This and the one before it are fantastic! They just tell a story without words so well.

Also, The Hand returns.
Sometimes I feel like it'd be fun to reread this series just to count how many times The Hand appears XD

What's really weird is that it's wearing Izumi's sweater and not Iroha's, or at least that's what it looks like based on the shading.

Well... this opens a whole different can of issues... well... not really a DIFFERENT can... the same can with a different go with?

last edited at Jan 5, 2022 12:11PM

henceforth, mio and shizuka will now only be found in the new series, "empire".

THIS MADE ME DIE

This comment wins. The thread can be closed now.

…also am I crazy for wanting a poly ending where they include the boat lady?

No you're not, I immediately felt like there was some cute chemistry going on as well xD

Naaah, I’d rather it remain a couple in this case. Just a feeling I got. And honestly, they were much more forgiving of someone stealing their bike than I would have been.

I'd have been FORGIVING; I suppose it was an understandable mistake and she didn't take anything, including their so-essential wallets.
But they were acting downright GRATEFUL, and I wouldn't go that far. They're talking like it's thanks to her that they have their stuff . . . but sheesh, it's thanks to her that it was gone in the first place, so.
On the other hand, it's probably a good move. That girl is their first social contact on the island, and small communities run on social contacts. Cultivating her is a lot smarter than blowing her off would be, that's for sure. And she seems nice.

Yeah, they were definitely on the grateful side of things and that just feels wrong to me. Look, even if she sees this all the time, at least take it to the police or lost and found and let it sit for a day or two before claiming it. The only reason she didn’t keep it is because their belongings were in there. Otherwise she was going to do what she wanted with the bike, no questions asked.

I’m probably the only one that doesn’t think she’s incredibly nice, but that’s fine. Maybe she’ll warm up to me later on.

My interpretation of the line about being thankful was that they were thankful a nice well meaning person like her took it (and brought it back) rather than it getting taken by someone else who might have just robbed them and sold the bike.

I frequently ship poly but I'm not going to jump on this bandwagon quite yet, mostly because this couple is just too dang sweet and it seems like their relationship is pretty strong, based on the short background we have on them. Of course, this could be the high of doing something totally off the wall and fairly romantic and they could run into the cold hard realities of being an unemployed couple in a tourist area in the off-season VERY soon... And really, poly relationships are not for everyone and none of these characters have given any indication that they are poly.

I was really skeptical about the bike-taking diving instructor from the start. I don't care how often people dump working bikes on the beach around where you live, that really DOESN'T give you salvage rights to one that you found there without verifying that the owner isn't coming back for it in a couple of hours. Yeah, it probably wasn't in a legal parking spot, but she is also NOT a member of the police force and wasn't going to turn it in. She was making the assumption that it was a derelict vehicle that was only good for scrap until she found that there were purses with IDs and cash inside stored in it.

That said, I kind of understand why the two protagonists are soooo thankful to her for returning their own property... they were freaking starving and she showed up at just the right time to not only provide them with the means to purchase dinner but she also took them to one of the few open restaurants on her boat. She could have just left the bike in their front yard, knocked on the door, and run away (or hid). Then they would have opened the door, found the bike, and not known who it was that took it in the first place, but they also wouldn't have had any clue where to go to get food at that time of night and probably would have run all over the place until they found out that they needed to go to a different island to get food. So they probably would have ended up eating convenience store junk, if there was one available. For that matter, she could have just left the bike and not even let them know about it, figuring they'd find it in the morning.

Of course, having heard the exclamation that they were getting married while she was bringing their bike to them, she was interested in meeting these two anyway...

last edited at Jan 4, 2022 4:35PM

That's what everyone's saying. I don't see it.

Considering the escalating degree to which the matter has been bugging Ataru lately and her having pretty much hit critical mass right in the previous chapter I'll be extremely surprised if this isn't her finally coming clean.

Plus I'm tolerably certain that even in Japan you can't just up and form a company with somebody without first getting their name (and probably that weird seal thing they do there) on all kinds of red tape, which as far as I am aware has yet to happen.

Not "even in Japan"... ESPECIALLY in Japan. There is a reason why there are workplace comedies about people who work in public service and why the default "what are you gonna do with your life" thing in many school manga is, "Well, I could always take the civil service exam?" That's because the bureaucracy in Japan is just about peak insanity. A podcast done by a group of expats living in Japan who recently moved their studio to a new apartment, with the backing of a major entertainment company that sponsors them, detailed the process of signing the paperwork for something like an apartment lease and it sounds like a freaking nightmare. (One of the examples was that, despite one of the three being half Japanese and a native speaker of Japanese (He's lived there since he was eleven and could already speak fluently then), they had to have a translator there to read the entire document to them in English. When one of them, I forget if it was one of the officials or the leasees, made a mistake on a date or signature on something like page 26 of the document, all of which had to be signed and dated, instead of printing out THAT page and redoing it, they printed out the entire document and, yes, started reading it from the beginning... EDIT: Thinking on it, I think it wasn't even a lease, but one of them signing up for a membership at a fitness club/gym. I remembered that because it included rules like "You must not run on the treadmills. Only walking is allowed." Looks over at the guy behind them running on the treadmill... Okay then... sign that rule... rolls eyes... NEXT!)

The reason that the storyline in things like Ghosts in the Shell can't really be taken out of Japan is that they are not so thinly veiled attacks at the overweight bureaucracy and inability of the government to actually do anything even in emergency situations.

I would say, based on what we know about the characters and the scenes of their high school years that have been shown, it is pretty clear that Ataru has finally at LEAST chosen to come out, if not actually confess her feelings.

last edited at Jan 3, 2022 6:16PM

When you think about it, Bai Xinxin agreed to risk her life to save Lan Sha, so it makes sense that the story would reset after she failed to save her this time around.

Man! I don't know how I missed this one up until today. This is really good!

Teacher sandwich FTW.

This is one of the funniest series I've read in a long time. Seeing the number of new chapters out, I went and re-read it from the beginning and MAN, was I glad I did! It's been a long time since I marathoned a complete manga in a couple of days, but this one is totally worth it! I absolutely love the bit at the end where she's trying to figure out how to deal with what to do after your favorite manga ends and starts talking about buying stock in the publisher!

The ending was pretty much golden, from the ultimatum given by the Vice President to the Yuri-loving President phrasing her suggestion to Tsubaki in terms of a Harem Ending instead of trying to get her to actually think in terms of her Yuri novel terms. At least one of the two of them learned along the way that they were actually speaking the same language, just different dialects.

last edited at Dec 8, 2021 10:42AM

Just too flipping cute!

I'm waiting for them to come out to their friends and get the, "Um... yeah... tell us something we don't know!" response.

So we get to follow them on to their working lives as a couple that doesn't say they're a couple but everyone thinks they are...

Wtf did just happen...what are those...behind the curtain, I didn't understand, can someone please enlighten me?

hard to tell but abusive parents, i would guess, that her friend/gf killed for abusing their daughter. implied they wanted to do these things but parents wouldn't let her/abused her for going out, etc.

Ahhh, and there I was thinking it was some serial killer escapees girls, but this one makes more sense, thank you, now it all has came together!

I was thinking that they were still being held captive and these plans were all just hopes...

That credit page! Pure gold!

Though, what was that about Yumi waiting for a text from Nanase all night, when they've already said goodnight to each other? That was a bit silly.... Or am I not getting something?

It said in the previous chapter here:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/my_girlfriends_not_here_today_ch04#8

that every month on their anniversary day, Nanase would send her a message on "Rine" at midnight. That's why she was waiting for a message from her all night.

That's a fascinating philosophy... too bad I don't buy it as anything other than hot air... Then again, maybe she was just trying to distract sempai while she stripped?

Who knew this had a continuation...

It's good to see that even professionals and their editors sometimes miss the obvious with Chidori being in a uniform while she checks her uniform to "see if it's dry" and asks if she can keep wearing Nanoha's tracksuit the rest of the day! LOL! (Makes me feel better about all of the stupid errors I found in my self-published novels after publication. Good thing you can push updates.) A small "oops" in an otherwise fantastic chapter!

last edited at Oct 19, 2021 9:47AM

Here I was going to point out that the way Kasumi pushes Sakurako over in the surf and gets right up in her face to verify her "realness" after she comments that she sometimes feels Kasumi is too pretty to be real, then makes her acknowledge her "realness: is another one of the fine, yet subtle indications that their feelings are NOT one-sided, but mutual, but it looks like there's a bunch of the usual crowd already yapping about whether this is really yuri, yada yada yada... sigh...

That was one epic troll by the mangaka, leading us to believe that Nanoha was going to make a New Year's resolution of a serious nature about trying to get serious about school or get her thoughts about her future settled so she and Chidori can be more secure in their plans. Then NOPE! Forget that! Resolve to do what's REALLY important!

I'm not sure who the other sempai is hitting on now...

Yep... At the rate things are going, her girlfriend will be the adult in the relationship by the time she's a freshman in college.

last edited at Sep 27, 2021 6:08PM

I like that they are both pretty much putting on an act at school so their persona matches their appearance even though it looks like the "Princess" is more of an abrupt/tsundere type and the "Prince" is more of a princess with a bit of a reckless streak at heart.

I am once again asking for a full length GL historical drama about persian lesbians (bonus points for vampires)

That is a very tall order. The best I can come up with for a proper Persian GL historical drama would be Otoyomegatari. It is a beautifully illustrated award-winning manga that explores marriage and romance across multiple different cultures in the Central Asian region of the mid-1800s. The artwork is truly stunning.

The manga has multiple storylines following a handful of separate romances in different cultures. Each of those romances is basically a self-contained story. One of those stories is about two Persian women becoming "sister brides." The manga is tastefully NSFW and it's actually really hard to describe what it should be tagged with. You'll have to see for yourself, but I would definitely categorize it under some form of GL.

This substory is the only one that is GL. It can be found starting on Chapter 36 "In Her Garden" through Chapter 44 "When the Roses Bloom" then resumes for Chapter 83 "Persian Nights" through Chapter 87 "Knowing Somebody for a Long Time." Skip Chapter 84

https://mangafast.net/otoyomegatari-chapter-36-eng

It's worth checking out for the artwork alone, but if you are into historical romance you might enjoy the other stories as well.

It's by the same mangaka who wrote Emma and she, in my opinion, is one of the best at drawing the naked female body in the business... and she has a distinct passion for it. There are several scenes in the latter part of Emma where there are nude scenes that are entirely unnecessary to the plot and totally not sex scenes, just a naked woman at leisure so to speak. She's commented on the fact that she loves to draw naked women in her author's notes.

Another thing she is FANTASTIC at is visual storytelling. Back when I was doing an anime and manga blog (I'm pretty sure the site is no longer around) I started a feature series on "'Show, don't tell' storytelling". The first entry was about a section of "Bride's Story" or "Otoyomegatari" where she depicts an evening between the first couple in the manga over five pages with the only dialog being in the first panel of the first page of the sequence, yet the story told is clear as day.

Every time I think "I need some extra money" I look at my collection of hardcovers of "Bride's Story", thinking... yeah... I could get something for them on eBay or Amazon. (I have a seller account with collectible book-selling privileges.) But then I think about the art and think... nope!