New Year, Aya gets to rizz Mitsuki up

It is a happy new year!

Accidental skinship is nice and all, but I was hoping for a bit more after that super romantic serenade moment >⁠.⁠<

Geez I saw the step and freaked out for a moment. I definitely was expecting an injury/coma moment

I swear my weekly routine is work non stop, think "Is it sunday already?", check this out, take two minutes to breathe and then get back to work.

I swear my weekly routine is work non stop, think "Is it sunday already?", check this out, take two minutes to breathe and then get back to work.

Exactly the same here, even though it can be seen like an exaggeration, if it's not because of this manga I lose the notion of time; it's like my "wire to earth" so to say

Geez I saw the step and freaked out for a moment. I definitely was expecting an injury/coma moment

Saaaaame. There's a lot of things you can accuse this manga of being and doing, but pulling shit like that isn't one of them, thankfully.

Classic converse shoes moment

I finally got to clean my favorite picture from the Da Vinci Magazine (my eyes hurts...). I skimmed through the comments here and saw no mention of it. The manga was featured in the October 2023 issue, it also had a 2 pages chapter.

Here are the cleaned and normal version of said picture, in case you are interested.

https://i.imgur.com/foYMqFA.png
https://i.imgur.com/fiBwXNz.png

I finally got to clean my favorite picture from the Da Vinci Magazine (my eyes hurts...). I skimmed through the comments here and saw no mention of it. The manga was featured in the October 2023 issue, it also had a 2 pages chapter.

Here are the cleaned and normal version of said picture, in case you are interested.

https://i.imgur.com/foYMqFA.png
https://i.imgur.com/fiBwXNz.png

I was asked about that 2 pages manga and it's basically an ad for their mobile comic app.

They cross path and the question is "is there a reason why you meet someone out of thousands of people?".

And then, they both read the same "romcom" manga on that app and @moonlightfm (Mitsuki) comments on it and Aya ("Grunge Gal") likes her comment and Mitsuki feels understood.

And the final line is something like "the reason people meet might be simpler than you think" (from memory).

I didn't feel the need to translate an ad.

The chapter was easy enough for me to understand, but I never thought it was an ad lol, thank you for clarifying that.

Ready for "Screaming you a love song"

Why did I laugh so hard at this... One of the best jokes related to this manga along with "Smells Like Teen Yuri" (found in the comments under DeadJosey's dub of the first few chapters)...

Thanks, I've had a rather hard month, and reading that you found one of my silly jokes funny actually lightened my day. Not because you laughed at my joke, but because my joke made you laugh.
Have a nice new year.

Thanks, and a belated Happy New Yuri to you too.

Whilst we didn't get a story this week, the picture was... well just check out Twitter and/or IG! (well I'm sure it will turn up here but why wait?)

If anyone is interested in the volume 2 physical release coming out in Feb the bookstore benefits are starting to appear. It is an upgrade from vol 1.

Acrylic stand (keychain?), acrylic keychain, guitar pick, poster, sticker, clear files, etc. It's supposed to include new art. No 8p booklets this go around, but the audio drama CD is coming with a 4p one so she didn't escape that entirely.

melon, gamers, animate, and toranoana

last edited at Jan 13, 2024 12:42AM

I just returned from a trip to Japan where I did… uh… a lot of manga shopping (multiple additional suitcases were purchased to get everything home) and I gotta say, this manga is a genuine phenomenon in Japan. It was the only manga I saw that got a whole shelf for a single volume to itself at Animate Ikebukuro (in the unlabeled yuri section lol), and it was featured (sometimes in multiple locations) at pretty much every manga store I visited (although I think I only saw one used copy, at a BOOK-OFF in Kyoto). It was really cool to see something so distinctive and stylish getting such a major push from its publisher.

Also, as other have said, most Kinokuniya locations in the US seem to be carrying this. I picked up my copy back around American Thanksgiving at San Francisco's Kinokuniya and there was a stack of like 20 copies, which almost never happens. Once I got to Japan I kinda wished I'd held off because I found a couple copies that still had bookstore exclusives (at one of the Animates in Tokyo and Shosen Book Tower).

last edited at Jan 14, 2024 6:38AM

I'm not too surprised. She's getting train ads, Nirvana merch, and name dropped in Kadokawa's financial reports. Somebody is making the most of it. Maybe not her since since on top of her work she keeps taking illustration jobs on the side too. I'm not sure at what point it all trickles down to the mangaka. Maybe with that illusive English language release someday.

My Kinokuniya has been carrying it on it's front display as well as the back yuri section. They are tag agnostic.

I'm not too surprised. She's getting train ads, Nirvana merch, and name dropped in Kadokawa's financial reports. Somebody is making the most of it. Maybe not her since since on top of her work she keeps taking illustration jobs on the side too. I'm not sure at what point it all trickles down to the mangaka. Maybe with that illusive English language release someday.

My Kinokuniya has been carrying it on it's front display as well as the back yuri section. They are tag agnostic.

She's probably making less than a magazine published author with a similar level of popularity, simply because those mangaka get paid for the magazine and for the volumes and she's just getting paid for the volumes. As far as side work though she draws 4 pages a week, that's a lot less than typical for those published mangaka. She's probably not desperate and doing overtime taking those illustration jobs, this manga just is probably not a full-time occupation (although it probably is temporarily right now due to the volume preparation).

She's probably making less than a magazine published author with a similar level of popularity, simply because those mangaka get paid for the magazine and for the volumes and she's just getting paid for the volumes.

I don't know how much an author published in a magazine is making, but I've always heard it's not that much, and much of their income comes from volume's sales. If you have more information, I'd be interested.
But knowing her manga is being sold at a higher price compared to your average manga (about 50% higher), I wouldn't be surprise if she was making more than a magazine published author with a similar level of popularity.

Also, no chapter this week.

I saw the new art she posted on Instagram 2 weeks ago. I thought it was someone else, not Koga, she looks mean? I wonder why Aya is crying, especially when this is hinted to be 8 years in the future.

She's probably making less than a magazine published author with a similar level of popularity, simply because those mangaka get paid for the magazine and for the volumes and she's just getting paid for the volumes.

I don't know how much an author published in a magazine is making, but I've always heard it's not that much, and much of their income comes from volume's sales. If you have more information, I'd be interested.
But knowing her manga is being sold at a higher price compared to your average manga (about 50% higher), I wouldn't be surprise if she was making more than a magazine published author with a similar level of popularity.

Also, no chapter this week.

I didn't know the sale price of the manga is higher than normal, although it makes sense and I'd imagine at least a large portion of that is because this comic isn't in normal black and white: printing with all that green ink probably changes both the printing process and the paper used. I wonder how it compares to printed copies of full color webtoons?
edit: browsing these bookstores' websites without knowing much Japanese is hard lol. And I noticed toranoana at least seemed to be adjusting prices upwards noticing I was international, listing prices in USD and then converting that back to yen at a premium higher than what was listed at first. The basic no-frills volume jumped from 1210 yen in the link in this thread announcing its versions to 1430 yen when I clicked the specific sale page for it. I sadly don't know enough to be able to make the comparison myself lol. As far as I can tell none of these sites was listing an ebook version, which feels like it would also be a useful comparison (since color in a pdf doesn't cost any extra).

last edited at Jan 14, 2024 9:51AM

Hi~ Sorry to ask here but since there is people better at japanese than me here, wanted to ask:

If Im right from the previous comments and the post of the author, buying from the four store, the items delivered are the same (keychain, etc. I know no 8p this time), except the individual illustrations like last time right? So if I just wanted extra items but dont care for the illustrations, is okey for me to buy just one?

And the drama CD has 4p? That one I will more interested honestly

I already did a preorder but wanted to have an extra one and items, but wanted to know how much can/want to expend this time, that is mostly why Im asking~

Sorry for the questions here and ty!

last edited at Jan 14, 2024 4:58PM

The items are not the same, each store has their own combination or something unique (different illustration). I'm honestly happy it's not 4 pages booklets all over again. The Drama CD is interesting indeed, I want to preorder it but I need to make sure that I can receive it first.

From what I understood:

gamers.co.jp has an acrylic key chain + a sticker with newly drawn pick charms
toranoana.jp has a unique acrylic key chain + double pocket clear file
animate has an acrylic key chain + clear file drawn by Animate
melonbooks.co.jp has an acrylic stand with key chain + clear poster

edit: browsing these bookstores' websites without knowing much Japanese is hard lol. And I noticed toranoana at least seemed to be adjusting prices upwards noticing I was international, listing prices in USD and then converting that back to yen at a premium higher than what was listed at first. The basic no-frills volume jumped from 1210 yen in the link in this thread announcing its versions to 1430 yen when I clicked the specific sale page for it. I sadly don't know enough to be able to make the comparison myself lol. As far as I can tell none of these sites was listing an ebook version, which feels like it would also be a useful comparison (since color in a pdf doesn't cost any extra).

What you're actually seeing is that for that bookseller they make you put the book in the cart AND then put a separate listing for the benefits in the cart. You might be mistaking the benefits listing for a priced up book. You can't complete the order correctly with only the benefits in the cart. So that different price is actually the benefits you need to bundle into the book order yourself. Unlike with the others where they create a single listing for book+benefits. When you put them together they come out to about the same price as the other bookstore's offerings.

(BUT from my current experience Buyee isn't letting me put preorder items from them together in one order to correctly to purchase them. I can put them into one cart on the book site but when Buyee takes over it separates them. And when Buyee tries to order them separately only the book goes through and the benefits are canceled. That seems to be a preorder specific behavior which is annoying as it could be sold out by the time it's in stock.)

If Im right from the previous comments and the post of the author, buying from the four store, the items delivered are the same (keychain, etc. I know no 8p this time), except the individual illustrations like last time right? So if I just wanted extra items but dont care for the illustrations, is okey for me to buy just one?

Each of the four stores have different illustrations. And as there are no booklets that means illustrations on the merch. So it should mean the acrylics etc. But without sample images it is a bit murky still.

last edited at Jan 14, 2024 11:20AM

Each of the four stores have different illustrations. And as there are no booklets that means illustrations on the merch. So it should mean the acrylics etc. But without sample images it is a bit murky still.

okey okey! I will wait to the stores to post like last time to decide then~ Thanks!

The items are not the same, each store has their own combination or something unique (different illustration). I'm honestly happy it's not 4 pages booklets all over again. The Drama CD is interesting indeed, I want to preorder it but I need to make sure that I can receive it first.

From what I understood:

gamers.co.jp has an acrylic key chain + a sticker with newly drawn pick charms
toranoana.jp has a unique acrylic key chain + double pocket clear file
animate has an acrylic key chain + clear file drawn by Animate
melonbooks.co.jp has an acrylic stand with key chain + clear poster

Ty so much for the info!! Then I will wait for the stores to publish the images of the items to decide. Thanks!!