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.

I finished a full reread in the last ~10 days. It's really good, you can tell that it's all pre-planned and doesn't rely on the serial format at all, which is always refreshing. The flow and continuity is also impeccable, though it had some real trouble maintaining any consistent tone. There's a ton more one could say, but I don't think I want to. I hope Hagino goes back to her old art style someday. I wish Konatsu had chased after her, even though I know that's totally undercutting the (relatively little) development she got. Koyuki only said "Holy moly" 7 times. Kaede is best girl. Think that sums up most of it.

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.

Yeah, that discussion is right back here.

That is a very good point. By leaving so much of the manga itself down to subtext, she's opening the story and its circumstances to almost infinite interpretations from outsiders. I really appreciated that, too. I believe I could make a convincing case that Nettaigyo is meant to be queer-coded by appealing to the Bonus chapter, the realities of publishing, and even the specific point in the story where the blushy subtext died down. I believe the opposite case could also be very plausibly made. Yet even though it's impossible to know any which way, I'm quite convinced the story would've been written the same way regardless of when, where, or how it was released. The ambiguity is just so powerful.

last edited at Apr 16, 2021 12:40AM

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.

How in the hell do you think that they don’t love each other? I think it’s pretty explicitly clear that they do, It’s just not explicitly romantic. There’s nothing inherently more meaningful about romantic love compared to any other kind of love. I’m just gonna say it, the people saying it’s worse because it’s not yuri is just sad that they can’t project their own fantasies into the story and live vicariously through them. A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

last edited at Apr 16, 2021 1:09AM

Eggon posted:

A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Please refrain in the future from making such sweeping assumptions and generalization. It really doesn't add anything to discussion and only serve to dismiss and discourage other person from proper discussion and can easily devolve into just name calling.

Eggon posted:

A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Please refrain in the future from making such sweeping assumptions and generalization. It really doesn't add anything to discussion and only serve to dismiss and discourage other person from proper discussion and can easily devolve into just name calling.

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

Eggon posted:

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

I don't have the link handy (someone else probably will though) but there's been a survey of the people on Dynasty and about half of them are actually female.

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/15346-dynasty-specific-demographic-survey

Most respondents are age 17-26
45% each male and female, 9% non-binary
het cis men are 35% of the responses
cis lesbians are 18%

Relatedly: https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yuri-isnt-made-for-men-an-analysis-of-the-demographics-of-yuri-mangaka-and-fans/
70% of Comic Yuri Hime readers were female
62% of Yuri Hime S readers were male
Another survey:
"According to this survey of 1352 people, 52.4% identified as female, 46.1% identified as male, and 1.6% identified as other... It is not likely you would find nearly as many queer men in BL fandom"

And another:
"In this survey of 695 people, 47.19% identified as female, 44.31% identified as male, and 8.49% identified as some other gender. While the ratio of men-to-women here is similar to the Japanese survey, the number of people who selected other is markedly higher... Sexuality is another area that differs significantly from the Japanese survey. A whole 96.04% of women selected a sexuality other than “heterosexual”, and the same is true for 23.38% of men. While the Japanese survey showed a large number of queer people in it, queer people make up well over half of respondents in the international survey."

Eggon posted:

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

It's not. I'm sure many of people unsatisfied with this story are lesbians or lgbt+ people sick of lack of representation, bait and general way publishers are always afraid of properly confirming anything. You're making it sound like they're the only people who could possibly complain about it and not enough girl on girl action is the only possible reason for it. While there definitely exist straight men that just find lesbians hot, there's also plenty of them that read yuri for actual story and romance. And even if, it's still just a huge generalization that doesn't add anything and simply antagonizes other people. Only reason you added it was to just call them out and shame them, without any intention for discussion. Maybe you could actually convince some of them to take stories about lesbians more seriously than just fetish fuel, but attacking them like that instead puts them on defense and give no reason to even try to engage into discussion with you outside of attacking you back.

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.

How in the hell do you think that they don’t love each other? I think it’s pretty explicitly clear that they do, It’s just not explicitly romantic. There’s nothing inherently more meaningful about romantic love compared to any other kind of love. I’m just gonna say it, the people saying it’s worse because it’s not yuri is just sad that they can’t project their own fantasies into the story and live vicariously through them. A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Those are hurtful words to someone who's on mtf HRT. But anyway, I'm trying to reread without an assumption of romance between the two characters, and well the author's intention actually makes more sense. That also means the first couple of chapters are kinda too blushy-subtext. The story is widely advertised as LGBTQ+ (I was recommended from BIY) so I got the wrong assumptions from the start.

TotemsInTheNight posted:

Those are hurtful words to someone who's on mtf HRT. But anyway, I'm trying to reread without an assumption of romance between the two characters, and well the author's intention actually makes more sense. That also means the first couple of chapters are kinda too blushy-subtext. The story is widely advertised as LGBTQ+ (I was recommended from BIY) so I got the wrong assumptions from the start.

Good luck. As has been said better by others in this thread, it was never advertised as explicitly LGBTQ+ by the original artist or in its (Japanese) volume 1 marketing materials. Sadly it does seem to have gotten all mixed up - for any number of reasons - so those people who got the wrong impression are hardly at fault for not knowing any differently.

There are definitely some unfortunate tonal problems as the story transitions from light-hearted blushing to intense drama. Not the least of which is Koyuki being a 24/7 blush mess for three and a half volumes, only to seemingly lose that part of her identity for 95% of the story afterwards. Personally still, I find it a bit difficult to not consider romance with more than a half-a-dozen multi-page sequences of the two leads sharing wistful looks and achingly tender touches. That's just me though.

There is absolutely nothing gay about the line "[The girl who called out to me was] more clear-blue than the ocean itself."

boring pointless trash 1/10

The art style is truly amazing and the story is cute but there was so much more potential with it that wasn't explored and it's sad

This week's episode was really nice though, with Kuuya's backstory and stuf.... oh wait

this is most yurish subtle I've ever read. it has more yuri than some things tagged yuri in here
lovely. interesting. easy to read. so much to think of
love is beautiful no matter the form)

I liked it. It feels like they built a solid foundation for a lifelong relationship and that's hella romantic, yuri or no. Also I completely forgot the name to this and am glad I was able to find it by searching "not lizard"

Also I completely forgot the name to this and am glad I was able to find it by searching "not lizard"

Truly the most important of tags.

Also I completely forgot the name to this and am glad I was able to find it by searching "not lizard"

Truly the most important of tags.

I feel like Nice boat is pretty up there as well.

Is there a mistake in the "also known as" line? It's "A Tropical Fish Yearns for Sea", but shouldn't it be snow instead?

Unlike some commenters, I really liked the drama in the middle. I liked how it took them a while to get past their loneliness, and that it wasn't easy opening up to someone, even if they were close. In fact, it made it all the harder. But I lowered my opinion of it because of the ending. Whatever one may say about the author tells the story they want to tell, it's still disappointing that this was all yuri-bait. The beginning and even middle chapters are so clear on the type of feelings these two have for each other, and the whole salamander and frog thing they emphasize at the end is too, and yet the ending just doesn't do much with it. It still keeps it as subtext, which seems pointless at the end of the story. Why? What does it add to the story by keeping it up in the air? I know there are some stories that like to keep things up to audience interpretation, and I can respect that to some extent, but too many authors also use this as a way to not make decisions and as a form of cowardice. Some stories may be elevated by it, but some are not, and this is the latter. There is nothing gained by keeping it vague, it just felt like an underwritten ending.

Which is not to say I didn't like it. I'm glad I read it, and I did really like it. But the ending has definitely soured me a little on it. I don't really want to be interpreting it as something I want. I want the story to be told. If they aren't in love and are just friends, then tell me that story. If they are in love and want to be in a relationship, then tell me that story. That's it kept vague at the end is just....annoying. And especially so because what came before was so great.

And they were besties <3

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/13728-nettaigyo-wa-yuki-ni-kogareru-discussion?page=90#forum_post_673592
Thanks for writing this