I think it's a good general principle that the actions depicted in comedy manga should not be taken as a guidebook for optimal real-life behavior.

As opposed to dramas about highschool girls having affairs, you should learn everything about life from them :P

I do like that even more over the top dramatic stories can help us understand real world dynamics, whether just thinking about it leading to insight into someone's real world "character" or realizing that, yeah, my acting like even a toned down version of some particular character would go pretty badly.

Maybe this is less important for other people, but I am autistic and not very good imagining people's emotional states in real time. It can be particularly helpful from that perspective.

last edited at Nov 30, 2024 2:39PM

I think it's a good general principle that the actions depicted in comedy manga should not be taken as a guidebook for optimal real-life behavior.

As opposed to dramas about highschool girls having affairs, you should learn everything about life from them :P

Or maybe not even then.

One of the characteristics of comedy manga series like this one is the piling up of one premise after another, some more plausible than others, until, if we were to actually stop and think about it, the whole thing becomes a completely preposterous house of cards teetering on the edge of madness.

But as manga readers we are accustomed to swallow each marginally possible premise in turn and so end up discussing the ethics of specific situations like “How would you feel if you came home and found your cram-school-teacher/lesbian-sex-worker partner demonstrating her pubic-hair grooming techniques to a young fellow student who aspires to the technical knowledge of a professional lesbian sex worker?”

Never stopping to think, “Wait, does Japan even have dedicated lesbian brothels/escort services? Does anywhere?”

Never stopping to think, “Wait, does Japan even have dedicated lesbian brothels/escort services? Does anywhere?”

There are similar services in Japan. Unless you mean specifically lesbian, then yeah that I can't say for sure. I do know there are individual workers who only take female clients not that dissimilar to what Mashiro does. I'm sure there are establishments for that purpose too. A quick search found a few but I'm not going too deep into vetting them. Agree with everything else, though I don't think Mashiro's part of the story is that extraordinary.

last edited at Nov 30, 2024 4:18PM

I seem to recall the Amano Shuninta story about prostitution was affiliated with a lesbian escort service. I might be misremembering between it being a few years and the language barrier though.

Certainly the existence of a lesbian escort service, especially in a culture like Japan's, is one of the more plausible aspects of the whole story

SrNevik, I see you're making the risky internet searches so the rest of us don't have to.

I think part of why these over the top, implausible situations are engaging is because they mirror dilemmas we may experience in our own life. The difference is that the manga ones are far more engaging and exciting due to their absurdity, but they're not categorically different than something we might experience with another person ourselves.

An example is two people having different relationships between wearing no or limited clothing, to the point one is confused by the other's actions. That's a real thing people have experienced, even if the specific situation in the manga had piled on absurdities. Most of the situations are like that. If they were totally unrelatable, it would be like reading about aliens or a story about a social species of fish living in a school of fish (where the fish has species realistic emotions, thoughts, and relationships instead of being an anthropomorphic fish).

Sometimes people to do get heated in these discussions. In that case, it's worth remembering that it is fiction and the consequences for not collectively resolving the ethics of the absurd situation are relatively low. When it instead remains a fun thought experiment, I think it's harmless and potentially helpful for some people in some situations to consider.

last edited at Nov 30, 2024 5:40PM

Never stopping to think, “Wait, does Japan even have dedicated lesbian brothels/escort services? Does anywhere?”

We looked into this before, and there seem to be at least two in Tokyo, with 'lesbian' or 'yuri' right in the names.

Never stopping to think, “Wait, does Japan even have dedicated lesbian brothels/escort services? Does anywhere?”

We looked into this before, and there seem to be at least two in Tokyo, with 'lesbian' or 'yuri' right in the names.

As opposed to the one on every street corner in yuri manga. . . .

As opposed to the one on every street corner in yuri manga. . . .

This feels like the premise for a comedy oneshot.

"But senpai... we can't! Girls can't love girls!"

(protagonist opens window, immediately sees signs for six different lesbian brothels)

As opposed to the one on every street corner in yuri manga. . . .

This feels like the premise for a comedy oneshot.

"But senpai... we can't! Girls can't love girls!"

(protagonist opens window, immediately sees signs for six different lesbian brothels)

More like they'd find an app/webpage or find someone on social media to connect with, like Makino. But that would be a hilarious panel reveal lol

We looked into this before, and there seem to be at least two in Tokyo, with 'lesbian' or 'yuri' right in the names.

The establishment I saw earlier had a whole series of chains across Tokyo. All lesbian only. The number surprised me but didn't at the same time.

SrNevik, I see you're making the risky internet searches so the rest of us don't have to.

Haha. They're actually really public. It's not really risky.

last edited at Nov 30, 2024 6:55PM

@ Blastaar

As opposed to the one on every street corner in yuri manga. . . .

Well, not in this manga, where we know of exactly one in both Japan and the entire world. You may hedging when the manga, while not realistic, was not quite as unrealistic as you first assumed. Stories normally involve some unusual situation, but unusual and unrealistic are very different.

We did see iirc a restaurant with female waiters in men's clothes, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tokyo had at least one of those too.

@SrNevik

Haha. They're actually really public. It's not really risky.

I meant more so having google searches for lesbian brothels in my search history. Having to explain that one if anyone found out / noticed I did it would be like a real life manga situation for me.

I know second hand that coordinating with clients is often done on the web, generally with no negative repercussions for either party, so you finding something isn't that surprising to me. Nor is at least location existing in a very large city like Tokyo, for that matter. Even if the workers don't exclusively take female clients, I imagine it could be slightly awkward for some to ask a regular escort if they take female clients. Having a venue where potential clients know that's okay would be encouraging for that group, while the worker could still seek additional clients elsewhere if they wanted.

last edited at Nov 30, 2024 7:24PM

Iirc the lesbian escort services in Japan are both real and totally legal, because the county's anti-prostitution laws are specific to either hetero interactions or penetration (can't remember which, I think maybe the latter). There's nothing at all unrealistic about Mashiro's job in this manga's modern Tokyo setting.

to either hetero interactions or penetration (can't remember which, I think maybe the latter)

Yeah, I think it's PIV that's illegal. Anything else is fair game.