Yo what ? Is that serious ? Isn't kind of abrupt ?

Why I'm not surprised.

Well i am. I don't find why they confess must mean it's the end.

Because that's unfortunately the fate of most romance mangas.

I actually find manga to continue after confessions/kisses far more often than other forms of romance storytelling. Can't say I saw this coming. It felt like there were some plot threads that were still being built up. Well, like I said before, this manga has been chock full of surprises for me. It's a shame the last one had to be a disappointing one.

As far as I can tell, (apart from being a gag character) Ucchi is only popular because of how strongly she comes off. If Yuri, Asuka, or even Nemo ever showed any kind of irrefutably romantic feelings for Tomoko, I bet the Ucchi shipping would drop dramatically. ￣\_(ツ)_/￣

last edited at Aug 29, 2019 5:03AM

Nice. It feels rare to see the one actually good ship from Kill La Kill ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Chisaki's ribbon grew more than she did, lol

^ You can roughly judge their height by the peephole on the door (it's below eye-level for both). Sure, it's possible for a middle schooler to be that tall, but pretty unlikely. That's all I really meant; using the information given by the picture, I don't find it likely that she's a middle schooler. Well, my judgement might be a bit biased from having recently visited some middle schools myself and feeling like a giant, haha. Middle schoolers are closer to children than adults in terms of physique, even though it doesn't feel like that at the time of being one. It's strange how easy it is to not realize how much you've changed in a decade. But I digress...

It seems Like Office Lady x Middle School Girl,,, nice age gap

I would say she's waaayyy too tall to be a middle schooler, but it's manga, so who knows...

My headcanon is she's college student age and they have the following inner monologues:

"Oh god, this beautiful and mature Onee-san saw me in my loungewear. That's so embarrassing."

"Oh god, this cute and hip girl just saw an old lady like me come home drunk (just came home from a business dinner). How embarrassing."

last edited at Aug 10, 2019 5:43PM

You don't need some specific topic to become rivals over. The fact that they get competitive over things is what drives their "small rivalry aspect". A rival is literally just someone you compete with.

I see Tomoko talking about Nemo's genitals to her face as more of a point towards Tomoko's social awkwardness rather than a point of sexual tension between the two, if that's what you're referring to. Personally, I don't think it really compares to Tomoko and Asuka constantly talking about (and in rare cases acting upon) touching each other's various body parts or Tomoko and Yuri acting like a newly formed awkward couple all of the time. But to be fair, that's mostly up to interpretation, so if you see it another way, fair enough.

Wow, this manga consistently surprises me (in a good way). I really didn't see that coming at all. Can't wait to see where it goes from here.

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What the heck? Why they censored the kiss scene three times?

Kisses can be difficult to draw for some. At least, according to what I've heard. Everything is difficult for me to draw, so I'm just speaking from secondhand experience here.

Yeah, it kind of feels like the author kind of gave up on Hifumi's character arcs lately. She felt like a more important character in the early chapters, part of the main cast. Now it feels like she's been demoted to a complete side character. :\

I still feel this even in this chapter that's about her. It feels like she doesn't have any presence anymore.

No, I agree. I think the problem is that this chapter just feels so disconnected. It feels like a side chapter focusing on Hifumi so that she feels less neglected, rather than a main part of the story that naturally progresses her character.

@random Rivals can be friends and vice versa. I think Tomoko and Nemo are friends with a small rivalry aspect behind them.

@sorathecrow I always thought that the main problem with NemoTomoko was the lack of sexual tension compared to the other ships. I agree that they have great chemistry between each other and feel the most natural in their interactions, but they also don't seem to be as conscious of each other when compared to the Asuka, Yuri, etc pairs.

i must have been rlly out from the manga life bc to me the whole WHY WOULD I WANT TO HUG MY FRIEND WITHOUT A REASON drama just made me laugh ajsjskqld

i mean sure we all know shes in love but hahahah that was such a funny reason. isnt skinship a thing in their world cmon she’s a gyaru, she probably did that a lot of times. and i know izumi’s probably creepy but what she said wasnt... wrong... at all

lol this was my reaction. Weird cognitive dissonance when the art and framing all signal something questionable is happening and the questionable thing just amounts to someone saying, “Yeah friends totally hold hands and hug and stuff nbd.”

The author’s probably trying to push the gaslighting angle but somehow the dialogue misses that for me. I think I get what they’re trying to get at tho (aka the notable thing isn’t actually hugging but the emotional weight she’s putting on hugging, which is what is being dismissed out of hand).

Yeah, the facial expressions and framing felt a little over the top, haha. I think you hit the nail on the head though. I doubt Fujishiro thinks hugs between friends are really that strange, but she realizes deep down that she wants to do more than just hug Kurokawa and is having a hard time separating the two concepts at the moment. Then the thing with Izumi becomes that Fujishiro was basically admitting to her that she had feelings that go beyond friends for Kurokawa, so Izumi's insistence in denying that was a bit strange.

last edited at Jul 30, 2019 12:23PM

Why is she scared of Izumi? Facing her own gayness through Izumi's actions, or something else?

I could be completely off base, but what I got from it was that Fujishiro basically realized that she was in denial about her feelings for Kurokawa, so she confided in Izumi, internally hoping that Izumi would give her the reality check she needed. When Izumi did the opposite of what she was expecting and instead encouraged her denial further with such insistence, the mindset that her words and actions implies are potentially a direct opposition to the kind of person that Fujishiro needs to become.

In simpler terms, Fujishiro is realizing she's gay, and Izumi is starting to seem like she might be homophobic, or possibly super closeted to the point of denying the validity of gay relationships...? Or maybe Izumi's in even worse denial about having feelings for Fujishiro and Fujishiro can see herself in that side of Izumi, which scares her because of the implications about her own feelings. I don't know, that's my best guess at the moment.

I'd say it feels like there's still an 'invisible continuation' going on in my head for this manga with how the ending was delivered.

See, that's the magic of open endings :)

Yeah, when people mentioned that, "They start swapping with other girls," I imagined something much different. I'm sad to see it go, but overall I'm pretty okay with this ending. I wouldn't call it a 'best friend' ending. It's more of an open ending with heavy romantic tones imo. It's pretty easy to view the ending as hinting towards them one day losing their ability to swap for good and remaining 'special' (wink, wink) to each other in spite of it, but open endings get a bad rap in general, so I'm not surprised to see the poor reception here.

But you think that way or you wouldn't feel the need to bring it up.

This is where I realize discussion was pointless from the beginning and drop out.

That would probably actually help if great mental health support was that easy to come by.

I'm not sure she's at the point of needing a shrink, but I think even talking to a friend about it would have helped. Instead, she decided to run away which is NEVER the right answer to your problems.

Never is a strong word. Talking to a friend... Like the way Amane talked to her senpai? Communication is a skill, not a method. Sometimes talking about things you don't understand can exacerbate the issue. You have an optimistic outlook, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think you are simplifying the situation greatly.

That's just plain horrible advice.

Not really. At the very least she should voice her mind about how uncomfortably she feels that they're telling her she shouldn't smile. It's because she bottled up her dissatisfaction that it ended up becoming a larger issue.

Telling her employers to "fuck off" would not have helped her situation in any way.

Agreed. That seems to be one of the things she was trying to minimize, but at the very least she could have handled the break up much better, while she gave herself some time to sort things out.

She shouldn't have broken up to begin with. She's just running away, and I will say it again and again, running away is never the right answer. You have to face your problems or they will just get worse.

Distancing yourself from a situation and gaining a new perspective on things can be very beneficial. If she didn't want to be in a relationship at the time then she shouldn't have been in one. Simple as that. Still, emotionally manipulating Amane during the break up was a mistake. Being honest with her and asking her to understand that she has things she needs to sort out would've been a better move.

You're looking at everything from the perspective of an observer rather than a participant. It seriously distorts the complexity of the situation.

Almost as if she'd been emotionally abused from a young age...

We know, but it doesn't make her actions any less disturbing and wrong.

I never said it did, did I?

Is there something in the freaking water around there that results in psychologically abusive adults (“You’re prettier when you don’t smile”—who the fuck says that to a child?) and yandere high schoolers (“Cry. Cry. Cry. Suffer. Because only then are you mine alone.”) and middle schoolers (“I wish Amane was as ugly as shit.”).

Well, evil begets evil, or something like that.

“I wish I were as pretty as _____” or “looked cute smiling like ______” is garden-variety adolescent insecurity; “I wish she was ugly” is rather more disturbing.

Almost as if she'd been emotionally abused from a young age...

1. They're kids

That helps understand where she's coming from but it doesn't make her sympathetic.

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Yep, they're kids. That's why I feel a bit bad for her. But I still can't really sympathize with how stupid she is acting.

It seems like you two are confusing sympathy with empathy perhaps? You don't have to agree with or even understand a person to sympathize with them, but you two seem to already be sympathizing with her from your comments.

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Face the problem. Talk to Amane and tell her the truth.

She's a child who's been through emotional abuse and has some deep seated insecurities. Dialogue between two people is quick to become a very emotionally charged activity. Randomly bringing up a topic that has deep ties to her emotional trauma that she doesn't even understand and trying to talk through it between two middle schoolers who have no relationship experience and probably very minimal communication skills... Something tells me that one's a long shot...

Get someone to help her get over her complex / psychological issue.

That would probably actually help if great mental health support was that easy to come by.

Or maybe just tell the people who told her she shouldn't smile to fuck off.

That's just plain horrible advice.

The one person she shouldn't have hurt was Amane who was a total sweetheart to her.

Agreed. That seems to be one of the things she was trying to minimize, but at the very least she could have handled the break up much better, while she gave herself some time to sort things out. But again, she was a middle school girl with no relationship experience and minimal communication skills. Hopefully Kou can point her towards a better track.

Momoji and Narumi are clearly just a test sent by the Lord to see if Aoba and Umiko are truly devoted to their waifus!

I like the way you think.

Yeah, it kind of feels like the author kind of gave up on Hifumi's character arcs lately. She felt like a more important character in the early chapters, part of the main cast. Now it feels like she's been demoted to a complete side character. :\

@juanelric Honestly, this anime is a bit more divisive than this comment section makes it seem. There are a few people out there that seem to truly dislike it for reasons I'm not 100% clear on. I'd say if you're interested in a mash up between a sci-fi action/adventure and western gunslinger flick then it's worth checking out. If you're looking for substantial yuri, then there's probably better places to look, but there are a few cute moments between the two main characters.

last edited at Jul 23, 2019 4:12AM

@Throbelisk So in other words, she looks the same as usual.

I disagree. The table tennis book is one of the first signs of change on Shimamura's side, something she would not have normally done, that signifies how much the time spent with Adachi means to her, and Adachi finding it is similar in significance for this story as is Touko noticing the planetarium in Yuu's room in Yagate Kimi ni Naru. Not showing it was a big mistake, and that panel barely showed anything of Shimamura's room either - nothing we hadn't already seen two pages earlier. Showing the book on her desk instead would have made this much more impactful.

While what you say is true for the most part, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the importance of subtlety vs dramatization. Another reason why I like this version. Personally, I think it finds a nice balance between the two.

last edited at Jul 22, 2019 3:49AM

Huh, they didn't include the creepy dude.

Which wasn't too bad, but it also skipped the entire rest of the pool sequence.

This one IS finished, apparently. It got cancelled. And now a new adaptation is being made (with, in my opinion, worse art and weaker writing).

How can it possibly be worse than this one when the art in this one is very much barebones, often lacking any significant detail and backgrounds (which especially started to annoy me after chapter 6 saw fit to mention the table tennis book, but not actually show it), and it's skipping so much of the story. To be honest though, I actually just picked up the light novels myself yesterday, and I think they might have the best art of the three, although in limited supply of course.

I also prefer this one's artstyle. I think it shows off the character's personalities better, and looks 'cleaner' in general... imo of course. The detail and backgrounds between the two versions so far have been pretty comparable. I wouldn't say that the new version has improved on its predecessor in that regard, although a case could be made to say that the non-4koma format allows the new version more freedom in visual storytelling with its layout, although I have yet to notice any noteworthy examples of this in the new version.

I think your example of the table tennis book is a poor one. Visual storytelling should be used to provide the reader with extra information. Showing a table tennis book and then having Adachi comment that there was a table tennis book there would be redundant in this case. Of course, visual storytelling could be used to describe what kind of table tennis book it was, or what it looks like, but being a 4-koma and having a limited number of pages per chapter means that the artist and author need to decide what they show and what they don't in some cases. I think that the author and artist actually made an intelligent choice here, by telling us that there was a book there, while simultaneously showing us what Shimamura's room looks like, consequently maximizing the amount of information the manga provides us within a limited amount of space. This is similar to what I said previously about the writing of the two versions, which is that I think this version says more with less, which is one of the reasons I like this one so much.

Admittedly, I can't quite judge the writing of the new version yet (although being based on the same LN, writing is technically the same, it just depends on how well it is adapted into manga form) since it's still not added to MAL, though.

No, the writing is not the same. The plot is the same, or at least similar, but plot is only a small portion of everything that constitutes the writing. The writing so far has been quite different, and as I've been repeating, I find this version's writing to be far more efficient than the new one's, which is one of the best attributes writing can have, and something I seriously need to work on with my own writing...

last edited at Jul 21, 2019 10:53AM

@TheLostLight
K

You just had to do it...