing it right in 1st chapter if I found it perfectly predictable.

This manga used to has good pacing in the first half, Not sure what happened in 2nd half with the characters exaggerating these dramas and angst for 2-3 volumes.
welp, one of this year greatest disappointment and pretty much predictable right after author say "it's not yuri".

I think part of why it feels like the second half has odd pacing is something along the lines of it seeming like they got told to tone down the subtext at some point thereabouts.
Gotta admit the whole little brother falling in love around the same time just made it feel even more gritting for me.
All that "these girls are oozing so much gay, how can you call it subtext" in the first half, and then in the second half it's all "oh yeah, subtext at best" kind of feelings really did not make it satisfying to read the second half.
I'm just repeating myself, but it really really feels like they got told to tone it down harshly in the second half.

Guessing it had to do with the manga actually being used to advertise the small town where it was based, like another commentor predicted a while back. Can’t be too gay o4 you’ll scare off tourists

Well yes, Hanigare was used to promote Nagahama tourism, high school's campaign (this won an award), and mentioned in local NHK twice or thrice. The town is literally nowhere in Japan, so the people might be not as open minded about homosexual relationship as people that comes from, let's say, Tokyo. Imagine if you find out that someone used your town as a setting of a story that might upset you...

Also, Hanigare always put Nagahama High School Aquarium Club in every chapter as Information Aid, and I don't think they'd be happy if they're helping a blatant gay manga.

Hagino-sensei only wrote the gayest thing possible without upsetting those people.

#SUBTEXT

I am going insane. Kiss already.

I have descended into just full-on frothing blood.

For all the potential reasons for this ending it's just frustrating and disappointing. It feels just full of loose ends. Incapable of paying off on its own dramatic hooks. I really enjoyed those dramatic hooks, and I didn't really entirely expect it to get past subtext, but... we could've gotten more than this.

I used to love this manga in its first few chapters, then it boiled down into aaaaangst, then lost all the yuri magic. Meh ending.

So sad to think of what this manga could've been. The opening chapters had the making of an utter classic, and then it just utterly derailed. I could feel the bitter, painful unenjoyableness in finishing this series. These last pages felt soulless.

We all know they were supposed to have feelings for each other, but that wasn't explored at all. The story unnaturally twisted itself into pretzels to avoid the obvious truth. It was truly weird, like the really old stories of the before-LGBT times that know they're stories about sexuality but try to normalize it in a heteronormative world. It was so cloistered.

This felt like a couple steps back. I'm saddened because I knew this chapter was coming--where they meet in Tokyo again, but even still they can't express how important they are to each other. Like something beautiful snuffed out in the womb.

This awkward fish-salamander talk is excruciating, I want to cry at how closeted this series got.

This is 100% what I felt about the series. I dropped it when the author confirmed it wasn't yuri on Twitter, and I can't imagine having stuck it out to the bitter end for this. If the author wanted to write about two girls who have a special connection that fit comfortably outside of the dichotomy between the romantic and the platonic, I'd have been here for it. I might even have called it progressive for highlighting an unconventional type of relationship -- this is one reason I actually liked Maria-sama ga Miteru a lot. But, unlike in Maria-sama, the author seemed to go out of her way to make me feel that the characters were, in fact, in love with each other, and were restrained from actualizing their love simply because they had the misfortune of being characters in this particular story. So we're left with a story about two lesbians doomed to eternal longing and celibacy. It feels incredibly regressive.

It was so good in the beginning. What squandered potential.

last edited at Mar 29, 2021 3:44AM

My thanks to the mangaka (who won't see this)

Go thank her on her twitter, she reads English messages too!

Oh, then I'll get to it.

Well yes, Hanigare was used to promote Nagahama tourism, high school's campaign (this won an award), and mentioned in local NHK twice or thrice.

Oh definitely a situation where author not only had to change the direction but make it more "reasonable for their intended hetero audience" by featuring the super-forced "romance" between Kaede and Koyuki's stupid brother (which I legit skipped it, by the way), really a bummer, unlike many here, I never expected this to be yuri, but the amount of angst is unbecoming, especially if they are meant to be portrayed only as friends, there were many routes one could actually had achived an reasonable portrayal of such, the angst definitely left a sour taste in everyone's mouths, whether or not she'll venture into "yuri" again, let's hope she got the message and make it smoother going forward on whatever story she might come up in the future.

michael_jackson_eating_popcorn.gif

I wish I had the energy to rebuke some of these silly if not malicious assumptions, but it's been like talking to a wall the last few times so I'll just leave people to their own devices, unfortunate as they might be.

We seem to have lost one of the best posts I've ever read in this forum thread.

Very sorry to see it gone.

Barddoniaeth posted:

Well yes, Hanigare was used to promote Nagahama tourism, high school's campaign (this won an award), and mentioned in local NHK twice or thrice. The town is literally nowhere in Japan, so the people might be not as open minded about homosexual relationship as people that comes from, let's say, Tokyo. Imagine if you find out that someone used your town as a setting of a story that might upset you...

Also, Hanigare always put Nagahama High School Aquarium Club in every chapter as Information Aid, and I don't think they'd be happy if they're helping a blatant gay manga.

Hagino-sensei only wrote the gayest thing possible without upsetting those people.

This was a super interesting comment, thank you for making it.

BeanBeanKingdom posted:

I wish I had the energy to rebuke some of these silly if not malicious assumptions, but it's been like talking to a wall the last few times so I'll just leave people to their own devices, unfortunate as they might be.

Thanks. That said, I do have something to say.

There's some stuff in this comment section that rings rather false to me, so I'd like to share a bit about Makoto Hagino that others here may not know. Hagino made her way drawing explicitly homosexual doujinshi for years prior to this being published. She has in the past repeatedly expressed joy and feelings of fulfillment at having drawn GL. She is (or was?) a well-known yuri fan. She's been very consistent that their relationship is not meant to be one so easily-read, and that she is drawing the exact story that she wants to. If this story was "supposed" to be about explicit GL, I firmly believe that she would've done an excellent job making that a reality.

Something that fewer people will know is that she has also given great insight within the past few years, in since-removed YT videos (wonder why those were removed?), of her own feelings of loneliness and alienation from city life. She's spoken of the difficulties of moving to a new place. Of not forming close bonds with other people. Of missing opportunities long-since passed and people she's not ever likely to connect with again. There's a line in one of those videos that goes something like, "No matter where I go I never stand out much, and I always end up alone."

I feel like some of us are jumping to come up with explanations as to why it wasn't the Yuri story we wanted. Maybe what she wanted to draw was a manga that reflected her life experiences, and perhaps depicted the relationship - of whatever form you wish to perceive this as - that she always wanted? Yeah, as mentioned, there actually are plenty of women who for whatever reason find their soulmate to simply be what the outside world would call "a friend." A lot of those relationships probably do read as romance to outsiders. (Note this down doubly for Japan, where very strong / "romantic" friendships between women are a known phenomenon.)

I don't know what manga Hagino wanted to draw, but I find a lot of the doubts expressed throughout the entire thread to be really concerning. I don't believe it should be so hard to imagine that other people might see the world differently, and want different things out of it, than we might. Of course it should be obvious I am a fan of hers and this is someone I'm willing to go bat for. I certainly view this story with added context that others may not have. Still, I don't think one should require extra context to simply accept and believe what's being presented as it is.

Blastaar posted:

We seem to have lost one of the best posts I've ever read in this forum thread.

Very sorry to see it gone.

If you meant mine, thanks, I'm flattered. It was too confrontational before, bad habit of posting before settling a bit.

last edited at Mar 29, 2021 9:46PM

Barddoniaeth posted:

Well yes, Hanigare was used to promote Nagahama tourism, high school's campaign (this won an award), and mentioned in local NHK twice or thrice. The town is literally nowhere in Japan, so the people might be not as open minded about homosexual relationship as people that comes from, let's say, Tokyo. Imagine if you find out that someone used your town as a setting of a story that might upset you...

Also, Hanigare always put Nagahama High School Aquarium Club in every chapter as Information Aid, and I don't think they'd be happy if they're helping a blatant gay manga.

Hagino-sensei only wrote the gayest thing possible without upsetting those people.

This was a super interesting comment, thank you for making it.

BeanBeanKingdom posted:

I wish I had the energy to rebuke some of these silly if not malicious assumptions, but it's been like talking to a wall the last few times so I'll just leave people to their own devices, unfortunate as they might be.

Thanks. That said, I do have something to say.

There's some stuff in this comment section that rings rather false to me, so I'd like to share a bit about Makoto Hagino that others here may not know. Hagino made her way drawing explicitly homosexual doujinshi for years prior to this being published. She has in the past repeatedly expressed joy and feelings of fulfillment at having drawn GL. She is (or was?) a well-known yuri fan. She's been very consistent that their relationship is not meant to be one so easily-read, and that she is drawing the exact story that she wants to. If this story was "supposed" to be about explicit GL, I firmly believe that she would've done an excellent job making that a reality.

Something that fewer people will know is that she has also given great insight within the past few years, in since-removed YT videos (wonder why those were removed?), of her own feelings of loneliness and alienation from city life. She's spoken of the difficulties of moving to a new place. Of not forming close bonds with other people. Of missing opportunities long-since passed and people she's not ever likely to connect with again. There's a line in one of those videos that goes something like, "No matter where I go I never stand out much, and I always end up alone."

I feel like some of us are jumping to come up with explanations as to why it wasn't the Yuri story we wanted. Maybe what she wanted to draw was a manga that reflected her life experiences, and perhaps depicted the relationship - of whatever form you wish to perceive this as - that she always wanted? Yeah, as mentioned, there are actually are plenty of women who for whatever reason find their soulmate to simply be what the outside world would call "a friend." A lot of those relationships probably do read as romance to outsiders. (Note this down doubly for Japan, where very strong / "romantic" friendships between women are a known phenomenon.)

I don't know what manga Hagino wanted to draw, but I find a lot of the doubts expressed throughout the entire thread to be really concerning. I don't believe it should be so hard to imagine that other people might see the world differently, and want different things out of it, than we might. Of course it should be obvious I am a fan of hers and this is someone I'm willing to go bat for. I certainly view this story with added context that others may not have. Still, I don't think one should require extra context to simply accept and believe what's being presented as it is.

Blastaar posted:

We seem to have lost one of the best posts I've ever read in this forum thread.

Very sorry to see it gone.

If you meant mine, thanks, I'm flattered. It was too confrontational before, bad habit of posting before settling a bit.

Thank you for this post @OrangePekoe

last edited at Mar 29, 2021 9:48PM

@OrangePekoe: Thank you, you went into way more detail about Hagino than I ever did in my previous posts about the matter from a while back. I have a lot of respect and admiration for her and it annoys me to see several people assuming she either gimped herself or was forced by external influences not to tell exactly the story she wanted even though she clarified multiple times that she did and from how clearly her intentions came through in the series itself if you try looking at it without skewed expectations. This is the last time I'll repeat myself on this and I won't go into detail since all my old posts are still there, but while it's entirely fair to be disappointed by the story's pacing and direction for being slow, too reiterative or frustrating, saying it took a sudden turn or that it completely changed out of nowhere is ignoring its development and explicit inspiration. I'll just quote Hachimitsu Scans since they put it eloquently:

"From the very beginning, there was a certain expectation placed on Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru that the author wanted to avoid so as to tell a different kind of story than one that you would expect at first glance. I for one appreciate that Nettaigyo is not like every other generic manga out there, and that the effort Makoto Hagino put in to tell a story inspired by Masuji Ibuse's "Salamander" short story is immense, with constant allusions, symbolism, and callbacks to earlier events to tie everything together."

"Nettaigyo is far more than the sum of its parts, and tells a story more rich than what may appear on the surface without delving into the intricacies that Hagino wove through the story, and most of that cannot even be adequately appreciated without either re-reading it, or reading it all at once now that it's complete. Those are the things that make this series stand out from so many others, and even though it could have potentially been more popular had Hagino written a more conventional tale, as the old adage goes, "The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long." The mark of a good series is not in its overall popularity, but how well it tells its story, and if Hagino is guilty of anything, it's telling a good story, so this is a series I will dearly miss."

I think it was a beautiful story, and I loved it very much. Reread from the beginning at least three times while waiting for new chapters. And I'm sure I'll do so again once I've digested the latest few.

I felt so unbearably sad when I saw the "epilogue" in the title of the update. I stopped caring about whether it was really yuri a while ago, because while it not explicitly being so is somewhat disappointing, it is a story that aims to say something. And that something is about a sinking loneliness, a way in which we can grow out of our caves, and how we can all be salamanders while thinking others are frogs. I'm not fully settled on my personal feelings of this work and how much I want to like it as a whole in execution, but I found it beautiful, drifting, and charged with an idea that the author wanted to see carried through. I can always only respect the clear purpose in stories like that.

Thank you to Makoto Hagino for creating this. And thank you to Hachimitsu Scans for translating this.

........................ I just felt that there's so much potential lost with this series. It could have been a classic like Bloom Into You; instead of about love, it would be a classic about loneliness and finding "special companionships" in life. It has better art and arguably a more relatable premise than Bloom Into You, yet while Bloom Into You dissects and questions the emotion of love, Tropical Fish just says everyone feels loneliness and we need companionship. What could've been a deep introspection about loneliness just turns into superficial dramas with misunderstandings. And the "subtext" thing is annoying too. How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

What could have been...

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

last edited at Apr 12, 2021 12:16PM

Gridman posted:

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

last edited at Apr 12, 2021 1:00PM

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

Nice meme.

Serenata posted:

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

They're the same person who periodically go to Room for Two thread to complain how it's not yuri and everything they ever did was only as friends, so yea, complaining about subtext series seems like their favorite pastime.

Weird kink but we shouldn't judge.

HAHAHA bullshit I'm judging intensely

TotemsInTheNight posted:

How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

Since when loneliness is inherently connected to love?

I never said love is "inherently" connected, but it is a relevant issue that when discussed can make the story better. I am not saying the story is not good, I'm just saying it could have been so much more.

Serenata posted:

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

They're the same person who periodically go to Room for Two thread to complain how it's not yuri and everything they ever did was only as friends, so yea, complaining about subtext series seems like their favorite pastime.

Gotta love that I don't even have 100 total posts and yet you remember me. My opinion must really have stung.

I feel like some of us are jumping to come up with explanations as to why it wasn't the Yuri story we wanted. Maybe what she wanted to draw was a manga that reflected her life experiences, and perhaps depicted the relationship - of whatever form you wish to perceive this as - that she always wanted? Yeah, as mentioned, there actually are plenty of women who for whatever reason find their soulmate to simply be what the outside world would call "a friend." A lot of those relationships probably do read as romance to outsiders. (Note this down doubly for Japan, where very strong / "romantic" friendships between women are a known phenomenon.)

I recall there being an earlier discussion after one of her streams regarding an anime adaptation. She had clarified that she was drawing the manga the way that she wanted it to be drawn, and if she had changed some aspects (I'm assuming either making it explicit Yuri, or making one of the main characters male) then maybe it would have been more popular. She has reiterated more than once that she has been able to draw her thoughts exactly from start to finish, so while some of the other theories on this thread may have some substance, the thought that her creative process was somehow stifled in any way contradicts statements made by the author herself.

I think the coolest thing about her intentions is that even if she drew the manga depicting the relationship that she wanted, she gave the reader the ability to interpret the story in many ways, even if none of them were explicit. Maybe she wanted us readers to be able to relate to the main characters as much as she made them to relate to herself.