I do love Nozomi's expression here of like, "omg I was still coming to terms with the idea that we were flirting and now it turns out Heidi only likes men and I'm the gay one"

the way I usually think of the tension in this series is like... Imagine I was telling you about a manga about a teenage boy who has to move in with a hot older female semi-relation and lives alone with her. Like even if romance isn't a realistic possibility in the story, you'd still understand there's sort of a low level of sexual tension there for the boy.

That's how Shino has always seemed like she behaves to me. She's not like, in love with Nozomi, that's not their relationship. But there is like that element of discomfort and attraction

If nothing else nozomi is totally going on a date with a trans lady, and the story's not even really beating around the bush about it. Even shino was picking up on it!

The early manga, which the anime adapts, has a decent amount of hinting that Tomoko is attracted to girls, and she totally has a crush on her straight friend Yuu (and a lot of her jealousy when Yuu gets a boyfriend is that someone else gets to date Yuu, though Tomoko tells herself it's just because she wants a boyfriend too).

But it's pretty much all subtext early on. Once she gets more friends the subtext gradually turns more and more into just text. Despite the shipping most of her friendships seem intended to be read as just friendships... But Asuka and Tomoko legitimately seem to be flirting and into each other.

last edited at Oct 22, 2020 2:56PM

I always wanted this to be gay, but at the same time I always thought shion/nozomi would've been a very unhealthy codependent relationship. So I'm thrilled personally!

those were such great chapters!! i loved how pancho was alright with them being girlfriends and just overall being so understanding(maybe suspiciously so...?). also huge shoutout to yashiro for helping shima find her girlfriend, that scene was so sweet

Yeah that whole conversation felt like Pancho was asking for herself, not just out of idle curiosity.

Yeah that whole aspect of the chapter felt like a bit of a dodge

Yeah Shino's always seemed pretty blatantly gay.

The one who's always been more of a question mark is Nozomi, who's always been pretty cluelessly heteronormative up until now.

Try to "seduce" a man and end up with a Yuri harem.

Worked for Oddman 11.

Worked pretty well for Watamote, too!

On the one hand the characters actions don't make any sense if you don't read it as romantic attraction between the two girls. Including the way the parents react to their relationship.

On the other hand the manga seems absolutely determined not to acknowledge the entire herd of elephants currently trampling through the room, so ???

Yeah Adachi struggles a good bit with The Gay in the earlier volumes. She repeatedly tries to justify how she's not actually Like That, and then she's got a long period where she hasn't fully admitted it to herself, but she mostly worries about if Shimamura will hate her if she finds out. She mostly kinda decides that well, she doesn't know about the big picture, but she knows she likes Shimamura and she wants her to like her back. But she regularly backtracks at random depending on how anxious she is about things. Until Shimamura drags the girlfriend word out of her I dont think Adachi is ever willing to actually think it, she just thinks how well it'd be cool if they were super duper best friends who go on dates and y'know maybe shimamura might randomly try to kiss her someday.

Shimamura's M.O. has always been to pretend like she has no idea how gay this all is, but then to subtly freak out and worry that people are staring at them when they're together. Like you can go back to almost any of their previous dates-that-aren't-officially-dates and at some point Shimamura will be noticing how all the other couples are hetero, or that people are looking at them, or how they don't really fit in.i

So instead she's just been like, uhh, well if I don't think at all about how this is totally gay then I can just pretend it's not an issue and maybe it'll go away on its own.

All this friendship for so long and yet I really started to think they might smooch. Soooo much romantic tension.

I kinda wish Yashiro had grown up, her just being a little kid forever is a little tough on little sister, lol

The Tarumi situation is interesting. Shimamura wants to still be friends with her, but then also at some level I think she does understand that Tarumi is hitting on her, which is part of the reason she feels extra awkward about the whole situation. She'd even probably be open to it if it wasn't for Adachi, but she prefers Adachi. But she'd still like to be friends.

Yeah, adachi was asking about getting kissed again, and plainly Shimamura's real reaction was "HELL YEAH" but she can't admit that even to herself, she's gotta act like it's a reward that maaaybe she'll give out. Like Shimamura's also always been more afraid of people noticing their gayness for each other than Adachi has, but now she's still feeding Adachi at lunch.

But Shima mostly acting all tsundere doesn't really help with adachi's worries about their relationship. And it doesn't really satisfy Shimamura either, because (at least going by previous books) she probably wants to be getting smooched too, but Adachi's not gonna just do that on her own and Shimamura is too embarrassed to ask.

last edited at Jul 4, 2020 9:59PM

Shimamura is really enjoying this whole being a girlfriend thing.

Being 16 never feels young when you're 16, or remembering being 16.

Then you hang out with some 16 year olds and you're like, holy shit, they're so young!

I mean if Adachi was 21 or something her jealousy could be a real issue

But they're both just kids and just started dating for the first time, they don't know wtf they're doing, they're learning.

Shimamura's learning to be more pro-active and open about her feelings, to hold up her end of the relationship.
And Adachi's gonna learn to trust Shimamura and not feel so jealous all the time.

I feel like one of these days ShimaMom is just going to accidentally blurt out "your girlfriend's here!" and her daughter will die of mortification.

Like these two are terrible at keeping a poker face, mom is already teasing shima, and plus they keep having relationship talks like while mom is nearby.

ShimaMom just walking past the door to see AdaShima just holding hands and smiling at each other and suddenly taking an intense interest in Adachi was fantastic

You could basically hear the quote marks in ShimaMom's voice every time she called Adachi your """Friend"""

Plus this is only shortly after Shimamura got all dressed up and pretty for her trip to a festival with a """Friend""" which mom helped her with.

I feel like one of these days ShimaMom is just going to accidentally blurt out "your girlfriend's here!" and her daughter will die of mortification.

Like these two are terrible at keeping a poker face, mom is already teasing shima, and plus they keep having relationship talks like while mom is nearby.

Yeah I bought the first two volumes and had a nice time rereading the whole beginning.

Rereading the early stuff does kinda highlight how frustrating some of the middle volumes are. Cuz like early shimamura is super into Adachi, and she seeks out excuses to spend time with her. Passive shimamura doesn't really make sense with that, except I guess in shima feeling generally in denial about things.

I feel like Shimamura would be the one to fall in love first if Adachi stayed the same.

Yeah I bought the official releases of books 1 & 2 for kindle, and rereading through the early stuff I had kinda forgotten how obviously Shimamura is into Adachi. Like even before Adachi has her kissing dream Shimamura is already like excitedly wondering if maybe Adachi might be gay, and well obviously that couldn't be true but if it is what should she do... And she won't shut up about how totally pretty Adachi is.

Like especially volume 1 they're just really blatantly flirting. It's making me look forward to the anime, for sure.

Loved Shima's pov. I almost can't believe she said I love you. I thought that was going to take a bit longer.

Yeah as soon as Adachi said it I was like, "Oh okay here's the whole book of Shimamura either being too embarrassed to say it, or just being too Shimamura to think to say it."

And then she just went ahead and said it.

I do love what a goddamn teenager Adachi is. She's like "HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME WE'RE DATING.... uh, so what do we do now? I never thought I'd get this far!"

Still awkward!

seem like fathers accept the engagement for their girls :))))

How funny would it be if the dad's just like
"Hey... By the way, you know our girls are super gay for each other, right?"
"Oh, yeah, totally, how could you not They're mega-gay."

...And then we just go back to normal friend ship for another 10 chapters.