Girl you have an obsessive crush on her.

The whole "I want to be better than her so that she looks at me" and "why won't she give me attention" angst is ridiculously fun lol. I'm gonna stick around for a while for this.

Okay so I'm loving the spin-off. Good fun and drama to be had.

However, the Librarian in me is seriously wincing at referencing Newark and Browne as an effective LMS (Library Management Systems) in the 21st century. Plenty of manga have 'the library committee' as a thing and I just smile and gloss over. It's when they try to use actual terminology that I begin to twitch. I understand the mangaka is probably trying to sound cool with the library lingo but this was a bit painful.

Please tell me your library is at least RDA compliant. And I'll give you a free 2 hr seminar on either SPYDUS (pronounced spiders) or SirsiDynix (pronounced sir-see-dye-nix) as an effective modern LMS. Self-serve with RFID and nobody (bar the Librarian) will know what you've borrowed. Please let me help upgrade your library. PLEASE!
(forgive the irreverant rant, I'm not being too serious)

If only there were an audible narrator who could answer yuri-protagonists’ anguished questions about why they’re suddenly feeling the way they do about a classmate: “Because you’re a lesbian!”

Gay shit: *happens*
MC: *confused*
Somewhere from the Off:

Please tell me your library is at least RDA compliant. And I'll give you a free 2 hr seminar on either SPYDUS (pronounced spiders) or SirsiDynix (pronounced sir-see-dye-nix) as an effective modern LMS. Self-serve with RFID and nobody (bar the Librarian) will know what you've borrowed. Please let me help upgrade your library. PLEASE!
(forgive the irreverant rant, I'm not being too serious)

Japanese schools have very few computers in them and often never use them from day to day, following the general Japanese trend of low PC usage and computer literacy. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that their libraries are still using cards in cupboards for sorting books.

Okay so I'm loving the spin-off. Good fun and drama to be had.

However, the Librarian in me is seriously wincing at referencing Newark and Browne as an effective LMS (Library Management Systems) in the 21st century. Plenty of manga have 'the library committee' as a thing and I just smile and gloss over. It's when they try to use actual terminology that I begin to twitch. I understand the mangaka is probably trying to sound cool with the library lingo but this was a bit painful.

Please tell me your library is at least RDA compliant. And I'll give you a free 2 hr seminar on either SPYDUS (pronounced spiders) or SirsiDynix (pronounced sir-see-dye-nix) as an effective modern LMS. Self-serve with RFID and nobody (bar the Librarian) will know what you've borrowed. Please let me help upgrade your library. PLEASE!
(forgive the irreverant rant, I'm not being too serious)

Counterpoint: Japan still uses cash and fax machines.

Funnily enough faxes are still used quite actively in businesses (at least in Australia). When I ran my bookstore they were the primary means of communicating shipping information and issues with packing lists. The number of times one of the big suppliers like Random House or Adshack, the nickname for Alliance Distribution Services / Hachette, made mistakes large and small, ugh. I loved my bookstore days but I also don't miss them.

Cash is something that Libraries (or at least the various ones I work at) won't phase out anytime soon. The reason being that electronic means of processing payments makes it difficult for homeless and people with financial problems of whatever stripe to access what we believe are important resources such as computer usage, printing, faxing (heh), scanning and emailing. Cash is something everyone has access to, can carry and use. As an aside people are generally amazingly generous with their cash. They'll hand over a $5 note for $2 worth of printing and refuse the change. We've some charity tins up the front. They'll just point to one and tell us to donate it towards them. And this happens all day every day. It restores a little bit of faith in humanity seeing these constant acts of kindness.

14 sai no koi is one of my favorite manga, but those characters are the only one I dont like. I hope this series will change my mind...

Dear MC, the following information may help to clarify your feelings and your recent cognitive state in general:

You are a lesbian.

Hope this helps.

As someone with zero interest in the series this is spun off of, am I missing anything important? Before I start reading, does this stand on its own in terms of character development?

As someone with zero interest in the series this is spun off of, am I missing anything important? Before I start reading, does this stand on its own in terms of character development?

If you read back in the forum a bit, I (having coincidentally finished binge-reading the main series just before this started here) discussed it a bit. The important points, imo:

• The MC is an entirely new character.

• The glasses girl, Shiki, and the nurse are both lesbians, but they're not in a relationship (they each have unrequited loves--Shiki with the now-transferred MC from the main series, the nurse with the music teacher). Shiki started out the main series as a pretty closed off and borderline-disturbed character, but she mellowed somewhat when befriended by her unrelievedly het crush, with support from the nurse. That change in Shiki is what the new MC is reacting to initially.

My guess is that this series will stand on its own, but there are likely to be some overtones about the two legacy characters that a new reader might not get.

Funnily enough faxes are still used quite actively in businesses (at least in Australia).

As an Asian, I thought faxes being used is common? Most offices I know always have at least 1 fax machine.

Anw glad to see her finally facing the fact that she's obsessed with Shiki. I wonder how this will go.

Blastaar posted:

As someone with zero interest in the series this is spun off of, am I missing anything important? Before I start reading, does this stand on its own in terms of character development?

If you read back in the forum a bit, I (having coincidentally finished binge-reading the main series just before this started here) discussed it a bit. The important points, imo:

• The MC is an entirely new character.

• The glasses girl, Shiki, and the nurse are both lesbians, but they're not in a relationship (they each have unrequited loves--Shiki with the now-transferred MC from the main series, the nurse with the music teacher).

To set the timeline straight, this is their third year of middle school. And Kanata Tanaka (Shiki's love interest and former co-MC) wasn't transferred. Only her boyfriend was in their second year. We see Shiki interacting with Kanata in the first chapter.

And I think that what Tachibana notices here is the peculiar relationship between the nurse and Shiki: they are awfully casual with each other from the point of view of a Japanese middle schooler. Which hints at a weird relationship.

There are probably subtleties in the tone/language level used that are impossible to translate.

last edited at Apr 5, 2022 2:22AM

Blastaar posted:

As someone with zero interest in the series this is spun off of, am I missing anything important? Before I start reading, does this stand on its own in terms of character development?

If you read back in the forum a bit, I (having coincidentally finished binge-reading the main series just before this started here) discussed it a bit. The important points, imo:

• The MC is an entirely new character.

• The glasses girl, Shiki, and the nurse are both lesbians, but they're not in a relationship (they each have unrequited loves--Shiki with the now-transferred MC from the main series, the nurse with the music teacher).

To set the timeline straight, this is their third year of middle school. And Kanata Tanaka (Shiki's love interest and former co-MC) wasn't transferred. Only her boyfriend was in their second year. We see Shiki interacting with Kanata in the first chapter.

And I think that what Tachibana notices here is the peculiar relationship between the nurse and Shiki: they are awfully casual with each other from the point of view of a Japanese middle schooler. Which hints at a weird relationship.

There are probably subtleties in the tone/language level used that are impossible to translate.

You’re right—thanks for the correction. It’s always been hard for me to think of these characters as being in “middle school” (first year when the main series started). I know that the whole premise of the OG MCs is that they were mature-acting for their age, but the overall feel of the series seemed like it involved older teenagers—the age-gap romances, of which there were several, including the one involving the nurse’s unrequited love played out as being much more serious than the stipulated ages would suggest.

You’re right—thanks for the correction. It’s always been hard for me to think of these characters as being in “middle school” (first year when the main series started). I know that the whole premise of the OG MCs is that they were mature-acting for their age, but the overall feel of the series seemed like it involved older teenagers—the age-gap romances, of which there were several, including the one involving the nurse’s unrequited love played out as being much more serious than the stipulated ages would suggest.

And let's not forget that other side story (which got removed from the site, I believe). I can enjoy the stories that focus on students exploring first love and relationships (even if I can't relate), but this author seems to have quite the fetish for adult/child relationships.

You’re right—thanks for the correction. It’s always been hard for me to think of these characters as being in “middle school” (first year when the main series started). I know that the whole premise of the OG MCs is that they were mature-acting for their age, but the overall feel of the series seemed like it involved older teenagers—the age-gap romances, of which there were several, including the one involving the nurse’s unrequited love played out as being much more serious than the stipulated ages would suggest.

And let's not forget that other side story (which got removed from the site, I believe). I can enjoy the stories that focus on students exploring first love and relationships (even if I can't relate), but this author seems to have quite the fetish for adult/child relationships.

That's the thing, though--given the relative emotional maturity of the various characters and the overall tenor of the depictions, unless I consciously do the math ("Uh, second year Japanese middle school--that would be, um . . .," etc.), it's hard for me to conceptualize the characters as "children" at all. Age-gap, sure, but not feeling like a "24-year-old with a 13-year-old, and a teacher-student to boot" transgressive age-gap.

I tend to write it off to manga age-relationships being generally kind of weird and all over the map--in some kinds of stories (stipulating non-hentai here) the gap between a first-year high school student and a third year might be shown as being an almost insurmountable social obstacle, while in others a celebrity in his twenties could be wooing a middle-schooler (with the parents' permission, even). The vagaries of manga visuals play a big role, too--the oldest-looking middle schooler (usually male) and the youngest-looking OL I've ever seen would appear to be 30 years apart--the wrong way.

EDIT in regard to Kiri-kun's post below: Given that the yuri side character has been stepped up to MC in this story, I'll be interested to see how, or if, the treatment of Shiki here qualifies the interesting, and rather acerbic, take in this article:

https://heartsoffuriousfancies.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/14-sai-no-koi-yuri-iyashi-and-the-lives-of-others-part-2/

last edited at Apr 17, 2022 10:34AM

Speaking of this, after translating chapter 4, I removed the Age gap tag for now.

In the original series, there was no actual indication that Shiki was in love with the nurse. They just had a "mutually supportive" relationship.

When I saw the cover of chapter 1, I assumed it was going to develop the relationship between Shiki and the nurse. But after 4 chapters, it doesn't look like the nurse is a central character, so the tag is out for now.

You’re right—thanks for the correction. It’s always been hard for me to think of these characters as being in “middle school” (first year when the main series started). I know that the whole premise of the OG MCs is that they were mature-acting for their age, but the overall feel of the series seemed like it involved older teenagers—the age-gap romances, of which there were several, including the one involving the nurse’s unrequited love played out as being much more serious than the stipulated ages would suggest.

And let's not forget that other side story (which got removed from the site, I believe). I can enjoy the stories that focus on students exploring first love and relationships (even if I can't relate), but this author seems to have quite the fetish for adult/child relationships.

And lo! It's back!

Iori is so neuroticly angsty and full of gay panic that she gives me a mini panic attack every time she has a freak out or goes into a fit of her gay panic that she can't seem to realize she's having lol. I forgot all about this series so just reread everything before the new one. I do hope this continues as I really like Iori as a character and very interested to see how their new friendship evolves as this series goes on. Seeing if she realizes what her feelings for Shiki actually are.

EDIT in regard to Kiri-kun's post below: Given that the yuri side character has been stepped up to MC in this story, I'll be interested to see how, or if, the treatment of Shiki here qualifies the interesting, and rather acerbic, take in this article:

https://heartsoffuriousfancies.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/14-sai-no-koi-yuri-iyashi-and-the-lives-of-others-part-2/

Now that is quite a grumpy article. It almost seems to be annoyed that Japanese romance readers are sublimating their desires into this kind of fluff when their attention should be on REVOLUTION. Which, I mean, it's not that I disagree, but that's hardly the manga's fault . . . kinda goes rather far afield from whether 14 Sai no Koi is a good read.

I forgot all about this series so just reread everything before the new one

Lol same.

I too really like the gay panic moments. I hope she figures it out and asks Shiki out on a date soon! :)

Seeing if she realizes what her feelings for Shiki actually are.

What do you mean?
Ever since they were in first year she's wanted to be her friend. I thought that was obvious.

I just noticed the "spin-off" tag. Spin-off of what?

I just noticed the "spin-off" tag. Spin-off of what?

Of this

Available on MD.

Holy shit the fifth chapter is awesome

You know what I like about chapter 5? The MC's honour. She's an honourable girl who won't betray someone. Good on her stonewalling that unpleasant person.