I'm kinda getting sick of how Toriko is trying to force something that is only just developing and only focusing on her own feelings instead of seeing how Sorawo is suffering because of this behavior.

Novel volume 8 spoilers:

The reason Toriko acts like that is because literally since the first moment they met, Sorawo's been shamelessly staring at her tits, which Toriko took as an invitation. One of the great uses of unreliable narration in fiction

I don't think it was her tits specifically? I was under the impression that she's just been staring in general, at Toriko's face as well, I can't find the specific moment this was brought up, though. I agree that it was great to get a confirmation of just how unreliable a narrator Sorawo can be. I find that one of the best things in this series is to try and read between the lines and notice what Sorawo tries to conceal or just doesn't even realize, about herself and others too. It's especially fun in the book, where she almost always tries to downplay her emotions, but getting to see expressions in the manga is also great.

It was her whole body, the point is she's been looking at Toriko in a sexual way since the very beginning, she just didn't realize.
you can't spoiler embedded images, so here's a link instead, spoilers for vol 8 https://files.catbox.moe/o4fcug.jpeg
When Toriko said she loved Sorawo for the first time after fighting the cult, she wasn't doing it as a "confession", she thought she was responding to Sorawo's unverbalized but incredibly obvious feelings for her. She had no idea Sorawo was totally oblivious to her own feelings and thus assumed it was mutual and they were a couple. Which is why she was so absolutely gobsmacked by Sorawo's "you're acting like my boyfriend" comment.

One of the very distinctive things about Sorawo is that she is dissociated to the point of having very little access to her own emotions.

This is not imo translating well to the manga. In the LNs, it gets enforced every single scene - we see the world through Sorawo’s eyes descriptively, but lacking the emotional color and to some extent the intentionality we would normally take for granted from a first person perspective.

This is so striking that when I started reading I actually wondered if Miyazawa was just a bad writer before really coming to appreciate it. Now I like it enough that I recently wrote a fanfic using this narrator method (specifically a toxic yuri class of 09 fic).

So Sorawo has little access to her internal world, doesn’t understand her own emotions or behavior, and definitely doesn’t understand how she comes across to others. This file is awesome for peeling that back and confronting her with it. Being Otherside picnic it’s of course supernatural… she’s also so anti-social that I think it takes until LN9 for people around her to talk about her directly about how she comes across.

Did you want a frustration free protagonist or an interesting one?

last edited at Jul 22, 2025 2:40PM

I'm kinda getting sick of how Toriko is trying to force something that is only just developing and only focusing on her own feelings instead of seeing how Sorawo is suffering because of this behavior.

Novel volume 8 spoilers:

The reason Toriko acts like that is because literally since the first moment they met, Sorawo's been shamelessly staring at her tits, which Toriko took as an invitation. One of the great uses of unreliable narration in fiction

I don't think it was her tits specifically? I was under the impression that she's just been staring in general, at Toriko's face as well, I can't find the specific moment this was brought up, though. I agree that it was great to get a confirmation of just how unreliable a narrator Sorawo can be. I find that one of the best things in this series is to try and read between the lines and notice what Sorawo tries to conceal or just doesn't even realize, about herself and others too. It's especially fun in the book, where she almost always tries to downplay her emotions, but getting to see expressions in the manga is also great.

It was her whole body, the point is she's been looking at Toriko in a sexual way since the very beginning, she just didn't realize.
you can't spoiler embedded images, so here's a link instead, spoilers for vol 8 https://files.catbox.moe/o4fcug.jpeg
When Toriko said she loved Sorawo for the first time after fighting the cult, she wasn't doing it as a "confession", she thought she was responding to Sorawo's unverbalized but incredibly obvious feelings for her. She had no idea Sorawo was totally oblivious to her own feelings and thus assumed it was mutual and they were a couple. Which is why she was so absolutely gobsmacked by Sorawo's "you're acting like my boyfriend" comment.

It's even more fun to think about it with what happens in volume 7.
Even amnesic Sorawo think for a while that they may be going out, given what she understands of the situation. That even shock Toriko so much that she hands up slapping Sorawo haha ...

I'm kinda getting sick of how Toriko is trying to force something that is only just developing and only focusing on her own feelings instead of seeing how Sorawo is suffering because of this behavior.

Novel volume 8 spoilers:

The reason Toriko acts like that is because literally since the first moment they met, Sorawo's been shamelessly staring at her tits, which Toriko took as an invitation. One of the great uses of unreliable narration in fiction

I don't think it was her tits specifically? I was under the impression that she's just been staring in general, at Toriko's face as well, I can't find the specific moment this was brought up, though. I agree that it was great to get a confirmation of just how unreliable a narrator Sorawo can be. I find that one of the best things in this series is to try and read between the lines and notice what Sorawo tries to conceal or just doesn't even realize, about herself and others too. It's especially fun in the book, where she almost always tries to downplay her emotions, but getting to see expressions in the manga is also great.

It was her whole body, the point is she's been looking at Toriko in a sexual way since the very beginning, she just didn't realize.
you can't spoiler embedded images, so here's a link instead, spoilers for vol 8 https://files.catbox.moe/o4fcug.jpeg
When Toriko said she loved Sorawo for the first time after fighting the cult, she wasn't doing it as a "confession", she thought she was responding to Sorawo's unverbalized but incredibly obvious feelings for her. She had no idea Sorawo was totally oblivious to her own feelings and thus assumed it was mutual and they were a couple. Which is why she was so absolutely gobsmacked by Sorawo's "you're acting like my boyfriend" comment.

I don't think Sorawo is oblivious to her feelings for Toriko, she's just struggling to process them because half her emotional bandwidth is wrapped up in raw dogging PTSD while Japan's inadequate mental health support system shoots finger guns at her. And that's the constant running theme: while they both love each other, Sorawo struggles with her trauma while Toriko struggles with the myriad issues that accompany loving someone with trauma. And godddd, that scene in Volume 8, where it's revealed how much research Toriko has been doing to support Sorawo... ToT

Lesbians would rather explore an extremely dangerous alternate plane of existence than go to therapy, istg

last edited at Jul 25, 2025 2:26AM

I don't think Sorawo is oblivious to her feelings for Toriko, she's just struggling to process them because half her emotional bandwidth is wrapped up in raw dogging PTSD while Japan's inadequate mental health support system shoots finger guns at her. [...]

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

I don't think Sorawo is oblivious to her feelings for Toriko, she's just struggling to process them because half her emotional bandwidth is wrapped up in raw dogging PTSD while Japan's inadequate mental health support system shoots finger guns at her. [...]

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

You mean, having her mother die at a young age, then having her remaining family (father and grandmother) wrapped up in a cult, having that cult ruining her family, then trying to recruit her as well? Or do you mean her running away when the cult was planning to adduct her, or when she was planing to burn her house with her family and her at the same time and only to discover that they already died in an accident involving the cult?

Pretty classic childhood indeed. Nothing to be traumatized about.

I don't think Sorawo is oblivious to her feelings for Toriko, she's just struggling to process them because half her emotional bandwidth is wrapped up in raw dogging PTSD while Japan's inadequate mental health support system shoots finger guns at her. [...]

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

You mean, having her mother die at a young age, then having her remaining family (father and grandmother) wrapped up in a cult, having that cult ruining her family, then trying to recruit her as well? Or do you mean her running away when the cult was planning to adduct her, or when she was planing to burn her house with her family and her at the same time and only to discover that they already died in an accident involving the cult?

Pretty classic childhood indeed. Nothing to be traumatized about.

That's all a normal Saturday for me.

I really liked how Sorawo tried to find Toriko in her University. Also it only makes sense for her to be avoidant like that. She knows what Toriko wants and right now it's too much for her. Overall I love the pacing of their relationship and this angst, but it's true that Toriko is being pushy with her too. I wouldn't change this dynamic they are having right now though lol.

Also I don't think someone needs to have a PTSD or something traumatic in their life to not be ready or even want to take the next step. Nor does it mean they're asexual or in the spectrum.

last edited at Jul 25, 2025 12:12PM

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

This comment is hilarious to me. Are you also disassociated from the real world? - although this time, because of too much fiction. Characters in stories frequently go through a lot of trauma that's just depicted as NBD normal because of the particular story they're in. In real life ... not so much.

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

This comment is hilarious to me. Are you also disassociated from the real world? - although this time, because of too much fiction. Characters in stories frequently go through a lot of trauma that's just depicted as NBD normal because of the particular story they're in. In real life ... not so much.

It's considered no big deal by Sorawo herself, as a narrator. Which is logical, when it's all you know, it's your normal. But everyone around her consider her story as a big deal. So even from a fictional point of view, this is not considered normal.

Why would she have PTSD, though? What Sorawo went through is no big deal; it's a fairly common story, really.

This comment is hilarious to me. Are you also disassociated from the real world? - although this time, because of too much fiction. Characters in stories frequently go through a lot of trauma that's just depicted as NBD normal because of the particular story they're in. In real life ... not so much.

This was a (almost) direct quote by Sorawo from File 4. It was a joke. And as the commenter above mentioned, Sorawo's trauma is not treated as normal in the work itself either.

This is a little off topic and kind of random, but I just wanted to share that this panel of Toriko has been living rent free in my head for a while now:

I love the way the artist draws her. She's simultaneously so handsome and beautiful. And the way she gives off girlfriend aura, standing behind Sorawo and overlapping their shoulders slightly so casually... I love it...

Ophelia...

Oh Sorawo you complete idiot....

Sorawo panicking any time the conversation gets even sliiiiiiightly personal lol

https://youtu.be/2om-Gxszvvk

Instead of yaoi hands that doppelgänger has yuri hands.

This translation comes out right when I finished reading this chapter in the light novel, lol. There are so many scenes that I wanna see visually so I guess I should start reading the manga too.

Sorawo almost had an emotion she recognized once, but actually it just turned out to be cosmic horror.

This File gives only a taste of what we don't know about Toriko, the things inherently hidden from Sorawo's point of view and the things Sorawo doesn't bother to ask. It's frustrating and unnerving, in a good way.

The page where Sorawo can see Toriko in the first bathroom mirror makes me wonder what kind of expressions were on Toriko's face the previous times she was separated from Sorawo and worried about her. In most visual storytelling it would be normal for the audience to see that kind of stuff, but here it feels oddly intimate. Though the mildly voyeuristic effect from the one-sided nature of the reflections in this File and Sorawo briefly gaining access to some of Toriko's visual memories, probably adds to that.

Instead of yaoi hands that doppelgänger has yuri hands.

If the doppelgänger was involved in the novel version, I totally forgot, which makes it creepier. Well, and the fact that she only shows up on a few pages and disappears from view quickly each time. Yikes.

I remember when I was reading the novel a few years ago, I was thinking "gosh, I really hope the manga will catch at least until this chapter" and here we are. It's pretty incredible that it has come that far. And now that the publication of the novel have slow down quite a bit, it's even possible that one day, the manga will catch up. Can't wait for next chapter :)

No way, now the server blight is here!

I really liked read all the chapters with Aphex Twin in my headphones

FINALLY! Sorawo finally understands, really realizes how deep Toriko's feelings for her actually go. It's been a long time coming.

This is one of my favorite parts, glad the manga did it well.