kerii posted:

^ Except Yuu's demi-romanticism is, at best, debatable.

Why? I think it made a lot of sense. She found her pretty and started falling for her as she got to know her better. I found Yuu's feelings quite relatable.

I find terms demiromantic and demisexual pointless, because what people use to call it, I simply call "falling in love". To me falling for someone only after spending long time with them and getting to know them is how falling in love should work. Everyone is different and everyone needs different amount of time to feel comfortable with other person. Giving some arbitrary time limits and labels only alienate people over something that works differently for everyone. I would never call myself demisexual/romantic. I'm more than capable of finding someone attractive and fall for them in very short amount of time if we hit it off yet I also experienced falling for someone only after spending over 2 years with them and initially not finding them attractive at all. If I wanted to label myself 1 way or another I'd just be limiting myself.

Look carefully at what you wrote and realize that you just entirely marginalized the way demi-romantic and demi-sexual people feel. You flat out say
"I'm more than capable of finding someone attractive and fall for them in very short amount of time if we hit it off yet I also experienced falling for someone only after spending over 2 years with them and initially not finding them attractive at all."
Alright then... you are NOT demi... the fact that YOU are capable of that doesn't mean that it is the UNIVERSAL TRUTH. There are people who are NOT capable of finding someone sexually attractive in a very short amount of time (demi-sexual) and others who are not able to fall in love with someone in a short amount of time (demi-romantic). They have to form a strong bond with the person before the feelings they are "demi" about will happen.

While I would argue that demi-romantic is probably a more healthy way to enter a relationship, it isn't necessarily the norm. Most relationships do start based on the first rush of sexual and romantic attraction when a couple falls in love and not from a long term friendship that turns into love after months or years. Of course, most relationships also end in failure... but I don't know that the success rate is any better for one style over the other. Humans are humans...

Mutually unrequited love?

But she didn't make her prove that it's her natural hair color...

"On the other hand, let's put your hair back down... I don't want all these guys ogling you!"

The two characters remind me far too much of grownup versions of Hana and Hina... right down to the one who knows she's gay thinking that the other won't want to be with her even if she's willing to do it with her. "Hana and Hina many years after school"?

last edited at Oct 23, 2019 5:11PM

Just take turns! (I'm surprised the senpai didn't come in and settle the argument by stealing her first kiss away from both of them.)

last edited at Oct 23, 2019 1:13PM

I'm trying to figure out the two other club members. I can't figure out if they're both players, a couple, or if the senpai is a player and going to break the other 1st year's heart and cause trouble by going after one or both of the protagonists.

Not sure why people are referring to Kaede as Shion's senpai... she was more experienced than her, but
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/ikenai_otona_ch04#5
they are the same age.

I love chapter 167 because the only french after had studied 3 years I can remember is "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?" Thank you, Christina Aguilera.

That reminds me of an OLD Tom Parks comedy routine where he talks about being unsure whether he got his money's worth out of college and gives, as an example, the fact that he took four years of Spanish at a total cost of around $20,000 (at the time) that boils down to two $10,000 sentences. I don't remember the Spanish, but the translations are: What a pity there are two girls in the kitchen. AND My record player is broken. Then he goes on the suggest that instead of leaning Spanish he might have been better off getting a new car with the money.

Then quite a bit later in the act he talks about going to Club Med and being seated for a "family style" dinner with a family from Mexico and says, "So we were discussing the problems I'd been having with my stereo equipment..." It totally killed!

After reading chapter 2 I can say that they suit each other very well or more like they deserve each other?, but Aoi's apathy is just too weird for me... There's no love at all! I almost feel bad for Chiho....ALMOST. Well, I'll leave this for those who like it, can't keep coming and complain in each chapter XP

We knew that about Aoi already. That was her basic issue.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/its_like_a_spring_storm_ch01#12
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/its_like_a_spring_storm_ch01#13

These two pages detail the Aoi that, apparently, only Chiho REALLY knows. She gives the appearance of a carefree girl who gets along with everyone, the type who anyone would fall for, but in reality, she isn't capable of caring for other people in general. In other words, she's good at putting on a facade in order to make people happy, but she doesn't really care about them deeply. The only person who has seen through this facade is Chiho and, because of that, she seems to have a special place in Aoi's life. She's the person she can go to to unload her problems and who won't let her get away with her crap if she can tell that it is ACTUALLY making her unhappy. And, even though she's got an abrasive personality, Chiho seems to have actual feelings for Aoi.

As for the later chapters... Chapter 4 seems to confirm that Aoi's father talked with the guy she was supposed to marry more than she did. I'm not sure what to think about him after he suggested they try again, but more slowly... Glutton for punishment? Idiot? I really can't imagine that he actually has feelings for someone he hardly knows.

I do expect that the fact that he is working in her office will bite her in the back side unless she tells Chiho about it before she finds out on her own.

Well, now it's perfectly clear that Izumi is in love with Useless #1 and Useless #2 knows about it... so the question is, what will she DO about it? My guess? Try to distance herself from #1 because she feels that Useless #3 has priority because she's known her longer, leading to #1 becoming either sad or angry or jealous of Oblivious Otaku again.

As for the future date, it's probably something to do with the publication date of the magazine?

The husband did nothing wrong, why did you traumatized him like that ruining his wedding in front of his family and friends... Should take your little drama somewhere else, don't get other people involved for selfish reasons.

Edit: wait, reading the comments some say it was a forced marriage her father imposed on her. But in the story it's not clarified is it?

While it's true that the husband to be did nothing wrong, he also didn't do anything particularly right. Did he get to know his bride to be well enough to know if she really wanted to marry him? Did he know that she was doing it basically because it was what was expected of her?

On this page:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/its_like_a_spring_storm_ch01#25

she indicates that she's marrying someone she doesn't want to marry, repressing her own feelings, and "being considerate of those around me".

On this page:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/its_like_a_spring_storm_ch01#23

she recalls several times in her life when she was doing similar things, like agreeing to date a guy she didn't like, taking a job she didn't enjoy, or taking a promotion that put responsibilities on her that she didn't want to deal with. She indicates that Chiho was the only person she could really be herself around. I suspect that is because Chiho would never tell her that she was wrong for feeling the way she felt and would call her out when she was lying to herself and giving in to societal pressure to do what was expected of her even if it wasn't something she felt comfortable doing.

I'm guessing that the bottom of that page is how she EXPECTED Chiho to respond, but, as we saw earlier, that wasn't the case. So she's going along with expectations because her sounding board failed her, even though she knows that what she's doing is stupid and that she won't be happy.

I thought the chapter did a decent job of showing the basic dynamics of the relationship between the two protagonists and the character flaws that lead to the runaway bride scenario.

This just gets better and better with each chapter.

Curious thing I noticed https://mangadex.org/title/23356/otome-no-teikoku/covers/

As you can see there, with vol 12 they've shown all the couples and we know that at least with Mio x Shizuka that even if at some point everything goes wrong, they are meant to be together so I guess when it comes to Onibi x Nao and Kaoru x Mask it's only going to get more serious from now on.

BUT what really surprised me was the fact that now that we've gone full circle with all the girls in the covers(12 pairs!) the clock is back to 1AM and we're repeating the couples that appear in them and seems like we're getting them in the same order, so I guess we can expect Airi x Michiru in the vol 15? -------ah! but then I need to wait for a future vol 24 to see Onibi and Nao in the cover again nooooooooooo

Well, at least you're absolutely certain that, when the series reaches v24, you'll get to see them again. Some couples won't ever get a cover... :(
Look at this, the list of pairings has 13 items, 26 girls in total:

Mahi x Mahi
Ai x Chie
Nononon x Yumimi
Honoka x Elisha
Michiru x Airi
Kanae x Haruka
Mari x Yuu
Miyoshi x Ayano
Onibi x Nao
Shizuka x Mio
Midori x Hibiki
Mask x Kaoru
Mayuyu x Mariri

And there are only 12 couples who appear in the covers, and after all 12 have appeared the cycle starts again. There's one couple who got screwed in this deal. :((
Then again, they aren't that popular... :p

If Mayuyu x Mariri get a cover it will be WITH Nononon x Yumimi. I'd say that they are only marginally paired anyway. Up until a couple of chapters ago (in terms of chapters that the debate club appears in) Mariri had a boyfriend, after all... Not that it doesn't look like Mariri doesn't have plans to continue playing with Mayuyu at every possible opportunity. She seems to be a great character that hasn't been utilized nearly enough!

So... exactly how many time will Christmas come around while these girls are in the same grades? Don't get me wrong... I love the series and everything... but it's clear that they are NEVER going to graduate and they will always be living their lives between the start and end of this one school year. That's all well and good, since the relationships seem to actually progress despite the slice-of-life/humor first approach, but it also means we'll miss out on some things, like how Mio would deal with Shizuka graduating, especially if, per chance, she and Kaoru ended up at the same university.

I don't know... it's just one of those things that bugs me... I prefer even comedy series to actually age their characters and let time move in a logical manner instead of putting out seasonal chapters without moving the characters forward. (It appears that there is a Christmas themed chapter about once every two volumes, which would suggest that the manga is semi-monthly and the Christmas chapters are timed for the December issues, since there appear to be about 12 chapters per volume in general?)

last edited at Oct 16, 2019 12:47PM

Past Haruka would be rolling saying how indecent this development is lol

I think you're confusing Haruka with Nao, the exhibitionist. I'm pretty sure that Haruka wasn't introduced until Chapter 55, part 1 "Onoda-san On the Way to Despair", in which Onoda-san is upset about where academic performance and someone blurts out that Nanasawa (Haruka) got first place "again", which puts her on Kanae's radar. Haruka isn't actually even considered a "Main Character" yet at chapter 71, which has the first "Main Character" pages I could find.

Also, is it just me, or is Onoda draw WAY cuter than she was in the beginning. I suppose that's true of all the characters in general...

when you're happier, you just look brighter and nicer in general :3

ai & chie are my faves but haruka & kanae are becoming a super close second for me

Yeah. It's probably supposed to be a sign that she's fallen in love that she looks cuter now. And Haruka & Kanae are seriously starting to be my favorite as well. I love that Haruka seems to be a woman who knows what she wants and isn't shy about going after it.

last edited at Oct 14, 2019 11:02AM

This is just too cute!

Well, you know... if you had a kid, there probably wouldn't be any more sleeping until noon on Sunday...

I feel like the reader is supposed to judge the dude pretty harshly here, unless this is normal to some degree in Japan. 36 and still sleeping in until noon? Even among me and my other single friends, this behavior died out in our early 20s. I mean, unless you really hit the club. But working a standard day job in a long term relationship? I assume a Japanese readership would find it even more odd

Maturity is not judging the way other adults choose to spend their free time because you realised it's none of your business.

Back when I had a kid who played hockey, I NEVER got to sleep in on weekends. Now that I'm older and my kids are older, sleeping until noon on the weekend is a totally regular occurrence for me. (My wife works most weekends though. She's a nurse at a hospital, so she's gone by 6:15 am the days she works.) I've always been of the opinion that a "Good Morning" is one where you don't wake up until afternoon...

(Well... actually... my youngest has moved back home now and is going to the local community college and working as a barista, so occasionally I have to get up to take her into work in the morning because she never got around to getting a driver's license because she was at a boarding school for math and science geeks and it made it really hard to get in the required driving time, then her first year of college was at a school IN Chicago where she couldn't have a car on campus anyway, so there wasn't any reason to bother... then she turned 18 and didn't have a valid permit anymore... We wouldn't want to pay for parking in downtown where she works anyway... so I guess the kids are still making me get up on the weekends sometimes... But her opening the place where she works at 10 or 11 or whatever is NOTHING compared to going to the hockey rink between 7 and 8 am for practice or a game!)

last edited at Oct 9, 2019 10:45AM

Hana's reaction to You calling her by her name without honorifics was fantastic!

Necklaces is probably safest. Sensei can keep hers under her buttoned up collars and turtlenecks. Straps or bracelets would be too noticeable. Ankle bracelets, maybe... but since Hikari is always wearing a skirt and Sensei probably wears one frequently, that might be noticed as well.

What would happen if Key decided to make a yuri visual novel...

really disappointed by the lack of development of sayaka, we didn't even saw her girlfriend, it's like she's no more than a side character now.

She was never more than a side character.

If you consider the light novel (and you should because it's canon), Sayaka actually has the longest storyline in the YagaKimi universe.

Yeah, she's got her own sequel series in light novels, that ARE getting published in the US. How can that be considered lack of development?

I absolutely LOVE the way she didn't show all of Yuu's left hand until page 15 when she waves to Touko and then you see the Promise ring, followed immediately by the picture of Touko with her ring on the next page.

All in all I thought this was a well done final episode. It showed enough of the future of the main couple to give us a HEA in progress feeling, while giving updates on the side plots as well with the obvious expansion of Echo; the open discussion about Riko between the manager and Touko about her not being able to go to the acting troupe as much as she used to; Sayaka's new girlfriend announcement, which I presume is something that we'll read about in the light novels about her; Rei living with Hiro and advocating for Yuu to move in with Touko (without telling mom that they are more than roommates), Koyomi's first novel being published; Yuu being out to at least a portion of her friends, since Natsuki teases her about wanting to finally meet her girlfriend, though evidently Doujima is still in the dark; Akira and Doujima appear to be dating at this point, which was expected; and Maki is still Maki, though possibly a slightly more mature version of himself... still the observer, just not quite so meddlesome.

It would have been nice to have the story cover the two young women moving in together and confronting their parents together as a couple. It seems that Yuu is not out to her parents yet, but, really, unless Yuu puts her ring on after leaving the house or Touko doesn't wear her ring when she goes to Yuu's family's house or store, it's almost certain that her mother will have seen the two of them together wearing the promise rings, or "couple rings" and it's clear that Yuu spends the night at Touko's apartment on a fairly regular basis. So unless her mother is completely naive, she should have figured out by now that there is something going on between the two of them, especially since her daughter has never mentioned any boys she was interested in throughout high school and college...

And on that note, it's clear that Yuu is getting close to being done with college, possibly quicker than Touko because of Touko concentrating more on acting than classes, since she's going to job fairs. (I liked the little dig that Sayaka got in on Touko about whether she was keeping up with her studies.) Job fairs are usually something you do starting around your junior year. Not something Touko needs to do, of course, since it sounds like she's already getting professional jobs, at least occasionally, in addition to college club performances and such.

It really wrapped things up well, with that one exception of not dealing with their relationship being open with their parents... But you can't have everything... Maybe that's in the bonus chapter in the volume?

That color page at the very end really got me

Yeah! It was super-effective!

EDIT: I'm trying to decide now if this is my favorite yuri manga of all time, or if "Girl Friends" is still in that spot... ("Whispered Words" was also very close...)... I'm thinking this one might just have bumped the rest down a notch...

last edited at Oct 2, 2019 12:08PM

Wing-mom is awesome!

So... I'm guessing she doesn't count HER OWN BOOBS as ones that she's touched? Because... she's got pretty big ones...

There is a yuri story where woman with uninspiring husband has love affair with her daughter childhood friend. This is prequel. But seriously story got off rail when Kaoru fell from the stair. Now it’s a mess. And, yeah, some people do think that kids reinforce not-a-good marriage.

And many children suffer from that belief.

How can I feel bad for her if she never even tried to fix them properly in the first place?

It's a bit more complicated that you make it sound like.It's not your classic misunderstanding situation, we talk about cheating with straight up lies. It's easy to say that Kaoru should walk up to Reiichi and ask him about that but in reality it's more complicated, Kaoru is in a mess after the whole Uta storm and she still trying to stay focus. Reiichi is now the only thing that keep her not alone, so it's difficult for her to ask Reiichi about that because if he say it's true and decide to go with Risako then Kaoru will be alone and depressed.

Honestly, yes Kaoru can do it but it's really difficult for herself right now to not but even salt in the injury and we talk about a simple cut here.

Exactly! The problem is that Kaoru is so afraid of abandonment that she will do anything to avoid confirming what she knows is true about her marriage and finding herself alone.

I dont get it I dont get it I dont get it I dont get it I dont get it

If in the Next chapter NOT break up with Kaoru i give up this Manga finally.
Kaoru is a freakin Blind Stupid Woman.

See above...

Still had she said anything about either issues (her husband or Uta leaving) this situation wouldn't happen.

I seriously doubt that saying something about Uta would have prevented her parents demanding that she move home for their own reasons. She IS still a minor. The fact that Uta agreed to it and didn't try to fight it, maybe, but, again, what exactly should she have said? She isn't at a place where she is ready to tell Uta that she returns her feelings. She really wants the little sister relationship they had before. (Though, in a sense, Kaoru is more like the little sister in the relationship in many ways, despite being older.) As for her husband, I spoke to that above... she has too much fear of abandonment to speak her mind.

It... it kind of seems like a lot of people here somehow can't tell that Kaoru saying she wants to have a baby is supposed to be desperate, sad, and alarming? Like, there might as well be neon lights flashing that this is a bad choice, the way it's written? It couldn't possibly be clearer?

I'm just like absolutely baffled anyone is reading this and thinking it's the story of Straight Couple Drama when 1. the relationship should end immediately for many reasons the author has spelled out very well, and 2. Kaoru questioning her sexuality is a big part of what's going on here.

I agree with #1, but Kaoru has far too great a fear of abandonment to even think of instigating that. As for #2, she might be doing that, but she is unlikely to act on it for the same reason. If she does act on Uta's feelings, it will most likely be because Reiichi leaves her and then her motivation will be suspect. Would she be accepting Uta's feelings because she has truly come to realize she loves her or because she's so afraid of being alone that she'll take advantage of the girl who loves her. (To a certain extent that seems to be what is going on with her and Reiichi. There seemed to be a certain amount of obligation involved in their relationship from the beginning.)