It was so cool to see a manga with such a major focus on aro/ace characters, and I think it was executed very well. I thought it was pretty funny when I was reading through the early comments here, because everybody had zero confidence that they would actually stay ace by the end of the story. They all seemed to think that Matoi was just mistaking being a lesbian for being ace, but I imagine they must have been very pleased with how it turned out, just as I was.

This love story is so brilliant and unique. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. It did an excellent job of portraying the affection and personal connection that can develop even between people who don't experience sexual attraction or don't have a desire to pursue a romantic relationship. Like with many sexual orientations and gender identities, I think there's a lot that people don't know about being aro/ace, and this manga helps to shed some light on what that's like.

last edited at May 24, 2022 4:54PM

I appreciate the afterward for the end. This was quite different than anything else I’ve read but I really liked the characters and how things progressed. I feel satisfied reading this work

Yup, plutonic, that is how it works. if you have two friends who have been in one of these relationships, you will recognize it. If you have a close friend who is in one, and describing herself as whatever the latest fashionable tag for asexual person such as a demi, multidimensional or even unable to come up with a label, then you will recognize it. I do, I have two close friends who are in this category and they are unrelated. People do date, but is a totally different fashion and mentality. Many are artists, especially sculptors. The relationships are the ones a lot of times between the artist and a muse. Inspiration is the key. Matoi and Yuriko inspire each other. Close friends do not behave the way they do, Couples in love also do not behave like they do. The most obvious sign is the respect and need of a boundary. Close friends like to live next to each other, so they maintain privacy and have their own love lives or even living with partners or their own families. Lovers like to live with each other sharing everything. Here it is neither. They live next to each other but has no signs whatsoever that they want to have a lover let alone have one moving in. On the other hand they have no desire to live together. But usually only couples or family under the same roof will talk about buying essentials and groceries together. Also, when Matoi's mom asked Yuriko about Matoi, Yuriko knows too many details than a normal close friends do, and Matoi's mom seem to expect Yuriko to know all these intimate details. Which is why later on Yuriko said that did not she already counted as family? Think about it, at that moment they knew and be with each other for 7 years already.

Honestly both of them hit win a lottery. it is hard to find another person with that type of sexuality by simply running into one another by random. Before social media.

last edited at Jul 1, 2022 10:30PM

That absolutely blew me away. I'm still amazing that they never denied Matoi's asexuality when she fell in love with a girl, and I'm so amazed that they just didn't get together.

Everything down to Yuriko going through the classic aroace experience of "Well, I have no reason NOT to date this person, and she IS my best friend, so maybe I should just give it a try?" And Matoi catching on to the fact that she's forcing herself to fit that mold.

I'm honestly mostly blown away that, despite knowing the Yuriko is explicitly aroace based on the table at the end of volume 3, I still somehow believed they would get together because of how romance-coded the entire manga is... And I almost felt like I was personally called out for my assumptions at the end (but not in a preachy way, a good way that came naturally from the good writing!)

This might genuinely be one of my favourite manga I've every read!

For the record, the type of music Matoi does is called "Industrial Music". The manipulation part of industrial music, came from a branch of modern classical music called "minimalist music" started in the 1960s when someone discovered that you can keep a recording tape playing non stop by looping the beginning and the end of the tape, and later, intentionally run it faster or slower while playing it. Then duplicate the tape and now play both looped tapes together but with different speed. It is called Minimalist because you can play 30 tapes together in different speed but each tape only plays the same 6 or 7 notes musical phrase again and again. Meanwhile the Sound part of the Industrial music started in 1970s England. Performing music using whatever things you find in your daily life. or in a factory. or on a beach during holidays. Or performing live by creating sounds on stage using metal smith's tools and materials. The music being called industrial is because most of the sound created are by the working of metal tools in a factory machine. Then sound will then be recorded, and the tapes will be manipulated. When sampling machines were invented, this made industrial musicians the ability to do a whole lot more manipulations of sounds. A lot of these sampling machines has a keyboard. Thus you can create a "proper" song. Later on sampling computer programs were invented. This allowed manipulations to be programed and created numerous types of variations which nobody could imagined could be possible. What Matoi does, is using this method. Record the sound into a digital recorder, then upload it into a computer, run the sampling program, and then download the results so that people can hear the music. Modern industrial music is now frequently played in dance clubs, as one of the most easily recognized sound of an industrial piece is the booming bass and beat. Matoi's different. Her music would be considered as "experimental industrial music", since she only considers sound being important, whether the result turns into a conventional piece of music is not what she is looking for. If the song sounds good, great; if not, as long as the sounds are interesting, then that will be a good result. That is why she recorded sounds of non professional singers like Yuriko or her parents. In her mind, she was recording human voice, not songs.

last edited at Jul 1, 2022 11:03PM

I'd hesitate to call her music industrial, I'd say her music would have more in common with Yello than with Throbbing Gristle.

What she's doing is what i'd call a modern version of Musique Concrete.

last edited at Jul 2, 2022 4:56AM

Wow, that was really something special. What a great series.

I felt like the ending was a bit rushed. Could've gone for a few more chaps but meh, I'll take what I can get. Can't say I'm happy about how they ended up. Mayb if they lived together but still don't do "that" would've been better. Anyway, it's around 7/10 for me

Another series I've had sitting in my "To Read" folder for a while. Loved the story, loved the characters, hated the end. Only because of the time skip, though. The way the relationship between the main characters was resolved is fine, but there were too many loose threads. (Rio's story, for one. And then there was also Rio's story. Not to mention Rio's story...) There are manga that end on a time skip where it feels planned. Run Away with Me, Girl is a great example. This one just felt like it got axed with no warning. Not that the last chapter felt incomplete in itself, just that it should have been chapter 29 instead of 23.

(Sorry for being down on it. My pet bunny just died. Was looking for something to raise my spirits. Maybe I should come back and clean this up when I'm feeling less depressed.)

Edit (over 1.5 years later): Reread it from the beginning while in a happier mood. Enjoyed the ending much more this time. Still wish time skips were a little less common in manga endings, but it's the right ending for these two.

last edited at May 14, 2024 9:25PM

Damn, this thing's brilliant, and i think most people don't even realize or underestimate how brilliant this is. It's stupidly realistic and grounded, pretty much no drama, no trope, no over-reaction, no fancy or shocking moments, extremely mundane dialogues, everyone acts like a real person and not like exaggerated anime character, because everyone actually communicates and listens well, it's ridiculous how true to life this is, and also funny that some people think it's rushed or there are loose ends at the end, because that's the point, you don't wrap up character story in real life, they just continue to live normally with their life, these are just some events that happened in between. Maybe it's too realistic and mundane for its own good, and this is probably the only manga where some forced melodramas or exaggerated moments (like crying or confession) would make things a bit more exciting and satisfying at the end, but really it's still brilliant as it is.

Maybe it's too realistic and mundane for its own good, and this is probably the only manga where some forced melodramas or exaggerated moments (like crying or confession) would make things a bit more exciting and satisfying at the end, but really it's still brilliant as it is.

False dichotomy—“Forced melodramas or exaggerated moments” are not the only ways to resolve a story.

I have to agree with the somewhat odd ending. Them living together made a bit more sense? Like, it would've made sense if one of them was autistic and need their own space, but I didn't get that vibe from any of them, so why? Like, I know this. I've been there, wanting to be with someone but feeling suffocated by the idea of "typical romance". And now I understand it much better (guess what? its also a spectrum and language is lacking to describe it) and I want nothing more than to live with the people that make me happy. Where's the cuddling? The hand holding?? The gentile touches and non-verbal affections that come with this type of love??? To the point where I'm brought to question if the author is a-spec or drew from the experience of others (form reading them online).

It felt rather lacking, like there was a lot that was just straight up missing - like where is Rio now and how she's doing.
Stories can be realistic and still have a wrapped-up ending. They just should give a satisfiying ending to the reader so that there can be a sense of closure and not left on an unending limbo. That's why I'm a fan of semi-open endings, where there's closure (i.e. an ending to that chapter of a character's life) but still leaves some unresolved threads, which will in turn allow the writer (or a fan-writer) to pick them up and continue later if they so please.

That said, what an amazing manga this was. So, so, incredibly special and I will holdy close to my little aro-spec ace heart. I had some manly tears escape because I had never felt so seen by a manga. Man

Finally got around to reading this as well. And such a beautiful series it was. ^_^

As for the discussion around the yuri and romance tags, there's no need to even drag Rio into this - the main driving force of the entire story are Matoi's romantic feelings towards Yuriko. How would this possibly not qualify the story for both of those tags?

last edited at Jul 14, 2023 10:03AM

This was a nice read