^ It's cool, all's well that ends well.

Now that I think about it, all the weirdness about Misumi's fingers and wrists and whatnot makes perfect sense- she literally has yaoi hands.

I thought they'd pull an 'actually, there was no drug' ending, but this lady genuinely invented something revolutionary.

^ It's actually possible for the buttons to end up on the wrong side if you press one end of the fabric down while twisting your wrist. The bottom panel does show us the material of the uniform around the elbow sliding opposite to the direction of the wrist's rotation. It's happened to me quite often when I lie down on desks while wearing tight, full-sleeved shirts.

That being said, I'm not about to write more defenses, because it feels like the argument's stretched on for too long. I find that there's enough context in the two panels combined to suggest that the art isn't erroneous, but others don't. That's fine- it is art, at the end of the day. As to the question of whether Sato drew two right arms or is actually a genius of positioning and placement, we'll have to look to other examples on our own time to find out.

This was a good conversation, though. Helped me look at things in ways I hadn't considered before. I do have a minor sprain from trying to replicate that arm placement, but it was an interesting experience.

This manga gives me more stress than Junji freaking Ito, and I love it. Kato's uncannily good at creating this cozy, supportive wholesome atmosphere and then just brutally flipping it with a single insensitive word or phrase. It really goes to show the fragility of whatever peaceful moments you can find while living in ways that society considers abnormal. The way the natural, easy flow of text on this page leads into the dark, imposing splash-dialogue on this page? Legitimate horror manga technique, especially with how massive and cruel the Dad seems in Mogumo's eyes. You can really tell that the home is this dark, claustrophobic, place that turns into a hall of nightmares for them when wrong pronouns and impossible standards start getting thrown around.

I admire the story's decision to go with the reconciliation route, though it doesn't seem like it'll be easy. The father's one tough bigot to crack, and many stories, particularly Western ones, would just have Mogumo cutting free and embracing their found family instead. But the desire to be accepted by families and mend bridges broken by misunderstandings is a huge part of the the queer experience- even if you've had a shitty childhood, it's quite hard to cut yourself off from your parents entirely, especially if you've got siblings that rely on you. It's an exacting, difficult position, and even if Mogumo gets accepted, they'll still have to deal with a very stressful environment, because the scars of a terrible childhood don't fade all that easily, and the road to recovery is always tough. But for that reason, I feel like this speech might actually work out, seeing as it isn't a grand solution, but simply a pathway to new experiences, which would let Kato advance the greater plot and engage with more themes. We're definitely not getting a tragic ending here, but there's still quite a few more mountains left to scale.

last edited at Dec 11, 2020 7:58AM

^ I'm pleasantly surprised someone recognized my pfp, considering how obscure the game is. Bayarlaa, noukherne.

^ The U.S. has always been held up as the land of milk and honey where I'm from, and immigrating there is supposed to be the greatest thing a kid from my nation could achieve. Growing up, I heard so many great things about it, and to compare those myths with the hellscape that America has become today is truly disconcerting. I've actually got a cousin who flew to the States last year to set up a medical practice, and she opted to settle in the South instead of someplace like NYC because it's cheaper to live and set up a profession there. It's pretty much the most dangerous place a person can go, especially if they're a POC, and though things haven't gotten too bad for her because she's in a dorm, I would not want to be in her place. Even after Trump's loss, fundamentalism in America has received a massive boost, and it's gonna take a long, arduous battle to push it back down. In the meanwhile, take care and stay safe.

Why are cursed harem protag tropes so cute when it’s yuri? Truly a mystery of the world and definitely not the result of bias.

Probably because most harem protag tropes are ways to speedrun romantic attraction and sex without what most people would consider an 'appropriate' or 'believable' investment in terms of time and effort. So you have women randomly flashing guys and falling tit-first onto their faces through contrived coincidences instead of a mutually agreed-upon decision to engage in intercourse. This is hilariously ironic, because the intent is to make a sexually-charged encounter between a ridiculously cute girl and an average guy seem 'realistic', but the circumstances that lead into it are the pinnacle of pandering bullshit. Most people understand what authors are trying to do here, because harems aren't the most subtle of genres, and feel uncomfortable because of the gender dynamics at play- most romances tend to portray women as passive in terms of initiating romance while men generally make the first move and are later given consent.

By removing this process and the man's agency via 'lucky pervert' moments, the titillation feels 'unearned' and 'cheap', while the woman's evident discomfiture at being pushed into a compromising situation is also quite disturbing. When both parties involved are women, however, the gender dynamic largely vanishes, and the knee-jerk 'ugh' that a lot of people feel while seeing harem tropes is removed, leaving only amusement at the suddenness of the situation and excitement at the sight of an encounter. In short, stuff that would never be condoned or appreciated between a man and a woman is often forgiven or actively idealized when women are involved. So a scene where a man kisses a woman out of the blue to express attraction might make us cringe, but if it's done between two women, then the novelty of the interaction and the relative lack of media-conditioned mores would blunt the stigma. Sometimes, this is justifiable, because lesbians need their wish-fulfilment and rep after centuries of being excluded from media, and sometimes, it isn't- a lot of people will defend rape or molestation when it's girl on girl. As with everything, context is king.

"No, Kase-san. I'm going to be on top tonight."

I own so much to 2D/fictional lesbians. Now, I have to ask you Kirin (and everyone else too), don't you get frustrated with visual novels? Personally, I always get a bad/unsatisfying ending and I get bitter about it because I don't like replaying it right away.

No issues, that's a common concern with VNs. A lot of them, rather rage-inducingly, are explicitly designed with choices that run contrary to common sense (like picking an incredibly rude reply instead of a civil one when you're trying to complete the route of a romantic interest). This is mostly to force players to think (or rather, to think differently from how they might normally approach a situation), but the abject lack of warnings or tips in many, many VNs can send you spiralling into a bad end. I guess devs think that it boosts replay value, but I've met a ton of people who just shun VNs as a whole because of it.

That being said, I technically cheat and look up online guides to preserve my sanity, since I don't have the energy to play through a VN fifteen times until I grasp the moon logic at work (another option is save scumming). My laptop is also a rancid pile of junk that can't run anything with advanced visuals, so I mostly just watch YouTube playthroughs, which are very conveniently labelled with route names and good endings. Basically, I'm happy as long as I get the whole story, even if I didn't 'earn' it by predicting that you actually had to pick 'fling a chair' when Sakura-san from next door tells you that she's depressed. xD

^ I'll defer to you in this case, then. The positioning of the cuffs does seem rather awkward, especially since we can't see them in the next panel to establish perfect context. I do think that the angling of the shoulder is wonky, though. Overall, it seems like your interpretation of the plausibility of her position depends on the order in which you read the panels. I assumed that number one and two were entirely different positions, thanks to the aforementioned gap in time that elapsed during the three entire dialogues in the panel below. However, if you assume that her pose in the panel below is the correct one and inspect the first one retroactively, then it does seem anatomically incorrect. So unless you're willing to account for some degree of repositioning between manga panels (which I did, in line with my own experience), the two poses are indeed incompatible. It's an issue that accompanies the graphic medium- in many cases, you can't tell exactly how much time has passed between panels and can only rely on dialogue as a marker, and even then, there's the question of differing speech lengths, talking speeds, the positioning of all characters during said exchanges, and so forth. My view that is it's unnatural for there to be zero movement during all of this, especially if the artist is sleeping in panel one and we don't know how long the friends take to comment upon it.

last edited at Dec 10, 2020 10:24PM

I do like the block of text accompanied with the usual smugness, though. I especially like it when it comes after a failure to use something as simple as a mirror.

I did use a mirror, as a matter of fact. And I assumed that the shift in position from one panel to next was simply because the positioning of the girl's fingers subtly shifted, as opposed to staying the exact same over the course of an entire dialogue. Contorting your thumb into that position produces a mild sense of stiffness, and so it'd be natural to stretch it out in the opposite direction after a few seconds, especially if you're not paying attention to your finger placements and are just lolling around, which the artist is. I experienced the exact same thing myself, hence my point about attention to detail.

I'll freely admit that I don't know anatomy as 'part of my profession', but I don't think my eyes are dysfunctional. Or maybe I was just born with a defect that makes me want to defend something that I find believable.

Yuri made me a bit more cultured person, it got me into movies, books, shows, etc

Same. Looking back on it now, it's rather hilarious as to how much of my taste in media and aesthetics stems from a whimsical desire to check out a random comic about cute lesbians.

I would like to know what your favorite yuri media is and why...

Let's see... Favourite yuri anime would be Revue Starlight, because it mixes a brilliant ensemble with excellent direction, a wonderful plot structure, incisive commentary on theatre as an institution and as an ideal, and also a meta giraffe. Favourite yuri graphic novel would be Her Shim-Cheong, because it's an excellent period drama that actually talks about patriarchy and privilege instead of just being about a singular relationship. Favourite VN is Flowers, because it's classic Class S goodness from the 90s mixed with the progressive storytelling and narrative freedom of the new 10s. I don't have any lists, but will probably start to make them to prevent myself from forgetting the stuff I read three seconds afterward.

Also, welcome to the forum. 'Tis is a silly place, but quite gay when it counts.

^ There's definitely a thumb there, though? You can see a minor incline heading up from the base of the wrist. It's just that her thumb is obscured behind her palm, and you can only see the rounding of the joint. Considering that the artist has dainty, delicate hands, it's not too strange for the bones to not be pronounced enough to prominently jut.

Edit: Yep, I tried replicating the position with my own hands, and it's a perfect match with the art. I'm honestly impressed at the author's attention to intricate positioning and detail here, because the placement isn't something you can easily visualize- you'd need to have someone model it for you or actually do the pose yourself. Conversely, all you'd need to do to confirm the accuracy of the art is pull the same position. But I like how the person who first pointed it out just went with the most condescending possible interpretation to dunk on someone who literally portrays anatomy for a living.

last edited at Dec 10, 2020 3:37PM

Manga recommendation pls about girls classmate to friends to lovers to gf to married

Here

I feel like way too many doujins focus on Akyuu's impending death and completely leave out all the other fascinating parts of her personality, like her hilariously academic snark or her penchant for writing stories with OCs that are in fact thinly-veiled versions of her acquaintances. That being said, I like how proactive and direct Kosuzu was in reassuring her here. I do feel like this story veered neither too deep into angst and nor too deep into fluff to make an impression, but I suppose the daily swing between crippling depression and youthful enthusiasm is an integral part of Akyuu's routine.

Damn angels stealing young girl's hearts in between their visitations of fortune and doom.

Ganbare, Azurite. Work on your lines and realize that your fellow magical girl gets wetter than the Panama Canal when you're around.

If anyone's interested, here's an informative article about modern attitudes towards divorce in Japan. The story's obviously gonna aim for developments that maximize dramatic tension rather than striving to perfectly portray modern-day societal conditions, but all in all, it seems like Japanese society is stuck in this odd, transitional phase where the possibility of divorce is acknowledged, but the stigma still remains. Considering Yukako's tendency to contemplate alternatives without being comfortable enough to take the plunge, I suppose she's thought about it quite a few times, but still been too terrified to ever bring it up or think about how life would be afterward.

On the topic of the husband, it's interesting to see how he tries to assert his masculinity and gain gratification by putting Yukako down, especially in chapter one. The corporate machine simultaneously privileges men and emasculates them- on the one hand, they often become the sole or primary providers in households, but on the other, they're also largely powerless to protest harsh work conditions or argue with bosses (particularly in a culture that values hierarchies and etiquette as much as Japan). The point is that everyone's trapped, and the harder they pretend to be 'normal', the more repressed they become.

On a tangential note, I was curious about the title, and after some digging, the closest link that I've found to it is a famous 1921 short story by Kenji Miyazawa, titled The Nighthawk's Star. It might not be a direct connection, but the part about the nighthawk wondering what its true identity is as it drifts about under the stars definitely strikes me as a parallel to Yukako's condition- she wants to be like a 'normal', conformist woman in a traditional marriage, but only depresses herself by going through the motions. The only freedom and joy she finds are in secretive liaisons, and it remains to be seen whether she'll exhibit the determination and courage to fly through the night and find her own star, or simply fester in secretiveness and guilt. No matter what Chinami does, it ultimately needs to be Yukako's decision- she has to pick a course, commit to it, and move on, or she'll never be fully satisfied, and this guilty, painful affair will continue forever. It might be dangerous or fatal or just plain disappointing, but she'll never know the final outcome until she tries to make things work with Chinami.

I was a bit afraid that chapter two would kick up the drama, but instead, we got an interesting look into the routine behind the affair. It's a great narrative choice, because it drives in just how slow things are going- this isn't a feverish, passionate one-night stand, but a grinding, near-stagnant ritual spawned from two lesbians with communication issues and the marital equivalent of a sinkhole. It isn't challenging or difficult or dangerous- the issue is that it's too damned easy for everyone involved. The husband goes about bar-hopping, Yukako and Chinami use their friendship as a cover, and nothing demands bravery or change. Nobody needs to make a choice, and so, they fester in uncertainty and guilt.

The earlier segments of this chapter resembled something out of a cute, fluffy adult yuri series, bright and optimistic, and I love how suffocating the panelling becomes once we cut back to the home. Yukako and her husband barely even look at each other, and it's like the dialogue bubbles only serve to separate them instead of bolstering communication. It's a bit hard to be sympathetic for Yukako because of how indecisive she is, but that's the entire issue- she's not a girl looking for a prince and she's not a heartless seductress. The best she can do is stick her hands between the bars of the cage, but she's too scared to venture out into the cruel, wide world, and uses Chinami as her drip-feed of freedom instead.

I wonder how long Chinami can keep playing the devoted, patient lover- she seems driven by both an urge to give Yukako some agency and a genuine desire for Yukako to take charge. The smooth, charismatic mistress isn't a role that comes easily to her, and yet, just like Yukako, she takes an agonizing, ambiguous situation over outright loneliness and rejection. The main issue here isn't distance- it's that they're so close that they're actively stepping past each other, and the further they take things, the further away they'll grow. Someone, somehow needs to sacrifice something, but all bets are off on who it'll be. To be honest, it doesn't seem like this relationship would be too healthy even if the two end up together, but there's a part of me that's rooting for them, if only because the alternatives are too miserable to bear.

As always, the coppers ruin everything. They'll be siphoning this dick off the road with a paper straw once Liberta's done with him.

Holy shit, top Honoka has ascended.

You can definitely see the family resemblance to Kaoru here. Who knows what kind of top power their mom is hiding...

Their mom topped a girl so hard that they ended up having Non-Science Babies.

Kaoru hits on chicks till nobody takes her seriously, Honoka saves up her chadness for critical hits. Here we see the difference between a button masher and a true professional.

The love rival is a BL fanartist and an Internet troll? That's, like, the two groups of people on the Internet who despise each other the most united into one unholy individual.

Y'know, I've seen some pretty chibi-esque art in moe comedies, but this one really takes the cake. The girls look like warm, fragile dumplings that might actually be collapsing in on themselves thanks to atmospheric pressure. It's pretty cute overall, but the sheer compression is still hilarious. Also, cute story, I guess.

This is a wonderfully fuzzy story, and an excellently-constructed one as well. The panelling is so good- diagonal segments mirror hand movements, lines of sight set up new directions and errant locks of hair parallel cut-ins, weaving between speech bubbles to create an incredible reading experience. My eyes felt like they were moving down a waterslide the whole time, and I've rarely come across a manga that's so gratifying to just stare at.

The soft, blush-like touches on the faces combine with the uniform shading on interiors to perfectly convey the dim, windy atmosphere of a winter evening, to the point where you might almost forget what the weather's like outside your own home. Every inch of every page just pulls you in, and not with overt, splashy images, but with this gentle, sleepy pace that's got you breathlessly invested before you even realize what's going on, like scattered chatter on a radio that somehow turns into a fascinating story.

This page in particular is one of my favourites- the dash of darkness up top gives way to the shadows of a furrowed brow, before cutting away to a wide view of the mansion, tilted to convey how magical it looks through a child's whimsical eyes, and then back to our protagonists to drive in how tiny they seem. I really love details like this- under moving, emotional stories lie the skill of artists to foster connections, to draw us into the worlds of these black-and-white characters and make us care about them as if they were breathing beside us, and in that regard, this story is a technical masterpiece.