I fucking love Kurumi's gay panic attack's logic.

"Forward panic", which makes you progress to the next step in your relationship, as opposed to the usual backward gay panic.

Ah yes, the famous "I'm not straight I just love you because its you" trope that is definitely real

If I had to think of het stories where the FMC says "Yeah, I love guys in general" and acknowledging that she's not just in love with the MMC, and compare it to the number of women in yuri who have exes or are confident in their sexuality... I'd say yuri comes ahead in not making most of the stories single-target loves, actually.

Also, Minami absolutely doesn't say she's not gay (which would be pretty lacking in self-awareness, anyway). She just says she hadn't thought of it because she's only ever loved one person, and she doesn't feel any more attracted to girls who aren't Yuzu than to guys.

Granted, making Nanase fall for another girl would break down that trope, and it's part of why I hope that's how it goes. But it's a bit extreme to call it a chapter about "looking like the author doesn't support gays" when it literally introduced in the latest chapter a girl who says she's looking for a woman who loves women.

Kinda funny that a few people are riled up because of the manga using the trope of "I love her because she's Yuzu, not because she's a girl". I mean, sure, I understand disliking this... except it was always very clear that Minami doesn't like anyone other than Yuzu.

And in the same chapter, the new girl says exactly the opposite - that liking girls in general is more important. Feels a bit weird that what the new girl said were completely ignored in the comments. Maybe because she's set up as a rival ?

Anyway, still rooting for Hinori x Nanase once Minami sorts out this mess.

I guarantee you a generic anime community is on average a lot more pro-arranged-marriage (and pro-child-marriage, pro-slavery, etc.) than this forum

I do remember Reddit being very pro "just marry some guy and take the girl you love as a mistress" during MagiRevo. It took until they literally showed Anis throwing up from having to go through that, that the voices finally quieted down and people realize that no, forcing her to go through that arranged marriage was maybe not a good thing.

And Dynasty... is the same. Mind you, it's not like Anis was physically coerced - she just had such a monumental pressure from her family and position, that there was no room for choice left. It was the same in Sheep Princess, and it's the same here; they don't have a sword on their neck, but arguments that they're "free to choose" are tenuous. In fact, Sheep Princess showed the girl crying, and here we see Makino being very uncomfortable, so it was already shown that they're not fine with this situation, much like Anis.

But you can still see people defending the part in which they are setting up marriage interviews. The saving grace is that the parents are homophobes, which makes them designated villains, so people won't defend them; despite defending other parent characters doing the same thing in other works.
It would be interesting to see what the comment section would look like if the parents weren't homophobes, but equal in every other way. Probably a battlefield. Although I don't really mind the author intentionally villainizing the parents behind this coerced marriage, just to make sure it is very clear that you're not supposed to approve them because of "cultural practices".

I would have expected that Dynasty criticized scenarios in which a girl is forced to marry someone other than her lover under coercion (and to recognize that "Marry that guy, or we'll throw you in a dungeon / in the streets with nowhere to go" is, indeed, coercion). Instead, I saw the dominating reaction being... barely at the level of Reddit anime communities. Yeah, that's a low bar.

So what's the issue that yuri danshi has that people aren't fond of it?

Essentially, quite a few people expected it to be yuri, only to turn out to be het pandering for guys looking at yuri... kinda.

It was also cancelled after the sixth volume.

You can see more of the discussion in the 2017 section of the comments, i.e., here.

Why are we defending arranged marriages in the comments are you all fucking bricked in the head.

Just the usual Dynasty moment. Can't wait for the "it's not forced, it's arranged marriage" crew to come and explain why it's okay to make your daughter choose between some guy you picked for her, and getting thrown out of the family with nowhere to go.

Last time I saw that "discussion", the girl wasn't even an adult yet and you'd literally see her crying in the arms of her girlfriend when the marriage was decided for her, and the comments were still defending it.

I can't with this website.

The good thing is that the author does understand that Aki continuing to follow Shiho and eventually forcing her to confess was not right, and made that very clear in chapter 40 - along with facing their mismatched feeling between chapters 40 and 43.

In the end, that the author was able to write this story well and is receiving recognition for it matters a lot more than (and, if I think about it, comes less as a surprise) than a bunch of random people on these forums.

Victim-blaming ? Victim of what ? Of someone not wanting to be her friend ? If someone says they don't want to be friend to you, they are required to pour out their personal feelings first, otherwise you have a right to harass them every day to come back to you ? That's exactly the incel mindset icekatze was talking about.

Shiho made her wish to remain away from Aki clear, unequivocally and repeatedly. She didn't state her reason and didn't have any obligation to - not being friends with Aki, because she didn't want to be, was well within her rights.

And obviously, stating her reasons would just have made things worse for Aki - she'd have felt responsible for Shiho leaving and pressured to do something about it, at a time when she still had strong feelings for Yori.

The more I think about it, it does seem that Shiho has something like an incel mindset. She had feelings for Aki. Aki was treating her normally, and Shiho felt that she was entitled to more.

She was not. Shiho never felt entitled to more. She understood that her feelings were unrequited, and chose to distance herself from Aki because she knew she had no right to expect her feelings to change - and although they did change in the end, it was Aki's decision, one Shiho never pressured her for, nor even asked.

All Shiho asked was not to be forced to remain next to the girl that didn't love her back. She bottled her feelings because she already knew Aki had someone else she loved. She left the band, as she had every right to do, to not interfere with Aki. It was Aki who, despite Shiho having made clear that she wanted to distance herself, kept pursuing her and trying to remain close.

In the author's mind, Aki was in the wrong. But not for not giving Shiho what she wanted, and at no point did the story portray her not falling in love with Shiho earlier as a bad thing. She was in the wrong for trying to force Shiho into a friendship that she didn't want and hurt her. No, most people can't just "move on and remain friends" when the person they like doesn't return their feelings, and their choice not to remain around the other after they know their feelings are unrequited is not selfish, it's a basic right anyone has not to spend time around someone whose company hurts them. And I agree with the author that Aki was wrong, because I did the same when I was a teenager and I regret it.

Blastaar claiming that this is a reversal of responsibility is, quite frankly, shocking. What was Shiho guilty of ? Choosing not to be just friends with the girl that she fell in love with ? Whereas Aki would be innocent for pursuing someone who wanted to distance herself ? This take is, essentially, the friendship version of inceldom - the idea that you have a "right" to require someone to be your friend, even when they themselves do not want to.

At the same time, don't get me wrong, it's not like Aki made an unforgivable mistake. While yes, she should have respected Shiho's decision, she also didn't understand why she had chosen to distance herself. And although that's maybe not an excuse, she didn't realize that she was hurting Shiho in her attempt to remain friends. In the end, she also understood that she had been in the wrong, and only because she confronted her own feelings and realized that they had changed after Yori found happiness with Hima, and because she realized that there was a path where both Shiho and herself could find what they wanted, did she try to get close once again - successfully, this time. Frankly, I could not have asked better as a character resolution - as someone with good intentions, she made a mistake that was unintentional, she recognized it and regretted it, and she tried to mend it.

This arc was incredible. I don't think I've ever quite seen any other story depict so well a couple that didn't work and then changed until they could work (since How Do We Relationship never quite worked...).

Mainly because I relate to it directly, but the way Aki was handled was masterful. She was always very kind and without a malicious intent towards Shiho, but still ended up hurting a girl who loved her a lot and making tons of mistakes in her ignorance. Until eventually, she was willing to step forward and meet Shiho midway.

I'll never get how anyone can hate Shiho, though. It's like people don't understand how much it can hurt when you want to cut ties with your one-sided love, and she insists on being close to you, as "friends".

"If I'm not the person you thought I was, and you're not the person I thought you were" is a beautiful way to convey how their old selves just couldn't have been together in any way, because their feelings were not aligned, and how only because Aki changed and Shiho was willing to accept that things were not the same as before could they get a new chance together.

The first couple was fine, but I couldn't describe it as more than a nice yuri romance, although that's still praise. The way the second couple was written, developed, and the source of their conflicts felt far more real, unique and significant, and elevates this far beyond just "one more romance story".

Rose certainly has it rough balancing her work with her personal life. Lucky for her, she has the kind of issue that can be solved by jumping on a running high-speed train.

Estapleasefuckno

Despite all the death flags she had planted in the previous chapters, I don't want anything bad to happen to her. Because she's a good person, because she's the one Ari could open up to, I guess, and because so many other characters have been hinted to rely on her.

... At the same time, I know that unless something big happens to shake Sheena, this story can only end in tragedy for her and Mimi.

"Getting in the way of yuri is punishable by death" but taken completely literally.

Started this after seeing the update, it was very fun ! Thanks for bringing us another cute story to follow.

But there are a lot of cultural mores besides marriage where people feel like they don’t have any “choice” (if they want their family’s approval, if they want to fit in with their culture, etc.).

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. "It's a different culture" doesn't mean it's okay to force someone to marry some guy chosen for them or be ostracized by their family and the rest of the society they live in. You could also say that homophobia, institutionalized rape or inherent sexism are part of some cultures, and that's still not acceptable.

I don't see how any opinion that marriage shouldn't be free can be seen as acceptable. There are cultures where parents can act as matchmakers, which is completely okay, but the systematic pressure to accept such matchmaking "or else", like what Makino's parent are showing here, is not.

There’s also the big distinction between “forced” marriages (where the participants aren’t allowed to opt out) and “arranged” marriages, which people who react like the OP routinely ignore.

Clearly the parents aren't giving her a choice or asking for her opinion in this case, so it's perfectly fine to be mad with it.

Half of the "arranged" marriage are actually putting the girl under so much social and family pressure that it's a (recurring, thanks to the genre and authors not hating their characters) miracle for them to actually tell their parents to fuck off and walk away. In a more realistic setting, they'd have a choice between agreeing or ruining their life, so it's not like there's an actual choice, hence forced marriages that make people rightly mad.

last edited at Jul 11, 2023 1:06PM

With all the sometimes infuriating scumbaggery of Makino, she always had that touch of goodness behind it. Like how she actually cared and was open to understand others and change, but just a little.

Those parents don't, though. Screw them.

At least the good thing in this chapter is that Rena told her parents to fuck off. Looking forward to Makino doing the same.

Aww, I'm kinda sad that their date seems to be over. Back to intrigue, I guess.

"I guess I'll just settle for the fridge you bought" That line killed me, in a good way.

I can already picture Benika congratulating herself for making great progress in her shipping, once she sees Hibai and Gina leaving together.

Happy ending doesn't change the super sour feeling left by the queen-focused chapter. Momo gets to be married happily, but the author still decided that another character was forced to break up with her girlfriend and marry some dude she didn't know.

But hey, it's okay because "look, she's happy now anyway". It's what's annoying me the most (and making me very uncomfortable), that it was shown very positively and the forced break-up didn't matter. I guess it was just a phase. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sucks to be a side character.

I actually like Jessica. She's not a good person, sure, but she's pretty fun. And while she has a high opinion of herself and a very utilitarian view of Ada, she seems to be very earnest and wants to help. Plus, she's very expressive. I guess seeing her die at the side of Ada in her flashforward also makes me sympathize with her a little. I think she'll be quite fun once Ada decides on a path to try and bring Kaye to her side.

Sister system doesn't make much sense and Emielle talking about getting a little sister lessened a lot of the impact of that kiss and oath, a bit of a shame. Other than that, except for how the side arcs didn't get any conclusion, it was pretty satisfying to read.

Rose might be able to fend off a dozen armed attackers, but no way she can resist an attack like this.

Readers : ship the two spies the moment the second one is introduced

Manga : comes up with them being girlfriends as a "cover" in the next chapter

It's all coming together.