Pop psychologists have a distinction between issues raised for “problem-solving,” where someone is asking for advice or help with something, and those that are simply “troubles talk,” i.e., venting, needing to get something off one’s chest, etc.

Things can go very wrong in a conversation when one partner responds to “troubles talk” by trying to problem-solve, or when the other partner thinks they’re being asked to problem-solve when they have no way to solve the problem. (People don’t necessarily learn to lead with that crucial “I know it’s not your fault/I’m not blaming you” gambit when doing troubles talk.)

So if Nanoha were to say, “I was really bothered by the way that sempai was acting towards you,” Chidori might very well respond that it wasn’t her fault, and that she couldn’t control what sempai did.

I don't think that's really relevant to the situation. Chidori began to explain her relationship with Igarashi to Nanoha, and then Nanoha interrupted her to say it's no big deal and doesn't bother her.

Well... "Hana ni Arashi" can be translated as "Flowers after the Storm" or perhaps, like the title of Chapter 47 coming up, according to the table of contents listed in Chapter 37, "Flowers after the Rain". I would say that is the main title and that "Nanoha to Chidori" ("Nanoha and Chidori" if you are translating it) is the subtitle.

"Hana ni arashi" is part of a saying, "tsuki ni murakumo, hana ni arashi," about how good things in life are fleeting and easily ruined; nothing good in life lasts as long as you wish. Maybe even that misfortune is most common at times of great happiness. The title of chapter 47 is ameagari no hana, which actually means "flowers after the rain". The title is definitely Hana ni Arashi, because that's what the publisher and the author call the series.

I'd say that the only association between the title and Igarashi's name is the fact that she brings a "Storm" (Arashi) to Chidori and Nanoha's relationship.

Yes, that's what I mean by saying that the author is being cute. Putting a character's role in the story into their name is a little silly, but surprisingly common in manga.

last edited at Aug 13, 2019 11:59AM

Bog-standard relationship behavior, though. Igarashi passed the "ex-girlfriend" thing off as a joke, so what exactly can Nanoha specify as being worrisome (except a pretty sempai obviously flirting with her secret girlfriend)?

Those "it bothered me even though I know it shouldn't" conversations can be pretty fraught--why raise an issue when there's no evidence there's actually a real issue?

Yeah. I think one of the major reasons to have a rule like "we should discuss things openly with each other" is to apply to situations like this, where you don't really want to bring something up because it feels bad to talk about it. Being able to say, "I don't think you did anything wrong, but this situation makes me anxious/sad/upset" is a very important skill in relationships.

That’s an interesting reading that would make for a more sympathetic character. All of those reasons are very solid and realistic. But just because your behavior is understandable in this light or given that justification doesn’t necessitate the benefit of the doubt or the forgiveness of others. Especially if that’s something you can’t even bring yourself to ask for. There are circumstances in which we allow people to hurt us out of clumsiness or a lack of finesse, but we’re never obligated to do so. If someone does something rude to me, I have to be motivated to reframe or justify that — if it’s someone I don’t care for then it’s easier to just say they’re an asshole and move on.

I absolutely agree. Forgiveness cannot be "owed". I believe that each person has the right to reserve their sympathy for those they feel like granting it to. In this situation, Chidori would have no obligation to care about or even to listen to Igarashi's justifications. But as a reader, it's fun to think about.

As for the "liar" at the end of the chapter, I honestly don't know who's thinking it, but I'm pretty sure it's referring back to their agreement to discuss their problems between them. I believe it's Nanoha thinking that to herself. She'd just made a big deal about how they should be open about their worries and feelings with each other, and then she tells Chidori something didn't bother her when it obviously did. Though Chidori wasn't exactly being forthright with her either, so it could either way.

Hmmm... I feel like I'm among the last people to notice this, but...

Hana ni Arashi
Ig**arashi**

?

Oh, I didn't even think about that. Her name is even spelled with 嵐 in it.... Kovachi Luka's being cute.

The name use on the cover is Nanoha to Chidori tho.

Every cover has はなにあらし written across it in huge letters, and then "Nanoha to Chidori" (in English) as a kind of subtitle I guess.

last edited at Aug 13, 2019 10:04AM

Chap. 45 Paging Devil’s Advocate—apologist for apparently bitchy senpai to the white courtesy phone, please.

Have you ever been in the situation where you're like sort of romantically involved with someone and then one of you moves away for school or whatever and you don't really talk to each other and then you meet up again and you don't really know where things stand while you awkwardly feel things out (plus you're kind of hoping to get laid)?

Not that that has anything to do with the situation here. Anyways for the sake of arguing, and since you asked, I'm going to posit that one possible explanation of Igarashi's behavior is that 1) she is genuinely romantically interested in Chidori 2) she knows she fucked up and 3) she is pathological averse to expressing any sign of vulnerability.

Spoilers for more detailed analysis of chapter 45. Let's take those statements as postulates and analyze her behavior from that perspective. First, she expects Chidori to react negatively to her presence, but she feels like she needs to go see her anyways. Maybe she wants to apologize, maybe she wants to see how she's doing, maybe she feels like she might still have a chance. Probably a mix of the three. But she's psychically incapable of admitting to actually desiring another's person's approval or acceptance, or to admitting that she did anything wrong. So she walks in smiling and acting as if everything is normal. She knew Chidori would be upset, and she is prepared for the inevitable "Why are you here?" She actually tells Chidori the truth, but she acts really casual about it and then walks it back when questioned further. She came to see Chidori. Obviously, this tactic is ineffective. Chidori, understandably predisposed to assume the worst about Igarashi, thinks the truth is the lie and the lie is the truth.

So Igarashi changes tack, and goes for a more direct approach. She brings up the past. Remember that time when I asked you out for real and you rejected me? But of course, she can't admit that she was serious or that Chidori's rejection hurt her, so she brings it up in the tone of "What a funny little memory." Obviously this does not have the intended effect, but it does get them closer to the heart of the matter. Igarashi then, awkwardly and terribly, apologizes for hurting Chidori, and tries to recapture how things were between them before that (apparently touching her hair is the only move Igarashi's got. Her hair's a little shorter this time, but that's obviously got nothing to do with me. It worked before, why not try it again?). She's finally worked around to what she was actually trying to say in the first place, painfully starting to apologize (though that half-assed "mistakes were made" might be the closest Igarashi ever gets to a serious apology), and Chidori appears to be opening up to her for the first time since she walked in.

But then she's interrupted. Chidori's back on her guard, and now, even worse, there's an audience. However difficult it was to get even close to opening up to Chidori in private, now that's completely impossible. Plus, oh shit, who's this girl? The Chidori I knew was a shy girl who was guarded with everyone except me. I assumed that she's be sitting in here alone, but now this friend bursts in, and they're obviously really close! So now, on top of everything else, she's (irrationally) jealous. So I think the "ex-girlfriend" thing is her trying to get a reaction out of Nanoha, put her off, and send some kind of signal to Chidori. Basically, some real petty shit, but she was surprised, didn't have much time to think about it. I think she smiles because she assumes Nanoha's reaction means "What do you mean, "girlfriend"? Like, as in dating? But you're both girls!" So there's Nanoha neutralized. See you tomorrow Chidori! Let's continue where we left off.

There you go. Devil's advocate. This is what might call reading between the lines that are between the lines (ie baseless speculation unsupported by anything in the text). But it's possible.

last edited at Aug 12, 2019 5:02PM

Putting her appearance and minute-by-minute behavior aside, I think the real questions are "Why did Igarashi send her those chocolates? Why did Igarashi go out of her way to come back and visit Chidori?"

"To make fun of her" isn't really a satisfying answer. For all its silliness, this is a fairly grounded series when it comes to human behavior. Having the evil ex as an unrepentant villain who just wants to torment our poor heroine would fit in some stories, but not really in this one. Presumably she has some kind of motive.

Although, now that I think about it, she never says she didn't love Chidori. She really just says that they didn't have a relationship, which I guess isn't quite the same thing. So perhaps the misinterpretation is Chidori believing their love meant something, when to Igarashi it didn't come with any of those implications.

last edited at Aug 8, 2019 1:31PM

But one could argue that this is why Chidori defended Igarashi in her own mind and "took the blame" (at least back then).

I think the reason she went straight to "I must have misunderstood" is because that's kind of the only possible response to this situation. When someone says, "of course I didn't love you like that, how could I? We're both girls," then it doesn't really matter what happened leading up to that point. You can't say, "you lied to me!" when someone is gaslighting you this hard.

last edited at Aug 8, 2019 1:24PM

好きだと。千鳥。

Like many things in Japanese, the exact meaning of 好き is contextual. But the context here.... Well, just look those pages. It's definitely "I love you", there's no way it could mean anything else.

There's nothing to misinterpret. Igarashi either lied to her or changed her mind.

Just because someone treat you nice and kind, doesn't meant there are some kind of love or like over that...

Of course, in this case it was easy for Chidori to get the wrong idea about the person who was treating her nice and kind when that person said, “Chidori, I love you” while kissing a strand of her hair.

How could she possibly have misinterpreted such an obvious attempt to limit their relationship to friendship? Some people just read way too much into such everyday gestures.

last edited at Aug 8, 2019 2:19AM

Also i don't know if it was a typo but when Igarashi come back in the end of chapter 36, she said "The cute kouhai WE left behind" but maybe she simply talk to another ex-student.

Since I didn't have both sides of the conversation, I sorta had to guess who she was talking to and interpolate. Japanese conversations work perfectly well without an explicit subject or any identifying pronouns, but you can't just leave those out in English. I couldn't tell you exactly why, but it felt like she was talking to another graduate, someone who knew who she was talking about, maybe one of her friends from the literature club, so I just went with that. Don't read too deeply into the exact wording.

last edited at Aug 7, 2019 2:18PM

If Chidori were dating some guy from another school, she'd probably keep it from her friends for much the same reasons.

I'm not trying to argue that, I could not provide evidence for the contrary, but I would kinda like to know if you have a particular basis for that?
...not to stretch out the discussion, but because I am honestly curious and would like to be given insight.

...did I mention I love the way-too-serious analysis of manga here? :P

She may have some hang-ups with their relationship particularly because it's same-sex, but for the most part, her anxieties seem generalized and could apply to any relationship. She gets so uncomfortable just thinking about romance that she blushes randomly, fidgets, talks to herself, and stress eats. She's not just embarrassed about her relationship in public (where outsiders' views might matter), she gets embarrassed when alone with Nanoha and even when she's by herself. So I don't think her secretive nature is based on actual considerations of how people might react, it's just a general neurosis. On top of that, she is clearly unused to having close friends and doesn't really talk about her private life or her past at all.

So no matter what the relationship was like or how people might react to it, she wouldn't be volunteering details to her friends.

Basically, I just don't think discrimination (perceived or actual) against same-sex relationships is a deciding factor in why she hides it.

last edited at Aug 5, 2019 2:18PM

In this story, I honestly don't think being gay has anything to do with why they're hiding it. If Chidori were dating some guy from another school, she'd probably keep it from her friends for much the same reasons.

GREEN HAIRED GIRL IS HAVING SEX WITH ORANGE HAIRED GIRL ON A SLEEPOVER
IT IS A DOUJINSHI
GREEN GIRL IS SHY
THE AUTHOR MADE 2 DOUJINSHIS OF THEM
I KNOW IT'S ON THIS SITE
YEAR 2017 OR 2014 THO I'M NOT SURE
I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR IT FOR 2 MONTHS

Maybe one of these https://dynasty-scans.com/pairings/miku_x_rin ?

At this point, though they might have initially kept it a secret out of fear or mockery or whatever, I think at this point it's more out of general shyness. They can't even say "you're my girlfriend" to each other without stammering and blushing (most of the time), so it'd probably be even more difficult to say that to anyone else. So the potential reactions of their friends is kind of irrelevant, since it's just so difficult for Chidori and Nanoha to talk about at all.

Also, there might just be an element of inertia. Except for Chidori's short musings during the sleepover, we've never seen either of them consider even for a moment why they're hiding their relationship or if it makes sense to do so. I think sometimes people make decisions and then stick with them not because that decision continues to make sense but rather because it just doesn't occur to us to change our minds.

A final question is: how did Chidori and the senpai spend time together in the first place? The gang are first-years when Chidori and Nanoha meet, which means senpai (who in the narrative present has graduated) must have been two years ahead of Chidori. (I think—I always get Japanese school years fucked up in my head.)

See here.

Man, she sure went from not thinking about Shimizu romantically at all to... this really quickly. And all it took was seeing her speak to another woman once.

I'm glad to see one very compatible couple the way they are presented in manga.

I don't know why, but it always makes me nervous when the sexual relationship is this one-sided (with each party exclusively giving/receiving). Like, I'm sure some people are like that and are very happy that way, but it could also portend some kind of fundamental imbalance.

It always reminds of that one rant from Brief Interviews with Hideous Men:

What they don’t understand is their type’s and even worse drag for a lady with any sense than your on-and-off pig ever was. Because how’d you like to just lie there and get worked on like a Porsche and never get to feel like you’re generous and sexy and good in bed and a Great Lover too?

last edited at Jul 30, 2019 4:04PM

Ominous final panel introducing suspicious new character

It's this fucking guy.

It doesn't really seem like it'd be a big deal if he figured out they're dating. They're not exactly keeping it a secret, even if they aren't advertising it.

So they're gonna try to stick it through. I'm glad. I'd assumed they'd have to close after something like this.

I love the way she drew her eyes.

RikoHaru 4
yoroshiku ne

I have to imagine that the juxtaposition between the encounter with would-be molester and then Satomi feeling up Miyako in a public park restroom was deliberate, but I'll be damned if I can decipher what it's supposed to mean.

last edited at Jul 27, 2019 4:51PM

I love this story. It's always worth a reread.

Did not koharu intend to study abroad?

No, she didn't. That (p71) was a mistranslation. It should have been "famous foreign language college" or "university of foreign studies", rather than "foreign college". So it's a Japanese university, but it specializes in foreign languages/cultures/etc.

Yeah, that really confused me, but if you look on the paper it says 関東外国語大学.

last edited at Jul 26, 2019 12:56PM

There are tons of boring mangas out there. Yet this is the trash? Trashy characters is different than trash manga. It's like reading for example Dexter, then saying the book was bad because the guy was a serial killer. That's exactly the point of the story. To showcast characters like that. It is not supposed to be a happy cUtE story.

I think you're still misunderstanding why people think it's trash. There are good stories about trashy people. Most of Kodama Naoko's works fall into that category, in my opinion. Her one-shots and shorter series are well-paced and engaging. Netsuzou on the other hand is just a complete mess of a story.

The main characters in Moratorium and Cocytus are bad people. Mao is incredibly selfish. She's obsessed with Itsuki and she wants to keep her to herself forever. However, she isn't really Itsuki's friend. She doesn't actually care about her. She deliberately manipulates her to try and make it so Itsuki can never leave her, regardless of how painful the relationship is.

Shiina is a coward. She's afraid to stand up for herself, and she's completely unwilling to stand up for Kuroneko. She takes advantage of Kuroneko's kindness in private while at the same time treating her like shit in public. However, the stories do a good job of getting us to empathize with these people. We understand why they do what they're doing. They may be bad people, but they feel human.

Netsuzou is mostly not like that. Hotaru is tormented at the thought that Yuma will never love her back, so sleeps around with random guys to dull the pain. But at the same time, she can't resist making moves on Yuma. Then when Yuma actually likes her back, she runs away because she thinks she's too shitty a person to get what she wants. That's rather extreme, but it's interesting. A character like that could make for a good story. In fact, I'm sure it's made for many different good stories, some of which I've read.

Yuma is too fucking dumb to realize that her friend who's constantly coming on to her might harbor feelings for her, and too dumb to realize that the fact that she enjoys it might mean that she reciprocates those feelings. Oh, and she's nice to people. That's... uh, not as good. I guess you could have this character in a short story, and in might still be interesting. Or maybe she could be a running joke in a gag manga. But having her as the main character of your 30 chapter dramatic series is like writing an epic about a bowl of oatmeal. She's just too dumb to be believable and to boring to care about.

Fujiwara is... evil? I feel like there was supposed to be some explanation of why he does the shit he does, but it never materializes. Maybe he was like a mirror of Hotaru, gay for his friend but unable to do anything about it? I forget. Also, he's not much of a villain. He's constantly presented as this menacing figure, but then all he does is say mean things to them and then spread (true) rumors about them. Maybe a character like this could carry a short arc in a long-running series with otherwise strong characters. But as a primary antagonist, he just doesn't have enough going on. It's clear very early on that he's not actually a threat, and then after that he's just a complete waste of space. The other guy is so plain as to be not worth mentioning.

So overall, you've got this really half-baked premise based around one very out-there, but complete, character, and three cardboard cut-outs. The presentation is over-the-top, and for me that saves it through sheer ridiculousness. It turned out to be a very funny series. It's certainly not the worst manga out there. It was more ambitious than something silly like A Room For Two or something very basic like Girl Friends, but it just didn't accomplish what it set out to do, whereas those two series deliver exactly what they promise.

The reasons Netsuzou gets more shit than other, even worse series is probably because it also got way more hype. It turned out to be very popular, and the popular and mediocre always receives far more criticism than the unheard of and abysmal.

last edited at Jul 26, 2019 10:47AM

Logged in just to defend Kodama, the Lesbian Manga Jesus lol

Kodama is authentic, unlike most authors out there. You know what to expect with her, and it's definitely not PC. Again unlike most authors she shows that her characters experience love with mixed feelings, like self-hate, jealousy, envy, selfishness etc. Which is, in fact, a very realistic take on how most of us experience love and being loved, even if (hopefully) not to the same degree present in her stories.

As for NTR, I'm not sure what all the hate is. I can only imagine a lot of readers in this forum are male and got triggered by a guy being "cheated on". Which by the way, the situation of 2 people fighting for the same girl and one of them using underhanded tactics to get her is so common lol Yuma's reaction of extreme obliviousness combined with acting on her feelings without realizing what it means, again, one of the very common forms of coming out. Just because it's played up for the drama, doesn't mean it's not one of the most realistic stories out there in terms of the theme and how it's handled.

I think most people disliked NTR because it's just really trashy. There's a big cliff-hanger at the end of every chapter (which never actually develops into anything), the whole narrative is structured around a bunch of "shocking" reveals emphasized by really big pictures of anguished faces, and none of the characters really act like normal human beings. They all seem to have some really extreme personality disorders. And they're just so dumb. People can be surprisingly blind about people they're close to, but nobody is this fucking stupid.

Those are exactly the reasons I like it (it feels very forthright in its trashiness, it's kind of charming), but I can see why other people don't. It doesn't have anything to do with "PC" or being triggered by a male getting cheated on. There's fucktons of yuri about men getting cheated on, any everyone loves that shit. The unfulfilled housewife or unassuming young woman being tempted away from her under-appreciative lover by an open, alluring lesbian is its own subgenre, with a very long history.

NTR is "realistic" in the sense that, yes, in the real world sometimes people are unfaithful. Relationships can be really messy and cause a lot of emotional anguish. But I don't think NTR is at all a realistic portrayal of how human beings end up in those situations or how we think and feel about them. It just seems like a fairly poor example of fiction about cheating. Both cheating and being cheated on are written basically as fetishes, rather than real problems that people face. When I think of realistic manga about cheating, stuff like https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/roche_limit comes to mind.

last edited at Jul 24, 2019 10:32PM