Is that a oneshot? Really? Seemed really promising though.

This is how I felt about most Yuri Shoujo stories, generally speaking.

It was dropped by Tranquil Spring a while ago. There's always a chance it'll be picked up by someone else, but that seems fairly unlikely. If its status does change, we'll alter the series page to reflect that.

And it could've been a story about monkeys but it isn't. The nice thing about SK in my opinion is that it's not a laser focused romance story between the different pairs, it's generally a slice-of-life comedy about a group of friends who got together, at least at the start, through their common sexual orientation. But that doesn't define them or the story. There is a romance going on, there is drama and angst but it doesn't drive their entire lives. It's not bogged down because some chapters don't push the romance forward and characters are not useless because their relationship status isn't clearly defined at the end.

Well said. Obviously neither of the younger two were useless - poor choice of words/fandumb on my part. I felt like the pacing in general was a bit off after the first volume, and omnscient is quite correct about the tone/direction change impacting people's reactions. Much like Girl Friends, the joke of the two MCs never getting together gets old after a little while, which in SK's case leads to a bit too much angst.

Aside from that, it definitely fills a completely different part of the genre than any other long-running series I can think of, and it's probably right among my top few favorite yuri series. Minor complaints aside, I do think it's pretty great.

Everyone always has something to discuss about it, but I mostly like it because it helped me make the april fools chapter >_>

It's fairly lovable in its own right.

^I'm at least somewhat hoping that Aoi Hana will be the yuri that continues following its characters after high school, but with all the sub-plots getting tied up lately, I guess I wouldn't be surprised if it ended shortly.

And yea, I saw the textless page that single-handedly "resolved" their relationship. Just kinda wanted something more, I guess.

Resolution wouldn't have averted that fact.

True.

weeping

It was good, I'm glad it finally ended, and it did so very appropriately. But at the same time, we never even got a proper resolution for the young lesbians ('less I missed it), which leaves me feeling like they were wholly useless in the grand scheme of the story...oh well!

A new group picked it up and completed Chapter 13 a few months ago, but I haven't seen their work yet. It will (probably) end up on the reader, and hopefully they get to the finish line.

last edited at Apr 24, 2013 2:08AM

^Correction; Lollipop or a Bullet will be up at some point!

Does anyone know if there's something like Extra? Where it show how it went afterwards?

Don't believe so. The TS release matches the page count of the native release almost perfectly.

Further correction: "Its ruins". The apostrophe s signifies "it is" rather than possession.

I'm disappointed that I was not the one who pointed that out...

Wow. Didn't really care for the first chapter, but this was ridiculously adorable! The story was still totally typical, but relaxing days full of yuri are awesome!

Also, this story reminds me of most shoujo stories. By that I mean when the main guy force kisses the main girl after doing some kidnap-like action where he tackles the girl in a private area after grabbing her when she least expects it. And out of all of that the girl somehow ends up liking the guy completely ignoring his actions.

Almost took the words out of my mouth. Fits with all the over-the-top drama as well.

I put "dropped" because Tranquil Spring is dead, but I probably should've put "ongoing," as I understand there is a fourth chapter that TS was in the process of translating. I'll dig around when I have the time and see what there is to see anyway.

It happens. Even when you buy practically everything that comes out, and browse the web for days at a time, it still happens. Nothin' to do but sit back, enjoy a nice beverage, and wait. Think about it; with all that time you will now spend not reading yuri, you could do a lot of pretty cool stuff! Like...think about the fact that there's no more yuri to read, for example.

You know everyone around here seems to be depraved. That's like the sixth time in the last few days someone has made a reference to lacking sleep.

is it true fujieda miyabi is male? i were sure of the opposite, not that i had proof...

Hmm. Fujieda's personal site;

http://www.moonphase.jp/miyabi/

He's that...thing, in the top left corner. What do you think, ever seen a girl who looked like that? Hehe...He appears like that in all his afterwords/forewords, and I do believe he joked about being a guy once, so...

have someone a clue about personal color? (touhou dj circle)

Sorry, don't know them by name, so I really couldn't say.

Neat, never heard of this. Looks stupid! And cute, so obviously it's going to be good.

@Akagi, I dunno, I figured it was something like a love triangle. Akagi's girl --> Akagi --> Shirai. Or you know, it's possible to have feelings for multiple people at the same time. Like she just hadn't completely gotten over Shirai yet.

@Namori, I used to believe they were a guy undoubtedly. Read something not too long ago that really swung me the other way, but I can't remember what it was!

Well, the name is a give-away, she openly identifies as female, is engaged in the lgbt community and there are pictures of her.

Yeah...you can count "I believe" as my way of saying "I'm 99% sure but what the heck." I actually didn't know the last two parts though, that's pretty cool.

It comes down to factors like lacking the straight-up life experience, and idealization being part of the original appeal for yuri in the first place. But I figure a lot of male yuri mangaka are simply not equipped or mentally comfortable enough to step into telling real, grounded stories. I mean, you've got things like the casual way Takemiya Jin threw in the fact that Kurosawa had a 'physical'/exploitative relationship with a guy in this story.

I can think of one example like that. The guy who wrote Virgins' Empire did a short serialization a decent while ago in a Josei mag. The main character is in a sexual/exploitative relationship with a guy, and then develops "real" feelings for a girl. It has the kind of melancholic, slice-of-life(ish) feel that Takako or Asano Inio are known for. I felt like it was probably one of the more realistic yuri manga I had read, period.
But that is my only example.

I would chalk it up mostly to the two rules of writing original material. Write what you like, or write what you know. The Seinen/Shounen audience in general apparently prefers escapism, so it would follow that writers from those audiences would also enjoy that kind of material. And then the experience thing would come into play as well. Same thing goes for the art - lots of guys draw cute girls because they like cute girls, and vice-versa.

last edited at Apr 17, 2013 11:55AM

Well, Morinaga Milk talks in the end notes for Girl Friends about the girls' school she went to, so I'm PRETTY sure she's female. Pretty certain Morishima Akiko is as well.

Yeah Morinaga's totally a girl. Or she has a really tremendous double identity. Believe Akiko is too. And 100% agree with your last post too. I like knowing for a variety of reasons. But it's cool, because whenever anyone talks about yuri "perving" on lesbian relationships, I can point out that some of the "most pervy" yuri erotica is written by women!

Are most yuri mangaka female? It's sometimes hard to tell from their names, and I always wondered... but not enough to research it...

"Most" is kinda...well, ya know. Off the top of my head well-known female yuri mangaka would be like; Akiyama (Octave), Otsu Hiyori, Hakamada Mera, Namori (half-guess? Think I read that somewhere), Jin, Morinaga and err, Shimura, from Aoi Hana.

And the best known males would be like; Fujieda Miyabi, Kurogane Ken, whoever did Sisterism, and Takahashi (Sasameki Koto).

Pardon any spelling errors or misses. I'm 95%ish on those. So that would lead me to believe it leans towards females.

And I will agree with all the other comments too. Jin's work is ridiculously awesome!

last edited at Apr 16, 2013 7:48PM

Everyone is into Kuroko's voice! I think I've read more positive comments about Arai Satomi's performance than the series in general. And I've read a lot of positive things about the series! It probably helps her character is entirely lovable as well.

Hehe, I'm going to have to go re-watch the first season I think!

And yeah, that's pretty much why I dropped the manga. I like Misaka plenty, but I understand the later arcs are focused almost disproportionately on her, and that just doesn't sound like it would totally hold my interest right now. Hopefully the second season does not disappoint.

Hmm. I'm totally new here so I assume I'll be passed on, but I'll toss my hat in the ring anyway.

I have experience moderating forums, am more than happy to dedicate some time to it, and er...a bit of distant IRC knowledge, but it's not what I'd call knowledge. That's about it for me.

Suddenly, a Railgun topic!? Awesome. Gotta love Kuroko! But actually, I think the anime handled Saten-Uiharu really well, and that's more than enough yuri for me, so Kuroko's kinda just bonus. The Railgun anime is by far my favorite part of the Index universe. As for how things like this go...I've seen some of Index but don't really love it, I don't think it adds much to the Railgun experience. I have the first two English volumes of the manga - didn't care for it much as it moves so quickly.

Disappointed that the second season didn't get simulcasted by Funimation though. I have also heard that the second season will still give a lot of focus to the group as a whole, so that's pretty exciting all-around.

Is it really absolutely certain that it was traced?

No way to know for sure.

If he wasn't technically laying paper over it and tracing it, is it still reprehensible?

Yes. Copyright laws, in general, are pretty clear about this. If you take another individual's work (a photo, a drawing, whatever) and use it for your own work, you are required to give them credit. A feasible comparison might be paraphrasing the words of an academic journal. It is good etiquette to cite them as a source - the fact you did not quote them directly has no effect on this.

I actually wanted to say something about referencing but didn't really have the time earlier. Using photos for reference is widespread in any artistic field. For whatever reason, this is sometimes heavily frowned upon by fans (though it is commonly noted that "beautiful backgrounds" for cartoons are drawn from research photos), but there is no way to know if an artist ever uses outside materials. Unless of course they really sloppily steal other people's photos...

But I don't think it's so clear-cut as "He traced it, none of his work is legitimate".

100% agreement there.

He was just too lazy to photograph his own people, and might have thought the quality of his drawings would be better when using professional photos.

Kinda just reinforces my feeling that it was something that just happened one or a few times, rather than something he consciously did/does in general.

Well… I guess … only those who can draw and love to do it would find tracing reprehensible.

Meh, if it's something you're actively pursuing, of course you'd be a bit miffed if someone already in your industry of choice was cheating. Plus, stealing?

That said, Shou's a pretty good artist, there's plenty of evidence to support that. I would guess, if it's something he does irregularly, he was probably just running on a tight deadline. I've heard of companies dealing with art generally doing that kind of thing.

Those curious about what he was accused of tracing:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-06-01/prism-yuri-manga-put-on-hold-due-to-similiarities-to-photos

Is it possible he was tracing a lot more than that? Sure, but inconsistency isn't really all that uncommon, ya know?

last edited at Apr 12, 2013 2:25PM

Hmm. Didn't expect the discussion to take a turn this way...I appreciate The Future and You's "cover" with the tag Yaoi right above it. Creates an experience like nothing I've ever felt before.

so looking forward to it although i think my girlfriend will shut me out of my own room for ignoring her...

The dangers of too much yuri!

@esn, Hmm. Depends what you mean by online translations =) I read the scans way back, and those were excellent, but it's been a while since I've had any use for them. Seven Seas - minus some grammatical errors in volume 1 that were supposed to be fixed for the second shipment - did a solid job with it though, generally speaking.

@Sol, lovely. You said a lot of things I was actually going to. To hit on a few points:

-The level of detail about everyday things probably isn't really afforded the average author. So many series are just pressing to stick around for a second volume, talking about hair care and Mr. Donut seems a bit...you know. Still, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Makes the whole package 100x more girly too!

-Great point on the final misunderstanding, it's probably the one point that threw an otherwise well-written series into what-am-I-reading-land. I almost burned the 4th volume halfway through reading it, that part was totally unnecessary! (It's not really that bad though)

-I was disappointed with the afterwords too. Not sure why they weren't included.

-Yes! Everyone should buy this! Seven Seas said a short bit ago that it was doing "surprisingly well." Maybe (just maybe) if Morinaga's works keep selling, we'll get something more published over here.

a month and a half between 8 and 7, and 7 and web04 which i think was chapter 6. doesn't look good :(

Thanks for pointing that out. I was totally derping earlier - could've sworn chapters 7 and 8 were released within a month of each other! Oh well. Tsubomi's got some other decent stuff on their web comic, so I'll just have to make do...

While I appreciate the friendship focus, the drama lately has gotten away a bit from what I felt was the best part of the series, which was the dialogue and character interaction. I really want to see Fujiwara and Yuri interacting again soon.

Seriously now. The first three chapters promised me at least a volume's worth of priceless FujiYuri antics! There've still been some good moments, but we're a full two chapters away from any serious teasing.

And @whoever was asking, I've read the Shinobu extra. Pretty good stuff all around.