Is this author have pixiv account?

It's on their page now!

From /u/:

男女でもBLでもなく、なぜ百合を描き続けるのか
If you like other romance genres as well why do you continue to write yuri
仲谷: 可愛い子と可愛い子が、可愛い事をしてたほうが可愛いじゃんって。
Nakatani: because cute girl doing cute things with other cute girl is cuter

Yeah, Nakatani's really cute for saying that.

From /u/:

男女でもBLでもなく、なぜ百合を描き続けるのか
If you like other romance genres as well why do you continue to write yuri
仲谷: 可愛い子と可愛い子が、可愛い事をしてたほうが可愛いじゃんって。
Nakatani: because cute girl doing cute things with other cute girl is cuter

Yeah, Nakatani's really cute for saying that.

Well, she's not wrong...

Actually, is Nakatani a man or a woman?

Actually, is Nakatani a man or a woman?

AFAIK, Nakatani is a woman.

From /u/:

男女でもBLでもなく、なぜ百合を描き続けるのか
If you like other romance genres as well why do you continue to write yuri
仲谷: 可愛い子と可愛い子が、可愛い事をしてたほうが可愛いじゃんって。
Nakatani: because cute girl doing cute things with other cute girl is cuter

Yeah, Nakatani's really cute for saying that.

Well, she's not wrong...

Actually, is Nakatani a man or a woman?

In the same interview this quote is from (http://blog.livedoor.jp/geek/archives/51522471.html) Canno says:

仲谷さんの漫画はクールな作風だったので、仲谷さんもクールな人なんじゃないかと思ってました。実際にお会いしたら、クールなんですけど優しい、とても素敵なお姉さんでした。

which I think translates to something like "even though Nakatani-san’s literary style was cool, I didn’t think that Nakatani-san was a cool person, too. But when actually meeting her, she is cool but friendly, a very lovely onee-san."

So I'm pretty sure she's a woman.

Girls writing about cute girls doing cute things with other cute girls is pretty damn cute too

cool but friendly, a very lovely onee-san

This should probably be in the description for Nakatani-sensei.

Love bloom into you. Soo cute, the romance suits me just fine.

last edited at Jun 5, 2016 7:17PM

Girls writing about cute girls doing cute things with other cute girls is pretty damn cute too

Agreed.

That lady on the left is Nakatani Nio.

Source: http://dengekionline.com/elem/000/000/959/959399/

Looking at her pic, I'd never expect her to be such a big anime & game nerd lol

Looking at her pic, I'd never expect her to be such a big anime & game nerd lol

Actually, she looks to me like she'd have a wicked sense of humour. Check out that subtle smirk.

I'd tap that.

Looking at her pic, I'd never expect her to be such a big anime & game nerd lol

Actually, she looks to me like she'd have a wicked sense of humour. Check out that subtle smirk.

I think the subtle smirk is her thinking: "These fools don't know that I'm here to infiltrate this shounen magazine publication and turn it into a yuri publication. Ehehehe." Bless Nakatani for contributing to yuri world conquest.

Joking aside, I can rlly see why Canno describes her as "a cool onee-san" now.

Bless Nio, her cute looks, and her amazing writing and artistic skills.

Dayam Nio. Nice.

I was doing some digging around and found a 2011 interview with Nakatani. I was unable to find out if it was shared and translated in Touhou circles at the time, but it can't hurt to share it again. If anything, it's pretty cool to have a detailed illustrated look at what her work process was like as a doujinshi artist.

You'll have to ask someone who actually understands Japanese if you want to know about the technical details, but there's one yuri-related question I can sum up. The interviewer points out that Nakatani draws a lot of yuri art and it's interesting to compare her answer to what she says today. She basically answers that she thought drawing girls was fun but didn't set out to draw yuri (she also goes on a rant about misleading user-added Pixiv tags), she just wanted to draw Touhou characters and their relationships to each other and they happened to be almost all girls. Then she adds that she used to draw mainly BL.
She almost sounds defensive? To be fair, the question was worded in a way that could come across as a bit intrusive ("what does yuri mean to you personally"), but it's still fascinating to see how far she's come—from "yuri is fine, I guess" to drawing a successful yuri manga that runs in freaking Dengeki Daioh.

Sometimes you see a mainly BL/het artist discover a gateway yuri series and go "oh hey girls are cute too", then fast forward a few years and they've completely fallen down the yuri rabbit hole. Looks like this is what happened to Nakatani! Since we can all think of great yuri artists who went on to focus on het or BL, it's only fair that the opposite happens from time to time.

Another thing of note is that she apparently doesn't draw a clear line between friendship, trust and romance? (私は友情や信頼と恋愛の間にさほど明確な違いがあるとは思っていません —someone please tell me if I misunderstood this) Not sure if she specifically means in her Touhou doujins or if it's something that can be applied to Bloom Into You.

^ Interesting~

She does state in her recent interviews & in vol.1 extra that she didn't see her Touhou works as yuri because they are not of romantic nature. I mean, she only drew girls kissing & f*cking. Nothing yuri about that.

but it's still fascinating to see how far she's come—from "yuri is fine, I guess" to drawing a successful yuri manga that runs in freaking Dengeki Daioh.

Nakatani was destined by the yuri gods to draw yuri. I'm glad she's no longer in denial that her works are hella gay.

Sometimes you see a mainly BL/het artist discover a gateway yuri series and go "oh hey girls are cute too", then fast forward a few years and they've completely fallen down the yuri rabbit hole.

Sounds like me & my journey down the yuri rabbit hole.

Another thing of note is that she apparently doesn't draw a clear line between friendship, trust and romance? (私は友情や信頼と恋愛の間にさほど明確な違いがあるとは思っていません —someone please tell me if I misunderstood this) Not sure if she specifically means in her Touhou doujins or if it's something that can be applied to Bloom Into You.

From my understanding, Nakatani sees YagaKimi as her first real attempt at yuri romance, but I do feel like the "unclear relationships" characteristic of her doujin works do creep into YagaKimi a bit.

I guess this is appropriate:

^ Hahaha yeah that about sums it up! She's definitely one of us now.

From my understanding, Nakatani sees YagaKimi as her first real attempt at yuri romance, but I do feel like the "unclear relationships" characteristic of her doujin works do creep into YagaKimi a bit.

Yeah, I was thinking that she brings a different perspective to the table as someone who became a yuri fan later, like some of the artists who crossed over to yuri later on or only draw yuri occasionally. I'm really interested in how YagaKimi will fare in the long run, because so far I'm intrigued by the way it goes about showing how the relationship between the two leads evolves.

Quoting myself from the YagaKimi thread:

Rather than normal adult life, I kinda want Nakatani to go full psychological fantasy yuri (with adult characters). We don't lack adult yuri manga as much as we lack fantasy yuri.

It'll be Gurenki 2.0 but doesn't have that part where the manga gets axed.

Seriously, if Nakatani's next yuri series is a psychological fantasy, she will be my Yuri Messiah for the rest of eternity.

You'll have to ask someone who actually understands Japanese if you want to know about the technical details, but there's one yuri-related question I can sum up. The interviewer points out that Nakatani draws a lot of yuri art and it's interesting to compare her answer to what she says today. She basically answers that she thought drawing girls was fun but didn't set out to draw yuri (she also goes on a rant about misleading user-added Pixiv tags), she just wanted to draw Touhou characters and their relationships to each other and they happened to be almost all girls. Then she adds that she used to draw mainly BL.

Well, the context of that remark is that the question is, "The first stuff you uploaded to Pixiv was yuri, your manga are yuri, and everything you upload with a couple girls in it will definitely be tagged "yuri"? What is yuri to you?"

Her answer is that she only uses the yuri tag as a warning for people that might not want to see yuri. The problem is that users keep tagging everything with two girls in it "yuri," so the tag reappears even if she erases it. Her point here is just that to her, yuri is something sexual or at least romantic, and not just something with two girls in it.

She doesn't really come across as ambivalent about yuri, though—she notes that's drawn a lot, and in the Yagakimi extra she recalls wanting to draw more (specifically, a work focused more on the romance itself). She just notes (both here and in Yagakimi) that in general her works focused on relationships between girls, and that it's only a subset of those that she would call yuri—and yet somehow people started calling her a yuri artist and labeling all her work as yuri.

If you read it in the context of things like this other interview, you can start to see what she's getting at: increasingly, things are labelled "yuri" just because their core cast (or entire cast) is female and they act kinda flirty with each other. For Nio, it's not yuri unless they fuck. Kissing is probably fine too.

^ Thanks for the clarification! By the way, I hope I didn't sound like I was criticizing Nakatani--I was just kind of amused by her bafflement about being labeled a yuri artist back in her doujin artist days.

Back in 2015 iHoshiku - the one who initally translated Bloom Into You and first brought it to our attention - mentioned that Nakatani had won a contest held by Dengeki Daioh and therefore earned the spot in the magazine.

Nakatani-sensei participated in a contest for rookies that was held by Dengeki Daioh and won the first place which is why she got to do a series however, the one-shot she did for the contest is irrelevant to this series.

They also said that it was quite interesting and that they'd consider translating it as well, even though it had nothing to do with Bloom Into You and wasn't even Yuri in the first place.

I can translate it if people are interested but I doubt you'd find it in dynasty since it's het.

Almost a year ago I contacted iHoshiku and asked if they were still willing to do that, and they agreed. Unfortunately I hadn't heard anything from them since and now I'm wondering - due do the fact that iHoshiku has left the scanlation business 10 months ago and I don't want to bother them anymore - if there'd be another way to read it nowadays.

I'm very interested in Nakatani's works and would definitely appreciate another example of her very interesting and unique style.

Is there somebody here who has some information about this specific one-shot? According to an translated interview (thanks to Marion Diabolito) the title is "Sayonara, Horuta", if that's any help.

last edited at May 17, 2017 5:29PM