Hoshihara acts like she's just above it all and has no need to concern herself with petty concerns like Miki's deviancy, but in reality she's way worse.

I think they did not have a proper, formal relationship though? Blond and tomboy and ,I dunno, but wasn't tomboy with that girl ONLY cos she felt she didn't "fit in well as a woman" or something like that? Still, 10/10 wouldn't read again ,but no reason to hate on it either.

I'm pretty sure they did have a formal relationship. On page 4, Kyouko says that they're dating. All actual evidence indicates that Kyouko took their relationship very seriously. All we actually see her doing to contradict that is some harmless flirting and some mean-spirited rumors.

Mitsuko's more of a mystery. Her actions appear entirely selfish, driven by insecurity and spite.

last edited at Mar 21, 2019 11:29AM

I think anyone using this as evidence of Japan's attitude towards homosexuality is missing a key factor: judging Japanese culture based on the content of anime and manga would be like judging American culture based on professional wrestling.

Sure, it's part of the culture, but it in no way represents the mainstream.

I'm sure the author intended this ending to be a happy one, but it's extremely underwhelming. Not saying Arisa is irredeemable,but this doesn't cut it after what she did. It almost comes across like she's rewarded for a shitty thing. It's a gay ending but there is no real catharsis to it.

If I compare this to Usui Shio's other two works that have been uploaded here, the leads have a lot more well balanced dynamic in those, and they all feel alive. In this one though, Fuwako doesn't get a fair shake, compared to Arisa. Somehow the whole story seems to be tipped in Arisa's favor; we only hear her side of the story, and so the sudden ending where she's let off the hook leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling.

Can't someone just forgive a person they care about?

What she did was mean-spirited and petty. Lots of people probably wouldn't forgive a friend for doing something like that, but others would. Whether at the end she loves her or not (I think the symbolism indicates that she does), it's clear throughout that Fuwako is a bright person who sees the best in people, and also that she values her relationship with Arisa.

Honestly, the way she's presented (constantly blaming herself, worrying that other people will hate her) she'd probably forgive a lot worse. I guess that's a little troubling. But then again, the way she actually immediately confronted Arisa instead of avoiding her shows some character growth on Fuwako's end as well.

I can see why people would want to see others opinions/reviews of something before reading or watching it, but I've never been able to get behind it. I figure I'll give almost everything a shot just because you never know. I'd rather see it and possibly love or hate it rather than avoid it altogether.

I like looking up reviews when I'm deciding whether to start a couple-hundred page book, or a TV series, or sometimes a movie (though usually with movies I can just start it and turn it off if it's bad). Never once been tempted to look up another person's comments when trying to decide whether to read a 20 page manga oneshot. In the time that would take, I could've just read the thing and found out for myself.

Fuwako never said she broke up with Date. She just promised to be together with Arisa forever, and to be more considerate of her feelings. Which I took to mean, Fuwako was going to stop letting her relationship with Date come between her and Arise. You know sisters before misters.

You're right. I did assume that, but she never says so. I got the impression that Fuwako's relationship with Date was strained since she lost the earring, since she seems to be avoiding him and spending a lot of time with Arisa again. A lot of this is left unclear, since it takes place over just a couple pages.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if the "I'm going to buy a new jewelry box" implies not just that Arisa's going to be more open with her feelings, but also that she'll try to move on from her unrequited love of Fuwako. Maybe that's pushing the metaphor too far.

last edited at Mar 20, 2019 9:03AM

How is this a Yuri wins? Looks to me like they're still just friends in the end...

I'm not entirely sure what this author is implying, but think about it like this: if someone left her boyfriend for you and declared that she wanted to be with you forever, would you think all she wanted was to be your friend?

Maybe this is setup for some hellish scenario where Arisa loves Fuwako, and Fuwako wants to be with Arisa but doesn't love her (reminds me of Moratorium), but I would be hesitant to assume that based on the information that we're given.

last edited at Mar 20, 2019 2:54AM

Light hair girl should have been angry with black hair girl but instead she was made a doormat for a child with a temper tantrum.

I think this is the part that suggests she might love her back. I think most people, if treated this way by someone they considered merely a friend, would be really upset.

After having read this and Cast a Spell, I think this author has a problem with characters teleporting to where ever the plot needs them to be. In Cast a Spell, Emi gets on a train while Kaori stays on the platform, and yet Kaori gets to Emi's house about 30 seconds later than her. Here, the same thing—Arisa stays behind at work, but gets to her apartment only a minute after Fuuka, who left early. I thought maybe Fuuka stopped to pick up groceries or something, since she said she was going to handle dinner, but when she walks in the door she's only holding the the same bag she had when she left work.

Oh shit, I should've kept all that evidence, got me there. True, maybe the one-shot where the dude knocks up the girl and marries her in the end didn't really leave much of an impact in this yuri magazine.

Now you're just being an asshole. I think there's room between "didn't leave an impact" and "single-handedly drove the publication out of business".

No, it definitely was the one that killed it. It's not some sort of speculation.

Do you actually have evidence for that, or did you just hear it somewhere? This is the sort of thing you'd need some hard data to determine, like subscription numbers dropping off, the publication suddenly going from profitable to deep in the red, etc. all of it attributable to this single oneshot rather than any other factors.

Without such evidence, I think it's most reasonable to assume that Mebae died the same way countless other yuri magazines have.

last edited at Mar 19, 2019 8:04AM

I wonder if this means that one day we might be able to see Octave be made into an anime series
Now that would be truly amazing

That would make me happy, but I bet Fragtime isn't even getting a TV anime, and even it is way more popular, relevant, and likely to make a return on investment than Octave.

You know it is a little darkly funny that a depressed lesbian gets drunk, has a one night stand, with a man, (quite possibly the only time she's ever been with one.) , and ends up pregnant and engaged. It's like a line from that old Alanis Morissete song.

She's pretty clearly been with men before. Look at pages 5 and 6: she has a history of relationships with men. If anything, I'd say it's more likely that Kyouko is the only woman she's ever been with, since we have no evidence stating otherwise. It's unclear if you could even call her a lesbian; her sexual preference is never really established.

I think a lot people missed the dark humor in the ending. There was a LOT of tragic irony in what happened. When life gives you lemons and you accidentally get some in your eye and then trip and smash your teeth out on the table while trying to make them into lemonade, you need to learn to laugh it off. I mean there is often humor in tragedy.

That's a good way of putting it. This story is definitely meant to be at least a little funny. The reactions of all the other women when her marriage is announced are too over-the-top. Same with the sudden transition from sex scene to pregnancy. There's a certain silliness throughout, and I think anyone who takes this too seriously is reading it incorrectly.

UranusAndNeptuneAreJu posted:

I actually disagree, both with the "irrational mistrust" and the "what she wants is forever lost to her".

I think it was pretty obvious that Kyouko was cheating on her. Yamada was badly shaken by those rumours, kind of hard to see it as "oh no, the girl who just flirted occasionally with me at work has slept with another guy".

This part I completely disagree. It's that Kyouko was doing more than just flirting with the guy, she was leading him on consistently and aggressively. I don't think it's implied anywhere that she was sleeping with him. He thought she was genuinely interested in him, he realized she was just using him, and he got upset.

As for the "what she wants" part (as in, what Seo wants)...

Here I think you may be right. I don't know what the deal is with Seo's relationship with Kyouko. Was her sense of well-being with her a result of love, or just some kind of satisfaction of darker emotions? She clearly has some fucked-up ideas about women, and it seems to be a mix of contempt, hatred, and envy. So maybe Kyouko represents everything she hates about femininity, and she feels empowered by fucking her.

I think saying that Seo started "dating" Yamada is a little generous. I'm guessing they had sex once, some time later she realized she was pregnant, and they decided to get married. I don't think she was avoiding Kyouko because she was seeing Yamada. She might've just been ashamed, or still upset with her.

Maybe the point is that at the end, even she doesn't know what she wanted. There's some kind of message buried in this manga somewhere, deliberate or not. But I don't think it was crafted for the point of making a statement about life. Or if it was, then it was done very poorly.

last edited at Mar 18, 2019 4:33AM

Isn't this that one story that caused such a backlash it actually killed Mebae?

People keep saying that, but I think that's just some bullshit rumor from 4chan. Mebae sunk after just 5 releases, obviously they were never in a good financial situation to begin with.

That last page twist was great. I think the story was starting to feel kind of generic before that, but this definitely seems like a move in a more interesting direction.

Mitsuko's irrational mistrust of Kyouko and general misogyny backfire on her. She succumbed to her insecurity and now she has what the other women wanted, but what she wants is forever lost to her.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe it's just a story about bad things happening to bad people.

This manga is a lie. I wear pants every day and nobody likes me.

Jesus... Do you need a hug?

Hmm... no good? Maybe "This manga is 100% true. I wear pants every day and everyone I see is so in love with me that they're afraid to approach me."

It's hard to judge your audience when the delivery is via text.

Hylarn posted:

Probably a movie? A TV series would only have about 4-5 episodes worth of content for a 1-1 adaptation, and I don't think there's much opportunity to pad that out. It... could be an OVA or ONA?

I think movie would be actually perfect. If they would went OVA route, I think two 30 minutes ones would work out as well.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. But anime movies tend to be much higher production value than OVAs, and I doubt any production company thinks this is worth it (a 5-year old webcomic doesn't exact scream profit potential). So I'm expecting a couple of OVAs, or maybe one season of 5-minute shorts. I think the OVAs would be better. This is a good story, and it could be told in an hour. Watching shorts is always kind of disjointed, and doesn't work that well for anything other than gag manga.

last edited at Mar 16, 2019 8:15PM

This manga is a lie. I wear pants every day and nobody likes me.

If this is going to be a full-length series, I feel like they're going to have to flesh out a lot of the side characters. There just isn't that much material.

I recommend finding a good book by an author you like. Even if you've already read it. Manga is fun and all, but for me, reading a book is much more engaging. I can be completely absorbed and forget everything else. And then after a few hours, I usually can deal with whatever I was upset about much more calmly.

last edited at Mar 14, 2019 11:26PM

There's definitely some awful shit out there. I try to stay away from stuff that will piss me off.

can you tell me what's the name of the netorare doujin you have read?

For your answer i couldn't remember the name correctly but the story line goes like once upon a time there are yuri couple who do alot kissing and some dirty thing in highschool at the beginning and then it ends with these two getting fucked by a group of pervert men in their class and those couple be like "OMG,I love dick","Real sex is so good".

I think I know exactly what you're talking about, or at least something that meets that description: Futari Yogari, by Yoshiura Kazuya. Yes it's unpleasant, but if you're this easily upset, you should check the tags on things before you read them, or look up the author.