I have to give thanks to the poster that scanned the bonus chapters; I do not feel like finding the exact page of the thread where it was first bought up.

I can't really imagine an animated version; it would have to be shorter than an episode of Inferno Cop, or completely rewritten to fit 11 minutes.

Additionally,

But let us be gay.

I think you accidentally summarized every thread on the internet that are about shipping two characters of the same sex (you know, two that aren't together canonically.)

Also, try saying "But, let us be gay," out loud. It helps if you are looking ahead sternly, sweeping one hand out, or have your hands clasped together in front of your mouth (if seated). Saying this with sufficient gravitas will not help you with anything in life, but at least you will have the experience of it.

It's kind of hilarious that we saw all that art of them together, with Sun Jing looking all cool and seductive and self-assured, then reading this story only to find that she's an incredible dork who really has no idea what she's doing.

I think that subversion of expectations goes for the comic as a whole. It's very well-drawn, many of the characters are glamorous looking, but the whole thing is actually slapsticky and sweetly corny.

Those are both correct; Famitsu has the issues of being stodgy and predictable, and Yakuza is good because it is absurd in many different meanings of the word.

I would read a spin-off manga that is composed of Kuroko's awkward teenage years, before she learned to kill or try to have sex with everything in her path.

Wasn't she already a killer even before her teenage years ? x)

Oh, I know; I just find the idea of her ever being normal funny.

The Love Live

it never ends

I'm drowning in a ocean of Love Live releases

but hey, at least its cute.

it will destroy us all, but in a very mild way

I would read a spin-off manga that is composed of Kuroko's awkward teenage years, before she learned to kill or try to have sex with everything in her path.

I do not know what is better; the "Catharsis Gauge" explanation for the ridiculousness of tsundere interaction, or the rambling, improvised relationship advice that falls apart as quickly as an exploded bridge.

I just realized that this page has references to past works by the author, such as here. I think I'm going to have to look and find them all.

this

Actually,

This artist's works always follows a flow, since the first doujin, which was Gentle Lullaby. Feverish Tips is the second work, and Feverish Tiptoes is the sequel (which we are going to do as well.) Followed by Home Sweet Home (going to be done by us in the future as well), and then Embrace Me in the Dark (already released recently.) Whereas Embrace Me in the Dark is to be followed by Mushiyaki's C87 doujin.

This is also why I love this artist, and searched for this raw high and low to translate it. ╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑

That makes more sense; most doujins are one-offs, so I'm not used to thinking of them as having their own continuity (unless it's titled, like, Story: Part 1).
Many thanks for you and those that aided you; after all, fan-translators help us read what would be opaque and unavailable to us.

I really like Yandamushi's works; their fan-stuff has excellent interpretations of pairings, of why these characters can work well together. The background drawings tend to be light or left out, but I think the sketchy look goes very well with the very particular kind of romance they work on.

Wahhh!! I need the continuaation pleaas!

Part of me realizes that it's better to have a longer story, than one that rushes to the end. But the lizard hindbrain re-aimed at consuming media wants to read the ending sometime around immediately.

Ah, the story is absurdly romantic. It's all loneliness and comradery and admiration and the desire to understand another condensed in a doujin. I mean, when you come down to it, it's another doujin with someone crushing hard on their best friend, but I thought it avoided feeling boilerplate.

Then again, I have a soft spot for good mushy stories (and good fanworks), and this story is Eri realizing that her close friendship with Nozomi is kinda mixed with enough first-love-longing to fill an atomically shitty book of poetry.

I believe it's the focus on Eri's perspective that makes this interesting; centering on her uncertainty, her sensations as she falls in love, her need to somehow resolve things with Nozomi.

It's not a one-character study, as it gives room for other characters to breath and interact with her.

But, I would say it is a doujin that largely dwells in the mind of the story's protagonist, one that hinges on her stream of consciousness. I think it aids the romantic tone of the story.

Ya know, wrestling is everywhere I look recently. And I'm ok with that.

Wrestling can just kinda happen at anytime and anyplace, but I find it really depends on the philosophical course you take in life.

I think one of the funniest things in this manga is how Kuroko alternates between being hyper-competent and basically being a greasy nerd

YURI-MANIA RUNNIN WILD

Jesus christ, I had no idea how appropriate the credits page would turn out to be.

I'm sad too, to see it end, but it's reasonable for it to do so. Dowman strikes me as one that keeps trying to make new works that fit into his themes and interests, so I'm sure he felt good and done with Voynich Hotel.

It was a nice low-key happy ending, and I'm curious to see if he makes another long-form series with this' conclusion.

And I do agree with the feeling of normality. It is a term that gets overused, but I really do feel that his works have a strong sense of magical realism. Supernatural and illogical things happen, but they still fit into a story where people mainly think about and grapple with everyday things. A merging of fairy-tale and the mundane world.

Sometimes, these fantastic elements emphasize the absurd or tragic or occasionally wonderful elements of human experience, but sometimes they're just there. Which may in turn symbolize how things can happen unexpectedly in our lives (things which may be impossible for us to fully understand), or can also just be there because the author thinks they're interesting.

Which, again, I feel fits Dowman's general tone. He cares less about making manga that fits a specific genre and set of expectations, and more about making something that delves into his interests and thoughts about things like romance. It can vary wildly in mood and level of seriousness, but his work still retains a very distinct, personal identity.

I realize this is pretty gushy, but I really do like the material.

too much HET!

Agreed

Really? I'm the last guy that wants het in his yuri but the whole point of the story is four girls getting hit in the face with sexuality and they probably won't see lesbians being all over each other in public. Especially in Japan.
And this is Amano Shuninta we're talking about, it's not like there is any real danger of het development.

Yeah, although this is obviously yuri, the beauty of the work is that it really focuses on the discovering of sexuality as a young girl. This is the point of youth when everything is confusing and is really about discovering yourself, which I think is illustrated by Shuninta perfectly.

I like this because it's really the first manga I've read to touch upon what it's like to be a horny teenager. I mean sure there are plenty of mangas with pornographic qualities, but this is the first one that's really delving into the fact that embarrassment and awkward interactions with your crushes are so much more abundant than actual sex at that age.

Oh, I agree strongly.

I think cropping a page sums up a good deal of Ayame's social life.

It's a very different work, and vaguely reminds me of It's Not My Fault That I'm Not Popular! or the surprisingly excellent Onani Master Kurosawa, in that it acknowledges that people kinda think about sex a lot as they grow up. Ayame 14 tends towards erotica and comedy like a lot of Shuninta's manga, but I think it avoids being strictly pornographic by its weird intensity (its exaggeration of a sexually awakening character).

(like, if the post-pubescence era is normally like fumbling through a strange land that you grow to understand, Ayame's post-pubescence is like walking through a homoerotic minefield, blindfolded, after being spun around in place a few turns.)

There's a thing I've noticed with a lot of manga; high-schoolers are fetish objects, klutzy ecchi-comedy dopes, or awkward romantics that take years to work their way up to kissing and hand-holding. You know, the whole slut/virgin perception.

It's good to see stories that acknowledge the awkward, hormone addled, and introverted side to people constructing their sexual identity.

edit: correction of a term

last edited at Mar 11, 2015 11:56PM

Please, I think every five or so puns is taking a year off my life. I am slowly being ground into dust here

I loathe puns, but I loved this stupid chapter very much.

Oh don't worry about that I know what I'm doing hopefully...

Oh, I apologize. I have the bad habit of giving people advice online when when they're not really asking for advice. And the habit of describing things like I want to sell them.

It's weird, the games I've been obsessing over lately don't have any yuri content whatsoever, the Avadon games by Spiderweb Software. Indeed, there's no romance whatsoever. Although my norm is whenever I roll a female character (this game, Skyrim, whatever) I always assume her backstory is as a lesbian.

Oh, thinking about it one of the studio's previous games, Avadon: Escape From the Pit had a canon lesbian couple who were sent to a prison colony for it and made a life there. Nice to see that sort of thing explicitly laid out in a game.

Oh man, Spiderweb; it's nice to read someone else liking those games. I used to love their Mac games when I was a kid, and I haven't really played any of his work lately besides a bit of The Black Fortress (but I do own a lot of Vogel's work). Vogel's body of work feels very under-appreciated to me, when people discuss Western RPGs. Through, his grudging acceptance of Steam has helped get a bit more exposure.

I haven't really played many proper RPGs lately; more of the grind-for-loot Diablo formula where characters are just tools for killing shit or getting shit. I should do that; get back to LISA or Black Fortress, or try Child of Light.

(in Fallout, I always swing bi because I need all the dialogue options and bonus damage I can gets. Nothing possible can be unlooted, unshot, untalked to, or unseduced as I very eventually save the day)

^ There's yuri "options" in a bunch of games that have been previously mentioned...Long live the queen huh? will be checking that one out...so many games to play...so much manga/doujin...so much anime...and real life stuff I need to slow down time or something...

---

Game: Dragon Age 2 Pairing: Hawke(Female) x Isabela Link: Pixiv
I need to play this too...

Oh, I didn't mean that it was the most relevant game mentioned in the thread; just that it's the most yuri-ish out of the games I've been playing lately.

Long Live the Queen is a mixture of choose your own adventure and the old princess maker games, where you guide a young queen by choosing what she focuses on. Absolutely everyone wants to kill you or otherwise take power, so it's actually very difficult if you don't have a walk-through. You need to learn what combinations of mood and skills can solve the most situations.

It has a very black comedy vibe, such as the cutesy images you get when you die from poisoned chocolates or arrows or your magic literally backfiring. There are romance options, but they matter more as political options. It's not really a dating sim, despite looking like a visual novel.

_

If you have trouble deciding what things to focus on in your free time, try making a list. Think about things you want to play or read or watch or whatever. Then, narrow it down to new things you want to try, or old things you've put off before for later.

Make a small list of those things, and resolve to finish them (read through, finish or play the interesting content of a game, etc) before moving on to something else. You'll finish more stuff and experience them more deeply, instead of flitting between options of entertainment.

I mean, fun is about escaping routines and organized parts of our lives, but a little organization can help you in exploring your interests.

You know, I once said here that Stretch's plot has a glacial pace compared to most manga's, due to the format and the writing (and also because, well, it's still more of a comedic instructional webcomic than a romantic drama manga.)

Citrus is longer overall, its plot is focused on the dramatic interplay and the potential romance between the main characters in a small setting, but it advances slower than shounen mangas' romantic subplots. I mean, this is making Toriko look like an earnest work about the increasing vulnerability of our emotions, as we become more intimate with others.

__

It is going so slowly, we are approaching a first proper date like the event horizon of a black hole, losing all sense of time as gravity increases to incomprehensible levels, the second hand on our watches freezing.

This may be moving so slowly, that it may actually start to go backwards!

The intricate piles of characters that are sisters or in sister-like positions or otherwise related, the bizarre number of schoolgirls with incestuous and psuedo-incestuous crushes that can't directly talk to each other about ANYTHING; they will be rewound like clock springs.

(if any of these characters had a therapist, they would burst into flames from how oblique and sororal their clients' relationships are)
_

It is going so fascinatingly slow, that:

one of the last posts I made on /u/ about a year ago, was this long rant on Citrus being this byproduct of the ossification of romance manga. That, it was an example of the broader genre's focus on endless misunderstanding chases in generic melodramatic high schools, and the plot hasn't meaningfully advanced since that post

I finally have a reason to write here, because I'm playing hyperdimension re;birth 1 (pc) and I'm having such a great time with it! All the jokes, references and the unlimited yuri/shipping potential omg XD it has a pairing system in battles to support each others and is stronger depending on ...*pause for drama* The Lily level" I love that name hahaha , guys I have ff: LR with dlcs and I dont care right now, all I want to do is play hyperdimension and raise the lily levels of playstation (Noire) with Neptunia

Neptunia is one of the most "yuri" series around. Is all but said that Noire and Neptune have a thing going on, Uni outright says that she loves Nepgear on Re; Birth 2, IF is practically the yuri poster girl and so on.

Mind you, while the games are pretty divisive the setting, plot and characters are really good.

And then Planet Destroyer puts in an male insert office character for the lonely Otakus out there

Fucking lovely.

Well, something like Neptunia has a similar audience to things like Kantai Collection, or if you go outside of games, stuff like Love Live and K-On.

By what I mean, it has the sort of audience that is divided between two camps; those who want to see the main characters kiss, and those that want to kiss a hug pillow of the main characters. This is true for both properties that have all-female casts, and those with all-male casts (or those with effectively single-sex casts, where one group is delegated to minor characters).

I mean, this is also true for series that have more mixed casts, but it seems more stark for stuff like that; that's designed to pander towards heterosexual fanboys or fangirls*.

The characters don't have opposite sexed love interests or close friends because that would repel the yaoi/yuri crowds, they don't officially get with another character because that would repel the hardcore waifu/husbando-syndrome crowds. It's a weird subsection of manga and anime to me, or set of characteristics at least.

Some observations, anyway. I don't mean to sound judgmental, but you must admit that these things play safe while trying to court multiple nerd demographics.
__

That went off-topic. Wolfenstein: The New Order is one of the best FPSes in years, Long Live the Queen is hilarious/crushingly difficult (and probably the most on-topic game for this forum, since you do have a lesbian option), and LISA is the funniest heart-warmingest game about the brutally depressing struggles of a father since Nier.

*bonus points if it's a 4-koma. I wonder if the creator of Azumanga Daioh realized that it would herald this wave of cute-girls-doing-nothing slice of life comedies

Serious question: 2 volumes printed now, how long are series like this usually allowed to run? The lion series at the same website has 118 four page chapters.

I imagine it's like an online manhwa; it goes until the author quits, it becomes completely unpopular, or the author dies/goes crazy/wants a big shift in life and changes careers/experiences a divine revelation/gets really lost on the way to the convenience store, I mean SUPER lost

man I forgot about that Lion manga, I love that one

I really want to see them get together. I feel like in a few chapter endings there was a maybe shot of them getting together then the next chapter would have nothing to do with the previous. I think this manga is super cute.. I just need some more yuri in it! lol.

Well, there's two things; the author probably feels that the characters work better as ambiguous and reluctant people, and he probably realizes that people might be more interested in the characters kissing than the stretching instructions.

I mean, it's really easy to hook an audience with the will they/won't they dynamic of proto-romantic interaction. For example: look at every fanfiction written in the world in the past 45 years

Is it me or does this get better as it goes? I like the way Shou is bulding up Ran and Keiko's relationship; it's been abundantly made clear it goes beyond simple friendship, still it's not exeactly a romantic one. I'd bee more than happy to see the author dig deeper and deeper, 'cause he's good at that.

I agree. I find that he's one of the few among manga artists who is very deliberate about what he shows in each panel/page. He seems to know how to get the right "shot" and dialogue to push the visual narrative, as a good storyteller should.

Romantic or not, the main focus is clearly the dynamic between Ran and Keiko. A series that can show how women relate to each other in a meaningful way has a huge plus in my book.

Agreed. Examples abound, but I've always liked the teacher's look and brief pause in speaking when she counts off the students on this page: http://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/prism_ch3_5#9

Here too: http://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/prism_ch02#3

Shou is so odd to me; he's a plagiarist, and he's drawn pedo-stuff according to the profile thing. I really like his works on here, but I can't feel "right" recommending them to people I know.

Sorta like recommending Woody Allen or Roman Polanski movies, but on a lesser scale of abhorrence. I wouldn't support an artist that is an unapologetic creep.

He has both a strong grip on visual composition (knowing what to focus on precisely), and a strong understanding of the complexities in relationships. The ambiguities, the unstated intents, the need to connect meaningfully to other people that can never be fully understood.

Like, he's a good manga author, but I couldn't tell my sister that this how-to comic on stretching exercises has an excellent slow-burn plot. I mean, there's the ridiculousness of that first sentence, and then there's the stuff I mentioned about Shou's past body of work, about what it makes me feel.

edited for a bit more clarity

last edited at Feb 20, 2015 6:00PM

Reading this manga was strange at first- there's a lot going on, and it's all really weird- but I soon got in-sync with the "feel" of the comic and I was hooked. I marathon read my way through this, and was shocked at the incredible array of themes. Being that this is written by Dowman Sayman, the mixture of horror, comedy, and over the top violence and gore is to be expected.

Not quoting the entire post for reasons of brevity, but I really agree. I find The Voynich Hotel as a great example of Dowman's work; it's very personal feeling.

Not in the sense that it's autobiographical, but in that it reflects a lot of the author's interests.

It captures the pop culture ephemera that Dowman loves (he's the first manga author I've seen to talk about Lance Henriksen), the odd story-lines that don't neatly fit into genre cliches, and his love for people just generally hanging out and talking about things. It's both about absurd fictional situations like supernatural killers, and everyday absurdities like our ability to rationalize severe problems.

Like, it's not really "slice of life", but he really likes to focus on the interactions between characters; on the dynamics that can develop between them.

I would like for a Western publisher to pick him up; I would love a translated hardcover volume of Voynich or Nickelodeon.

Like the a shark just under the water's surface, the yuri is there... lurking. :3

Does this mean you're more likely to die from yuri than getting struck by lightning?

No, it means she's more scared of you than you are if her.

God, sexuality is confusing, and possibly lives in the ocean. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, but I just keep getting more questions than answers.

Like the a shark just under the water's surface, the yuri is there... lurking. :3

Does this mean you're more likely to die from yuri than getting struck by lightning?

It should at least have a Shoujo Ai tag. It is very clear that Ran leans that way and the Valentine's Day chapter certainly indicated that they share mutual feelings that go beyond friendship. I do wonder at the fact that they had that exchange and just... let it go...

I think it's partially the format, but it's also the way the characters are written. I hope I can remember things clearly, I don't feel like re-reading every bit for an impromptu analysis of the story:

Through they express it in different ways, neither of the main characters are the best with romantic relationships, or properly expressing their feelings.

Summaries: Keiko n' Ran fear their past experiences, and losing their present comfort-zone.

_

Keiko wades through unhappy bonds (family, exes), bottles up her emotions, and sorta puts off the idea of serious attachments for the future. While she has engaged in horseplay and sees Ran as attractive, she doesn't seem used to the idea of Ran as a possible lover. She has grown to known her as an eccentric and very close friend, not as someone she wanted to ask out on dates.

It should also be considered that she has only had heterosexual relationships before, and she seems unhappy with the intense reliance and sharp break-ups she had with her previous lovers (including the tragic one with her finance.)

Seeing Ran romantically, rather than in a familial way, could seem challenging to her; as something that could upset this relatively stable, happy, predictable period of her life. She could be afraid that Ran would become like her boyfriends, something that's lost in the past.

_

While Ran is more straightforward in her goals, she's also a bit messed up. While she has a long-term attraction to Keiko (it's interesting to see her previous antics as less "joking" and more "testing the waters"), it was difficult for her to work her way up to a very sanitized, very high-schoolerish way of confessing her feelings. Which might be noted as a call-back, as she sorta fell back into Keiko's life after they said goodbyes in high school, and she at least admired her in a platonic manner then.

Even after the confession, she and Keiko are in this strange border state, where they are still friends and roommates that gently test boundaries, doing small things like holding hands.

And there's other elements, like her alcoholic tendencies. But really, the main thing is that she's gregarious while being a bit hesitant and closed-off at heart. Which, I guess might be partially due to both the dead dad (people can just die, no matter how much you love them) and partially the general adult life thing (sometimes, you can just fall out of someone's orbit and lose contact.) She could be afraid of working for a lost cause.
_

I apologize for the wall of text and over-analysis of characters I'm a fan of. Is this the feeling some nerds describe as "yuri hell"?