No way... Is she finally realizing.

THAT THE GUY SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WASN'T A GUY AT AT ALL!

I'll leave now.

No way... Is she finally realizing.

THAT THE GUY SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WASN'T A GUY AT AT ALL!

I'll leave now.

You genius, I laughed so hard I scared my dog.

I liked almost all of it a lot, but as an earlier commenter said, the massive subtext almost overwhelmed the literal text, as if it took more effort to make it not yuri than it would have been to just follow the logic of the story and characters.

I was having a hard time pinning down my Nettaiygo thoughts and I think this comes pretty close to them. Like, it spent 8-10 chapters in the middle and end desperately trying to keep the 50-ton yuri boulder from rolling down the hill. The art was very good though, and the emphasis on loneliness was unique and memorable.

The Dynasty comment thread, though, did have some similarities to this one, in that it left no can of worms unopened. :P

I'm the sickos guy outside the window being so down for more "but if I felt all these things for a girl what does that mean??" for the next 5-10 chapters

I'm the sickos guy outside the window being so down for more "but if I felt all these things for a girl what does that mean??" for the next 5-10 chapters

aren't we all???

Alright, let’s break this down for people arguing about honesty and consent and such.

Is she making a good decision in not revealing her identity? No. She knows that, we know it if we’re intellectually honest with ourselves.

If you’re a teenager who doesn’t reveal who you are to anyone at school and just found out you’re queer you’re gonna have difficulty knowing what to do. None of that is conducive to good decision making. If you have a crush and the only way to keep knowing for sure they feel the same is to keep up a façade… pretty common story. Way too common.

How easy is it for a loner to come out in an extremely heteronormative society, especially with all the above? Not very.

Mitsuki is in the wrong. This isn’t up for question. She feels guilty because she knows she is. However, she hasn’t committed a crime. They text and talk sometimes. That’s not assault or anything to do with lines of consent. It’s just a big mistake.

I’m old.
I’ve felt the feels both these girls are dealing with, and I’ve made mistakes. This is a matter that requires a conversation and apology. It’s not a crime.

It’s a work of fiction, and conflict that arises from misunderstanding and a tangled web woven is pretty common.
We know it ends happily.

And to the person who assumed the author is straight and fetishises lesbians? Where did that come from?! Why invent a problem to lash out? Only answer that to yourself.

What if yadda yadda yadda

These are not applicable in this situation. The similarities are superficial.

Mitsuki is a cis woman. It’s part of the ding dang title!!! She’s pretty butch, but she’s a woman. No reason to go further into that, because it’s moot.

Sexual orientation IS an issue, because they’re humans.
Saying someone is “attracted to [a certain] gender expression” implies that sexual orientation doesn’t relate to gender, but appearance.
Many people are attracted to people regardless of gender. This is not something to be assumed. We all know how to spell “assume”.

As a homosexual trans woman, I’m offended that you’ve acted like sexual orientation is irrelevant to discussion of romantic attraction in addition to bringing in trans issues when they have no place in the discussion. I have a gender and an orientation. I’m a woman who is attracted to women. These things matter.

Overall, this seems to have been an attempt to be über-progressive and looped back to regressive.
You seem intelligent and well-meaning, @Pyrrho
I’m confident you can get a handle on all this.

last edited at Aug 23, 2022 10:15PM

We're still traumatized by Nettaigyo.

eh really ? i loved everything in this series tbh, it was pure bliss for me

Same, still not just one of the best yuri manga I've ever read, but one of my absolute favorites regardless of genre.

I liked almost all of it a lot, but as an earlier commenter said, the massive subtext almost overwhelmed the literal text, as if it took more effort to make it not yuri than it would have been to just follow the logic of the story and characters.

Still an excellent read, though, with well-developed and appealing characters. And a prime example of creators meaning a variety of things when they say they don’t think of their story as being yuri.

The scars of Not a Lizard are deep indeed.

after months of build up,, finallyy

Alright, let’s break this down for people arguing about honesty and consent and such.

Is she making a good decision in not revealing her identity? No. She knows that, we know it if we’re intellectually honest with ourselves.

If you’re a teenager who doesn’t reveal who you are to anyone at school and just found out you’re queer you’re gonna have difficulty knowing what to do. None of that is conducive to good decision making. If you have a crush and the only way to keep knowing for sure they feel the same is to keep up a façade… pretty common story. Way too common.

How easy is it for a loner to come out in an extremely heteronormative society, especially with all the above? Not very.

Mitsuki is in the wrong. This isn’t up for question. She feels guilty because she knows she is. However, she hasn’t committed a crime. They text and talk sometimes. That’s not assault or anything to do with lines of consent. It’s just a big mistake.

I’m old.
I’ve felt the feels both these girls are dealing with, and I’ve made mistakes. This is a matter that requires a conversation and apology. It’s not a crime.

It’s a work of fiction, and conflict that arises from misunderstanding and a tangled web woven is pretty common.
We know it ends happily.

And to the person who assumed the author is straight and fetishises lesbians? Where did that come from?! Why invent a problem to lash out? Only answer that to yourself.

super sorry in advance but i really don't want to comb through this discussion to see what people are referring to by consent so can someone please summarize why people are criticizing this manga?

super sorry in advance but i really don't want to comb through this discussion to see what people are referring to by consent so can someone please summarize why people are criticizing this manga?

People are arguing about the extent to which Mitsuki had an obligation to tell Aya the truth about "onii-san." They're not really criticizing the manga, though perhaps some will in the future depending on how the current arc ends. "Consent" I think came up because the situation got compared to the question of whether a trans person has an obligation to tell the person they're dating that they're trans; I personally do not think it's a very helpful concept in this discussion.

super sorry in advance but i really don't want to comb through this discussion to see what people are referring to by consent so can someone please summarize why people are criticizing this manga?

They're saying music-girl has been improperly leading on gyaru-girl by not telling her that she is "onii-chan".

She finally realized… SHE FINALLY REALIZED

I swear to god I'm gonna take away some user's privileges of using words like manipulation, consent, and toxicity until they learn what they actually mean. This is why I usually stay away from the comment's section.

LETSGOOOOOOOOOOOO

Can't we appreciate just how fucking long it took for her to realize that was the same person?
Like, they have the same height, build, mole and presumably the exact same voice(Unless she was talkin' in some kind of weird Bane voice while wearing that mask)

Can't we appreciate just how fucking long it took for her to realize that was the same person?
Like, they have the same height, build, mole and presumably the exact same voice(Unless she was talkin' in some kind of weird Bane voice while wearing that mask)

Not to mention that Jerkface-kun recognized her instantly the first time he saw her in the store.

last edited at Aug 24, 2022 8:29AM

I swear to god I'm gonna take away some user's privileges of using words like manipulation, consent, and toxicity until they learn what they actually mean. This is why I usually stay away from the comment's section.

People are accusing others of comparing her silence to violence.
That’s absurd to do or accuse others of.
I’m saying this IS NOT an issue of “she must disclose her gender because romance is at all involved!” It’s tedious and getting overblown.

Fundamentally this is an issue of “how much responsibility does one have to disclose in a given relationship of any kind”, and when people are saying romance makes it suddenly a bigger issue it’s implying something.

It’s implying that it’s some kind of violation to hide that.
Reductio ad absurdum, that’s an issue of consent.
They’re texting, not fucking or even dating. They’re just barely flirting!!!

I’m saying it’s silly to say that, silly to get up in arms about other people saying it.

It’s a simple issue of “there’s a misunderstanding and it needs to be cleared up.

Everyone CHILL.

super sorry in advance but i really don't want to comb through this discussion to see what people are referring to by consent so can someone please summarize why people are criticizing this manga?

People are arguing about the extent to which Mitsuki had an obligation to tell Aya the truth about "onii-san." They're not really criticizing the manga, though perhaps some will in the future depending on how the current arc ends. "Consent" I think came up because the situation got compared to the question of whether a trans person has an obligation to tell the person they're dating that they're trans; I personally do not think it's a very helpful concept in this discussion.

Yes.

I’m saying there seems to be some kind of implied issue with romantic feelings instantly making deception totally different.

It’s not just that trans issues were brought up. I’m ignoring that nonsense.

It’s NOT any of that.

It’s teenagers making mistakes.
That’s what they do.

Can we all just say “what a great story! The art is good, I like the characters and the emotional reality is touching”

Also, sorry for my weirdly encyclopaedic manner of speech.

This is how I talk and I don’t know how to speak normally. It’s taking effort to be this terse.
It’s the result of reading too many books from the 18th through early 20th centuries and actual encyclopaedias etc growing up.

Even my apologies are long! I actually cut a paragraph.

last edited at Aug 24, 2022 8:38AM

This is a matter that requires a conversation and apology. It’s not a crime.

A goodly number of Dynasty readers find that distinction difficult to maintain.

Or perhaps even more commonly there's a text/subtext that goes, "Putting the story aside, if someone were to actually do this in real life, it would be thus-and-so."

"Putting the story aside" is where we part company.

This is a matter that requires a conversation and apology. It’s not a crime.

A goodly number of Dynasty readers find that distinction difficult to maintain.

Or perhaps even more commonly there's a text/subtext that goes, "Putting the story aside, if someone were to actually do this in real life, it would be thus-and-so."

"Putting the story aside" is where we part company.

I don't really understand this. Stories are in part just entertainment, sure, but in part they are also the way we approach the world and talk about important issues in our lives or important events that we care about or have emotional reactions to.

Yeah this is just about two teenagers making mistakes and a misunderstanding between them, but it's just as valid for someone to look at this and see a bigger issue. That's the great thing about the interpretative nature of art, it brings in all kinds of perspectives.

last edited at Aug 24, 2022 2:05PM

Stories are in part just entertainment, sure, but in part they are also the way we approach the world and talk about important issues in our lives or important events that we care about or have emotional reactions to.

I think what Blastaar is frustrated by is the tendency of moral litigation of each character's sins to overshadow real analysis of who the characters are, why they act the way they do, and how their actions impact the broader themes of the story. At certain points the arguments in this thread have been less about the manga and more about a moral disagreement tangentially related to the manga.

Stories can be a great way to approach real-world issues. But to do that, you need to first understand the story on its own terms (otherwise you're not actually talking about the story at all), and it's that first step that's often missing.

"Putting the story aside" is where we part company.

I feel like"putting the story aside" is akin to saying "putting context aside"

last edited at Aug 24, 2022 3:55PM

Stories are in part just entertainment, sure, but in part they are also the way we approach the world and talk about important issues in our lives or important events that we care about or have emotional reactions to.

I think what Blastaar is frustrated by is the tendency of moral litigation of each character's sins to overshadow real analysis of who the characters are, why they act the way they do, and how their actions impact the broader themes of the story. At certain points the arguments in this thread have been less about the manga and more about a moral disagreement tangentially related to the manga.

Stories can be a great way to approach real-world issues. But to do that, you need to first understand the story on its own terms (otherwise you're not actually talking about the story at all), and it's that first step that's often missing.

Quite right, and thanks for restating the point clearly. Obviously, people can discuss whatever they want however they want, but a lot of times (not pointing any fingers here specifically) such discussion devolves into arguments about which character has the biggest moral flaw or just berating characters for not behaving in the optimally positive way.

And the “talking about important issues” can turn into people pressing the playback buttons on long-held opinions rather than engaging with the work at hand, with the (explicit or implicit) premise “if this were real life” amounting to an argumentative off-ramp away from the story and into an opinion-having contest.

last edited at Aug 24, 2022 4:10PM

"Putting the story aside" is where we part company.

I feel like"putting the story aside" is akin to saying "putting context aside"

That's exactly what it is.