I first came to read this because there were so many tags I liked.
That said, one of them still baffles me... must be a joke I don't get...
What's Lots of JPG artifacts supposed to mean?

Monroe plays Lorelei Lee, a gold-digger. Russell plays Dorothy Shaw, a nympho.

Now that's too much. She's not that bad.

Which one of them?

Dorothy, she ain't that bad... I mean, if memory doesn't fail me, she doesn't sleep with anyone except that detective guy - who marries her in the end.

Monroe plays Lorelei Lee, a gold-digger. Russell plays Dorothy Shaw, a nympho.

Now that's too much. She's not that bad.

According to what source women who read yuri end up marrying men? Also how do you know they don't do that because of societal pressures? The pressure to marry a man in Japan is intense.

I said dating, not marrying. I haven't read anything about marriage. The survey was commissioned by some research department and targeted girls in school and college. They asked them if they were into yuri, then about their own romantic experiences. Many said they were dating boys. Nobody asked them why, so yeah, the reason for that could be societal expectations. (Of course, there's no law that says hetero or bi girls can't enjoy yuri, so perhaps they simply were that way...)

and there are only two possible responses to a fetish: 'Yay!' and 'Huh?'

You're forgetting option three: "burn in hell, blasphemer".

Ouch. It's true and it hurts. :-(

last edited at May 23, 2019 2:16AM

Ye, looks like chapters are going to pick up in speed again

Oh, good! I was pretty much resigned to this having been dropped.

You can even suck on a man's chest.

Why in the world would you subject yourself to that?

I hear a lot of men are into that.

As a lesbian that thought is extremely repulsive to me. But I guess it's the opposite if you're gay...

I laughed way too hard at that exchange XD

I guess we could just think of it the other way around. Why do we like to watch/ think about/ fantasize two girls having sex? It's a question that gets asked a lot in Japan, where a lot of girls who are into yuri fiction actually choose to date boys in real life. I'll be up front about my personal gut response, which is, 'Why not?' A liking for f/f is a taste or a fetish or a kink like any other, and there are only two possible responses to a fetish: 'Yay!' and 'Huh?' If someone shares your fetish, you don't have to tell them why it's hot. If they don't, all the explaining in the world won't enlighten them.

This easy-going answer doesn't quite meet certain people's needs, I'm aware, but it's the the most convenient for fans who just want to enjoy their naughty pleasures in peace and don't want to explain anything.

Dark stories and suspense are always a treat. Can't wait to find what happens.

It's been too long since I last read something from this mangaka. Aoko is great.
It seems like these 2 stories are a part of the Restless Kiss collection.

^ C’mon, BV—the argument may have become a little repetitive, but it’s gotten back on-topic, using specific evidence from the text, and is only barely testy (so far) around the edges. Gotta keep the criteria consistent.

Actually, the argument has been progressing... and, after reading the last posts, I think we have now the core of the problem in sight. It's like this: some people just can't stand the idea that, in our world, certain individuals are considered more beautiful or attractive than others. It goes against political correctness, and for these people the mere idea of challenging political correctness is absolutely insufferable. A social warrior makes their holy duty to fight the demons of "lookism" and "objectification" wherever they find them, never mind the context, never mind reality, never mind how ridiculous or absurd this moralizing seems.

White Rose, I want to thank you for your summary. Tbh I didn't read BugDevil's huge wall of text, I just scrolled down until it was over and thought to myself that I would return later to post a tl;dr if there were no further comments. You see, the way I saw things, there was no need for BugDevil to write anything lengthy in reply to my message. All I did was point out her mistakes and correct her in all the parts she had gotten wrong. The way I saw things, this needed no long answer, just a few words of thanks for setting her straight. So when I found this humongous wall of text of hers sitting in the thread and posing as a reply I immediately guessed (and it turns out I was right) that she was annoyed rather than grateful for my rightings and had decided to bombard me with random blah in retaliation. And I didn't feel like going through something like that. And now that I have read your summary and know exactly what I missed, I can sigh in relief and tell to myself: "Boy, was I right!"

Political correctness is a plague when talking about manga or old dime novels or anything that exists outside of the boundaries of modern censored talk. Any social warrior wannabe will take up arms as soon as they hear that someone, somewhere, has created or is creating works of fiction where the pc dogma is not respected. Romantic fantasies written by and for girls have naturally assumed for the last two centuries that the most desirable mates are the ones who tower over the common folk in terms of looks, or wealth, or influence, or any of a half dozen other qualities perceived as alpha attributes. But if you tell this to a pc crusader, they will start frothing at the mouth and crying at the wrongness of it all. And then go on a rant on how we are all equally beautiful, lookism is bad, alphaism is bad, and how dare you objectify human beings according to their appearance when the really important things are inside, and anyone can be whatever they want, blah blah blah. Not only this sort of tripe doesn't hold water in the real world, but, even if you take it as only a theory on how an ideal utopian world would or should work, it's utterly pointless to invoke it when it comes to fiction and fantasy. Take your pc doctrine and go try to change the world if you want to, pal, but don't mess with books and comics and games and other works of fiction! Otherwise, we can only conclude that you're unable to tell fantasy from reality.

You're most likely right, Rose, about how to deal with these inconveniences: time is valuable, don't waste it on people who don't want to listen.

last edited at May 23, 2019 6:06PM

And I'm glad I insisted, as that was a good piece. ^_^

There were a number of mistakes in important points, though.

"Sakurako (...) is outrageously social, liked by everyone and could get literally any guy to fall for her if she even remotely tried (but we know that she was lesbian from the start)." LOL, noooooo, not even close. Even at 20, she looks like a tiny middle schooler. She doesn't have the looks to make men fall for her at first sight (Humbert Humbert excepted). "Liked by everyone" means that the girls friend her, and the boys friend-zone her. She's not a seductress; in (sad) fact, a girl like her has to work a lot and go through many rejections to finally find herself a guy.

"Sakurako is not out of Kasumi's reach socially at all. Literally the only thing that interferes with them being a good match from the start is that they are both girls." And that they are in different leagues. Social gaps are not as monstruous in our time as they were in the 19th-century (today, in Europe, royal princes marry commoner girls all the time) but there are leagues when it comes to dating. Kasumi in mid school was constantly being chased by besotted boys and girls, as shown in flashbacks (her school friends had to act as shields to help her deflect these pests); Sakurako has never been chased by anyone in her life, as shown in the fact that it never was shown otherwise, lol. Kasumi has what it takes to become a wealthy man's trophy wife (mainly, the looks); Sakurako doesn't.

"Being good of heart and having house working skills are such unbelievably generic qualities that they barely even bear mention for a main character, but let's check those point off. They indeed apply to Sakurako. Hard worker? I suppose, if we just take her accomplishments as "hard work" then sure." Generic, yes; but a child of privilege from a high class family would not have those qualities. Such one would instead have money, power, and influence -- and somebody in Kasumi's shoes would most likely go for that, preferring those advantages to virtues like goodness and diligence.

"Kasumi is the real issue here. None of those points apply... like at all. The only thing making her stand out from the crowd or desirable on first glance are her looks." Only thing, lol. You make it sound like it's not a big deal. In fact, it is. For Sakurako too.
You yourself state it later: "Sakurako of course appreciates Kasumi's beauty and grace, but she also very much loves her for her moments of kindness and affection, the way she completely goes along with the flow and that she acts like a pet to her sometimes." That's more like it. But you should realize that this is entirely within formula. The MC girl in a dime novel is first attracted to the leading man because of his coolness and good looks, but eventually falls in love with him because of the many virtues and qualities she discovers inside him. Sakurako's feelings develop like that, too.

"The fact is this: Sakurako does not win Kasumi's heart with her houseworking skills (those are just a bonus). What truly got her is that face when she welcomes her back. The feeling of having someone who always will be there for her. Someone that is easy to live with. Someone to share a meal with. Kasumi very much appreciates Sakurako's looks too (fixation on hair in particular)." And this is the other side of the formula. For the alpha male gentleman to fall in love with the plain poor girl, I mean in a plausible way, something must happen that makes him notice her, and then pushes them to spend time together. This is necessary to give the MC girl an edge over all the other girls out there. In this case, it's the 3 years Sakurako and Kasumi spent sharing a room and living as a married couple. It was pure luck that got them together for 3 years (well, luck and the landlady's tricks, lol), and in those 3 years Kasumi learned to appreciate Sakurako.
One could wonder: what would have happened if some other girl had roomed with Kasumi instead of Sakurako? Would Kasumi have fallen in love with this other lass?
And the answer is: maybe, maybe not. There's no way to know for sure.
But the one thing we can say with absolute certainty is this: if she had had a different roommate, then Kasumi wouldn't have fallen for Sakurako. They would have been school friends, nothing more. Without those 3 years of conjugal bliss in the boarding house, sharing a room and sharing a bed, their relationship wouldn't be what it is, and the story would never have progressed the way it did.

As it turns out, Chi-chan (who is a gloomy, unkempt writer living an otaku lifestyle in a room that looks like a garbage dump) has won herself the worshipful admiration of Nagi (a statuesque, stylish blonde belle) with the only book she ever published.

... when a gorgeous buxom stunner comes to you saying that she's crazy about you and wants to be your loving servant from now on, that's not called a stalker, that's called a dream come true. (˵ ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°˵)♡*:･

It just hit me right now as I was reading your last post: these women who play the role of the desired ones of the MCs, aren't they almost always... tall sexy blondes?

You'd think the fetish of the tall sultry blonde with an hourglass figure is a Westerner, not Asian, thing... but for some reason it seems like it has caught in Japan too. We've been discussing how Kasumi, who plays the "desired one" role for Sakurako's "point of insertion" role, is a tall blonde so incredibly beautiful she makes you wonder if you are the same species as her, but how many more are just like that?
Think about it:
That Nagi girl from the manga you summarized before looks exactly the part of the gorgeous blonde with an impressive rack of breasts; it's especially striking in contrast with the short, flat-chested writer lady - just like Kasumi looks even more luscious in contrast with Sakurako.
Kagami from this manga is the coolest girl in the academy - and also a looker with long blonde hair.
Fujishiro from this manga starts as a sexy, slutty blonde (changes a bit later).
Nikaidou from this manga is the school's alpha, a tall blonde with a great body.
Shizuma Hanazono is a platinum blonde looker, the officially recognized queen of the school, and close to being a superwoman.
Yūna Matsubara, blonde with blue eyes and a bust size of 87, is smart, rich, popular and rules the commitee which acts as Student Council.
Tsuzuki Risa from this here manga is... heck, I can't even begin to describe how breathtakingly voluptuous this hot blonde is.

I wonder what's the reason for this particular fetish being so common... I know (so you don't have to remind me, White Rose, okay? lol) that it has nothing to do with the old bullshit about Asian people secretly yearning to be Caucasians - that sick racist phantasm has been debunked long ago and nobody in their right mind would claim it today. I suspect it has more to do with the "stylish" association that blonde hair carries (the impression, whether it's true or not, that you belong to the crowd who invests mucho time and money in perfecting their appearance) or the exotic/mysterious side that an unusual hair color might give you - both if you are at least partly non-Japanese or if you aren't (even more mysterious if you aren't).

You can't win against Katou.
You should have known.

What did this thread turn into after that one war of words I'm planning a video rendition of? The Dynasty Reader equivalent to Bosnia?

Why would you say that? White Rose, BugDevil, Nene, rgv and myself, we are just having a lot of fun analyzing the story from a wide range of differing perspectives and points of view. As far as I can tell, unless I missed some messages, nobody has been rude or obnoxious towards anyone - or breached proper forum etiquette in any way.

This is like the distilled essence of the romantic fantasy that's proven to be so astoundingly popular with the female readership since the 19th century. It's something you can find everywhere in contemporary fiction aimed at girls - and of course yuri manga is no exception.

I'd say. It's not just A Room For Two; it's Kase-San, as you wrote before, and also Marimite, A Kiss for the Petals, Strawberry Panic and a thousand more. And a huge chunk of the rest follows the "redemption by love" formula à la First Love Sisters, where the desired one's breathtaking awesomeness has become warped in some way... and the MC must heal her with the power of love before feelings can be returned.

And by a curious coincidence (or not) these also happen to be the most commonly used and overused themes in heterosexual shoujo manga. What can I say? We girls sure are sticklers for our favorite tropes.

My point is, in what way did Sakurako get to where she is by hard work and effort, rather than natural talent and ability? And how is anyone supposed to identify with that level of capability?

I think... you're looking at it the wrong way.

The idea that effort is unnecessary when you have natural talent doesn't hold water. For example, think of all the great boxing champions in history: do you really believe that they didn't need to train just because they were so talented? That they didn't follow harsh training regimes, just like any other boxer? That they just waltzed to the ring on the day of the fight and defeated their opponents without even breaking a sweat - simply because of talent? The idea is preposterous.

Cooking is hard work. If you're very talented, the dishes you make will be really good. If you don't, they will be... not so good. But the amount of effort involved is the same.

Household chores are hard work. If you're talented, you'll clean the house, do the laundry, wash the dishes and do everything that is needed with sparkling results! If you're not talented, the result will be more messy. But the amount of effort involved is the same.

Actually, don't take this the wrong way, but... it's even a little bit offensive for all women whose work is running or managing their family's home that you claim that, if they do their job well, they don't have any merit - because it's just talent at work, with no effort involved.

OF COURSE Sakurako is a hard worker, geez!!! Effort and talent are different things! Talented people may achieve better results, but, to get to that point, they need to work HARD! Sakurako likes cooking and doing household chores; she likes helping people in need; she will happily assist her friends and teachers and schoolmates in their work, even if she's not under any obligation of doing so. These are merits! It all tells us that she's an incredibly diligent worker who's not afraid of any task, no matter how big, and in fact is always glad to get busy because she likes raising a sweat on her brow. This is extraordinarily praiseworthy. Claiming that she never has to put in any effort at anything because she's oh-so-gifted is... I dunno... beyond absurd.

Everyone would expect a guy like him to marry a rich alpha bitch, a beautiful heiress from a powerful and influential family. Yet the story always goes that he falls in love with the plain poor girl (because of her many virtues: she's kind-hearted, hard-working, etc. etc.) and ends up taking her as his wife.

That's how it happens... but it's worth mentioning that there's usually a bit more depth in the male character. In most cases, hidden underneath the appearance of perfect coolness and classiness, he has a secret side nobody (or almost nobody) knows about -- and the "plain girl" MC is the one girl who sees through him and discovers his secrets. And the reason he picks her, instead of some airheaded rich bimbo, is that she understands and accepts that side of him and makes him feel comfortable about it. He can really "be himself" around her, so to say, as she is the only one who knows how to cater to the real him and make him happy.

Oh, I agree. That's part of the formula. The plain girl will always win the heart of her love interest, but the readers need a plausible reason for this. Otherwise, suspension of disbelief becomes impossible.

The formula is as old as mankind, but it was massively developed and perfected in the 19th-century, when cheap romantic novels started selling really well among young women of the working classes. The MC was always a plain working-class girl (easy for the readers to identify with), her love interest was always an extremely desirable dreamboat, and her rivals were always high-class ladies: gorgeous, elegant, sophisticated, rich and snotty. Now, normally, if a handsome hunk is given the choice between a beautiful heiress and a chick who's poor and plain, odds are 99 to 1 that he will choose the former. The MC needed to have some good points to justify the fact that she was preferred to her competition. And these good points, as established by tradition, were:
- she's kind-hearted
- she's a hard worker
- she has homemaker skills
- she's a good Christian
Any normal 19th-century working-class girl could relate to these and think: "Hey, I'm like that, too!" On the other hand, the rival characters were all children of privilege and unreligious bitches... thus the fact that in the end the MC managed to win against all odds became more easy to believe.

The formula has evolved a little since that time, reflecting social changes (for example: religion isn't all that important anymore), but the basic lines remain the same. They are like an universal standard: you find them in romantic fiction all over the world. Even in yuri. So, you see, it's not surprising that Sakurako, who is kind and caring, a great cook, a hard worker and good at all household chores, wins her desired one's heart. :-)

last edited at May 17, 2019 10:36PM

I know, right? When you create a girl character who is so stunningly beautiful that normal humans wonder if she is a different species from them, who charms people at first sight and spends a great deal of time fending off the unwanted attentions of her besotted schoolmates (both boys and girls), it's safe to assume that the average readers are not expected to recognize themselves in her. ¯⧹_(ツ)_⧸¯

By the conventions of the genre, they are a typical pairing. Romantic literature has been writing about couples like them at least since the rise of dime novels in the 19th-century.
The girl: she has plain looks and comes from a humble background, but she's honest, kind, sincere, hard-working and a good cook. Most likely, she's been doing household chores (for her sickly mom and little siblings) all her life.
The gentleman: he's devastatingly handsome and has high-class babes falling for him left and right. The most desirable studmuffin around. If he's wealthy, even better. The day he decides to settle down, any woman will be happy to be his bride.
Everyone would expect a guy like him to marry a rich alpha bitch, a beautiful heiress from a powerful and influential family. Yet the story always goes that he falls in love with the plain poor girl (because of her many virtues: she's kind-hearted, hard-working, etc. etc.) and ends up taking her as his wife.

Of course, this being a yuri manga, Kasumi is not a male hunk but a blonde goddess who looks like a supermodel or a movie actress. That detail put aside, the romance works out the same way. It could perhaps be said that a story like that it's not very realistic... but, then again, it doesn't need to be: it's a wish-fulfillment story, and there are a million versions out there of the same tale - in Western fiction, in Asian fiction, in wherever fiction. As fantasy stories go, this one has proved to have lasting popularity with audiences all round the world.

Is Sakurako the most likely point of self-insertion?

Yes.

Lol, succint.

Well, it was either "yes" or "duh!"

If I'm not mistaken, "Tadokoro-san ch26.5" - two pages, barely drafted - serves no purpose except as an exit door for Kirigaya.

I think the author realized that the character was no darling of the readers, redemption or no redemption, and so he decided that she should gtfo of the manga asap. These 2 pages basically tell us that Kirigaya has become a new girl and found (or will find) a new yuri pairing, and that her story will continue somewhere far away from the pages of Tadokoro-san.

Which is a very good thing if you ask me. Last thing we need is to waste valuable page space in that stupid bully.

Do they identify with Sakurako and indeed see this as some sort of "lesbian wish fulfillment story" which would imply Kasumi is the ideal object of interest? Is Sakurako the most likely point of self-insertion?

Yes.

Himura, what are you? The cure for heterosexuality?

Dynasty Cafe

I've heard people talk before about taking arguments and discussions to the "Cafe." But I don't know where it is.
I'm kind of a newbie in this forum...
Can someone give me a link?

Here you go.

Thanks! :-D

Dynasty Cafe

I've heard people talk before about taking arguments and discussions to the "Cafe." But I don't know where it is.
I'm kind of a newbie in this forum...
Can someone give me a link?

No. It'd be an incredibly difficult life with no guarantee that it'd work out for them. Read what I wrote above if you want my reasoning. Basically, they're going to be illegal immigrants and fugitives hiding in a country where they don't know a single other person or speak the native language. Shio would be much better off in a Japanese orphanage.

When you bet to win, you risk to lose.
That's an universal law.
When you try to achieve something, there's always a risk of failure.
Things are never entirely under your control.
That's because, in life, there's always a risk of shit happening.

That's why it's kind of pointless to tell someone who's betting big in order to win big that they risk to lose. They already know. Instead, you should applaud their courage and cheer for them. After all, most people in the world tend to avoid risks whenever they can, even if that means wasting any chance they could have had to get the things they really want.

In this case, there are risks in living as illegal immigrants in a foreign country where they'll have to speak English, not Japanese. But it can be done. You say it'd be better to send Shio to an orphanage, but do you know orphanages have always been pedophile magnets? There's a real risk that Shio would end up in the newspapers as part of a story about children raped by their caretakers. In all honesty, I much prefer having her at Satou's side and knowing she will be well protected. Life out of Japan won't be easy, but I'm sure they can manage. After all, if a couple million fellas are living as illegal immigrants in the USA and doing just fine, hell, Satou and her sweetie can do it too.

On a completely different note from the latest debate...

I read the other day a short oneshot manga named Jewels, about the life of two girls in love. This manga, in only a few pages, told us the story of how they were childhood friends, then classmates through grade and mid school; how they started dating in high school, and continued all through college; how they came out to their supporting friends, and started living together after college; how they got married, with the blessing of their families; and, finally, how they happily stayed together for the rest of their lives (a couple of panels show them as really old grannies still loving each other and living together). Nothing else happens: the story is made only of vignettes of their daily lives, happy and waffy, from childhood to old age. The reactions of the readers were mostly positive (pretty much everyone loved it) but there were also negative comments on the lack of conflict. "This worked only because it was so short," they said, "but it wouldn't do for a long series." A few choice excerpts:

The most heartwarming about this story is the total lack of angst. It can only work for a short story though.

*

You could have the exact same story elements in a series, though. There would need to be added conflict of course.

*

What we have here would be a framework in a longer piece, tonnes of space to fit in all the little, and sometimes big, things a person, or a couple, faces in their lives.

*

It would need to make the characters miserable for the sake of keeping things "interesting".

*

That could easily arise out of their careers, personal conflicts with others, maybe friends or coworkers who don't accept them, etc.

LMAO ^^
After 56 chapters of happy, conflict-free SakuKasu bliss, I can only shake my head at the naiveté of those comments. If I ever write an article about A Room for Two, I will begin with the words journalists of old liked to use to start a story about some feat of amazing prowess: "'It can't be done!' they all said."

And then I will tell how, hot patootie, bless my soul, it was done!!!