Kurokawa's got massive self-esteem issues that masquerade as some sort of idol craze. Nanaki changed, yes, in Chapter 2. That was when she threw away her own interests and friends in order to latch onto Kurokawa.

If Kurokawa was going to flip out and go idol-crazy, that is when it should have happened. All of the changes Kurokawa is whining about in the last two chapters happened then. That chapter, so very long ago, is when she stopped being able to "admire Nanaki from afar". Nanaki's confession doesn't change anything about her (other than her own label for her sexuality maybe).

Nanaki's confession is the most blatant admission of "I think we are equals" from Nanaki, but it is not remotely the first. What Kurokawa really can't stand is having somebody assign her a value greater than dirt. Why that realization happened so late for Kurokawa is pretty baffling, but maybe she was just so caught up in being able to befriend the person she admired that she didn't realize that the person she admired had changed a long time ago until just now.

That's the only read of this situation that makes sense to me, and I think, based on this chapter, it is what the author is trying to point out. I don't think the author did the greatest job conveying that, though.

From the first chapters and now to this you'll see that huge gap from a happy looking story to a depressing one and I don't really mind that development. Their cries are beautifully drawn so I'm kinda addicted to Takano Saku's crying arts lol

And yeah, no kidding. I usually prefer happier affairs than this because I can empathize with it and absorb some of that happiness for myself for a short time, but I didn't really realize how compelling it could be to absorb sadness in a similar way.

I don't read chinese. So can anybody explain it to me the extra chapter after 22. i think that its a happy ending after all since both couples get to be together in the end. But i was wondering why aoi in a wheelchair looks older than the rest?. Is the teacher getting older too. I mean we can see the main couple getting older together so why it is different from the other couple. Help I'm just guessing based on the pictures. I want to know if its really happy all the way

I can't read it either, so this is mostly a guess based on images (curious how right I'll be): I'm fairly certain your interpretation is correct. In the next few chapters, Aoi falls into a coma, and the doctors tell Shion that she'll never wake up again. Afterwards, Sara dies. She leaves behind a series of messages for Iris, asking her to keep living and that maybe they'll meet again in another life, since it has already happened twice. After seeing these, Iris still refuses to take another bride because she refuses to live her life at the expense of others. Her refusal means that she reverts to her pupa form. That's how Chapter 22 ends.

Then, in the extra: (Many years later) A girl who looks like Sara meets a girl who looks like Iris during her first day of high school. Just as before, Iris knows who this girl really is, but pretends not to know her, and bonds her as her bride again. This might seem like a tragic cycle just from the images, and I was confused by it at first too, but I think I realized what happened now after reading the latest chapter. I think Aoi's unique blood condition (which is also responsible for keeping her alive, even if it is in a coma) eventually allowed Shion to synthesize a medication that works to treat the brides' condition. The confirmation of that is how we see Shion pushing an elderly Aoi in a wheelchair. Presumably, Shion also roused Aoi from her coma and has treated her too, extending her life far beyond the 1 year brides could previously live for. I assume she can't walk because of the physical strain of her original blood disorder, which wasn't solved.

Like I said, I can't actually read it either, so this is a lot of guesswork and assumptions (and possibly wishful thinking).

Personally, I've found a lot of manhua I really like (tamen de gushi, she is still cute today, etc), even though Chinese yuri is somewhat held back by a bigoted social and political environment. Since making money of gay stuff is kinda risky in mainland China, the industry can't really grow like in Japan.

I agree. Honestly, I'd say the average manhua is better than the average manga, though not by much. Because the industry can't really grow there, new manhuas often get traction by being unique instead of by being formulaic, like what happens in an established industry with serialized magazine publications.

Not that they don't have their own tropes (reincarnation isekai seems even more insanely popular there than in Japan, which I honestly didn't think was possible), but they aren't as nailed down in the Yuri genre. Though, it is probably saying something that most of the Chinese webnovels I've read have been Yuri isekai.

Anyway, Soulmates is one of my favorite Yuri stories period, and honestly this one is probably top 20, too.

Thinking about it, many of my favorite Yuri titles are from all over geographically: SMILE (Spain), Soulmates (China), The Love Doctor (Korea), Seifuku no Vampiress Lord (Japan), and Mage & Demon Queen (Philippines).

last edited at Jun 6, 2021 11:54AM

The panels from the previews for this series are coming soon chronologically I think. In them, Tong Tong is crying to her mother that she's going to lose the girl she likes to a boy.

And Tong Tong's mother is coming home soon, while Tong Tong already thinks Lin Luxi likes a boy.

Did they kiss off scene?!? AGH! Or was it a promise for the play??

Yeah I couldn't tell either if that was an offscreen kiss or a future promise with iffy dialogue.

Either way, it seems like the story is speeding towards an actual Yuri relationship, which is great.

Too many of these stories spend 50 chapters teasing that and then end with a slightly more elaborate tease but no confirmation.

Dang, where's the "Friends? Wrong!" panel from Can't Defy The Lonely Girl when you need it?

Rough summary of Volume 2 (Chapters 5-8): After the demon (Alice Kyteler - going to call her Alice Sr. from now on) teleports them, Alice and Mari end up back in Mari's hometown. It's revealed that Mari's mother was a witch who fell in love with a human and went into hiding. Alice and Mari decide to go to Mari's old house and wait for Dolly to find them. They find her house burn down, and her parents dead. Dolly arrives and brings them back to the academy. Dolly's backstory is shown to the reader - she was in love with a human girl who was brutally killed and has pinned all her hopes on Mari's resurrection ability. She's not actually interested in revenge; she just pretends to be. Alice is removed from being Mari's tutor by Dolly, though, since Dolly knows that Alice is in love and that Alice is prioritizing the safety and health of Mari over the resurrection of all the dead witches (plus Dolly's love interest). Alice suspects that resurrecting that many people from such incomplete forms (all Dolly has of her lover is a strand of hair) will likely destroy Mari.

Rough summary of Volume 3 (Chapters 9-12): Alice Sr.'s backstory is revealed - she was in love with a human but both that human and other witches betrayed her. As a result, she seeks to destroy all humans and all witches. She made a pact with a demon so that she could become a demon and never die in order to live long enough to see her plans come to completion. Alice Sr. leaks the plans of the witches to the outside world (they had apparently instigated a series of events to start the equivalent of a World War), and as such, humanity rallies together to destroy all witches. Witches are massacred en masse, and the school is attacked.

Meanwhile, while Alice and Mari are separated, Mari learns that Alice is in love with her and then realizes that she loves Alice. Alice and Mari meet in the school's graveyard for the first time in a while and are interrupted out of their love confessions by Dolly, as the school comes under attack. Alice shows Mari how to find her mother's corpse (which Dolly was planning to use to lure Mari into doing a mass resurrection) out of all the other corpses in the graveyard. Alice promises that she'll hold off Dolly while Mari resurrects her mother and then they (the three of them) can escape together. Alice fights Dolly to keep Mari from harm and realizes how powerless she really is but pulls enough strength together to crack the stone ceiling, killing both herself and Dolly (but not before finishing her earlier love confession).

Mari, seeing Alice's death, fully controls her power for the first time. Alice Sr. teleports in and attempts to stop Mari before she can cast a spell because Alice Sr. realizes that Mari's power was never resurrection at all (which is how Alice Sr. was planning for the humans to be destroyed too) - Mari can actually control time. Mari looks at Alice Sr. and can see into her past. She suddenly understands that Alice Sr. is where this is entire sad state of affairs began - her childhood, specifically. Mari steps into Alice Sr.'s childhood and prevents Alice Sr.'s mother from destroying her heart. This change has ripple consequences, and all of reality begins to shift.

Alice Sr.'s backstory is shown again. This time, she's more committed to helping humans and isn't betrayed by the people she cares about. Dolly's backstory is shown again. Alice Sr. has helped to create a cure to the plague that Dolly gets blamed for, causing the villagers of her town to protect Dolly and her love interest from the witch hunts that the villagers now think are evil. Mari is shown at this point disappearing into nothing, having completely burned through all of her power.

Rough summary of Volume 3 Epilogue: In the new reality, Alice and Mari are shown meeting at a Japanese school in the present day (because witch and human schools aren't separate, presumably). Alice is a transfer student who has just arrived in the country and is staying with Mari's mother (she says that Alice is the daughter of a 'friend' who is staying with them for the school year - implying that unlike the old reality, Mari's mother and Alice's family are friends rather than enemies). Mari feels that they've met before somehow, and Alice makes Mari a magic herb pouch to help her sleep, mirroring their initial interaction in Chapter 2... presumably they live happily ever after.

Obviously that leaves out a -lot-, and all of this is very well drawn and very heart-wrenching/heart-warming (depending on the part). I'm really happy with how it turned out - better ending and general plot than 80-90% of Yuri manga. Definitely something I'll be reading again in the future.

The official release of Volume 3 in English happened yesterday, and I quite enjoyed the ending.

Worth noting that the author says at the end that this series was planned to only be 2 volumes, but they realized they needed 3 volumes in the end. So, I guess this is the rare kind of Yuri manga that really didn't get axed (though, aiming for only 2 volumes from the start was probably done in order to undercut what happens to most Yuri manga that try to go past 2 volumes).

Anyway, gonna leave a second comment here with spoilers briefly explaining the plot of the parts of the manga not available on Dynasty Scans in case anyone wants to spoil themselves before they buy it (believe it or not, this is something I do in order to avoid bad endings - it's that much of a big deal to me).

last edited at Jun 2, 2021 4:35AM

Why are vampires always lolis? Getting bored of that concept.

Yeah, I am also not a fan of the concept. I think an age disparity between body and soul can be interesting, but this is often used as a moral excuse to show off the bodies of child characters, which I personally find distasteful.

In some vampire stories, there's an in-universe explanation for it at least. For example, in Hellsing, vampires are created by the bite of a vampire but only if the victim is a virgin. Otherwise they become a ghoul. This means that many vampires can end up being children or preteens (though none of them in the original manga actually were).

I've been rather bemused by the desperate search by some readers here for a "good" character to somehow make things OK.

Get used to it. It happens a lot.
Lately in the comments thread for Useless Princesses everyone and their uncle have been screaming hysterically for a "good character" (preferably a grown-up, any grown-up) to come and solve the problems of the mc kids.
And in the comments for Arioto people have been going crazy since the beginning because of the "sexual preference conversion" element... and wishing for a positive hero to come and assert the politically correct truth.
Extensive exposition to Western conventions and a sudden switch of focus to Asian mores can have this effect. Aftertremors of culture shock, you could say.

I think in general, judging less is better than more, and that keeping an open mind is important.

Taking your three points in order: honestly I think those type of posts on Useless Princesses is just a way to express frustration, not a sign that readers literally want an adult to intervene and tell the characters what their sexuality should be (though Kurosawa should probably see a therapist for unrelated self-esteem issues).

Personally, I actually like Arioto, despite how iffy consent is in some spots. You could see it as sexual preference conversion, but despite having one character as the exclusive PoV, we never see inside her mind. It is entirely possible for her to be in denial. There's also other explanations, too.

You are right that it is a different culture, but I think it's mostly just because they're a bit farther back on the timeline of LGB rights and general acception. Before you can credibly complain about the minute details of LGB representation in media, you have to first have consistent LGB representation in media, which they don't.

If you go back and read Yuri manga from 15-20 years ago, you can see this as an extended trend. Back then, relationships between high school girls was portrayed as a kind of fickle, pretend romance exclusive to all-girls schools. It was played off as something straight girls did to prepare for having a boyfriend.

On top of everything, Arioto is pretty sexually explicit, and things made for sexual gratification tend to care wildly less about what is politically or even morally correct (for example, hentai is littered with sexual assault).

Status of Chapter 16.5 (epilogue) is listed as translated as of 2 months ago on MangaUpdates. Dunno where it was published at but maybe we can get that uploaded here.

Hmm, only one chapter left. It's hard to predict what will happen honestly, well other than the obvious time skip.

Just rename this manga to Useless Princesses 2 at this point.

The basic elements of this situation is something that happens constantly in real life. You fall in love with somebody who is a friend over time, you confess, they reject you but they still want to be friends and don't want to hurt you, but you distance yourself from them because it is the only real way to protect yourself.

In fact, it's likely how the vast majority of confessions end up, especially at their age.

The "I don't deserve to be on their stage" thing shared by Nekozaki and Kurosawa from Useless Princesses is pretty fucking weird, though, and hard to relate with. My self esteem is so low it is practically negative, but I would still never reject somebody I like's confession because I suspect I know better than them that they will be miserable with me (which I can only guess is the real underlying thought at play here, at least in Nekozaki's case).

last edited at May 26, 2021 6:36AM

This was all over the place, but in a good way. No Yuri (in fact it didn't even mention romance with either gender), but it was still very interesting.

Yeeeeeeeesssss! This chapter was so good. It filled my heart for the day.

I thought this was the Yuri manga where love interest walk around the beach at night looking for her mom who is a mermaid or something.
Does anyone know the name of it?
I forgot the name.

That's this one: https://dynasty-scans.com/series/ano_koro_no_aoi_hoshi

I like how this chapter directly addresses some points from the debate higher up this page about Mei's emotions, such as adding subtle blushing in some spots.

It's almost like the author read these comments before writing this chapter.

This is great. Simple but great.

Whether she succumbs or not isn't relevant. I don't understand ABO stuff enough to know this, but if she is compromising her own happiness by making this choice (especially at their age), then she is making a mistake.

There might be a nice story here but I was immediately repelled from the story by the completely straight-faced explanation that the author has chosen to set their story in a world where some people are inherently biologically superior.

That had me shrinking back like a vampire at the sight of a cross.

Alphas and Omegas really aren't superior, just different.

ABO is mainly used as an attempt to separate gender and sex more explicitly than our real society does. Female Alphas being women who are sexually male, and male Omegas being men who are sexually female.

On top of that premise, add in animal mating stuff because furry stuff is always wildly popular (though it is much less prevelant in Yuri honestly), and that's the Omegaverse.

^I always thought splitting up for college was silly. Most universities will have most courses unless you want something quite esoteric- surely its not that hard to find a good uni that has good courses for BOTH parties subject? Then you can both just go to that 1 and nobody has to compromise.

It depends on a lot of things. For some careers, the level of prestige of your university's program really matters (moreso for Doctorate or graduate degrees, but still even bachelor matters some). For others, that part is meaningless. Financial concerns are also significant, as scholarship and financial aid awards will be different for each person.

So, in some cases you are right and the inevitable 'college split up' drama is overblown. If both parties can be in secure financial situations and are going into careers where the degree is more important than where you get it, then yes, there's no reason a couple shouldn't just go to the same college and live together.

In other cases though, it can be pretty accurate.

^I always thought splitting up for college was silly. Most universities will have most courses unless you want something quite esoteric- surely its not that hard to find a good uni that has good courses for BOTH parties subject? Then you can both just go to that 1 and nobody has to compromise.

As someone who's enrolled at a private university, this is much harder than you might think. In the early years, yes it is possible to pick out general courses that help to pad out your schedule while letting you stay together, but unless you're REALLY clueless about your future plans, you eventually have to start picking courses that more align with your interests and future plans - and that means spending less time with your partner whether you intend to or not. It's especially difficult if you're at a 4 year university - those courses in later years become more difficult as they become more specialized, so short of being a genius with a natural talent for studying, you can kiss much free time goodbye. T_T

The point of going to the same university is less about being in the same courses together and more about living together, so that you can go to bed with and wake up next to your significant other (not to mention attending the same social functions for the most part).

last edited at May 15, 2021 4:07AM

This is outside my interests as well. I think it's too many different niche situations at once.

Incest + BDSM (specifically spanking) + very young characters + aggressively pushing another young character with little sexual experience into a sexual relationship + poly (or at the very least ambiguous relationship lines) = too much

None of those elements individually would put me off reading something (and I've read almost everything by Mira), but when combined, it's a bit much.

That said, I'll probably still skim future chapters in case it becomes more tame.

More high school Yuri without a comedy angle! Nice. That's become somewhat uncommon these days.

The second chapter reads like a PSA that says "Please communicate with your partner about sex".

I still liked it, though.