Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

lesbian suicides or attempted suicides were all the rage in prewar magazines, it's not weird at all. Distasteful maybe, but not weird.

It was also the standard way to end a yuri novel or manga—with the tragic suicide (or for greater ambiguity the "accidental-death-that-looks-an-awful-lot-like-a-suicide") of one or both of the lesbians.

You find it in postwar fiction too, all the way to the last stretch of the 20th century.

That wasn't just in Japanese lesbian fiction. It is a large part of the reason that "The Price of Salt" was such an important novel. Prior to its publication, even pulp novels featuring lesbian (or gay) relationships ended with the "deviant" having to "pay" for their sins, as Patricia Highsmith noted in the 'Afterword' to the first edition of the novel that she allowed her own name to be attached to:

"The appeal of The Price of Salt was that it had a happy ending for its two main characters, or at least they were going to try to have a future together. Prior to this book, homosexuals male and female in American novels had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing—alone and miserable and shunned—into a depression equal to hell."

In short, the publishing industry treated gay and lesbian fiction as morality literature to try to "scare people straight". It continues on to this day or we wouldn't have the concept of shows that follow the "bury your gays" trope.

so they... cut their pinkies off together as some kind of promise/ring exchange?

In all likelihood yes, and we'll probably see it in a few days.

This might end up one of my favorite graphic novels, Japanese or otherwise.

Wow so where did all the spunk go in the end, girl? You diverted her whole life and then you ran from what you did.

You can really see how Mitsue got ground down over the decades in this chapter. Compare the outburst of anger and feelings of betrayal when she finds out about the marriage in this chapter to the barely whispered "do you remember our promise" from after the divorce and you can see just how much she's changed over the years.

And it looks like Kiyoko has been ground down over the years as well.

I think we can understand why Kiyoko still means so much to Mitsue even after all these decades, their time together in high school completely changed Mitsue’s life, and even after all the decades she still had the same love for Kiyoko as before.

Thanks for the depression as always

In short, the publishing industry treated gay and lesbian fiction as morality literature to try to "scare people straight". It continues on to this day or we wouldn't have the concept of shows that follow the "bury your gays" trope.

That is not the reason why it exists today, however. Hays Code is gone for good, and besides some Evangelical entities making "Jebus Sayz and God wills it"-fiction, nobody is treating life like Chick Tracts were the truest form of reality. China still is in that train, especially lately with all the extra censorship. China seems to take more of a "wipe out of existence" road with censorship, though.

Real reason why you see LGBT characters being killed off in western media is that they make for good victims ("kick the puppy" trope). Same reason why women are victims, non-whites are victims, children are victims, little cute animals are victims. It's part of socialization where men are dehumanized and put into roles of a monster or cannon fodder, and anyone who isn't a straight white man is a solid take for a victim, because people actually care if they get killed.

last edited at Oct 5, 2021 6:37PM

Should this be tagged as Tragedy?
Also, it seems that the deaths of Mitsu's brothers are what kicked off this whole chain of misery. I like the acknowledgement of the devastating effects that war can have on families.

Learning about how they got closer to each other really shows why Mitsu is so consistently focused on Kiyoko, also makes it even more tragic to see how the confident Kiyoko of that time has been turned into a demure housewife for a man she doesn't love. It will be interesting (aka depressing as fuck) to learn how that happened.

Overall bleak/10, thank god I'm living in a time and place where I am mostly free to live as I like

Learning about how they got closer to each other really shows why Mitsu is so consistently focused on Kiyoko, also makes it even more tragic to see how the confident Kiyoko of that time has been turned into a demure housewife for a man she doesn't love.

that's super ironic as well... since Kiyoko was the one who pulled Mitsue out of the hellhole that is arranged marriage just to end up in the same position decades after while Mitsue gains the sense of confidence that high school Kiyoko had :(
god it hurts so good

Where did this confident high school Kyoko-san go? What changed her?

Ah, ofcourse, there must be a mention of Dazai somehow!
The complete opposite-parallel drawn between both of their adolescence to their adult-hood is really tragic...

Damn, I really need to watch what kind of mood I'm in before I decide to read new chapters of this one.

Where did this confident high school Kyoko-san go? What changed her?

this is just my interpretation but I think that the suicide changed her. Rather, she was never really confident in the first place, just very suicidal. She lived with the mentality of "since I'm gonna die anyway, I don't give a fuck". But then she failed to kill herself and had to live on, facing society and all the responsibilities and expectations of being alive, she just, retreated into herself I guess.

Need to change the tag to 'depressing ass fuck'

The translation kind of let me down. On page 098 of chapter 09, for instance, what Kiyoko originally said in the japanese version is "First they (our bodies) belonged to the country ... (お国の物だったり)" but translated as " belonged to the gods". The same mistake happened on page 120 of chapter 04 too.

Isn't that misleading?

last edited at Oct 11, 2021 9:19AM

This is truly depressing as fuck. Since we already got back to the point that they met, does this mean the next chapters are gonna be going forward in time for max pain?

Everytime I read a new chapter, I always come back to read the first chapter... for maximum pain :'(

I cried with this chapter, specifically on page 22 :(

What Mitsu's mother said in p.905 of chapter 9 is really ironic...

Beautiful. It was painfully depressing, but what a beautiful piece of storytelling from beginning to end. Thanks so much for the scanlation.

Damn, that was sad… but I’m glad they’re at least “together” in some way

big depression. but thankfully i can stop now. glad I saw it through to the end. unlike gunjo and me giving up halfway ahah....

Daww happy for them atleast and I hope grand daughter can focus on her happiness more after seeing her grandma

I'm sorry this broke my heart into a million pieces

Holy shit. Not that I didn’t expect it to be like this, but . . .

This author packs a mean punch.