So glad to see this manga has returned! Thank you so much to the translators––an extra hard job, no doubt.

These last few chapters have become very interesting to me. The story development seems to have kicked into a higher gear! I'm enjoying the feeling that the story could go in some different direction––the story seems full of possibility at this juncture. So I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

I was glad to see the author choose this direction for the narrative development. The hints in previous chapters of Kurokawa idolizing Fujishiro from afar are paying off here, and the manga doesn't skimp or cheat on Kurokawa's severe inner conflict. It was a good choice to have her appear in her nerd uniform to reject Fujishiro––for Kurokawa it represents an attempt at regression, which is essentially what she's wishing for at the end of the chapter. I really feel for Fujishiro. She has such simple, straightforward desires, and she's in this situation that means she will have to really step outside of her normal self to get what she wants this time. I feel a lot of extra sympathy because she didn't even realize she really wanted Kurokawa's love until things had already become very tough. I was pretty glad to see the melodrama reach hysterical levels once again––been missing that since the second volume, mostly. Interesting too that Fujishiro's former friends Miki and whoever see the confession––potentially an interesting dynamic there, since this changes and potentially resolves their own storyline––hopefully in favor of a sea change, there? Sympathy for Fujishiro? Or at least they can maybe make peace with her decision to choose Kurokawa over them? When you think about it, this manga has been full of blistering rejection from the get-go. And Nanaki's been at the center of it all, and she's been the one doing most of it. So I think a storyline that demands some understanding and growth from her makes sense. I hope she can work things out, somehow.

I get having trouble following every development over the course of years. A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow has me baffled right now, because I just don't remember what happened a chapter ago. For some reason I don't feel that about this manga? I think I'm just better attuned to the aesthetic of Useless Princess––the high-octane confrontations and overheated melodrama is my kind of jam, I guess. I mean, I supposed I don't remember both of Fujishiro's former friends' names, cut me some slack; I remember lots of what they've done in the manga. My impression is that this title is fairly successful, isn't it? It's getting U.S. distribution while it's still coming out, and that seems to usually be reserved for the higher-selling titles, no?

last edited at Mar 7, 2021 8:09AM

Real talk though, this has been broken since before the midpoint, and I suspect the editor didn't like the yuri under/overtones so that's when the depression arc started. Ever since the manga weirdly split off from their fun on the island, it's been incredibly weird. This is blessedly going to end now. The depression arc threw me for such a huge loop. It still doesn't make any sense to me and one would likely have to go back to read and reread it to get it.

These were such good characters but I don't understand what the central conflict of this entire story was? One girl was lonely? While the other stopped talking to her all of a sudden because?

It's cool that people want to read in this ambiguous masterclass in undertone drama, guess I missed it. I don't really care for most of the replies on here, I just had to vent about how poorly this turned out after starting out so amazing. I hate that they pulled out the yuri roots and left nothing but two girls who kind of know/talk to each other sometimes when they're not busy.

This is much the same way I feel about it as well. There did seem to be a large tonal shift somewhere in the middle of the story, and then after that I found the plot and character development very hard to track. I kept having to step back 2 or 3 chapters every time a new one came out, to get caught up on what tentative threads of story I was supposed to be watching evolve from chapter to chapter. The salamander and frog imagery was frustrating to have to keep tracking in that way, and I don't feel like it delivered a very meaningful metaphor in the end. I don't personally care if the story turns out Yuri or not. But I found it increasingly hard to suss out what Koyuki's problems were, or what I was supposed to be making of all her dizzy staring into space. There is a point in there, I think, where the subtlety of the story stopped being impressive and started becoming tiresome. At the end now I find it really grating. In the middle of the story somewhere––probably around the arc the previous poster is talking about––the narrative stopped having any forward momentum, and the manga became mostly characters staring at each other with embarrassed looks on their faces, hoping for minute reactions from other characters, and reading an absurd amount of meaning into those faint acknowledgements. Honestly? It just got boring, and harder to appreciate as the author struggled to keep the story precious and delicate, and paced at the same ploddingly "realistic" cadence. I'm still reading for the characters, and essentially trying to pay off my initial investment in the series, but I feel like the series has run very long now on not much steam left. And I think the relationship between the two lead characters has very little of its' early vigor remaining. I guess that's life, or something. But I would have liked for the later part of the story to have more interest in it, and for it to be clearer in its' plotting and easier to follow. Just a little didacticism would have gone a long way. When the author started committing precious page time to Koyuki's brother, I really started feeling the drag of this thing. It's definitely a book that felt, for me, at least, sharper earlier on, funnier and more lively, and then increasingly listless as it progressed. One thing I have to say I grew to hate was the repetitive chapter headings. Holy cow, was that a clear marker of a plodding pace, and the kind of listless sleepwalking the story did late in the game.

And while I really do not mind one way or another whether it's a yuri story, it certainly seemed to be leading towards one early on, and I'm inclined to believe the idea in the quoted post that there was the beginning of a yuri story, and it got removed, or it just never quite materialized. I realize the author and made these statements about always wanting to do it this way, or that way, but authors make those kind of statements all the time, papering over their own uncertainty––or sometimes outright failure to bring about what they intend––and making it seem like this is what they planned from the beginning. I'm no more inclined to believe an author's statement of intent than I am a reader's theory on how things went. Author's statements these days are pure public relations exercises lots of the time, and it sounds to me just as likely that the author had to assuage some frustrated fans. Unless the author stated before starting the series that it was never going to be yuri. But I didn't think that was what was said. Well, whatever. In the end I just didn't get much from the storytelling aesthetics of the second half of the narrative. I feel like the pace of Hana ni Arashi has accelerated to a brisker clip than this story did, and I don't see any noble point in keeping things so turgid and low-key in the later part of the story. And like another couple of commenters on here, I just don't find myself of the same mind as the readers who have found so much continued quality in the story. I don't want to say that it "wasn't for me," because the first half of the story was very much my bag. Maybe next chapter will wrap it all up in a way that retroactively changes everything for me. But I doubt that.

Seems like the people who read Run Away With Me, Girl all the way through are willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt here, for the most part. I for one was very moved by that previous story. And so far, I'm moved by this one, too. I think that, as in the previous story, the author is playing with the ambiguity of the situation. The art, especially around Kyouko's scenes, is self-consciously more glamorous and even kind of lurid, reflecting the way these languid scenes live in Kanda's imagination. The sense of trespass in the story is so clearly part of the point––what brought it on? Obviously, Kyouko looks at Kanda through a haze of tobacco and memories of her sister––when she kisses Kanda, she has just compared her to her sister. "You look just like Nacchan when you're upset," she says, and a tear is running down her face––at that point, Kyouko is clearly confusing the two sisters in her mind. Immediately after the kiss, she rebukes herself and shoves Kanda away. She's obviously lost in memories of her former lover, Kanda's elder sister, and I think it's clear that, even if Kyouko isn't in a complete depression following her breakup, she's still very melancholy, and mired in her frustrated feelings. And after kissing Kanda, she does her damndest to make sure Kanda doesn't misinterpret what Kyouko obviously views as an overstep. I think that in a work of fiction, we ought to be able to judge characters differently than we do in real life––because in fiction we can actually discern a character's true motivations with a lot more clarity than we can in reality; Kyouko isn't "grooming" Kanda for anything. She's indulging Kanda, who is using Kyouko as a special window into an adult world Kanda is fascinated by, but also afraid of. And Kyouko is using Kanda to send her former lover a passive-aggressive sort of revenge (I remember an ex-girlfriend meeting up with me after our breakup, handing me a box containing every gift I'd ever given her in the several years we were together, and leaving before I could gather my wits and say anything in response; Kyouko's "returning" of Kanda's sister's gifts reminds me of that encounter, and my reaction to my own situation mirrored Kanda's elder sister's flabbergasted reaction, as well). Sure, the relationship starts to drift a little farther than that premise, but I don't see it as being either Kyouko's or Kanda's fault, exactly. They are both opportunists, gently prodding at their distorted personal connection, each hoping for things quite different from what the other wants or expects.

I know that one might look at that scenario and say, well, Kyouko's an adult; she's responsible for the tone of her encounters with Kanda. Even if Kanda is recklessly provoking her, she's the adult in the room and she needs to make the adult decision. Does she, though? These characters aren't real. Why do we enjoy bank robberies in fiction, cheering on daring and clever robbers, but a messy relationship, where two people are maybe breaking some law in pursuit of working out their overwhelming feelings must needs be judged instead by the same moralism we might apply to a real-life scenario? I might suggest that fiction in part exists to evince this kind of friction, and even to make this very sort of trespass; to thrill at characters who step out of the bounds of polite, cool, and legal society. And maybe fiction is at its most evocative when it can create the heady sense of a situation familiar to you––even if you have never experienced it yourself. The afternoon where Kouko and Kanda sat together in these moody swirls of smoke, each lost in their own private world, wherein Kyouko crossed that space, and lost her head for a minute and made a large transgression––it seemed more real than real to me. It was a moment in the story that seemed taken from real life, in its drift and its messiness and its misplaced passions. The confusion of feelings, the conflation of identities; the mood in the air. I had the feeling that this event might be an unforgettable afternoon for both Kanda and Kyouko; one which they might think of often, even if they never spoke of it again. That at least should be the reason to tell a story; not whether or not you think the main character deserves to be in jail.

I actually bought this volume without really knowing what it was; I wanted to support Battan, and it looked like Run Away With Me, Girl wouldn't get a tankoubon (at least, I can't find one––wasn't it initially published digitally?). When I flip ahead in the book, it looks like the later chapters delve more deeply into the relationship between Kyouko and Kanda's sister. It looks like Kanda talks to Kyouko again––in what context, I have no idea––but I get the impression that the relationship between Kyouko and the sister turns out to be the lion's share of this story, and that Kanda has a somewhat different arc. Not that I think that will entice anyone back to the story, but, as I think most of us who finished Run Away With me, Girl know, the author can really tell a pretty worthwhile story. Plus, the art is great.

I thought the spread with Fujishiro's kiss was some very nice art. This whole chapter looks pretty lovely.

It would make me happy if the next chapter is about Izumi and Iroha at a cafe. A breakaway from the intense action of the story for those supporting characters to lay out some of their own theories about what might happen next, and maybe exchange some feelings of their own. That would be fun. I think the story will probably lunge ahead––the Izumi chapters definitely didn't get distracted from the melodrama, but they delivered quite a lot, and if the series gives Kurokawa a chance to respond to Fujishiro right away next chapter, hopefully it'll be as rewarding as that, somehow. If I were advising my students how to proceed from this point, I'd recommend cutting away to another vantage point, where you could comment on the action while the reader builds it up in their minds. But so far the storytelling is very earnest and straightforward in its bent, so....

What happened to this manga? It seems like we just stopped getting the updates here. Other sites have a translation for the whole series––27 chapters. I just discovered it was finished.

It's a shame, to my mind. This is one I was really excited to read whenever a chapter posted here. Of course, now I'm just going to binge it.

I have the first two tankoubon for this, but it looks like the 3rd volume hasn't been published yet except electronically.

Everyone: OMG I love the story!
Me: ... I'm confused, didn't understand a single thing. Does this have something to do with Japanese customs?

Assuming this reply was directed at me, maybe I can make my point a little finer. I do think there is something in the layout of Nishio Yuhta's art that makes the details of the plot unclear on first read. This boils down to choices Nishio makes about the size and shape of panels, where Nishio chooses to place the "camera"––i.e., our perspective on the individual panels––and how Nishio uses flats, hatching and tone.

A lot of those choices and their sometimes negative effects can be seen in the spread on pages 20-21. The lion's share of the spread is taken up with the one panel, where Mizuno enters the restroom. We see the chief bully and her two accomplices, but not the subject of the bullying. I get that Nishio is saving Chayama's reveal for later, and that makes sense, but the parts of this composition that immediately draw your eye––because they get the most real estate and contract on the page––are the face of the chief bully and the body of the bully who's kicking the restroom stall. On first glance, it gives the impression that the bully kicking the stall is the one doing the bullying in the scene. The aerosol can that is the direct source of the bullying is actually obscured behind the bully with the mask's leg––her whole arm is hidden from our vantage point, so when Nishio cuts to a close-up in the next panel, the aerosol can, along with the hand holding it, aren't clearly assigned to any character in the previous panel. The girl with the mask is also blocking the hole they're using to spray the aerosol with her shoe. When I zoom in close I see sound effects trying to compensate for this––the girl with the mask is shaking the can, presumably. And then the smaller close-up panel on the left side of the spread is much less readable. It's hard to know what to focus on in that panel. The foot kicking the door seems to be the through-line from the previous panel; the aerosol can and the hand holding are things we didn't see previously. To be really clear what I'm suggesting here, I think if Nishio had shown the girl with the mask visibly shaking the aerosol can in the larger first panel, the action in the second panel would have been much clearer. Even so, there is the scream, "Cut it out," which is unattributed on the page. Looking at the next page, I can sort of assume Mizuno has shouted this, but even with the context of the second page, it isn't very clear she's done so.

Also, because Nishio chooses to use hatching and tone primarily as a realistic lighting effect, that texture usually doesn't help to read the story action on the page. On the pg. 20-21 spread, for instance, the aerosol can could have been surrounded by tone, haloing it and calling it out as the focus of the panel composition. As it is, the more dynamic foot banging on the stall grabs attention, with it's pose, effects, and action lines. The speech bubble in the center takes up a lot of space as well, and competes for narrative attention, since we don't know who's speaking yet. The ultimate effect is that the impact of the actual bullying is dulled considerably by other visual elements competing for our attention. The girl making all the noise isn't the primary bully of the scene, and understanding her actions won't make the bullying more visually clear. But she grabs a lot of visual attention on first read, and the masked girl with the aerosol can attracts less visual attention.

This is indicative of a common lack of follow-up on characters' actions and their changing moods from panel to panel, which makes Nishio's work hard to entirely get on the first read-through. There are similar issues of framing and choreography on pages 33, 34, and 36, where it's hard to tell what the characters are actually doing, or why they're doing...whatever it is they're doing. Certainly, I've been able to make more sense of it reading it through a second and third time, but the way I look at it is that the choreography and the angle of some of these compositions could be altered slightly, sharpened, and the whole scene would be more visually focused on the elements of the story the reader needs to get right away.

As far as the construction of the toilet stall being a peculiarly Japanese thing, what I meant was that I don't know of any such toilet stalls––even taller ones like you see in some schools in South Korea, for instance––that don't ventilate at the top. In order for this bullying trick to work––attempted murder, really, as macfluffers points out––the stall has to be sealable from floor to ceiling, and I've just not seen any toilet stalls where the door is built to ceiling height. Maybe that's common in Japanese school bathrooms? I've never been to Japan and so I don't know. I've never to my knowledge seen such a bathroom stall depicted in a Japanese film or manga. If the intent of that last comment ("Does this have something to do with Japanese customs?") was that I was being culturally insensitive, all I'm doing here is trying to foreground my own ignorance as one of the possible reasons I have a hard time interpreting this bullying scene. But again, Nishio never draws the entire stall, floor to ceiling, so I simply have to imagine the door extents all the way to the ceiling, and––culturally insensitive or not, though I prefer to think of it as culturally unaware––I would never assume that to be the case.

As for the common consensus on it being good, I don't object. I did enjoy this chapter, even though I had a lot of trouble visually unpacking the story. I liked the mood a lot, and the interesting feeling between the two girls. And I do like the art a lot––individual panels look great, the style of drawing characters is very rich and rewarding––when you see their faces in full, their expressions speak volumes. But I do think there is room to improve on Nishio's approach to choreographing his comics––arranging the the mis en scene, so to speak––for more immediate clarity. It's something less ambitious artists pull off more capably on a lot of other yuri manga. It's a pain to have to go back and re-read a chapter to understand what's going on, and it could be avoided if Nishio could visually edit his work to read more clearly at crucial junctures.

I do think the art is really nice, and the translation and typesetting is really impressive. And I liked After Hours, so I'm definitely in for this...and I also like Kirin's analysis. But I have to say I got almost none of that from the chapter? I had a hard time parsing action and time sequence in this story, and I couldn't figure out what the bullies had done to Chayama. Had they sealed the toilet stall she was in with electrical tape? Why is she dizzy? I guess that's her coughing, but then there's the girl with the mask on, and I wasn't sure? Is it...have they somehow cut off oxygen to the stall?

As an elementary and middle school student, I was subjected to a lot of bullying, but I have to say that the technique on display here was new to me. I never encountered a bathroom stall like the one in the manga––which seems to be potentially airtight?––so I imagine if it were a familiar construction, that would make this a little clearer. So perhaps it's a cultural thing I wouldn't bat an eye at if I lived in Japan. But even though the art is awesome, there is this thing I noticed in After Hours frequently as well, where the artist moves from strong composition to strong composition, but what's happening between compositions, while often important to the plot, is really unclear. I especially recall a character in conversation with other characters, and then in the next panel he has run back in the parking lot and locked himself in their van. The jump in space is hardly visually delineated; he's in one place, and then in the next panel he's in the other. It makes it a little too hard to follow the action sometimes. After Hours had a really easy-to-follow narrative, which made up for that, and even made the swift transitions seem like compelling style. Because this story is so far about clandestine meetups between people, their secret relationships, and a strong narrative direction doesn't immediately emerge from this first chapter, I wish the action was clearer––specifically surrounding the bullying scene and the...I guess it was a love scene afterwards? I mean, I get that's what it's supposed to be now that I've read everyone's comments, and reread the scene, but...I had absolutely no read on the panel of the toilet flushing with the feet before reading about it here. I have the sense of every so often wanting a panel between the ones we're given, where the movement from one pose to another, from one place to another, becomes easier to track. It would have been nice if Chayama's coughing had continued after the bullies left, and even up through when Mizuno opens up the stall and reveals her––just so we knew for sure it was her doing it, and not, you know, the bully with the face mask, or whatever. Maybe this is a common bullying technique in Japanese schools, and I just don't know the custom.

Perhaps I'm more sensitive to this because I just saw that movie, Tenet, which was maddeningly opaque, on purpose, so I have less patience than usual for stylized obscurity, and I want clearer action in my narratives. I still really like the story and I'm looking forward to the next chapter, but, gosh, this one was demanding for the reader in an acutely frustrating way.

last edited at Dec 23, 2020 5:49AM

I think you're right, that the story is making progress. They need a long runway to build up some melodrama. Izumi's confession section was so drawn out and dramatized that if they did less for the main couple it make the drama seem very misshapen. Also, I think a happy ending for haughty princess Fujishiro would be hard to take if we didn't feel like she had earned it.

Maybe I'm just the exact right audience for this, but I end up hanging on every open-eyed look of surprise, shock, and pain on Fujishiro's face. It's a very, very tense series for me.

For sure. I'm appreciating Goodbye, My Rose Garden as it is published, especially because I like headstrong, earnest heroines who can't help speaking their feelings as they experience them. And the art is very detailed and atmospheric. I liked that short that was posted here the other day, also.

Oooh, I get this now. To be honest, I assume I don't understand most of the things placed on a lot of credits pages. I'm very old and the context is often obscure to me. But I can follow the stories, at least.

A tankobon of the beginning of this series got published in Japan. It's 271 pages, and includes some extra drawings splitting the story into chapters and the like. It looks really good, with the digital color on matte pages. It transfers the luminous feeling of the color to print really well. The book seems recent––it just popped up in my recommendations on CDJapan.

Just dropped in here because it then occurred to me that I hadn't seen an update in a while. I didn't realize it had been almost a year. So it's just...gone? I wonder what happened to this pretty cool series. I had hoped the publication might have resulted in something further. It would be a shame if the story didn't reach some further state of development.

Waiitttt is Teiji not going to be translated anymore not that it got licensed?

Does anyone know who is going to be publishing this? My google searches have not revealed any clue.

If they start publishing it now it will take forever for them to get up to the place we have all read to.

Grim to learn this and Pocha Climb! are cancelled. I was reading Pocha Climb! enthusiastically, and I guess I haven't seen it for a while now. This manga I discovered about 2 days ago, and I'm already caught up on it, because it is really intensely absorbing. I especially enjoy Ohsawa's take on making music, and the way this isn't any typical kind of music ensemble. I loved the way they communicated with one another the way they played. It looks like Ohsawa is tying up the romances very fast here at the end, which I do appreciate. But it's pretty awful it's getting cancelled. This is by far the best premise Ohsawa has developed so far, and I was looking forward to seeing it go somewhere.

I don't know if this was the same in Japan, but I remember from an interview with U.S. comics writer/editor Louise Simonson that there were particular comics at Marvel in the 80s, which didn't sell well, but which by editorial decision they kept running because they believed in the quality of the work. She singled out Dr. Strange as a title that never sold, but that the editorial staff insisted on holding on to and keeping alive, because they thought the quality was high enough to merit keeping there. Of course, at the end of that era, in the late 80s, those low-selling titles got axed to clear the slate for other titles. But I'm sorry that sort of sentiment and intent isn't working in favor of a story like this one. It's the kind of title that is so good, I feel like it could catch on if more people were aware of it.

I just ordered both volumes from CDJapan the other day. A real shame that we won't get to see more after the next chapter.

I love the womens' round heads. It's like a Charlie Brown special written by John Updike, where they're all older and having affairs. And somehow the roundness makes both women seem very sympathetic to me.

The husband, however, does not have so round a head, and I just have no sympathy for him. I don't mind him being a low-key jackass like he is––he's not like a villain at this point––but I just find I have an endless font of sympathy for both women. And their round heads. It's very cool art in general.

And I like the story very much so far. Thank you so much, Lucas Magnus, for the translation. It reads so easily, and it communicates the story so well.

Run Away With Me, Girl turned out to be a really great story. Hopefully this one will be, too. It seems like a good, solid start to me.

last edited at Dec 6, 2020 5:12AM

Wait, is Kuro much more self aware than I thought? She always acted as if she never had any feelings and was just a really good friend (or felt like she could never compare), but I suppose that was the idea.

I think the implication in the previous chapter (chapter 25)––when Kuro's otaku friends fill Iroha in on the previous relationship of Kuro and Fijishiro––is that Kurokawa has been suppressing an attraction to Fujishiro since long before she and Fujishiro became friends. We get those panels where the otaku Kurokawa of old stares unself-consiously at Fujishiro as she hangs out with the other gyarus, and we're told that Kurokawa's friends found it "scary," like they couldn't fathom Kurokawa's fixation (interestingly, it seems like Izumi is looking bemused towards Kurokawa in this flashback, while Miki and Fujishiro and the other one are oblivious to Kurokawa's stare––I wonder if that's intimating a story element yet to be explored?). And I imagine Kurokawa has rationalized her intense preoccupation to herself all along by convincing herself she's a "Fujishiro–stan." She has probably felt that her feelings towards Fujishiro couldn't be love because she and Fujishiro weren't, in her eyes, social equals. But it starts to suggest that Kurokawa showing up for Fujishiro's breakup with her boyfriend might be less of a coincidence than it seemed at first. Perhaps Kurokawa subconsciously elected to become a voyeur at that moment––she could have scurried away when she saw Fujishiro and her boyfriend coming. The panels showing Kurokawa staring at Fujishiro in chapter 25 maker Kurokawa look as if she's in a trance.

Every chapter that ends with Fujishiro looking like her feelings just got smushed and not understanding why is making my heart hurt, but hopefully an explosion of jealousy is going to erupt from her in subsequent chapters. I like what's been done with the story so far, but I do feel like the volatile Fujishiro of the early chapters––the one that was ready to blow up her own life every time she flew off the handle at someone––has mellowed out a lot over the course of the series. Reading the backmatter in the 2nd collection, the author mentions that the series was only supposed to run for two volumes initially––and it does seem at around that point that Fujishiro starts to back off a little and sublimate some of her edge (if you want your series to stretch out longer, the character can't be quite so aggressive all the time, I suppose). After that second volume the supporting characters start to take on a lot more life, and in there you have the Izumi arc that pretty much hijacks what was the main drama of the series up until that point. That move was surprising and the arc turned out to be really moving, but I think it ended up introducing a level of emotional intensity to the series that I imagine the main romance––which was heretofore a lot frothier––might struggle to match. So I think it would be good to see that impulsive, emotive side of Fujishiro re-emerge, especially when dealing with her own feelings––ones that she clearly doesn't yet understand. A slightly darker Kurokawa is probably a good move towards making the ultimate romantic conflict between them more intense. If Kurokawa is a little more intractable in her belief that Fujishiro is on a level Kurokawa can't touch, it's going to make it harder for Fujishiro to eventually press her case and assert her own feelings––once she figures those feelings out.

It was top-tier for me, probably because I thought the art style was really engrossing on its own, and the story was very well-developed. This is a series I'd really like to see published in English. What company would do that? Seven Seas? Viz? Yen Press? I think Viz is kind of ideal in terms of quality––they sometimes take shorter stories and publish them as single, high-quality volumes, like they did for Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams just recently. Though Seven Seas did a nice single-volume collection of Fragtime, too. I'd like to send a request to one of the companies, but I don't know which one would be most interested in licensing a title like this one.

Regarding it wrapping up too neatly, and the happy ending falling outside of the range of tone the story offered up until now:

the confrontations in this chapter make sense to me because the undercurrent of the whole story is basically challenging you to trust what the main characters are saying they'll do. You're always thinking Midori will run back to Tazune and leave Maki with nothing but bitter memories. The narrative is always hinting that Maki won't be able to stand up for herself, that she'll just take it. In the flashbacks we're constantly treated to this sort of "primal scene" of the story, wherein the promises the two girls have made to one another are all piece-by-piece reneged upon by both of them. And in this chapter, you get the sense of how other people in their lives constantly think of each of them as flighty and insubstantial. Maki's mother isn't angry at Midori; she thinks her daughter won't be up being Midori's wife. The other shopgirl, the sort-of romantic rival, thinks of Midori as callously throwing away the chance she would have liked for herself. In this way, the dramatic tension of the story, which has flirted with more grounded issues of "can they tell each other how they feel?" and "is he going to hit her again?" has actually been, from the jump, about how serious the girls really are about their convictions. So I think the point of this chapter is to have the characters who have floated around the margins of the story, watching Maki and Midori from afar, serve as the audience surrogates, and answer the question that could have been on all our minds in nearly any given chapter of the story up to this point: aren't they really just running away again? And I think the author is particularly generous to us at the end of the chapter (thank goodness, because I was suffocating through every chapter of them enjoying an idyllic vacation together, convinced this was going to end in some kind of sorrow), because what we get is confirmation from Maki and then from Midori that no, in fact, this isn't them running away, but rather facing their problems head-on. It's an about-face that has been building––and I think, in micro-sized ways, developing––since the first chapter. Part of my like for this ending certainly stems from the release of so much angst over the story up until now (it really felt like it could have been a story like "The Postman Always Rings Twice" until about midway through), but I think the drama has also, in a stealthy way, remained true to itself––it's just that the story's actual shape wasn't wholly visible until nearly the end. The dramatic stakes were always the girls facing off against their own timidity and insincerity, and by sticking together, they win (at least, I hope they win; I have a feeling the last chapter will tie things up with Komari and with Midori's baby)! And I feel pretty good about it.

last edited at Jun 23, 2020 2:43AM

All the drawings of Aiko are pretty amazing. Mao looks good, too, but the range of expression for her is so limited by comparison. Still, the art in general for the series, I really love. The page layout is delightful. The jokes land exceptionally well for me––I thought Aiko exclaiming that Tokyo natives sure have discriminating palettes was startlingly funny, and the handling of that whole panel was pretty exquisite––Aiko's sidelong look was just the right balance of earnest and over-the-top. In fact, the whole series so far is just the right balance of earnest intensity and over-the-top, winking irony. The characters have such emotional faces, as well. The weird, end-of-the-world background action is funny and intriguing. I think I'm going to really like this series. If anything, it looks like it might give me faith that a hopeless manga fan and an overwhelmed professional mangaka can each find love.

As for the stalker worship of the mangaka, the "pilgrimage" is part of the title. I just assumed something like that was coming. I don't think it's terrible if Aiko ends up hopelessly devoted to Mao––honestly, Mao seems like she really needs it. Hopefully we get more of Aiko's and Mao's backstories as this progresses––it sounds like both of them have had a rough time of it.

We don't get much of the manga series; I'm wondering what it's like. Hints in the chapters made the premise sound a little like Drifting Classroom at some point? But the art we see looks more like Genesis of Aquarion to me. Hopefully this gets sketched out a bit in the future.

I wondered if Sakagami–san might turn out to be asexual.

It’s funny bc the mom is alive in this one but the dad isn’t lol I think I prefer the premise of the other one but this is okay too hopefully we get more this time

I had the same thoughts. This is one of those instances in which a smoother narrative doesn't mean a better one, I feel. There was something heady about the slapdash atmosphere of the initial version of this that made the story feel more fun and more involving. I loved the way the girl monologued to her dead mom, updating her on the calamities of her new situation, and how her first kiss was stolen by a tricky grown-up. That doesn't seem like it'll happen in this version. The slower pace of the new direction for the story I think will end up meaning we get less story over time than we would have if the first version had continued (since the first version burned through it's subject matter with less of a coy attitude). On the other hand, perhaps the more compressed storytelling of the original story put unreasonable pressure on the author to deliver more complicated thematic material on a faster timeline? Maybe this new direction will be a little more sustainable, which would be great. But I can't help but feel that the story has lost a good deal of energy in its transformation into a sleeker, more atmospheric and quasi–realistic narrative.

As far as the train crossing as a setting for romantic overtures, I think it offers dramatic clarity, as well as a nicely open visual metaphor. The dramatic clarity comes from the way a train crossing seems to freeze space and time. You have no choice; you have to wait there, and when you do so, you suddenly become aware you have nothing to occupy this stolen moment. You are suspended there, with no chance to move forward until this hurtling object passes by in front of you. If you are holding some secret in your heart, you might be confronted with it in those seconds which seem like minutes, minutes which seem like hours. If you're there with someone you secretly love, there might be nothing you can do with that time besides face your feelings. And if you should reveal them, the train thunders by in an impressive visual metaphor which complements that release of passion. It's a pretty neat little dramatic coup––a commonplace occurrence that suddenly closes and renders the dramatic space twice as intimate; happenstance pushing you forward into an improvised kabe–don. No one but the one closest to you will understand what you reveal when the train crosses. If you're alone with the one you love, no one will see you steal a kiss. So as a staging ground for the revelation and release of feelings, it offers great dramatic amenities, and if I were moving my characters towards a romance with one another, I'd be very tempted to use it as a scenario, should it occur pretty naturally. I think it does here and in Bloom Into You, as well.

My interpretation might sound a little wacky at first.

The manga seems to me to be a love story in which the two principle characters feel alternately "hollow" and "closed off"––visually analogous in both instances to the shape of a donut. The new state they are heading towards would be the crescent moon, a circle that is open, rather than closed off or hollowed out. In the case of both women, being open to loving each other is the theoretical answer to how they each can "become" that crescent moon.

But I think there's a second layer of development given to this idea: development expressed as a contrast between the two characters. It's a contrast which amplifies the sort of visual/thematic comparison between them implied in the title. It's a squaring–off of maturity vs. immaturity, in which Hinako is portrayed as being in a state of prolonged adolescence (she can't handle an adult job, is underprepared for living alone, and is dominated by a need to conform which many people give up as they gain self–confidence)––a state of dependency on others that she resents in herself––and Asahi is isolated in a determinedly parental adulthood. Hinako lacks the confidence she needs to feel like a whole adult, and she admires Asahi for what she perceives to be Asahi's maturity––i.e., her high–functioning ability at work, paired with her control over her emotional landscape (this chapter has revealed this to be a huge misconception on Hinako's part––Asahi isn't emotionally reserved so much as she is purposefully repressed) and with her almost unconsciously mothering initial attitude towards Hinako. And at the same time Asahi has become a high–functioning adult (at least in terms of breadwinning) without ever allowing herself any openings for emotional indulgence, exploration or expression. The link between the two leads, I think, turns out to be repression, but repression of two slightly different things––Hinako is withholding her unhappiness, hiding its presence from those around her, while Asahi is withholding her feelings even from herself; in essence, hiding her actual presence from those around her. The two of them are lucky to have discovered one another, because they manage to reach each another at a level which it is clear the background characters in the manga cannot access; Hinako needs Asahi's mothering, and Asahi needs Hinako to notice her (maybe the author's implication is that in her own repression, Hinako is more sensitive to Asahi's similar state, and that leads the two to discover one another?). At this point, I'm tempted to say that the two of them are actually more alike than different in regards to their emotional backgrounds, but I think if I pursue this idea a little further it will be clearer how the two series' leads differ. There are no strong antagonists in the series so far, after all––Hinako's mother has not appeared, her friends at work offer just the barest resistance to her taciturn and sometimes assertive new approach, and Asahi's sister is actively cheering them on (unlike others here I don't think the sister is coming on to Hinako––rather more that the sister, who it is implied is the most emotionally mature of this chapter's trio, would like Asahi to feel free to have an emotionally exciting life with a romantically–inclined peer). So it seems inevitable at this point that Hinako's and especially Asahi's personal obstacles have become the obstacles to their relationship.

I think a coming-out narrative is teased early on, perhaps not entirely purposefully, because Asahi appears to be in the closet, and hidden behind a veil of workmanlike competency. Coupled with that, Hinako is disturbed by her feelings. But Hinako isn't really disturbed by feelings of lesbian attraction, per se––as this most recent chapter suggests, Hinako doesn't know exactly what her feelings are yet, and loving another doesn't exactly raise the hackles on the back of her neck––rather, she's disturbed by her lack of feeling for hetero romantic partners; the lack of the fulfillment she thought she would feel by endeavoring to conform. There doesn't appear to be any necessary real-life stricture she feels evoking her need to conform––instead I think she feels incompetent, and not sufficiently grown-up, and she hopes to bury that insecurity behind hetero love success. That she perceives her hetero love-life as a failure is more important to her as another of her perceived failures to be an adult. Likewise, Asahi's veneer turns out to be not that she hasn't yet come out of the closet, but rather, it's a veneer of emotional defensiveness––she's afraid to fall in love. A lover would divide her time, and she imagines that would lead her to fail as a de-facto mother for her sister. Of course, her little sister knows different, and wants to see her happy. But it looks like it might be a while before Asahi allows herself to have any personal happiness.

I don't see that the author ever meant to deliver a coming–out story; I think instead the author is feinting at the genre trappings of the "secret office romance" simply to generate surface tension, giving our romantic leads pressure to get closer together, and directing them towards the real emotional arc of the story––an arc where both women are moving towards greater openness. Though I felt at the end of this chapter like that emotional arc could end up being pretty long. I don't expect Asahi to open up to romantic feelings too quickly––although Hinako seems much more willing in that regard. So they probably won't be seeing eye-to-eye too soon.

It's nice that it's not just the teacher who is quirky, but other members of the supporting cast. The panel of the MC's friend coming out with, "Wait a minute...are you trying to...keep her for yourself?" is hilarious to me. Hopefully there will be more of these giddy interactions at the amusement park.