kyou feels like a player to me.

she chose easy prey in the shy and naive glasses girl with no confidence,deceived her with empty compliments to sweet talk her into dating her,manipulated her feelings to make her position feel threatened,and finally pressuring her to have get intimate way earlier than she would otherwise all in one chapter.

Yeah, she sends up all kinds of alarm bells.

That's a matter of personal preference. Some people prefer being called by name rather than their place in the family hierarchy.

Yeah, my niece and nephews call me by a nickname.

All due respect, if you're not a japanese person living in Japan, it's not exactly the same. Not saying it's impossible, but the social stigma against referring to a relative in an informal way is MUCH higher in Japan.

Execution is extremely important. And a bullet list of plot points does not show nearly the full picture. Knowing what happens, I don't think that list (or any story reduced to a list of plot points) is very fair or useful (last volume is fun also). But whatever. When people don't like things, they really don't like it.

I mean, the fact is if somebody doesn't like something, you're never going to reason them into liking it. Neither side is wrong, it's just a matter of preference. The only place I would take exception is if anybody wants to pretend like their opinion is somehow objective.

Otherwise, if you don't like it, cool. Bye. If you do, neat, let's talk about what we like about it.

Everybody needs to stop trying to win.

Sometimes the jumps in the timeline make me confused. (>_<)
When did this cute patpat moment happen? Is it a vignette from the past?

Usually Youzi's age is the main indicator of when we're in flashback territory (although even at 16, Youzi is tiny, which threw me off back in chapter 9,) but you can also tell by Youji's hairstyle. When Youzi was 6 and first started shipping Mom and Ren, Youji had medium length hair down to her shoulderblades, typically pulled back in a long-ish ponytail.

In the "present day" stories she's got it cropped relatively short. This issue is set in the latter period.

And man, Ren has got it bad.

What you don't think about the napes of your homies' necks?

Also, was that the nape of her neck she was thinking about? I just assumed it was generally how close they were.

In the last panels, what I see is Aya thinking back about how their shoulders touched and thinking that it makes for the best "tender memories". It's ambiguous if it's the situation or the pic (probably both).

Yeah, for some reason at first glance I thought that panel was more about Aya's perspective, being close to Mitsuki's shoulder/neck area, but after looking again, it's definitely more about the shoulder contact.

Regardless, my point stands.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Well, she's clearly acknowledged as her crush now.

I think that's still a choice by Kirin about how to translate 'oshi'.

Yeah, I'm mostly curious about the japaneses that "lover's shot" was translated from.

It's Amity and Luz from "The Owl House" cosplaying as Bowsette and Mario from Super Mario Bros. And it's super gay. There's not really anything to "get" beyond that.

Yeah, I don't care if the the author came out and swore up and down that "No, no, they're totally straight, this story isn't gay at all." I'd just call them a goddamned liar. Even if the translation were being way too generous, nobody straight daydreams about the nape of their bestie's neck like that.

Wait, so they're going on a car ride with all four dramatis personae now? This promises to be awkward in a delightful way.

All four? It seems pretty clear to me that Youji is pulling Ren away to get her away from the douchecanoe there. Or am I misunderstanding you?

You are misunderstanding me, but I also mixed up the names, so we can call it even? :P (Chen was the final person I was thinking of. The one coming to drive them is Xiao Pei, though; no UST with that one. I think.)

(Facepalm) Okay, so, somehow I missed the entire second page earlier. Sorry about that.

Wait, so they're going on a car ride with all four dramatis personae now? This promises to be awkward in a delightful way.

All four? It seems pretty clear to me that Youji is pulling Ren away to get her away from the douchecanoe there. Or am I misunderstanding you?

Why is Weiwei with Youzi? Did she pick her up at school?

When Youji said she was picking up Youzi from class, she's not talking about school, she's talking about the singing lessons with Weiwei.

(A challenger appears)

DADADADA-DA-DA-DAAAAA

I don't get the "15 minutes" discussion. There's still 15 minutes for what?

I thought Serina's 'You're too late!' meant late in abstract, but could it be she was referring to a concrete time period?

Hinoka and Tsukushi are supposed to go out to shop for swimsuits. Hinoka bumped into Tsukushi's mom, so she came up early, Tsukushi heard the talking and came out. Serina wants to tease her sister, so she's acting chummy with Hinoka and suggested that because Tsukushi came out late, Hinoka is hanging out with Serina instead. But Tsukushi isn't late, Hinoka is early. Hence Tsukushi caught on that she was being teased.

... and I think some sort of webcomic precursor to this was called "manga sick", or at least I seem to remember that being the case but I can't find it :P

I've not heard of this but if it's true I WANNIT

Look, I've got no skin in the moral outrage game on either side, but I have to disagree with you on the point of Rin's maturity.
Sorry, what kind of falling in love with a random older girl who helped you once, only taking no for an answer in word, but still wanting to find out who they liked so you could "beat" them, and only giving up once you saw that other person was similar to you, makes you think Rin is "the most mature character in this entire manga".

I mean, have you seen the other characters in this manga?

(Ba-dum-tish)

last edited at May 3, 2023 5:08PM

The tweet calls her a mysterious "onee-san" but keep in mind "onee-san" is often used in Japan to refer to an older peer. She isn't necessarily a blood relative of anybody, so we'll just have to wait until next week's update.

I always love having the parents getting properly involved with the story and the coming-out, it just adds that little bit of extra depth and grounds the story better. It'd be great if Hino-san ended up doing the grand tour, but I am already being greedy enough hoping we'll keep going for a while longer.

That was one aspect I missed in YagaKimi—I wanted to see Yuu’s family’s reaction to getting their new high-achieving daughter-in-law. I wouldn’t call it a structural flaw or anything, just something I would have liked to see play out.

But the parents on both sides here have been even less of a presence than in YagaKimi, so I have no idea how much family action we’re going to get going forward.

I suspect a lot of authors on the LGBTQ+ spectrum have strained or nonexistent relations with their own parents, so you get a lot of stories where parents aren't in the picture at all (because the authors don't want to revisit that trauma) or they're terrible. (because the authors want to reflect their lived experience.)

The only hint of this we got in YagaKimi was Yuu's dad echoing some careless bigotry, but a lot of people who do stuff like that will u-turn once they realize it's THEIR kid and they're hurting them, so it's not really enough to judge anything.

I just read this. Nice!
But I don't get the "Still Sick" title.

Maekawa is a posterchild for chronic depression through most of the series. It's not really until the very last chapters that she has managed to learn to mange her mental illness. Shimizu also spends most of the series in denial about her sexual orientation because of anxiety and personal trauma. They help each other learn to be healthier versions of themselves at the end, but until then, they're "still sick".

That's why in the new continuation, the title is changed to "Still Life", because they're not sick anymore.

Pros: Absolutely spoiling us with these chapters, 10/10 progress and cuteness from the main couple.

Cons: Nobody's called the FBI on Omichi yet.

She's a minor!

If anybody needs to get arrested, it's Hino's parents, for fucking neglect. Here I am again, wishing desperately that I could punch the snot out of fictional characters.

I give up. I have no idea what's going on in this webcomic anymore. It's like every episode is a disconnected from every other episode.

Each episode is a small window into a moment in their lives. It's a pretty common format for online comics, and I can get not enjoying it, but I don't see what's hard to follow. Youji is into Ren but in denial about it. Ren is into Youji but is waiting for her to make the first move. Everybody around them sees it, especially Youzi, who desperately wants Ren to be Mom#2.

I mean, there are instances of groping in this series. These vary from "honest" to "hilarious", sometimes within the same scene. I don't think there's a single instance where it's anywhere near "gratuitous".

True, but even those are more about the interaction between the characters than titillating the readers. I mean, compare those instances to, like, anything from Hinohara Fuki. Hino-san no Baka has the characters being lewd, but the point of the story is about how their relationship involves those things, and the art is drawn in a way that minimizes the reader's titillation at those events.

Like, sure, we see Hino's hand touch Koguma's butt, and we see Kogu reacting to it, but there's no "nyu" sound effect, there's no generous close up of Hino's butt as the fingers dig into the flesh.

And what I was really talking about there was the way the CPR scene could have involved "chest compressions" but didn't go there. Because the point is to tell a story that happens to be teens, who are often by their nature horny, not to sexualize characters in order to gratify the reader sexually.

I guess I don't really understand why people are in an uproar over interactions between children. I could see why someone might be uneasy if one of these characters happened to be an adult (are adults even shown in this series at all?), but some of the responses I've seen here are either completely blowing things out of proportion or talking about things that haven't even happened yet without using spoiler quotes. I'm not sure which.

I believe it comes down to people's answer to the following: "is it still lolicon if they're both minors?"

After thinking about this for quite a while, even I don't have a concrete answer for this, yes or no. In the majority of cases, I would probably say no, but I can't deny that there are occasions and scenarios where it would be yes. An extremely mature teenager being in love with a small girl would definitely be jarring. But that isn't what we see here; not even close.

If at some point, the author decides to go the route of an actual coupling of a high schooler and elementary schooler, I would understand people's uneasiness. But until that point, there really isn't a purpose to the drive-by morality policing posts.

I think it comes down to how it's portrayed?

Like, honestly, this series is the kind of series where the content could be SUPER gratuitous. But this story is fairly restrained in it's depictions of sexual content. Like, the kids are experiencing their sexuality, because they're going through the early stages of puberty and that's what happens, but like, the story with the panties doesn't have a single panty-shot. The story with the CPR doesn't feature any groping, boob shots, pantyshots, or even an actual kiss.

I honestly don't really feel like the characters are being sexualized much, especially considering what is fairly common among manga artists. It just feels like a story about people at that age.

Gash posted:

Do you think this chapter means drama from before the hiatus is resolved now? Or is this an out of order interlude?
I love this update but I was really thinking previous arc needed at least a chapter or two more to properly resolve.

The author choose to stick to a "real" timeline. Ie, it's X-mas when it's X-mas IRL, it's spring when it's spring IRL, she references concerts that actually happen in Japan, etc.

Yeah, to the point that I honestly was kinda surprised a few weeks ago when we got a direct continuation of the previous scene. That almost never happens.

I wonder if there's going to be more to the book to fill in the gaps.

So, since the concert, I'd assume a few weeks have passed, as much as in real life. Maybe she'll reference the aftermath in later chapters.

Though I think that next chapter may be a birthday chapter, since it'll be Aya's according to what's been mentioned here.

Another occasion for Mitsuki to be a smooth criminal I guess.

Yeah, watch for falling hearts.

last edited at Apr 13, 2023 3:23PM

We know her nickname is CaiCai. Not sure what her full name is.

I'm sure I remember she's the daughter of one of the Chen sisters. I can't recall which one without rereading... but dm whatever the case, CaiCai's surname must be Chen as well.

She's director Chen's daughter. Caicai might have her dad's surname, if she has a dad, we don't actually know what the deal is there.

We DO know that it was after seeing Caicai's text from Youzi about "The great operation to help my Mom woo Auntie Ren" that she went out of her way to set up the variety show with Ren and Youji. So that suggests that the Director ships it as well. (Or she thought it'd be good TV)

(Maybe she's trying to get Youji away from her sister)

last edited at Apr 11, 2023 11:23PM

I saw the raws on twitter first and thought she shoved the petals on Mitsuki’s face to prevent her friends from seeing her without glasses on. Hahaha, totally wrong on that one.

Are you sure you're wrong? Because I still see it like this even now.

I think that's exactly it. What else is it supposed to be?

I just thought she panicked and tried to throw away the petals and accidentally shoved them in Mitsuki's face.

It's not like her friends have even really seen "onii-chan." They don't go to the CD store. And Narita-kun already knows.