Hirumari is medicine for my tattered soul

Imagine a world, where people think commoners cant be educated but women can!

We all know this is mainly because of the Otome game setting (can't really market a game to women were they don't have any rights), but even beyond that it would be interesting to explore if the presence of magic might contribute to a more gender equal society. If you think about it, the root of male dominance in society really comes down to physical power, the capability to wage war and therefore amass power, which is then distributed amongst male allies.

In a magical setting like this, particularly were magic doesn't seem to be tied to physicality, women would have hardly any disadvantage in the exertion of force, a magically talented woman will always be able to take down even the strongest non-magical man. This could, theoretically, make it so that women have much more direct access to power and that even men in power would need to rely on (and therefore placate) powerful women. Accordingly, over time this magical society might shift towards becoming more gender-equal, as the continued presence of (many) powerful women would require attitudes and institutions to slowly adapt.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

I have to say, the idol world is something I never understood and that really kinda creeps me out most of the time. The manga is sort of nice, but everything about idols and otaku fan culture just seems all kinds of fucked up

I love how Yvonne just absolutely sucks at being mean to Elsa. Holding her hand for ages whilst walking through school, then locking them both in a dark closet whilst trying to do whatever is needed to soothe her...
Yeah, with this kind of bullying I can totally see why Elsa fell for her, even if we disregard her suspecting something about the villainess system, it seems at worst like a sort of confused way of expressing care and drawing attention

I'M SO HAPPY THIS IS BACK
Thank you WSS for the wonderful translation, this series is just pure joy

Lovely story, but I don't really understand anything that happened before it started.
So in the begin, Raika says that Mai and Nana both aren't from the town, however later Mai is shown to have gone to the same high school as the cook in the Italian restaurant? Doesn't that sort of imply that they are both from the town? Also, it is never really mentioned how Mai and Nana even got to know each other, apart from Nana seeing her on stage. I guess they met as part of the "fan club"?

Also, Mitsuha is some kind of ghost, isn't she? :D

A battlefield I have no place to be in.

But there needs to be more comics like this,because normal romance was already thrown out the window in many,many,many,many other comics that you can find on this site.

Pretty much, yeah. It's great having fluffy romance in manga and many series here provide that, but it's also great to have messy and unconventional romances in other series, adds variety. I find it fascinating as well, since IRL I would be keeping people like Yoshioka far far out of my romantic life

That sequel was unexpected. But I'll stick with what I said earlier, I really appreciate that this is an actual messy relationship that has plenty of potential for failure as well as success.

The thing is that we also really don't know what Matsuno even wants, that girl took like 10 years to even figure out she was in love in the first place, so is it really realistic to expect her to have everything figured out when it comes to what she wants in a relationship?

Ouch, that credit page hurt

Credits page is just chef's kiss

So... Yoshioka is the first person ever to suspect Matsuno likes girls?

You'd think that, after sleeping with lots of men and finding that she just doesn't enjoy hetero sex, at some point some friend would have come up with the idea "hey maybe you're a lesbian?" or something along the lines...

I always thought that, but after reading several true stories about first time lesbian experiences I've realised that it takes some women (And I assume men as well) a while to figure out their own hearts. I guess denial can be a powerful thing.

Totally, one male friend I had in uni basically used to not at all acknowledge that he was gay, then a guy at a party seduced him and they started dating, at which point he realised that he might not be straight after all

While I agree that the depiction of bisexual women is not great here, at least for Yoshioka we don't even know she's bi until the very end, I actually kind of assumed her to be straight.
Overall what bothers me more is that Matsuno holds on for ages to a crush and still seems completely dense and without any internal drive to do anything really, that just feels weird and forced in for story development purposes. But I appreciate that apart from the romantic and supposedly ever lasting relationships we get in other manga, this one shows a relationship that might work, but that is more likely to actually just crash and burn. Makes it more human in a way.

Thank you so much for this translation, really enjoying this series in novel form as well! Translation is really well done as well, I always feel like Chinese is extremely hard to translate as many expressions simply don't have an English equivalent, so getting a chapter that reads this natural is really great

No idea where any of this is going or how the various great potential love interests are ever going to be resolved, but I honestly really ship Nao and Asumi, they are just super cute

The story is cute and all, but damn, would you look at that outfit.... I know Yvonne already wore it last chapter, but I just can't get over how elegant and amazing it honestly is. Also the ribbon variant is great as well.
I want more fancy dress Yuri, honestly hope this series finds many excuses to show of more gowns and stuff, because so far the artist's been killing it

last edited at Dec 10, 2021 6:27AM

Sage co-worker of the pastry shop has spoken and everything she said is 100% true. Particularly the last bit

Am I misreading things or did the reading direction suddenly change to right to left in chapter 5?

I love how Yukino probably was just thinking to make some nice food and get closer to the neighbour she's got a big crush on, only for that neighbour to then immediately ask her out and kickstarting the relationship

A reverse "I favour the villainess"? I dig it.

Also, is it weird that I would be kind of interested in playing a game with a "villainess system"? :D

"Are you my boyfriend?"
Well no, but actually yes.

Whenever I see a new chapter of The End of a Dream up, I strategically open up another, more lighthearted manga to wash my depression away after reading this.

This ending hit hard though, I definitely cried a bit. In the end, I wonder if this wasn't just the continuation of her earlier suicide attempt though

Okay, I don't really understand what's going on anymore. In the first chapter they barely knew each other, right? And since the last few chapters all take place right after they enter high school and meet for the first time, the first chapter should be chronologically after this. But then they seem closer now then in chapter 1, I am very confused

Can anyone explain?

At this point I'm wondering if Asumi would even be able to go back to a monogamous relationship if she finds Mai, she seems quite hooked on the weekly prostitute hiring thing

Learning about how they got closer to each other really shows why Mitsu is so consistently focused on Kiyoko, also makes it even more tragic to see how the confident Kiyoko of that time has been turned into a demure housewife for a man she doesn't love. It will be interesting (aka depressing as fuck) to learn how that happened.

Overall bleak/10, thank god I'm living in a time and place where I am mostly free to live as I like

MC is truly an idiot, I love it :D