On a similar note, remember that it's normal for your weight to vary from day to day (or even within a day), so it's important to look at trends in your weight, not just the raw number.

I was the one side in that argument stating that she said, in her interview, that she didn't consider the story she's currently writing as yuri (ie, romance between girls), but as "female close relationship" or something. Ie, Gal Pals. Or subtext.

Afk was arguing that she implied "so far", I was arguing that she's talking about the whole story in general.

Not yuri then. Friendly affection between girls. The warmth of having a gal pal who is really close to you, like a soulmate, and really understands you.

This chapter really drives the point home.

This reminds me of an episode of People Watching. The entire thing is about how popular culture heavily devalues friendships and tries to center everything on sexual relationships despite that being "Fucking lame."

Well, Melua certainly had an interesting reaction to Utaho questioning the nature of their amnesia. I wonder if she remembers more than she lets on. That last few pages certainly seem to hint at some differences in how they were discovered.

This looks like a bot, maybe? There only post is certainly weird and out of context.

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/posts?user_id=83275

Not sure why people have settled on the idea that she is a free-spirited artistic type. The focus on nudity and alabaster suggest to me that the mangaka is going for something a bit more classical here.

She's coded as free spirited, if you don't know much about art. There's the two-tone hair, the slightly unkempt appearance and room, playing hooky from her club, and tempting the MC with ... unconventional methods. In other contexts, the casual nudity would also, probably, count.

Yeah, I'm not too sure about that. Street art is a form of freedom for art. The city, or even the world is your canvas.

Here, she seems free spirited, but she's still a teacher and just goads the MC into doing boring stuff (draw on canvas, draw the human body).

So, while the fact that she's naked is supposed to show that she's wild, in the end, it's still all about getting in line and do what society expects of you.

Exactly, nothing more irritating than to read something that obviously want to be "unconventional" while doing it in the most conventional way. Seriously, there was a good base concept with the delinquent student and "alternative" teacher (sadly, she really isn't) but the execution is just not there.

Maybe I'm wrong and the teacher will learn along the student among other thing and overall get better, but considering the start and the track record with these, I'm not holding my breath.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was bothered by that. I love the character designs, but an art teacher whose take on graffiti is "You should do it on a canvas and, while you're at it, switch over to doing classic nudes" is a choice.

Honestly, the teacher came off as really creepy with how she pressed him on doing the nudes and I'm glad he called her on the sexual harassment, even if that line was immediately dropped.

On an unrelated note, there's a blank speech bubble in the second to last panel of page 35, chapter 1. Was that supposed to say something?

last edited at Jun 22, 2022 4:33AM

This is a large-type Huge and over here there are mid and small type Huge. ...

Who came up with that naming scheme‽

Huh. I think this is the first chapter where one of them hasn't mentioned the villainess's ability to go at it for 3 days and 3 nights. They were surprisingly consistent with that particular line.

Huh. She seems to have already lost her halo in this one.

Damn you intsys. Let me be gay with manuela…

Well, there's always 3 Hopes. Speaking of, the demo for that is out now and it's quite good.

A casual hand on the boob there.

It definitely looks that way, but I'm pretty sure she's gripping the edge of the shirt, so she can pull against the thread in her mouth, meaning her hand is actually facing away from the boob.

Of course, I'm not sure how much it matters after she's practically shoved her face into that cleavage.

The way I see it, Evie's problem is that she still views Elsa as a fragile flower and does not trust in Elsa's ability to handle whatever the villainess system throws at them. This is not Evie's fault because she was traumatized by the last time she rebelled against it and has an overwhelming fear of its wrath. Still, we've been shown time and time again that Elsa is a powerhouse and that, unless she is caught at a very vulnerable moment like at the very start of the series, nothing Evie does to her can actually stick.

Uh ... We have definitely not been shown that. Elsa is a powerful mage, and she'd beat Evie is a straight up contest of magic, but she's still human. She has weaknesses and, more importantly, she's no more durable than everyone else.

Feelings are complicated.

Pretty sure that if she shared what was happening to her with Evie that Evie's magic is powerful enough to tamper with the system.

There's no indication that her magic could even touch the system, let alone be strong enough to interfere with it. While it's certainly possible she could do something, I'd expect it to result from her status as heroine, not raw magic power, and that doesn't seem to be working out for her so far.

... it's one of these stories, with this mixed, somewhat uncomfortable vibe, not sure how to explain it. Gotta have variety I guess.

If you take it seriously, the blonde found a suicidal girl, took her home, and then plied her with drink after drink in an attempt to have sex with her. I think the part where it became really uncomfortable, for me, was when she kept asking "Are you drunk" and then offering another drink when the answer was "no."

For what it's worth, my money is on Mitsuki already knowing she's gay (or bi) and she's acting the way she is because she's into Aya, but thinks Aya's straight.

I will actually be mildly frustrated if Aya does not connect the dots on her own, there is plenty to go on here. There is also stuff like the shape and colour of the eyes, shape of eyebrows and such. Like, if this was someone she saw masked but only in passing and then does not recognise the same person without the mask, I could buy her not realising. But with how much she stared at the masked version and given that the unmasked version is literally sitting next to her, I am beginning to think it more and more unrealistic that she is not going "wait a moment, this is the same person". Especially since she does get flashes of the "guy's" face when she looks at Mitsuki.

To be fair, Mitsuki seems to keep a low profile at school, so Aya may not have had much reason to pay attention to her until very recently. She also seems to spend her breaks talking with her friends and, presumably, she's looking towards the front during class, so it would be pretty believable if she never took a close look at Mitsuki's face before.

Of course, their two most recent encounters change that rather drastically, so I'd also be pretty disappointed if she doesn't start putting two and two together soon.

A couple of things on Aya figuring out Mitsuki's identity: First, I think Mitsuki's had her hood up, and a mask on, every time Aya's seen her at the store. It seems like that combo hides her ears pretty effectively, so she may not have seen the piercings.

Second, this is actually the second time she's gotten a flash of Mitsuki's store clerk identity while at school; the first time was in chapter 3, when Mitsuki decided to be an absolute player while giving Aya back her earphone. ... she has a bad habit of doing that. It's also worth noting that both times, her recognition seemed focused on Mitsuki's eye's.

Personally, my bet is that Aya will figure out what's going on fairly quickly, possibly after seeing Mitsuki at school with her glasses off, assuming the later doesn't work up the courage to just tell her first.

Also, I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but while going back to double check things, Ch.3 Pg.2 stood out to me. At the top of the page, we get a closeup panel of Mitsuki's eye next to a close up of Aya's, very long nails. Then, at the bottom of the page and directly aligned with Aya's nails, we get another panel that shows a close up of Mitsuki's well trimmed nails.

Finally, speaking of nails, could Mitsuki be using some type of temporary nail polish that doesn't require harsh chemicals to remove?

last edited at May 29, 2022 9:43PM

Hauteclere posted:

"But the villainess will never be a love interest option."

Rae Taylor: Laughs

Also I feel like there might be something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense about Garth being a mega yuri fan in this otome game world but I'm just gonna choose not to think about it that much because I like it.

That line is interesting, how can this girl think about the villainess not being a love interest and at the same time wonder why she's jealous... It doesn't get more obvious than that! so I'm glad the yuri danshi is here to tell her right in the face because that level of density can form galaxies

She knows that [i]she[/i] likes Elsa, even if she doesn't want to admit how much, but she also thinks that she has to play the role of Villainess, which precludes a romantic relationship with the Heroine.

To put it into context, the first scene of the manga showed the Villainess system trying to force Evie to either actively push Elsa off a roof or watch her jump; the implication being that she would either die or be severely injured as a result of the fall. When Evie refused those two options the system proceeded to severely punish her.

How eager would you be to date someone you care about if you knew your continued proximity to them would likely result in you having to kill them, someone else your care about, or yourself? Wouldn't it be easier, and safer, to deny their feelings, and your own, in the hopes that they could find someone who isn't an active hazard to their continued health and well being? Just pretend that you're not obviously in love with each other, so you can tell yourself it'll hurt less when they leave?

Everything is always better with more queer rep thrown in the mix tbh

(not even remotely true, what with bad representation, but it's the thought that matters)

That woulda been a great story though, transmasc who's not out at school. But this still works, and is very cute and good.

Eh. Stories about trans characters are definitely nice, and there need to be more of them, but it's also good to have stories about androgenous characters or just characters who prefer to dress more like the opposite sex for comfort and aesthetic reasons, without actually being trans.

What gets me about this is literal decades of this "not actually trans" androgynous or othered gender presentation has been present in manga. And it has been present while cozying up to / or sometimes blatantly for the purpose of, transphobia, to the point where you can't give them the benefit of the doubt that they are like, positively portraying diverse gender expression lol. I would actually need to see like markedly more trans narratives to begin with, just in like a niche little space for one, and then when like the few canonically trans characters in major shounen / mainstream anime do show up , their fanbases treat them as such, secondly. Otherwise, its still the status quo of trans people not actually existing (I'm still a man ad nauseam), where "comfort and aesthetic reasons" sounds like a permutation of "why cant you just be a feminine man" when it more clearly suggests an intersection of expression AND identity (given "comfort" in particular).

That's to say nothing to worry about here, but yeah, hard butch yuri is hard to come by regardless so happy to maybe see some of that at play here. apologies for autism paragraphing.

There are definitely ... problems with how trans characters are represented, both in the yuri niche and broader media, and there definitely needs to be more representation, but I don't think it's fair to then say the depiction of butch or androgynous women is taking away from trans representation. This is doubly true in Japan, where the Takarazuka Revue has been a thing since 1914 ... is what I want to say, but a quick look at their history and ... yeah.

Their look has definitely inspired a lot of stuff, but they have some issues.

Given that we're talking about jp metal stuff, here's a dump of lesser known metal bands from jp i found over the years:
黒夜葬, Galneryus, Imperial Circus Dead Decadence, 5150, Denkare, Yousei Teikoku, Powerless/MuryokuP, UtsuP, Nocturnal Bloodlust, Matutinum Miserabilis, UI-70, まぐなむお～ぱす, Onmyo-za, Pearls Before Swine, Pizuya's Cell, Dragon Guardian, Yakui the Maid, Takamachi Walk, IRON ATTACK!, UNDEAD CORPORATION, i-chan, Unlucky Morpheus, Piece Of Rain, Vanitas Vanitatum, Caz, Diabolic Phantasma, Hone Your Sense, S.S.H
I tried to only put metal bands here, but some non-metal ones might have slipped by, also most of those are really hard to find. there are some pretty known ones tho. Some vocaloid stuff, some touhou stuff, some dead bands, sorted in no particular order, but most have at least something interesting to listen to.

If you like your metal a bit more on the extreme side Japan has you covered too.
Sete star sept, Goninishu, Gallhammer, Sigh, Abigail, Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation*, Gotsu Totsu Kotsu, Transgressor, Zombie Ritual, Defiled, Sarugutuwa, Birushana, Heterogeneous Andead.
Just to name a few.

I repeat "Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation". That is a name. ...

Are they any good and what's their music like?

I honestly just want consistency with the villainess system. It's just so conveniently put in place just for the sake of plot. It's such a lazy writing.

To be fair, that is literally its stated purpose for existing: To enforce and enable the plot. The only problem is it didn't get the new script.

I do not think that any relationship that involves regularly harming each other is a healthy one, but I am also of a firm belief that whatever consenting adults do in their private time and space is their own private business. I'd prefer it if the villainess system finally got on with the program and patched itself over into a love interest system, but I still trust the author to stick to their promise of wholesomeness all the way through.

Ah, but Evie doesn't consent to any of this.

Elsa (on seeing Evie's list): ... I'd also like to add "Denser than a neutron star" and "Tits".
Evie: Hmm, so a dense guy with tits. ... I'm not sure if I know anyone like that.
Elsa: ...

With that said, it's a bit concerning that Elsa said she wasn't concerned about Evie cutting her when the wound was bad enough to need a change of bandages, which are still visibly bloody a day later. It's one thing to be willing to forgive that sort of thing, provide they have a very good explanation, and quite another to be completely unconcerned.

I kind-of wish Elsa would confront her over her, apparently, erratic behavior, but a good part of that is also wanting her to find out about the villainess system and, maybe, trying to help Evie work around it. It would also make her position a lot more understandable: I love you and I'm not going to start hating or fearing you because that awful system sometimes makes you hurt me.

I hate it when people speak for others without their knowledge. It’s such a self serving thing to do.

Yeah, the irony is that the sister is doing exactly what she's accusing Saki of doing - using her relationship with her sister to feel better about herself because she's "protecting" her, despite Kanon neither needing nor, likely, wanting that help. Especially when it involves harassing Kanon's closest friend. You get the feeling that the "heart reading" bit is just a self-serving lie, and she'd be like this no matter who Kanon was spending time with.

I always hate this character archetype, because it exists to basically only serve as an obstacle and rarely tells us much about the main characters. Except that Saki feels guilty about her feelings for Kanon, which we pretty much knew already, so meh. Maybe the next chapters will bring it around and provide an opportunity for them to get closer. (I do like Kanon just flat out shutting Saki's attempt to slink away down, since it's obvious Saki didn't really want to do this. Guess that "heart reading" B.S. works both ways, huh Imouto-chan?)

Little Sister was definitely way out of line, but I can also understand why she's acting that way.

We already know that the scenario Rinne was describing has happened before —Kannon's previous best friend really was just using her as a status symbol and dropped her hard once it became too troublesome— and she was right about Saki hiding something, she just came to the wrong conclusion about what that something is.

As for not noticing Kanon's feelings, I'll wager that she did, but that was also part of the problem; Kanon probably felt similarly about the friend who burned her, so Rinne saw her big sister getting attached to another girl with ulterior motives, possibly blinding herself to that, and building up to another disaster. It would be a bit like if you saw someone you cared about getting close to another, obvious, abuser right after they just got out of a different abusive relationship, that they refused to acknowledge until it went way to far.

None of that is to say Rinne was right to go about it the way she did, just that it doesn't make her evil.

Saki is so desperate to hide the gay, unfortunately for her she’s doing a horrible job lol, Poor girl almost collapsed because she thought the sisters gaydar was going off.

It’s gonna be something when we officially get to this though, this girl is deep in the denial/guilt phase of who she is

Man this manga needs to get licensed in English

If I had a nickel for every time I said that I could use said nickels to buy all the series I want to have official English release

Based on her conversations with her mom and her internal monologue, I don't think she's in denial; she's pretty clear on the whole "I'm gay; girls are great" thing. The problem is she views acting like she just wants to be friends with a cute girl that she really wants to do more with as misleading them and, like Rinne, she's conflating that with other ways that someone might use the pretext of friendship for more duplicitous and selfish ends.

I suppose, in a twisted way, that lends some extra credence to Rinne's accusations: She's acting like Kanon couldn't, or wouldn't, speak up for herself if her behavior was unwanted; like she's an innocent flower that needs to be protected
and if their relationship isn't 100% pure, then the whole thing's tainted and it's her fault. I suspect Kanon will be disabusing her of that notion shortly.

so, Kanon's sister gives us an interesting bit of information on lipreading, that at least in her experience paying that much attention to someone while they talk makes you better at realizing what their true intentions may be.

What if this is also true of Kanon, what if she has an inkling on Saki feelings about her, because she too can use lipreading to get to the heart of the matter (in this case Saki's). I don't know if this chapter is setting up foreshadowing or if I'm reading too much into it but I don't think Kanon is entirely clueless about the fact that Saki is in love with her.

After that kabedon and that line? Yeah, I'm pretty sure she knows and has some inkling of what her sister did.

Also, I think the whole point of Rinne's scene isn't so much that she was being controlling and doesn't actually have any ability to "read the heart." Rather, she and Kanon do have that ability, but she lacks the context to correctly interpret what she's seeing, so her insight just ended up causing more confusion. Conversely, Kanon does have the context, so she's able to use her insight to quickly solve the issue before it can gather any steam.

This actually relates to a broader theme that the manga has repeatedly brought up: It's not enough to just look at the surface level, regardless of whether you're talking about things like making accommodations for disabilities or judging a the character of another person, it's important to make sure you have the full context and a deeper understanding of what's going on, otherwise you're likely to cause more harm than good.

If that's actually what's happening, then this author has done an amazing job of believably weaving a theme through their work and presenting in a multitude of different disparate scenarios.

Every chapter, the character design and facial expressions knock it straight out of the park. I love it!

Don't worry, uncle, you're absolutely correct.

Except, of course, that it wasn't, as you can clearly see from the Recently Added page showing them all together uploaded yesterday.

I usually look up the recently added on the prior pages on the main site. this is what I meant.

Main page shows chapters based on release dates, the recently added page lists them based on the dates they've been added to the site here, with release dates listed as well. In this case they all were added on the same day, but have three different release dates.

That's tripped me up before too. I wish it was the other way around, because I use the front page to see what's new on dynasty, so when it was actually released is much less important.

would have been infinitely better had the person been either trans man or trans woman tbh

Everything is always better with more queer rep thrown in the mix tbh

(not even remotely true, what with bad representation, but it's the thought that matters)

That woulda been a great story though, transmasc who's not out at school. But this still works, and is very cute and good.

Eh. Stories about trans characters are definitely nice, and there need to be more of them, but it's also good to have stories about androgenous characters or just characters who prefer to dress more like the opposite sex for comfort and aesthetic reasons, without actually being trans.

What about her VOICE? Does her voice changes as well when she changes her look?
I mean cos otherwise it should be easy to recognize her, after talking to her both at the store and at school.

Given that she was unintentionally speaking differently in general I wouldn't call it too far fetched to say she's probably speaking in a different tone of voice as well.

I mean hell, as someone that works in in a restaurant I absolutely speak to customers in a totally different way than I do when I'm just normally speaking to someone. I've also had coworkers tell me that I speak in a lower voice when I answer the phone.

It's also a confidence thing! People speak different when they're appearing the way they want to and in a space they're comfortable in.

She also wears a mask at the store, but not at school, which will muffle her voice a bit, and that might be enough to throw off someone who's doesn't hear her speak very often.

I know that DragonForce is quite big in Japan

Amusingly, to my knowledge, metal is pretty big in Japan in general and the scene is very lively, and power metal specifically is relatively mainstream, I think. In a way, I think I wouldn't be surprised if DragonForce would be considered more widespread than Foo Fighters or Nirvana.

In any case, I'm a big fan of everything this story has shown so far, and hopefully, it keeps with it. Loving the uncle/niece designs in particular.

Apologies in advance for going off at a tangent...

There are a lot of heavy rock / metal groups in Japan which also get quite a bit of attention internationally - ones that I like include:

Band Maid
Nemophila
Lovebites
Mary's Blood (though going on hiatus)
Mutant Monster

Honourable mention to:
Kari Band (BOH and friends - more jazz/funk/fusion)
Esprit D'Air (UK based but definitely J-rock)

Anyway back on track... The uncle does have a little bit of a Dave Grohl look about him.
Really hoping that the story will continue after they get past the reveal.

Then there's MAN WITH A MISSION, a Japanese rock band that wears wolf masks when they perform and I'm just going to quote Wikipedia on their backstory:

"created as the "Ultimate Life Form" by Jimi Hendrix, who is described by the band as being the doctor of the guitar and master wolf biologist. They were then frozen in Antarctica for years. While they were frozen, they had been listening to all kinds of music from all around the world, before later escaping and emerging onto the Japanese music scene."

There website also mentions the Principality of Zeon, because of course Gundam is involved.

last edited at May 8, 2022 11:38PM

What word os being translated as "Familiar" in this manga exactly? If the witch created her, wouldn't she be more of a homunculus? Doesn't "familiar" usually mean an already-extant creature that a magic user formed a bond with?

I think a familiar refers more to the relationship between the mage and familiar, rather than just its nature.

The coloring in this reminds me of Lilium Terrarium, even if that series did a bit more with it's monotone (and a few accent colors). I wish more manga used this style, because it can be really striking and allows for some flexibility that the typical black and white lacks. (I still remember reading Samaria Deeper and thinking it was really silly to have his eyes changing color act as an important character trait in a black and white medium.)

I can't believe Nirvana is on a Japanese highschool girls play list. Kurt Cobain passed away at least 10 years before she was even born. I could maybe buy Foo Fighters, but I'm not sure how big they are in the overseas market.

The entire point here is that she doesn’t listen to what others do, she says that. The other girls in her group don’t recognize the bands at all.

You think there can’t be one japanese schoolgirl in all the country with western music taste to make a doujin around?

I also had something else here but I deleted it, wooo

There was that manga about a teacher(iirc) making a deal with Jimi Hendrix's ghost, so who knows? Also, I suspect modern streaming services make it a lot easier to discover foreign music and there are segments of Japan that have a fascination with American culture in much the same way that America has segments that are fascinated with Japanese culture.

So, I'm going to need an entire spin-off series with this art.

I feel like she's going to finally get around to confessing and her friends going to be like "Haven't we been dating for years? Why do you think I keep stealing your shirts?"