I don't really care whether Shiho's attitude is realistic, or whether her story has thematic resonance or not––it seems so to me, but it no more makes me want to read her material than if her role was implausible and meaningless––it's just that the tone of this storyline just brings the larger story of the book down.

This is pretty much where I am. Shiho just feels like she’s from a different, less appealing story than the mega-fluffy one we started out with. And her angst still seems undercooked to me—she’s acting like she’s been personally wronged somehow while being surrounded by super-understanding friends and colleagues.

Maybe if the other characters weren’t drawn with those over-the-top happy facial expressions Shiho’s Gloomy Gus persona wouldn’t seem quite so out of place.

last edited at Nov 22, 2022 9:18AM

Meowmeow posted:

Gosh sometimes I think people forget they are high school girls, they make mistakes. why expect Shiho to think and act like an adult, how many of us at this age and with this circumstances do to make the "right" choices already, the thing to focus here is how the artist will end this manga, not bashing a high school girl because she doesn't know how to deal with her feelings

Aren't all except for Shiho acting rationally ? so yeah obviously there's going to be backlash.

Nice to see that Shiho's character is at least consistent, when she started talking about self-reflecting I half-expected her to realize her faults and apologize to everyone and whatnot, but this is more believable :P Whether or not it's more enjoyable to read is another thing.

Shiho the buzzkill drags the chapter down yet again I see
I can't wait till this arc is complete but I imagine the author will milk it for everything its got

Oh, now this is interesting. Now we have Aki moving as well. ^_^

lowkey but highkey shipping shiho with himari, their dynamic is adorable. yori’s “looks cool but is an empty shell” personality got boring after a while. plus shiho is hot

Are you sure you're not switching Yori and Shiho there...?

Yori is so cute dude
Easily the best girl of the manga

Yeah, I actually like what they're doing. Like I love my fluff but I actually enjoy the mangaka's kind of use of tone. Shiho's part feels like a drag because she IS a drag. She is a drag and sucks the soul out of you due to her own issues and that can be tough and Himari is a literal puppy who wants to make everyone happy so of course she's going to try and fix the emotional leech that is Shiho.

And just seeing how different sunny spot is. How happy and energetic they are, you can kind of get the feeling about Shiho. She drags people down. She kills the mood. Where the other girls don't. And it's about Shiho realizing that at the end of the day, all her problems are self-inflicted.

lowkey but highkey shipping shiho with himari, their dynamic is adorable. yori’s “looks cool but is an empty shell” personality got boring after a while. plus shiho is hot

also ???

The point is to show that it isn't healthy and it just makes Himari feel like shit all the time.

Also it's really fun comparing this with Yuri Hime's other recently ended crown jewel, Can't Defy the Lonely Girl. Both kind of did the same thing where they sped up to the dating part and all that pretty quick but this one went RIGHT for the hardcore drama, that one just settled into warm and gooey fluff for the rest of the runtime.

lowkey but highkey shipping shiho with himari, their dynamic is adorable. yori’s “looks cool but is an empty shell” personality got boring after a while. plus shiho is hot

Haha I'm 100% agree. But it's expected that a lot people here don't like her or this arc, cuz most people are shallow in their thought and can't appreciate a good character if that character is kinda on the "antagonist" side. Shiho is definitely the best part of this manga so far and the only one that keep me from dropping it. Her relationship and dynamic with Himari is such a joy to watch, because they are very different individual. Yori x Himari was cute at first, but now the lovey dovey fluff is getting so boring, with Shiho it's WAY more interesting. Also agree that Shiho's probably the hottest girl of this manga, and i have no idea why some people even called her a "bully" or a "bad person" or sth, it's like those people never go outside and interact with an actual terrible person irl, cuz from what i've seen so far Shiho is really nice

Shiho is definitely the best part of this manga so far and the only one that keep me from dropping it.

I don't think I would have dropped it, but she's definitely the most interesting character in this manga. From her first appearance, I always liked the rol of a disruptive factor she played and continues to play in an otherwise much more predictable and formulaic story.

I hope she and Aki ends up together.

Shiho's probably the hottest girl of this manga

Right? It's not even close.

it's like those people never go outside and interact with an actual terrible person irl, cuz from what i've seen so far Shiho is really nice

Why that comparaison ? I mean, sorry for the language but it's kinda a bullcrap argument because saying there is worse peoples doesn't make it better. It's like saying Tucker in FMA is not that bad because dictators exist. Shiho is a flawed person and so far does everything she could wrong. She is as interesting as watching a train wreck. And pairing her with Hima is like switching a wholesome and fluffy pair to a angsty and a toxic "i can fix her" pair.
The problem is that most people, myself included, thought that after having them going out, we could have wholesome moments with some minor drama and not introducing a drama queen that completly tone shift the manga and take away the time we could had on Hime/Yori.
The thing i saw from your comment is that wholesome manga is clearly not your type and you prefer heavy drama, the problem is that most people her would have prefer the opposite for the manga and i can't blame them because this arc start to feel like a drag and Shiho doesn't really help cause she is doing a lot to be unlikable.

it's like those people never go outside and interact with an actual terrible person irl, cuz from what i've seen so far Shiho is really nice

Why that comparaison ? I mean, sorry for the language but it's kinda a bullcrap argument because saying there is worse peoples doesn't make it better. It's like saying Tucker in FMA is not that bad because dictators exist. Shiho is a flawed person and so far does everything she could wrong. She is as interesting as watching a train wreck. And pairing her with Hima is like switching a wholesome and fluffy pair to a angsty and a toxic "i can fix her" pair.
The problem is that most people, myself included, thought that after having them going out, we could have wholesome moments with some minor drama and not introducing a drama queen that completly tone shift the manga and take away the time we could had on Hime/Yori.
The thing i saw from your comment is that wholesome manga is clearly not your type and you prefer heavy drama, the problem is that most people her would have prefer the opposite for the manga and i can't blame them because this arc start to feel like a drag and Shiho doesn't really help cause she is doing a lot to be unlikable.

Agreed. “Shiho is really nice” is the kind of hot take that causes dumpster fires.

it's like those people never go outside and interact with an actual terrible person irl, cuz from what i've seen so far Shiho is really nice

Why that comparaison ? I mean, sorry for the language but it's kinda a bullcrap argument because saying there is worse peoples doesn't make it better. It's like saying Tucker in FMA is not that bad because dictators exist. Shiho is a flawed person and so far does everything she could wrong. She is as interesting as watching a train wreck. And pairing her with Hima is like switching a wholesome and fluffy pair to a angsty and a toxic "i can fix her" pair.
The problem is that most people, myself included, thought that after having them going out, we could have wholesome moments with some minor drama and not introducing a drama queen that completly tone shift the manga and take away the time we could had on Hime/Yori.
The thing i saw from your comment is that wholesome manga is clearly not your type and you prefer heavy drama, the problem is that most people her would have prefer the opposite for the manga and i can't blame them because this arc start to feel like a drag and Shiho doesn't really help cause she is doing a lot to be unlikable.

Agreed. “Shiho is really nice” is the kind of hot take that causes dumpster fires.

Could not agree more. The thing is, it is not the concept of Shiho that annoys most people, it is the execution. A tonal shift from pure fluff to more drama can work, especially if the drama comes from a new source. It is the fact that it's BAD drama that is the problem. Shiho is an complete asshat, all her drama is self-caused, and the story and characters don't seem to get that. She gets treated like she has valid points, which is the problem. Not that she is flawed, but that the story and the reader don't agree on the nature and severity of her flaws.

ManuTheBloodedge, much first-world suffering is self-caused. People choose to suffer. It is a choice. Especially if they choose to keep suffering long term. Feeling pain isn't a choice, but suffering from the pain can be.

All you people complaining about Shiho when this is the reality of being a high school young woman who is a perfectionist. I am that woman, and I lived that life, and I made the same stupid decisions and lost similar relationships. Yeah it doesn't make for a good story because it fucking sucks to be living that story as that person. But it's fucking reality. The tag in this is "drama".

Not everyone has the emotional support they need to get past self-inflicted suffering. And Shiho definitely doesn't.

Take Shiho's friend's advice she gave to Himari near the end of this chapter. She's a moody person who probably has a mtfthr gene mutation and needs folate, vitamin b and glutathione supplements. She's lost not one but two beloved friends. It's hard to get over that and yourself at that age and even into adulthood. Again I've lived this life.

I think this author is actually wrapping this manga up better than I anticipated. I just read the last five chapters all in a row. Good stuff so far. Writing this can't be easy let alone also drawing it.

last edited at Nov 25, 2022 4:29PM

She's a moody person who probably has a mtfthr gene mutation and needs folate, vitamin b and glutathione supplements.

what ?

ManuTheBloodedge, much first-world suffering is self-caused. People choose to suffer. It is a choice. Especially if they choose to keep suffering long term. Feeling pain isn't a choice, but suffering from the pain can be.

As often happens, this repeats the conflation of fictional characters as elements in an (attempted) fictional work of narrative art with characters conceptualized as (imaginary) real human beings.

Shiho’s suffering may be the most “realistic” thing in the world; that doesn’t mean it belongs in or is helpful to this particular story. Her primary function as part of the story is not to supply representation for real-life people who make themselves miserable but to contribute to a coherent overall narrative, and, as many readers have said previously, the shift in tone and focus from the first section of the series has been quite jarring.

It’s not the first time a mangaka has gotten enthralled with a vivid, troublesome side character to the structural detriment of the story they originally started telling (that was the downfall of What Does the Fox Say? ). But the “relatability” or accuracy to real-life psychology of a character is at best only loosely related to that character’s effectiveness as part of any given story.

last edited at Nov 26, 2022 6:42AM

When I teach character development to my comics students, I emphasize treating characters as either contrasting opposites or as characters that harmonize and boost one another's signals. This might seem a superficial way to handle characters, except that most of the character development we see in fiction is based on the way we compare/contrast characters with one another. Yuri authors do this absolutely all the time; they have usually these two girls; contrasting them at first gives us their character dynamics, and the different ways they look at the world––so that the two girls become really clearly differentiated. Slowly, the yuri writer generally tries to bring the characters together, filing off the edges of their contrasts, shoring up the things they have in common, until the characters are harmonizing on a similar wavelength. But a pretty simple way to track character development through fiction is to look for how the author pairs characters, either contrasting or complementing one another, and looking for how the author uses those contrasts especially to tell us all about the characters.

The contrasting figure for Shiho in this story is, for most intents and purposes, Yori. Shiho is intensely committed to her goals, driven until they're painful and un-fun and a general drag on her life. Yori is so removed from most forms of commitment, it's been hard for the Sunny Spot members to get her to be in the band, even though she clearly doesn't have anything better to do. And plot-wise, Yori is very clearly Shiho's doppelganger; she fills in Shiho's place in the band, and she occupies the space in Mizuguchi's heart that Shiho wants. Shiho plays her music to be perfect, to win. Yori plays to express herself, even if she sucks. Shiho is committed in exactly the ways Yori isn't, but Yori is able to succeed with her more laid-back attitude, in a way that confounds Shiho.

Well, sort of. The problem is that this contrast between the two characters isn't very well-balanced. Yori has no intensity to match Shiho's, and she's getting no time on the page to express any alternative to Shiho's humorless misery and anger. At first, the author seemed to be using Himari as a wedge between the two contrasting figures, with the more time Himari was spending with Shiho bringing out Yori's jealousy. But that sort of competition between the characters has been largely dispelled, with Yori just kind of agreeing to ditch her angst and focus on songwriting, and with Shiho revealing that she isn't really interested in Himari romantically, but in Mizuguchi instead. Meanwhile, Yori and Shiho remain poised as opposites, as rivals––one of them will lead their band in the piece that "defeats" the other band at the concert. But the stakes in this game are so unequal, it's no wonder the focus of this for most of us readers is on what a wretch Shiho is behaving.

Thing is, if Yori had a stronger role in this story arc, I don't think most of us complaining about Shiho bringing things down. If her frustrated romantic passions were a more balanced contrast against Yori's own maybe more upbeat passions, it would make for more rewarding drama. But Shiho's story is so overweighted compared to Yori's own, it's getting ludicrous. Shiho needs to win the competition because her competitor/friend died, and her band came together to honor the dead friend/rival (I guess...all that seems like so long ago I'm not sure I have it all straight in my head); she's raging against this intense, unrequited love, vacillating between hating and loving Mizuguchi, letting that hate overflow onto Yori, who isn't even a willing participant in this triangle, venting it to Yori's girlfriend...What is Yori doing that makes a balance with this? She's writing her own song. She and her girlfriend are getting along. Things seem good. I think there needed to be a clearer contrast drawn between Shiho and Yori––one that kept Yori relevant to the story. The best way to have done that would have been to dial back Shiho's angst, because while we've seen Yori lovelorn, we haven't seen her act too neurotic, and Yori has nothing to match this. The second-best thing would have been to give Yori more skin in the game, more angst to come closer to matching Shiho's––either contriving something in the plot that creates problems for Yori and Himari's relationship (I could see that messing Yori up emotionally, making her more of a direct competitor with Shiho in terms of emotions and in terms of space on the page), or introducing some buried anxiety of Yori's that comes to the surface when Shiho's role in the plot develops. Then Yori has something large to overcome, some overwhelming insecurity, in parallel with the voluminous baggage Shiho has to surmount. This would make Yori more of the rival to Shiho which the author insists that she is, but which the author barely, barely backs up with anything.

Alternatively, make the Shiho/Mizuguchi story the side story that develops while Himari and Yori do their own thing––the way Anemone in Heat handles the secondary romance, or instance. As it is, the story here feels incredibly imbalanced, weighted towards this side-character, Shiho, because the main characters have not much of anything to counter her intensity and the way she commands attention. None of the rest of the cast is as intense as Shiho; none of them are in so much pain. So Shiho draws readers––and apparently the writer as well––away from the rest of the story; another way of saying it is that she sucks all the oxygen out of the room. How can all this angst get resolved by a battle of the bands, anyway? Do you think the author has set that up as a plausible solution to the Shiho dilemma? I don't think so. If you ask me, this character has gone out of the author's control, and is taking the whole venture towards at least a tonal derailment.

Donuts Under a Crescent Moon had a love triangle recently, which balanced the characters' attributes and contrasts far, far better than this. What balancing these characters better against one another does is maintain the consistency of the tone of the book, maintain the throughline of the book's themes, and keep the book feeling like the book you thought you were reading––which is usually a great benefit. There are some readers who can put up with the convulsions of an author letting a supporting character take over, but I think the firm majority of readers find it hard to take. It feels like a betrayal of the narrative I've been following; a betrayal with no clear benefit to us as we read it. The expression of that, in this case, can be summed up in general with some expression like "I hate Shiho," or "Shiho is just a drag." I think that when we say things like this, what most of us are expressing is the way in which Shiho seems to have hijacked the story we were reading, changing the tone and the narrative stakes in ways the rest of the comic isn't prepared to deliver on.

When I say Shiho's a drag, this is what I'm talking about. This girl who is ready to cut her friendships out like a tumor is driving the story into such a different mode than the story has been running in up until now. When Mizuguchi made her confession, and tried to get Himari to give up leading Yori on if she wasn't serious about her, things seemed serious, but nothing disrupted the sense of the book's identity. We felt how Mizuguchi contrasted Himari as a literary doppelganger; both of them were into Yori, but Mizuguchi came at it from a more mature, measured point of view, while Himari was all impulse and overwhelming enthusiasm. The conflict motivated Himari to change, and the result was that the main characters in the story advanced in plausible directions. Is that happening now with Shiho and Yori? I don't get that sense. The battle of the bands seems to be building to an unforetold apocalypse, the end of friendship (not a great friendship, anyway; being friends with the volatile Shiho seems like you're volunteering for a world of hurt). Anyway, that's where I come out on this. I don't see what the main characters can do to win back any audience attention from the Shiho show, which promises more fireworks than I came prepared to see. So that's my complaint about Shiho, hopefully made a little clearer.

last edited at Nov 27, 2022 10:31AM

^^ Not much to add, just, this is a good post and helped me crystallize why this portion of the series hasn't been doing much for me. Thank you for taking the time to set everything out so completely.

Dreams do come true! There's a leak of Whispering You a Love Song TV Anime adaptation!

From the same account that leaked Yuri is My Job and ILTV anime months before the official announcement, by the way.

Its sales are really strong, so it was expected that it would have an adaptation at some point. Still, excellent news.

And pretty incredible to think that the magazine will have three announcements of adaptations in just a couple of months.

Scary.. who's messing with the timelines? us yuri fans are not supposed to be spoiled like this... Is this a death flag? LOL next they'll announce a love live canon yuri and then it's all over.

last edited at Dec 16, 2022 9:44AM

LOL next they'll announce a love live canon yuri and then it's all over.

I wouldn't be surprised, Love Live has been getting gayer and gayer during the years, if they see that the Yuri market is growing on Anime they would for sure jump to make part of it too lol

Man after re reading it all in one go I love how fluffy and calm the first few volumes were and I love their dates plus Shiho is a great character but all in all this feels like such a mess.

Pretty meh if considering how hyped this series is, but i look forward to the direction it takes from here on out

Anime announced.