Read this page for more information on the connotations the term "yuri" has in Japan that it usually doesn't in the Western fanbase.

[pic snip]

Um.

Keep in mind: that conversation took place ~13 years ago. Not saying that definitions have changed, but no reason to assume they haven't, especially when you're looking at generational differences.

last edited at Sep 6, 2022 4:05PM

A couple things -
God, this manga is so heartbreakingly beautiful. Both the actual art but also just the sincerity of the story telling. It’s one of the few manga that really gets that feeling of being a messy teen trying to figure out love (and then accidentally sexuality) for the first time. I’ve started sending this series around to folks who aren’t into wlw romance comics but want to see what’s good in the space.

Meta -
I think a lot of the meta debate needs to be moved into another thread because it’s becoming a massive buzzkill to see the same people arguing in the comments over the arcana of translation and what does yuri REALLY mean, to the point that it’s drowning out any and all discussion of the actual work. I dropped out of grad school to get away from people arguing the enjoyment out of everything I found interesting, and it’s really bad vibes to see that sort of circular argumentation happen here. It’s just really tedious y’all.

i don't know what ya'll talking about, this def gay yo
AND IM LIVING FOR IT

YES!!!

Man this comment section is wild lmao

This comment section leaves no stone unturned. Even the stones with centipedes hiding under them, or the stones labeled "please do not turn," or the stones that suspiciously resemble land mines.

it's been like this ever since this was first uploaded onto the site. we keep going back to this heavy rotations of arguments and debates. I say, just enjoy this story til it comes to an end. keep gay and carry on the crimes.

anyone else getting serious psychological horror vibes coming off chapters 18 and 19? like... you felt that right??

yeah ch18 reminds me of those movies where fmc follows her gut (or accidentally) checks out the phone of her husband and finds out theyre the killer/stalker, and instead of managing to hide and getting away with it like Aya did, the culprit would then show up right behind them like what are you doing?

Read this page for more information on the connotations the term "yuri" has in Japan that it usually doesn't in the Western fanbase.

[pic snip]

Um.

Keep in mind: that conversation took place ~13 years ago. Not saying that definitions have changed, but no reason to assume they haven't, especially when you're looking at generational differences.

They have changed alright. That definition is very 2010-ish. People used to complain all the time that girl x girl romance in manga was full of platonic ambiguity and avoided gay stuff like the plague, but not anymore. I'm following at the moment a couple dozen manga in Dynasty reader and there's not one that doesn't have lesbian desire and lesbian sex.

last edited at Sep 6, 2022 10:43PM

Okay, it's getting tense

But also, not Mitsuki reminding me of a terrible experience '-'

I think people forget that the Uncle ships them. He already told them to use the playlist they made for each other at the wedding lmaoo

y'all need to chill and just enjoy the flow of the story

You see my point? If anything, by saying she's not sure if it's "yuri," Arai is (most likely) saying it won't end in ambiguity or subtext.

I actually do not see your point because you keep deliberately repeating the same lines while completely ignoring the thorough debunking that was provided previously on more than one occasion. The term "yuri" is used in Japan to refer to both the "pure/ambiguous" stuff and to the sexually/romantically explicit content. There is a small part of the Japanese fanbase that does not ascribe to this (basically the Japanese equivalent of the western "shoujo ai" crowd), who insist on using "yuri" for "pure/ambiguous" stuff while reserving the term "rezu" (from "rezubian" - "lesbian") for the explicit material.

It is a telling usage of terms because "rezu" is seen as being derogatory in real life in Japan, which is why actual lesbians there prefer to use "bian" (the other half of the word) instead. As a result, apart from the "purists", the manga industry as a whole uses "yuri" to refer to the whole genre, as do most of the fans. The same way western "shoujo ai versus yuri" crowd is shunned by the majority of the fanbase, the Japanese "yuri versus rezu" is as well, which is why you will not find many more examples for "yuri" meaning "ambiguous stuff" other than that 12 year old afterword that you keep linking.

To be exact she used the term 愛情 which can mean love/affection. It contains the kanji for romantic love and the kanji for feelings. Since she opposes it to Yuri and in the same sentence talks about struggling in her sexuality in the past, I think she means that /in that specific manga/ she doesn't want to write a yuri romance, like, say, Hana ni Harashi, but about feelings of attraction/affection between girls. Ie, the confusion of feelings of a girl who's attracted to another girl but can't put a name on it.

Which means they may not become a couple and date, but may come to acknowledge their mutual attraction. And that will be the end of the manga

What the scanlator said, and to me this does sound as a warning for an ambiguous ending, which is the exact opposite of what you continuously claim.

last edited at Sep 7, 2022 3:13PM

They have changed alright. That definition is very 2010-ish. People used to complain all the time that girl x girl romance in manga was full of platonic ambiguity and avoided gay stuff like the plague, but not anymore. I'm following at the moment a couple dozen manga in Dynasty reader and there's not one that doesn't have lesbian desire and lesbian sex.

I remember well those times, I've been into yuri for a long time and I remember fans used to get furious at those stories where two chicks were obviously madly in love but never said it clearly and never even kissed. Heck, if memory's right, that was how the hand-holding meme came into being: at the time, the climax of the love story came when one girl held the other's hand and they both blushed! It was the moment of admission of feelings, the much-awaited, squeal-inducing consummation of their long and passionate mutual seduction! Man, those were the days! Lol.

To people who argue about this manga and romance, I say this: I have no clue how very yuri the story of Aya and Mitsuki will get, but I'm 100% sure that whatever happens they will at least hold hands. Yup, I'm positive. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

last edited at Sep 7, 2022 3:48PM

Meta -
I think a lot of the meta debate needs to be moved into another thread because it’s becoming a massive buzzkill to see the same people arguing in the comments over the arcana of translation and what does yuri REALLY mean, to the point that it’s drowning out any and all discussion of the actual work. I dropped out of grad school to get away from people arguing the enjoyment out of everything I found interesting, and it’s really bad vibes to see that sort of circular argumentation happen here. It’s just really tedious y’all.

Truth be told, there is not much to discuss story-related, it is a 4-page Twitter short. At least a quarter of the thread is discussing music and bands, which is honestly at best only tangentially related to the story proper, with the actual song list being pretty vanilla. At least another quarter is people doing what you are doing now, complaining about other posters. I would say both of these take far more space than an occasional discussion about translation (I myself was involved in a brief discussion regarding Mitsuki's actions that at the time I looked totalled 7 posts in all, and all of them fairly civil - but there were 19 posts that commented on the people commenting, many fairly rude - I think it is kind of self-explanatory where the problem actually is).

last edited at Sep 7, 2022 4:23PM

I'm tired of arguing about the best way to interpret a single line from a single interview. None of us know for sure what Arai Sumiko thinks "yuri" is. What we do know is she hasn't hesitated to show wlw romance in literally all her other works, and there's no reason to think she's suddenly grown cold feet now.

last edited at Sep 7, 2022 5:11PM

I'm tired of arguing about the best way to interpret a single line from a single interview. None of us know for sure what Arai Sumiko thinks "yuri" is. What we do know is she hasn't hesitated to show wlw romance in literally all her other works, and there's no reason to think she's suddenly grown cold feet now.

!!!!!!!
Exactly!
Now can we please just appreciate the art and music refs? And that the plot is moving along?

This interview came out so long ago, the heck

The story continues at a slow-but-steady clip and I'm fairly confident will have a good resolution, but "A new semester of Don't Ask, Don't Tell" may just take the cake as the most unpleasant chapter title for a yuri manga ever.

last edited at Sep 8, 2022 12:08AM

Heck, if memory's right, that was how the hand-holding meme came into being: at the time, the climax of the love story came when one girl held the other's hand and they both blushed!

I always thought it started with Uranus / Neptune and their famous hand-holding moment. —"These hands are dirtied from doing evil deeds..." —"Not true, I love your beautiful hands!"

bosto posted:

The story continues at a slow-but-steady clip and I'm fairly confident will have a good resolution,

but what if it ends on a "girls can't do that" and twitter explodes then burns down then explodes again, wouldn't that be fucked up or what

Aevangeline posted:

Meta -
I think a lot of the meta debate needs to be moved into another thread because it’s becoming a massive buzzkill to see the same people arguing in the comments over the arcana of translation and what does yuri REALLY mean, to the point that it’s drowning out any and all discussion of the actual work. I dropped out of grad school to get away from people arguing the enjoyment out of everything I found interesting, and it’s really bad vibes to see that sort of circular argumentation happen here. It’s just really tedious y’all.

Yeah, that's super unfortunate when it does happen. But I don't find that to so much be the case here, as various unrelated discussions seem to take place here quite persistently. I spotted very little hoarding, too. To help, I counted all the posts from August 27th until your post. Just keeping it to the types of comments you're highlighting, I saw 3 posts on "the arcana of translation", and 13 on "what does yuri REALLY mean." That would be 16 of 190, if my overall counts are correct. Now, there were some other topics that didn't necessarily relate to the manga, but most of them were non-sequitur, or came and went quite quickly.

I'd encourage anyone who wants to see more discussion of the manga to focus their attention on that. In my counting I noticed that whenever new chapter discussion came up, wlftchtr82 was always there, lurking in the shadows...(to their great credit, of course)

Conversely if one really feels the thread is going off-the-rails, I'd encourage them to report it in the Help thread. Some meta discussion is tolerated, but doing so at the expense of more related topics is very much discouraged.

bosto posted:

The story continues at a slow-but-steady clip and I'm fairly confident will have a good resolution,

but what if it ends on a "girls can't do that" and twitter explodes then burns down then explodes again, wouldn't that be fucked up or what

Can't be that bad a thing if it helps rid the world of twitter.

The story continues at a slow-but-steady clip and I'm fairly confident will have a good resolution, but "A new semester of Don't Ask, Don't Tell" may just take the cake as the most unpleasant chapter title for a yuri manga ever.

Why tho? To me it actually strikes as a nice title to mark the start of “phase 2” of the manga. So far the story has been about omission and miscommunication. Now that Aya knows Mitsuki is lying, it really has become a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation. The miscommunication takes new form now.

Kirin DID take some liberty in picking this expression for the TL, but I think it’s fitting.

The og title is 訊けない同士の新学期, which (according to Google lol) translates to “A New Semester Between Us Who Can’t Ask”. Pretty much stating that the new semester means a continuation to their misunderstanding because both parties avoid having a straightforward conversation. (At least for now)

God I love the art. I just want Arai Sumiko to tell me my art is good. Is this... is this what it feels like to want senpai to notice you?

Kirin DID take some liberty in picking this expression for the TL, but I think it’s fitting.

The og title is 訊けない同士の新学期, which (according to Google lol) translates to “A New Semester Between Us Who Can’t Ask”. Pretty much stating that the new semester means a continuation to their misunderstanding because both parties avoid having a straightforward conversation. (At least for now)

Man that tracks with the literal meaning of the words don't ask don't tell but as an idiom it conjures up the opposite meaning to me. As a policy it was as long as it's not explicitly acknowledged we're going to pretend it's not there. That's not a miscommunication that's an implicit agreement.

Also everyone in this chapter is very dramatic about som cobwebs getting in hair lol

I'm tired of arguing about the best way to interpret a single line from a single interview. None of us know for sure what Arai Sumiko thinks "yuri" is. What we do know is she hasn't hesitated to show wlw romance in literally all her other works, and there's no reason to think she's suddenly grown cold feet now.

!!!!!!!
Exactly!
Now can we please just appreciate the art and music refs? And that the plot is moving along?

This interview came out so long ago, the heck

Not me over here eagerly waiting for the mail to arrive today for a used pair of Carhartts to wear like older Mitsuki. Nope. Definitely not. I would never.

Also HIGHLY recommend Surf Curse's new single Self Portrait. That shit goes hard with the dirty guitar, holy shit. Also, I just love the music video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II1-tOscaKE

last edited at Sep 10, 2022 12:17PM by

I want a serenade chapter

Uh oh, she's gonna learn to play the guitar. Aya's defense won't stand a chance.

Why is the uncle such a cool guy, I probably like him the most out of any character in the series

I wonder if uncle ever had to do a serenade when he was her age? He seemed like he knew what to do instantly once he started to gather what the actual problem was. Also fantasic coloring as always!!!