Yeah, I'm often stark naked when all I want to do is to watch TV.

Also, shouldn't this zaftig deliciousness get a Chubby tag?

Boobs. Boobs are the winner.

Why isn't that real ...

As a child of the 80's, I am unsure how to feel about this ...

^ And her left hand on Sumire's shoulder, with Sumire's hands occupied bracing herself against the table ... total attack mode for Keke. She's in control here - I love that!

@Fairy of the Gilded Lilies: I can personally attest - Cunnilingus Jaw is a real thing.

^ I find yuri to be frustratingly scarce in Korean manhwa.

Damn Tiki! Save some of that muffin for later, girl!

Bet she has nice Cinnabuns. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Since they have a roughly three-inch height difference, those must be some serious heels.

While I am happy for fans of this anime that it has drawn Kitaku's attention, I am a bit disappointed he (she?) isn't focusing their talents on addressing the continuing crisis of the Love Live Superstar smut shortage.

last edited at Dec 20, 2022 3:45AM

Ok I hate to be overly pedantic, but the water is right there. She doesn't have to choose one or the other, and drinking it would help her get to her woman faster. This would work better if there was a sign pointing to water in the distance.

Just sayin'.

^^ Actually, "on bed" does kinda make sense. Who actually has sex under the covers anymore?

^^ I wish it was daily.

last edited at Dec 20, 2022 3:22AM

Hmmm ... I went back and watched episode 1 again; I can see what you mean, except that the whole conversation between them was all about Honoka, so I guess it's a little hard (for me) to think of that as a shipping moment! :-) Although the doujins do at times cater to the notion of KotoUmi sprouting from mutual longing for Honoka. Which, sounds kinda like your "Honoka +" dynamic, if I'm interpreting it right.

I do like HonoTsuba also - that's a delicious dynamic in many ways; it's just that there is undoubtedly something special in both the HonoKoto and HonoUmi bond. Note how at the end of season 1 Umi herself didn't even try to keep Kotori from leaving, instead telling Honoka that there was only one person who could do that, the person she hoped would tell her not to go. Plus the "crying scene" near the end of Season 2, with Kotori leaning her head on Honoka's shoulder was really cute. And I don't know if you watched the movie, but I liked the way Umi got so angry with Honoka when she went missing for a bit, because she was worried sick, with Kotori noting how much Umi loved Honoka. Again, that's all fundamentally stuff in "dear friend love" territory, but that's like most everything else.

However, in defense of the Honoka + KotoUmi dynamic, Umi's slap seemed to be indicitave of holding Honoka to a higher standard than Kotori or anyone else, like she expected her to remain the inspirational dynamo she always was despite being crushed inside (which is why I hated it, because I felt like that was a moment for her friends to acknowledge that Honoka was worthy of sympathy as a person rather than to be treated like a hero who let everyone down by being human). Plus, Kotori's struggle to actually talk to Honoka about leaving, when she had no problem going to Umi ... I suppose this does perhaps jibe with an idea of Umi and Kotori almost thinking of Honoka as this whirlwind moving too fast to really ever be in sync with, like she'd always be just beyond them, and they'd always be following her lead and struggling just to keep up.

I'm kind of motivated now to go back and re-watch SIP to pay attention to Honoka's individual interactions with people.

That's fair enough. You might've just been getting wires crossed with one of the many other storylines. I was actually a little worried that my response was too snarky, and I really appreciate that you reconsidered your perspective instead of getting defensive and doubling down. Respect.

Thanks, I've gotten into snark wars before on this forum and it seems I've learned a lesson. My initial inclination was to strongly defend my position, but then I figured I should probably check my work, so to speak, so I consulted the kiss list and I couldn't believe how many there were that I'd forgotten about.

In this one, my reaction came from seeing Chie's face in the last panel with her eyes closed, which seemed (to me) like she was suppressing some serious disappointment that she didn't get Ai's lips. But in retrospect I'm almost certainly exaggerating the significance of it.

I actually really like this couple and so I'm probably remembering some of the disappointment from the near-misses before they finally kissed the first time (as I mentioned before I binge-read most of this). But by the same token, I can definitely see that my initial post was probably a bit triggering to others; we all understandably get emotionally invested in these storylines.

last edited at Dec 19, 2022 5:45PM

Never mind. I'm apparently losing my mind.

Maybe you were thinking of Michiru, the photographer who keeps sending seriously mixed messages to Airi, her model.

Oh I've definitely been irritated with her ... wtf? At times she's even seemed to be in denial that she's gay, which couldn't be more obvious.

It's possible my wires got crossed a bit; maybe that's what happens when you binge read the first 240 or so chapters of a manga with 15 different ships in it.

But I think I've probably just exaggerated in scope or significance a few times here or there when Ai has seemed strangely resistant to taking things further. But that certainly hasn't kept them from kissing, even though that's how I remembered it. I think also the change in tone from the beginning of the manga, where there was all sorts of gratuitous handsy ecchi (paricularly Ai's breast groping) vs. now, when that's all been toned down, has made Ai's relative prudishness as of late seem kind of frustrating.

Indeed, we do have different preferences.

Since you mention KotoUmi, and seem to cop to a thinness for its premise, I have to say I've always found that to be the most overrated ship. Admittedly, it's partly because I'm a Honoka stan and I hate her being left out, but also whenever I see doujins of the ship, it's not really Umi and Kotori. It's Umi and Freakotori, the hypersexualized version of Kotori that authors seem to take so much liberty with, despite her seemingly "pure" personality. (It's rather curious the way Kotori seems to be such a fertile ground for personality elaboration - she also seems to be a common choice for "yandere-ization".) Because otherwise, Umi's button-down, prim sensibility and Kotori's cheerful, easy going nature don't seem to leave much room for the kind of tension and conflict that make fictional relationships interesting (even though it might work fine in real life).

This is one person trying to progress a relationship and the other person treating her like a niusance to be kept at arm's length.

We clearly don't read the same manga. To me you're describing a total different couple. They have shown very sweet moments together and Ai has shown more than once she love Chie and want a future together with her. I don't know how you manage to come to such a conclusion.

Poor Chie. She must be so frustrated. Ai has become tiresome and pathetic.

Sorry, but I really don't get why people still enjoy this pairing. I used to love them, but at some point Ms. "can I touch your boobs" turned into a mega-prude. This isn't a couple anymore. This is one person trying to progress a relationship and the other person treating her like a niusance to be kept at arm's length. Let me know when Ai realizes she's actually in a relationhip and stops taking Chie for granted.

I....what???

If we were in the same room, I would be staring at you like you just grew an eyeball out of each nostril. I cannot imagine how in the world you could read this comic, where Ai is giggly and blushing like crazy over a text roleplay kiss, and think she is "treating her like a nuisance" or "taking her for granted."

It's like if you started talking about the mecha combat on page four. Just, like....you're describing things that are explicitly not in the comic.

Never mind. I'm apparently losing my mind. I've been feeling frustrated with Ai for a while now and yet looking back over old Ai x Chie chapters I can't even figure out why. There've been plenty of kisses and physical intimacy I didn't even remember. Apparently I've either been transported to an alternate reality, or I read too many damn comics to keep them all straight ... or parenting life is just too stressful and my memory is suffering ...

Poor Chie. She must be so frustrated. Ai has become tiresome and pathetic.

Sorry, but I really don't get why people still enjoy this pairing. I used to love them, but at some point Ms. "can I touch your boobs" turned into a mega-prude. This isn't a couple anymore. This is one person trying to progress a relationship and the other person treating her like a niusance to be kept at arm's length. Let me know when Ai realizes she's actually in a relationhip and stops taking Chie for granted.

Well, I'll say this: I think those of us outside Japan (I'm making an assumption about you here) suffer from a narrow window into this whole thing, because much of this gets decided in Dengeki where the characters are introduced and developed, well before the anime (and in the case of SIP and Sunshine, a manga to boot). They run articles and fan polls, get reader feedback, let them ask the characters questions (not to mention the weird thing where the voice actresses serve as IRL avatars for the characters as if they're a real idol group) and that's where a lot of the popular pairings come from. So it's possible we'd see these as a somewhat more organic kind of thing if we were immersed in all of that ahead of time. (Although in some cases, this might make for a more disjointed experience, since at times the anime writers take liberties with the characters as established - case in point, the third years in SIP, whose personalities in the anime are radically different from their initial conceptions in print.)

As for the relationships you point out in SIP, well, I guess I'll have to go back and watch again (it's been a while) because I struggled to recall a lot of the ones you mentioned, but I suspect much of it is more surface level than I would like. That's unfortunately all part of my biggest gripe with the anime industry - you get these exalted few like Naruto or One Piece or Fairy Tail that just go on ad infinitum and end up wasting time with lame filler episodes, while the rest give you two seasons (three if you're lucky) and you're done. Having just 24-26 or 36-39 episodes just isn't enough time to have both depth and breadth in the development of character relationships. And I guess if I have to pick, I prefer depth - whereas (not to put words in your mouth) but it sounds like you prefer breadth. Which I totally understand - it's an ensemble show after all. That's why I think these 9-12 piece idol shows deserve more time than they get as anime.

But I make no pretenses - I'm the shipping type. In fact, I'm glad you mentioned ChikaRiko, because that's precisely the kind of thing I wanted to see in SIP but unfortunately didn't get. Complete with the subsequent jealousy from You - delicious interpersonal drama. It's great whether you want to think of it as yuri or just close female bonding.

As for SumiKeke, what makes the relationship interesting is that Keke's attitude toward Sumire becomes antagonistic because Sumire is a prima donna who's obsessed with her childhood acting career and doesn't revere idolhood in the way Keke does. I feel like I recall that being more or less established before the beach episode (you'll have to forgive my lack of specificity regarding episode numbers). And when you have two characters who clash, well, what can I say - that's like catnip to a lot of shippers. It just makes for such interesting drama to have the whole "I hate you but I love you" dynamic. So to me the ship didn't come out of nowhere at all, because that sort of antagonism is a red flag for a lot of shippers.

And say, while I am talking to such a big fan of SIF, let me get your take on one aspect that's always bothered me: the slap. I mean, WTF? Was that a fucked up reaction or what? I felt like Honoka had every right to be mad (and hurt) about Kotori - I was feeling it with her - and yet she was the one who ended up being made out to be the bad guy and having to apologize. At the very least I thought it was a complete cop-out for the anime to end the episode there and never show the immediate reaction of Honoka and everyone else. Really made me kinda hate Umi a bit, especially given that she never really apologized to Honoka. What'd you think?

last edited at Dec 17, 2022 4:13AM

@DY4Y: I'm kind of the opposite of you - I actually came to watch Love Live to get a better feel for the ships I was seeing in doujins. As much as I love the original anime and characters, I feel like there was so much value added from the doujin community because the one thing the anime didn't give us was a lot about specific character relationships outside of the general second-year trio friendship and the occasional momentary wink-wink to NicoMaki.

I don't see shipping as detracting from individual character development (although I would agree we could use some more back-story on Keke), but rather as enriching it. In fact that might be what makes SumiKeke feel "forced" to some, because their individual personalities are strongly developed enough to see how much they clash (which is also why the ship seems interesting).

@FluffyCow: You make a valid point in general, but I don't think that's what's at work here. Because one of the real head-scratching things about Super Star - not that it's a bad thing - is the almost complete lack of hetero hentai for it.

I've never liked hetero stuff with anonymous males, which is pretty much all you'll get for a franchise that weirdly goes out of its way to never show a male character. But with the earlier Love Lives, before I discovered Dynasty Scans, I was accustomed to having to wade through a ton of it in order to find the GG stories. So you're right that Yuri unfortunately gets less attention than straight or yaoi stuff, but with Super Star the scarcity is across the board.

last edited at Dec 16, 2022 3:48AM

@Perlen297: I wonder what the problem is? Are people just tired of Love Live? I feel like SumiKeke is one of the most promising ships in this franchise and it's just gone cold for some reason. I hope the ham-fisted way they portrayed their relationship as semi-toxic to set up the big episode 9 payoff didn't turn artists off ...

@MochaKiss: I enjoyed your talk. I've always wondered if scissoring really worked as well as advertised, but it's just hard to work the question into a conversation.

^^ Seriously, I've never gotten the appeal of sex in heels.

Now sneakers on the other hand ...