A comedy about shitty people can be funny, but every main character has to be shown to be shitty to some extent, like on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (or The Bad Place for a milder example). Three regular people with no obviously scummy side wanting to be friends with a scummy yet mediocre guy is not funny, it just kinda sucks.

last edited at Aug 22, 2024 9:04AM

Also my money is on the teeth-style claim being bullshit, that would require the women to have something physically change and there's been zero indication that's been a thing.

The scenario does invoke the vagina dentata trope, but she does not mention any teeth. It sounds to me like the organ is just kind of eviscerated by an invisible force, the same way during a kiss the whole body is instantly feminized by an invisible supernatural entity. (Hodaka caught a glimpse of a monster before his first transformation, but other people can't see it.)

Honestly this manga is making me more nervous than any thriller or horror I have ever watched. Like watching a train crash in slow motion D:

For me it's more like seeing someone on an e-scooter zip by on a poorly maintained road, or "forgetting" to wash their hands in the bathroom. A low intensity discomfort, except it lingers in this case. I wonder if the tension will have a way to get released periodically, given that there might never be any typical sex scenes, and that Remu and Azuki are not prone to violence. (The sex or violence in these darker yuri series can act as a pressure valve for narrative tension, e.g. the fights and the property damage in 'Destroy it All and Love Me in Hell'.)

Will there be wholesome chapters every once in a while where the leads get to hang out and be briefly happy? Will the wildcard Niji instigate something sexual the leads would not normally do? Will there be some violence visited on the dolls instead? Or are the characters going to keep stewing over low heat with no breaks?

Wow, this mangaka is full of surprises... Azuki over here has to be one of the most pitiful protagonists in yuri, based on this one chapter. I would say I have mixed feelings about her and the high school girl as a couple, but given the somewhat ominous title the mangaka might not be aiming for something as wholesome as in her previous works, so I'm totally seated. Let's get nasty!

Also, you know these author avatars that are sometimes appearing in afterwords and stuff? Usui Shio's is a little doll, really makes you think :P

Fun fact (?): I think her avatar might be a teru teru bōzu (a charm to ward off rainy weather) with a ribbon and legs. I suspect this because 雨水 /usui/ means 'rainwater', though the doll's shape could be a coincidence I guess

last edited at Aug 14, 2024 3:36PM

^
Tsubakida is going to thank her later, trust

last edited at Aug 14, 2024 2:34PM

Mashiro: This fucking sucks actually! points at the literal coolest thing ever

Lesbians really live apartments like this and don't see any issue.

People just hate how little it takes for us to be happy

^ Well said. It made me want to re-read too

It felt a bit rushed but the sex scene was surprisingly good

BTW is there any update on hagino sensei, how is she doing and what she's up to?, I'm kinda worried

A new Twitter account was started for her @hagino_m_info that only posts updates. I assume it's not run by her personally.

Late 2023 she started a series called 'Linoa by the Window' at Aoi Kishi (the oddball magazine that might be familiar to some here as the home of the edgy yuri isekai series 'My Sister and Giant'). It appears to follow the journey of a mysterious trio -a man, a talking cat, and a girl- as they search for their "place to belong" (in Germany, for some reason). It looks interesting.

The ball is now in Hana's court, to tell Lily that she didn't act out of compassion only. But beyond a heart to heart, there is still the issue of (financial) independence. They're both young and have no leverage over Lily's parents that we know of (and no powerful allies either), so they have to convince them to call off the arranged marriage out of kindness/love, scramble to find some kind of leverage, or elope. The parents are very strict with Suzu as well, so a change of heart seems unlikely, leverage dropping in their lap could feel a bit too magical, and escaping seems like an even longer shot. It's a lot of ground to cover with little more than half a volume left.

It's somehow disappointing to me that the most obvious plot twist happened, but I guess there is a small twist to the twist still, since she seems to be somehow regretful that the real Kaoru never actually pat her head, implying that the ruse was too good :P

Is it really a plot twist if Lily having absolutely no clue was extremely unlikely? I just see this as the story reaching its final stage and revealing all the cards in play. But I do like that Hana's cover was immediately blown by the head pats. I think it's hinted that it seemed natural to her because her brother used to pat her head. This also gives a bittersweet tone to Lily's adorable reactions when Hana touched and stroked her hair.

last edited at Aug 11, 2024 4:36PM

These foodie slice of life manga have a reputation that they are relaxing... Well, chapter 3 features the annoying brother (no personality other than "I am a heterosexual man") and cuts away to focus on a random het couple's fight for like five pages... That bit didn't even have anything to do with the MC's epiphany, since it was only showed to the reader.

What makes it worse is that the dynamic of the two leads was pretty good in the first two chapters. But as soon as the MC's new friend is not around, the MC immediately gets surrounded by the miasma of clichéd (put presented as cute and wholesome) heterosexuality, which is quite the whiplash.

Edit: well, the series is already complete at 3 volumes, so it's best not to get your hopes up about the "subtext" going anywhere

last edited at Aug 11, 2024 2:40PM

I was waiting for the first "she's cute" moment and it's here!

i dont know why but this chapter felt so tonally different from the rest of the series its like it was written by someone else

Yeah, where's the sex!

There have been chapters without sex before, but they were usually about Asumi hanging out with someone she will sleep with or has slept with. And this time of all things she and Senpai hung out at one of the least sexy locations (horse race track), then boom! Two new girls are parachuted in again. It's a pretty chaotic chapter

This is like a summary of the plot of The Demon Girl Next Door

Mayuko seems to enjoy learning about the different sides of Ruri, so I think the relationship quickly left the parasocial stage. Since this seems to be a coming-of-age tale, the real question is what Mayuko can learn about herself through theater and this new crush

last edited at Jul 27, 2024 9:54PM

There is a sweet atmosphere developing, but I wonder if there will come a point where Butterfly Dream will no longer accept an arrangement where Yuetao has to sacrifice herself. That's not to say I don't want the possession to happen at all, but it would be kind of sad if that's how it ended

New updates from Hanamonogatari by Schwinn = the world is healing

ah why did the teacher have to come back before she could beat him up kangaroo style

Teachers do not spawn in the area as long the bullying is in progress, but they are immediately summoned if someone stands up to the bullies

Calm down Nina, have some yogurt

Okay, maybe it will be a whole thing. I just think it's kind of funny to freak out about this after how many chapters were devoted to the student x teacher love polygon drama. Unlike back then, here we have a reason to care about the couple's happiness, since we have already seen what their good times look like. Can you really call this an "abrupt nosedive in quality", considering what came before?

You're so right, the shorts that barely reach below their asses just scream "masc"

Men can wear booty shorts too /shrugs.

Besides, the thing that caught my eye onto that is their hair and general body type. Idk, I just read them as masc, but unless it becomes a critical plot point it doesn't really matter beyond "this is a prison with female sex (and so far just sex) robots being tested on the prisoners"

Male = "masc", booty shorts are masculine, and everyone in a dystopian max security prison who doesn't have massive tits or long hair is automatically a man. Much to think about...

last edited at Jul 24, 2024 9:41AM

Sigh.

This arc continues to be annoyingly stupid and the worst part of the series thus far. The angst feels forced and stale already, I just want to move on as quickly as possible.

I feel like calling this an "arc" is more melodramatic than the actual content. It's just one chapter split into two parts.

last edited at Jul 24, 2024 8:26AM

And as my “world without yuri stories” crack was intended to imply, there’s a curiously old-fashioned tone about this one, with “but we’re both sisters” taking the place of “but we’re both girls.”

I think I actually and finally get what you mean now.
It's like before same-sex union exists, in order to have the same-sex couple to be together, since they couldn't marry each other, therefore the only way to do so is to have one of them as their 'family', so that one of them could inherit property, or to take care of the other person etc.. if the other is unavailable or passed away.

One of the founding mothers of yuri, Nobuko Yoshiya, legally adopted her partner Chiyo Monma for that very reason. And since Yoshiya was the older of the two, Monma addressed her as onee-sama (older sister) in their letters. (The same way the younger girl would address the older girl in the Class S literature where Yoshiya did most of her writing.) You could say metaphorical sisterhood is part of the DNA of the genre.

Which anthology?

Yuri Anthology Dolce Due.

And now I'm noticing that it came out 11 years ago... That's a blunder on my part, but I'm also blaming Dynasty for not providing basic context like release year