Books-on-her-head nails it on page 8. Meaning is nice and all but.

Sorry guys, some numbskull decided to upload it from my /a/ bootleg before I actually could upload it myself. But no worries, now you get to know about the poem. (and like 5 other sound effects)

I really like this chapter. Just like the others, it's weird, cute, and I feel like I get it but at the same time what the fuck am I reading? I especially love that stuff book-head girl says about music + poetry vs novels + books. Sums up why I love writing but can't stand reading. Also, small but still Yuri development!

last edited at Apr 30, 2021 2:05PM

Good shit.

Notes on the notes (for anyone who's interested):

• The poem uses ゐ (wi) and ゑ (we), which are archaic. (I think I've seen the katakana version of the latter on a bottle of sake.) They're still used in Okinawa and some Japanese family names.
• Couple of errors: Line three should be "Wa ka yo tare so" (as shown, "to" is repeated from line one). Fifth line should be "U wi no okuyama" while /mi/ should move to line seven: "Asaki yume mishi" instead of repeating /me/.
• The fourth line contains an example from before the ん kana was added. "Naramu" in modern transliteration would be "naran". I like to use this when explaining the confusion between "senpai" and "sempai".

(Weird. * doesn't create a bullet unless I put a > in front of it.)

last edited at Jun 26, 2021 8:59PM

Didn't mention it the first time since credit page thing distracted me... but after the ringo-mango thing being just explained by an asterisk, I didn't expect to be hit with "eel glee"

Literature is a vertebrate? I'll be damned.

I absolutely adore squid girl and her twin sister

Reminds me of that one bit in Cat Soup.

No watersports tag? Wow......

Ngl but living in that world would be so cool with all the weird shit happening

.... Probably be more confused though....

So floating water managed to be weird even for everyone's standards, huh.
And it looks like sensei is back to making her doughnuts/tori, I'm glad.

"We won't die just because we don't eat"
What a line.

What's the cause of all this though? Is it something bad?

Everything has a cause... but I doubt we'll get to know what it is :P

What's the cause of all this though? Is it something bad?

This world appears to be some sort of glitchy purgatory or afterlife that is prone to occasionally unraveling and is affected by the thoughts and emotions of those who are present. Several of the characters that appear in this surreal world we know have died. We see Chi and Yu from Girl's Last Tour wandering around as background characters. The main character of this series is heavily implied to be that girl who committed suicide in the one shot released right before this series began. The last thing she says to her girlfriend before she says goodbye is she wants to be a shimeji mushroom so she won't feel lonely.

last edited at Jun 3, 2021 4:41PM

The main character of this series is heavily implied to be that girl who committed suicide in the one shot released right before this series began. The last thing she says to her girlfriend before she says goodbye is she wants to be a shimeji mushroom so she won't feel lonely.

I'm pretty sure that Shijima is actually a version of the other girl from the one-shot, considering she more closely resembles her and both have an inventor sister. The shimeji mushrooms themselves are probably what embody the dead girl. Regardless, I doubt the one-shot will be treated as 100% canon to the series, though elements of it will likely carry over in some form. Like, maybe the girl that Shijima remembered playing with when she was little could be a version of "Yocchan."

As for the cause of the glitches, it seems like Shijima's sister has stretched the fabric of their reality so much that it has nearly broken. The first noticeable glitches occurred back when Shijima and Majime returned from that dream world, right? The bottomless hole was also a sort of glitch caused by her inventions.

It's been a while since I read through the earlier chapters, but does it seem to anyone else like the panel layout is changing in a kind of 'glitchy' way?

The setting feels like some kind of purgatory or bardo to me as well. I just roll with stories like this until they decide to give me more information about what's going on (or not). Something about what the inventor sister says in this chapter makes me think of the contrast between causes (a strong tendency in Western philosophy) and conditions (a strong tendency in Eastern philosophy). One sees an endless chain of cause and effect, and the other sees a set of overlapping phenomena that appear, disappear, and recur while being sufficient unto themselves. This setting seems more defined by the latter than the former. Which makes sense to me because that's also the way that Girls' Last Tour felt as well.

I also don't think that there's meant to be a direct correspondence between any of the characters in this and the one-shot. I don't get the sense that narrative rigor is really this author's thing. But I'm content to just go with the flow and see where it goes. It helps that this is a beautiful comic, poetic and surreal, created by someone with enough confidence to let things develop at their own pace.

The glitches are getting worse, but at least it seems Majime managed to kiss Shimeji in the dark.

This was nice

What a cute chapter with some development to boot. We got a kiss, hand holding, and they’re both getting comfortable with each other’s touch overall. Especially Shijima letting Majime straddle her, kiss her, and hold her hand. Really touching.

I wonder what these glitches will culminate in.

Majime stole Shimeji's first kiss. So God stole light,

That was a kiss, right?

I feel stupid not realizing that it probably was a kiss, at least I have the comments to figure it out for me

The simulation broke for a second.

I told a friend that this wasn't too intense to read in Japanese because it was light on the puns and then this chapter comes along.

I like how this gets both cuter and more unsettling over time.