Okay so they got the baths thing right in the afterword but not in the main story.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Its always bloody German though it is kind of neat seeing the story set in Holy Roman Empire.
I was thinking a Scottish setting could work.

where the idea that it was illegal for medieval women to be literate came from

Disney's Beauty and the Beast, maybe?

Leave up to manga to teach us Medieval European history via cute girls doing cute things. :D

I would not have guessed this was yuri if it wasn't for the tag. I didn't see a hint of attraction between the two, even while they were bathing.

I'm only worried that if they started anything that they would be burned at the stake for being lesbians, or unmarried, or literate.

I’d honestly be more worried about the fact that the witch lady almost certainly isn’t Christian. You could get away with a lot in the Middle Ages depending on where you lived and who you’re local leaders were, but religious differences? That was the kind of thing that got your house burned down by an angry mob. Especially during the plague, when people were especially desperate to find a scapegoat to punish for their suffering.

Also, I’m still not sure where the idea that it was illegal for medieval women to be literate came from. Nuns and nobles were oftentimes literate, and as far as I know there were never any laws prohibiting the lowborn people of either sex from learning how to read, even if it was uncommon. I don’t think there were ever any laws about women being unmarried either (although they did have fewer rights than even their married counterparts). Lesbianism, on the other hand… yeah, that could be an issue, but hey, maybe the lord in this story is cool with that kind of thing.

I doubt lesbianism would be held as an issue considering several other factors shown just in chapter 1 alone.
Firstly, the local Lord is so remarkably friendly and open that he's apparently out and about chatting with random commoners in town, even regional outsiders, and encouraging open-mindedness towards the supernatural.

If you've ever read a single page of medieval history, you'll know that's comically unrealistic for a medieval nobleman to even consider doing like this; showing that he's clearly (to the point of caricature) an idealized modern image of a "good nobleman" with few of the prejudices, fears or restrictions that a real one would've had. He's clearly there to smooth over some of the rougher parts of medieval society that the story doesn't want to deal with, at least yet. (That's not criticism mind you, I don't mind it, I'm just pointing it out)

Secondly, seeing as witches were believed to literally copulate with Satan and that all magic was derived from his favour, the fact alone that the locals and Lord are explicitly accepting of the "witch" despite presumably being faithful Christians and honestly believing her to be a witch already kinda renders lesbianism inconsequential by comparison. Being a lesbian at that point would be orders of magnitude less heretical, like accepting someone committing murder but then getting upset about jaywalking.

I'm just wondering where her electricity is coming from.
I guess since she's a miller then it's hydro (from the wheel)?

This looks cute!

I look forward to more of our cute modern Japanese engineer who was able to get all of these modern amenities working in the Middle Ages.

I would not have guessed this was yuri if it wasn't for the tag. I didn't see a hint of attraction between the two, even while they were bathing.

I'm only worried that if they started anything that they would be burned at the stake for being lesbians, or unmarried, or literate.

I’d honestly be more worried about the fact that the witch lady almost certainly isn’t Christian. You could get away with a lot in the Middle Ages depending on where you lived and who you’re local leaders were, but religious differences? That was the kind of thing that got your house burned down by an angry mob. Especially during the plague, when people were especially desperate to find a scapegoat to punish for their suffering.

I’m sure she knows that and is willing to lie about being a Christian (or it’s just not gonna be brought up lol)

What makes an isekai is the whole “dying and reincarnating” thing, so it’s more likely it’s time travel

I’m curious how this girl got sent back in time. Is her room like the tortis? Tardis? The blue box in Doctor Who that does the time traveling thing

Can she go back and forth, or did she build the mills and stuff? Very curious

What makes an isekai is the whole “dying and reincarnating” thing, so it’s more likely it’s time travel

I’m curious how this girl got sent back in time. Is her room like the tortis? Tardis? The blue box in Doctor Who that does the time traveling thing

Can she go back and forth, or did she build the mills and stuff? Very curious

I think time-travel can be like...a branch of isekai. Also death isn't required for isekai, since various isekai involve summoning/being summoned, and others involve other means of transportation to another world. Mario is an isekai, Narnia as well. I think Alice in Wonderland might count, though it might also depend on the adaption and means of traveling to Wonderland.

With this manga as Goggled Anon said the two different time periods are basically different worlds, and Yasako mentions this story following a lot of the same beats as isekai stories in anime/manga/LNs. So I think the isekai tag works.

Honestly the thing that stuck out to me the most as being "this is a surface level look at Medieval Europe" is that the MC's name is Rachel but everyone treats her relatively normally. At that time, it would have been a VERY Jewish name and the only reason I can think of why a Christian would have it is her parents or grandparents converting. And even then, the name should totally be cited as part of why the villagers are suspicious of her, but it's not mentioned.

I’m a history neek and I love this I hope they get more yuri

Honestly the thing that stuck out to me the most as being "this is a surface level look at Medieval Europe" is that the MC's name is Rachel but everyone treats her relatively normally. At that time, it would have been a VERY Jewish name and the only reason I can think of why a Christian would have it is her parents or grandparents converting. And even then, the name should totally be cited as part of why the villagers are suspicious of her, but it's not mentioned.

There's times and places where Jews were tolerated in Europe, and they were pretty much always seen as "better than pagan at least" as far as I know. It certainly wasn't nonstop pogroms, although I don't know where 1350s Holy Roman Empire fell on the tolerance scale. But assuming Jews are tolerated as long as they provide a community service is probably the default in more times and places than not for historical Europe. Rachel seems to have found a niche for herself that's clearly beneficial to the local lord in some way and she couldn't do much better than that to secure a place here. The villagers are very unlikely to rise up and burn her without the local authorities instigating it.

Edit: given the state of education and cultural spread it's also entirely possible that while a Jewish person would recognize Rachel as a Jewish name, that specific cultural association would be completely lost on Christian peasants.

last edited at Sep 22, 2024 6:52PM

What makes an isekai is the whole “dying and reincarnating” thing, so it’s more likely it’s time travel

I’m curious how this girl got sent back in time. Is her room like the tortis? Tardis? The blue box in Doctor Who that does the time traveling thing

Can she go back and forth, or did she build the mills and stuff? Very curious

Isekai has often lately been conflated with reincarnation, but as someone else stated isekai is not about reincarnation. The word/term used by other manga that do have reincarnation usually have "tensei" in the title from the many I've seen, but as with any JP word using kanji you have to make sure the reading is correctly used.

What makes an isekai is the whole “dying and reincarnating” thing,

It's not. The "dying and reincarnating" thing only became a trend in isekai stories relatively recently. Most classic isekai stories involved traveling to another world through a portal or the like and ended with returning home.

Time travel can also be a form of isekai. Arguably one of the progenitors of the genre is "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain (especially the trope of bringing modern technology and culture to the other world), and there are other examples like "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "Futurama" and "Planet of the Apes".

Honestly the thing that stuck out to me the most as being "this is a surface level look at Medieval Europe" is that the MC's name is Rachel but everyone treats her relatively normally. At that time, it would have been a VERY Jewish name and the only reason I can think of why a Christian would have it is her parents or grandparents converting. And even then, the name should totally be cited as part of why the villagers are suspicious of her, but it's not mentioned.

There's times and places where Jews were tolerated in Europe

Except for a few very specific cities, the black plague was not such a time. Like was mentioned earlier, survivors were looking for scapegoats and Jewish people were the targets almost unilaterally

Honestly the thing that stuck out to me the most as being "this is a surface level look at Medieval Europe" is that the MC's name is Rachel but everyone treats her relatively normally. At that time, it would have been a VERY Jewish name and the only reason I can think of why a Christian would have it is her parents or grandparents converting. And even then, the name should totally be cited as part of why the villagers are suspicious of her, but it's not mentioned.

There's times and places where Jews were tolerated in Europe

Except for a few very specific cities, the black plague was not such a time. Like was mentioned earlier, survivors were looking for scapegoats and Jewish people were the targets almost unilaterally

This story is supposed to be set after the plague ended, right? Might be why there aren't any locals to recognize Rachel as a predominantly Jewish name...

Well, this manga premise sure wasn't on my bingo card

I'm just going to file this under "Cute Isekai Fantasy" and NOT think of the many nasty ways out heroines can be killed. ^_^

Honestly the thing that stuck out to me the most as being "this is a surface level look at Medieval Europe" is that the MC's name is Rachel but everyone treats her relatively normally. At that time, it would have been a VERY Jewish name and the only reason I can think of why a Christian would have it is her parents or grandparents converting. And even then, the name should totally be cited as part of why the villagers are suspicious of her, but it's not mentioned.

There's times and places where Jews were tolerated in Europe, and they were pretty much always seen as "better than pagan at least" as far as I know. It certainly wasn't nonstop pogroms, although I don't know where 1350s Holy Roman Empire fell on the tolerance scale. But assuming Jews are tolerated as long as they provide a community service is probably the default in more times and places than not for historical Europe. Rachel seems to have found a niche for herself that's clearly beneficial to the local lord in some way and she couldn't do much better than that to secure a place here. The villagers are very unlikely to rise up and burn her without the local authorities instigating it.

Edit: given the state of education and cultural spread it's also entirely possible that while a Jewish person would recognize Rachel as a Jewish name, that specific cultural association would be completely lost on Christian peasants.

While true, others have pointed out that post-plague really wasn't that time. Also, I think my point is more "if they're suspicious of outsiders, wouldn't one of the first remarks about it be that her Jewish name make her extra suspicious?" Or, at the very least, it would be seen as an odd name.

I'll note, by the way, that I highly doubt she's Jewish and would almost certainly be from a convert family, especially because she's a baker. In traditional Jewish law you're supposed to clean your entire house and work space of natural leavening agents before Passover, so she would have to clean her bakery from top to bottom and then not bake for about a week. And even if she was the least observant medieval Jew, she probably wouldn't skimp on the "don't make leavened bread" part. Understandable in a Jewish community, but not good business in gentile one, especially because German areas traditionally eat special breads before and during Easter.

Y'all are thinking about this too deeply. Take it as "entertainment first, education third" and accept the fact that it's gonna be riddled with half-truths, exaggerations and portrayals of very unusual things as normal. That's gonna be the only way to keep your sanity.

Y'all are thinking about this too deeply. Take it as "entertainment first, education third" and accept the fact that it's gonna be riddled with half-truths, exaggerations and portrayals of very unusual things as normal. That's gonna be the only way to keep your sanity.

Except this manga is very specifically trying to be accurate?
I still think the most likely explanation for the name Rachel going unremarked upon is Christian ignorance, though. Even in the present day with the Internet and pop culture Jewish representation and all I once overheard a group of gentiles trying to decide whether or not the name "Jacob" was Jewish or not. They eventually came to the conclusion that it probably wasn't lol.

Inject that historical yuri straight into my veins.

Yay for historical isekai, and spreading the word that medieval people were not all mud covered fools wallowing in their own shit.

Here to recommend J. Draper.

I'm only worried that if they started anything that they would be burned at the stake for being lesbians, or unmarried, or literate.

That's when you show them a new modern magic: GUN!

This looks promising. Thanks for the mammaries.

Nerding out over the trestle table rn

The informational afterword feels MTL'd in places. Mostly, the phrasing does stuff that MTL does. A human translator would usually try to add more variation rather than repeat "It was delicious. Sometimes they add salt, so it was very delicious."
Weirded me out a bit.

Also, it's known that there's a Japanese variant of kimchi, aptly just adapted to Japanese phonetics as kimuchi, created by people of Korean descent using local foodstuffs. I think it'd be a better comparison for sauerkraut than tsukemono, but maybe the author just doesn't have experience with it.

(in addition the fact that she can receive messages and goods from the future explains the fact she has a doorbell intercom and electricity lmao)

last edited at Oct 18, 2024 6:20PM