It's funny how the titles are less explicit each time:
Tonari Sex
Tonari flirt
Tonari kiss
Letter on will be tonari hand holding

Probably they were thinking of putting the hand holding one at the front, but the editor decided that was TOO explicit.

So . . . back when they were little, they consumed so many juju violets that, since their "resonance" would be close anyway as twins, the effects became permanent for them. Like Obelix falling in the magic potion cauldron.

What an adorable (and lewd) chapter.

Well, yes. I though it was just going to be a tease, but then they went for the full handholding!

I feel like most of the people complaining about the ending can't have actually liked the whole manga for what it was. Some are upset because the two ARE going to be sort of in a relationship and there's this huge age gap, which like, that was obviously what the whole manga was about so why were those people still here by this time? And some are complaining that the two aren't going to have sexy time while one of the leads is still a grade schooler, which this is obviously way too wholesome for that ever to happen so why were those people still here instead of reading some hentai?

I just find myself wondering what on earth people were expecting, or rather why on earth they were expecting it when it was obvious from the first chapter that that stuff wasn't in the cards.

It is a bit rushed though, and doesn't deal with some of the characters and where they're going. But it was sweet so I'm not going to get grumpy about it.

Hahahahaha!!!! Miss subtle strikes again!
We can talk about the characters' backstory, we can talk about who's doing the right or wrong thing, but this is still a comedy to me.

Well, that was a . . . sedate, ending.

A little bit over the top to say a 15/16 y/o girl slept with a bunch of other girls but alright

Can tell you weren't a teen in the 70s.

So, when the two of them say "love", they actually mean "cosplay", right? >__>

Um . . . sure, yeah, that's it.

The lucky panties were considerably more cute than I was expecting. Still tiny and lewd, but also white and lacy with a nice ribbon.

Well, I'm a traditionalist. IMO, they can be white, black, or fiery red, but if they're not lacy they're not real lucky underwear.

I know the author isn't writing her this way but Shizuka still feels so fake to me. Her only saving grace is that Mio seems to be happy with her.

I feel like I've said this before.

I actually feel like we're finally seeing the real Shizuka. Like...I feel like she was putting on an act. The refined, elegant senpai. She always felt a little...TOO perfect. Too untouchable. This somewhat insecure, trepidatious version of her feels more realistic to me personally. I think it was her relationship with Kaoru that forced Shizuka to adopt that unaffected persona as something of a shield.

But that's just me personally. Either way, I feel like she's a lot more real than she WAS.

Yeah, this.

FluffyCow posted:

I know the author isn't writing her this way but Shizuka still feels so fake to me. Her only saving grace is that Mio seems to be happy with her.

I feel like I've said this before.

I don't get that all from her at this point personally. Especially not after recent chapters with her, but too each their own interpretation of course.

same

Yeah, this chapter in particular makes me feel like she's genuinely over whatshername.

And there's plenty of cheap things healthier then that popcorn dish for sure.

Probably local production conditions where it's about cheapest there

It also seems to be a matter of "You only get given certain things in the camp, and what they are doesn't necessarily have much to do with creating any kind of practical diet". More like "Whatever there was randomly a surplus of that the administrators could scam practically for free". From what I hear about refugee camps, that's pretty realistic.

last edited at Jun 21, 2023 7:08PM

And even if you're not gay, sucks to be a career woman. "Only way for a chick to get this far is humping the bosses!" Seriously?

And the worst part is that there's some truth to it, precisely because no matter how good a woman is they're probably not going to promote her. It's like, sure, she's five times as good as any of the guys, but it's not like they'd promote her for THAT--she's a woman. In some ways Japanese culture is like a snapshot of the 70s in North America. Unfortunately I think it's stayed about there for some time.

Do... people only want sickly sweet wholesome stories? There's so much anger in this thread

Is there? Not really that much IMO, and to the extent that there is, practically NONE of it is complaining about the story not being wholesome. Mostly there have been complaints about the characterization being unrealistic. Which, despite all the stuff since the early chapters making excuses for why the characters have been behaving in certain ways, is in my opinion still basically the case, but I never really minded--they were being portrayed in an exaggerated way for comic effect, and it WAS fairly funny. But still, whether I agreed with people being upset about that or not, it was not upset about the story not being wholesome enough.

Since then, there has been criticism of the personality and actions of the characters, but again, that does not in my opinion equate to criticism of the STORY for having imperfect people in it. It's like soap operas, people watch them SO THAT they can cut up the characters--it's part of the fun. It's fine to like stories about characters that do irrational or unethical things, but there remains a distinction between characters doing bad things and characters doing good things. Is there some compact I don't know about that requires people who like stories about train wrecks to PRETEND they're wholesome when they talk about them?

I for one would have no interest in moving to Los Angeles. I often feel like the Japanese have an inferiority complex about the US--like the way so often when someone has an apparently incurable disease in a manga, and then when the risky treatment comes up, it's from America--either they have to go there to get the treatment (and it never mentions the previously well off family now being on the run from Yakuza loansharks) or some brilliant young surgeon learned about it in America and has come back with it. Really I don't think Japanese medical technology is behind North American medical technology, but it's never just some hotshot from the University of Tokyo, the American mystique demands it.

Of course, if your thing is rock music, I guess the US is genuinely the place. Not to, like, make it big because nobody does any more, but at least to experience ambience, go to cool clubs or what. LA might be a good place for that, I guess? I don't know what cities are happening these days. Austin?

Just to be clear, I wouldn't mind if Risa got Ayaka (and it was done well). It just won't happen.

Risa deserves to get the gold,but is that how it will turn out?...

No.

Hiroko's hinting at Risa so is Ayaka going to end up with Risa!? Love triangle trope finally subverted?

No.

please for once can the main ship be sunk

No.

last edited at Jun 16, 2023 3:59AM

Hiroko gets some points back for finally getting her shit together and putting forward a serious, well-worded rejection.

Agreed. I think the people saying it's THE responsible best thing to do are going a bit over the top, mind you.

I don't get the peepz who say Risa is no good or has no chance.

Oh, that's because she has no chance.
Trust me, I've been around this block hundreds, maybe thousands of times, in yuri and het, and she has no chance.

last edited at Jun 15, 2023 3:15PM

Hiroko's in the manager class, and welcome to salary in the corporate world

The professional-managerial class is better compensated, and therefore is more likely to side with the capitalist class than other workers, but they are still working class. They don't own means of production.

On this I actually like the take of the Participatory Economics people. They see that group as a class in itself, the "co-ordinator class", and think that for a truly good society not only the capitalists but also the co-ordinators have to be superseded in favour of horizontal management by all. (They view the Soviet Union as what happens when you get rid of the capitalist class and put the co-ordinator class in charge)

But whether you're a commie leftist radical or not, Japan doesn't seem to do a lot of paid overtime, and lot of unpaid. It's like they were all in the US tech sector. Having a personal life aside from employees' drinking parties is apparently like stealing from the company.

OK, so I want to retract one of the first posts I made about this manga, where I was saying we were in a world of subtlety and avoiding detection rather than ultraviolence.

If Hiroko really wanted Ayaka to stay away, she could stop jerking around with her emotions like this. :/ I feel like Hiroko just enjoys hurting other women, be it by loving and leaving them in the lesbian bar

Hang on a minute. We have no evidence she's hurting anyone at the lesbian bar. I don't think most people being propositioned successfully at a bar are going to be astonished when it's a short term thing. It seems fairly likely that on average she shows people a good time and everyone is more or less satisfied. Promiscuity is not my personal thing, but I've known some ethical people who are absolutely not into hurting anyone (um, metaphorically at least--a bit of S&M maybe) for whom promiscuity was their thing. Sleeping around is not by definition hurtful or evil.

I dunno, after this chapter, I would not call Ayaka's feelings for Hiroko "love" anymore. Admiration, projection, identification, desire to emulate, they can all feel like love but they are inherently unequal and romantic love usually needs to be equitable.

Really, I don't buy this. It sounds more like it comes from pleasant but semi-bogus self-help stuff than from real people. Real stuff is messy.

I am sorry I did not manage to get my point across -- I was stressed and didn't have the time to review my post, particularly the second sentence, so I ended up writing something trite. What I intended to convey was that Ayaka idolizes Hiroko because the latter represents what she wants to be professionally. At least, that is how her interest in her started out in the flashback. Ayaka has a deeply-seated insecurity about herself, presumably a anxiety about failure, and latches onto a person who she perceives as perfect, oblivious to the fact that she has only ever seen one of Hiroko's facets, her persona at work. She calls it love and even the manga's title says that, but romantic love in the way I have experienced it is rooted a desire to be with someone, not to be that someone (if your or anyone's experience has been different, I am sorry I cannot say much about it). My point is that Ayaka is chasing a false idol without seeing the shitty person behind it with whom she can actually fall in love.

As clarified, I find that very reasonable.

(snippage) I figured that all her previous actions were not meant to somehow fit in or try to endear herself to the crew - she only wanted to be noticed by Hiroko.
Which makes her someone socially - not inept - but still lacking in sensibilities.
Her love for Hiroko comes off to me as rather selfish now. She wants Hiroko, but the one whose image she had built in her mind. Which was why she was so distraught when she found out Hiroko was lying.

Well, yeah. But go figure. All we ever have is the image of people we build in our mind, based on the "them" they present to us. And almost inevitably, we fall for people before our successive approximations from seeing them in many situations get very reliable. You fall in love based on the information you have, not the information you want.

And yes, Ayaka is somewhat lacking in social sensibilities. And yes, her love is somewhat selfish, driving her to do somewhat foolish things. But personally, I don't really respect a love that doesn't have at least a bit of that in it. I don't feel like someone really loves a person hard if they're not willing to push themselves for it. Ayaka's a bit extreme.

If you think about it, we all loved bashing Hiroko for agressively not noticing Ayaka, but if we didn't know she was lesbian, or even if we didn't see her inner monologues, we'd think that she either a) misunderstood like an unrealistic clutz (ironically the maybe truth) b) was not gay but felt awkward rejecting Ayaka and tried to give her the hint or c) was gay but did not want to return Ayaka's feelings.

Also true. But, we'd be wrong, as it turns out. I don't think you can say that a judgement based on knowing the truth is inferior because a judgement based on not knowing the truth would be different.

And Ayaka would look like she was possessive amd overbearing and couldn't get the hint - maybe she would be seen as pitiful, but by no means would the readers support her as much.

OK, now this is a serious point. And, Ayaka IS possessive and overbearing and doesn't get the hint. On the other hand, up to this latest one all Hiroko's dodges, since they were designed to deflect a presumed-STRAIGHT girl's supposedly unintentional flirting, were almost perfectly calculated to fail to add up to something that actually turned down genuine advances by a gay girl. Now she has finally explicitly turned Ayaka down acknowledging Ayaka as a gay girl wanting to ask her out, and it has provoked a major crisis for Ayaka, which would have been a crisis even if Hiroko wasn't lying in her rejection--that just complicates it.

Mind you, in a way, it's unfair to both characters to judge them this way, because they are complementary caricatures following the demands of the story. To make the comedy, they both have to be over the top in their own direction--Hiroko has to be ridiculously deliberately obtuse to make it funny, but also Ayaka has to be insanely aggressive for the story not to just end, and to furnish stuff for Hiroko to be ridiculously obtuse about. If Ayaka accepted being crushed like most normal people, this would have ended at around chapter 2.

It does seem like for both characters we're gradually seeing backgrounds and things that kind of justify their personalities and attitudes being they way they are. And I respect that. But let's face it, this is not a case of the backgrounds existing and organically generating they way they interact, it's a case of the author wanting them to interact that way and coming up with decent excuses/justifications for why they might do that.

last edited at Jun 13, 2023 1:49PM

I dunno, after this chapter, I would not call Ayaka's feelings for Hiroko "love" anymore. Admiration, projection, identification, desire to emulate, they can all feel like love but they are inherently unequal and romantic love usually needs to be equitable.

Really, I don't buy this. It sounds more like it comes from pleasant but semi-bogus self-help stuff than from real people. Real stuff is messy.

So, um, does anyone else feel like, in the background, there are gradually more and more rabbits and fewer and fewer humans? It's like there's this insidious takeover going on.