Sasameki Koto was a SLOW burn but the main character was in love from the very first chapter. That was the difference. Not ambiguous or oblivious. They knew and were okay with not saying anything cause they didn't wanna ruin their friendship.
Sasameki is great too. And yeah there's a bunch of ways to make their preferences clear without making this a "romance heavy" series, focusing on typical romance plotlines, or focusing on if they get together--they don't even have to get together. Right now it's not yet been clearly established that they're gay (or questioning), that's the difference and I think where some of the worry comes from. I'm personally confident that these two are gay but that comes largely from assumptions (based on the author's previous works), character bios and story clues that we can assume are hinting at eventual revelations. The story has been relatively ambiguous, for now: many previous hints could be debatably viewed as a close friendship kind of love. I'd disagree but I'd admit there's nothing concrete yet.
For me this is all fine (I love it! and it moves at its own pace) but again I can understand the unique worry some might have as the chapters start to pile up and we get teased a bit, especially since the story got tagged as Yuri (romance) and has moved away from the blushy earlier chapters' "guy crush" premise into a fully music focused one. I think that worry will be shortlived but still. These are 4 page chapters but lots of manga that release like this accommodate plot progression rates around the unique release schedule. So it doesn't always work to say, "well if this were a normal release this would only be chapter 12."
last edited at Oct 6, 2023 8:01AM