Toniiiight
Tonight toooonight
Toniiiight
Tonight

Such a good song.

"I love you but I hope you don't love me back... because it would mess up your HOBBIES!"

Wut.

I think that's a little reductive.

It's not actually that uncommon for someone with a one-sided crush to have self esteem issues, and it's not unusual for people with esteem issues to wonder if they're good enough for their crush, or even if they'd drag them down. Less "I hope you don't love me back because it would mess up your hobbies" and more "I'm afraid that if I ask for more from our relationship you'll end up unhappy or resentful of me."

just a quick reminder:

its okay to discuss the manga, but please remember domestic violence and abuse is a topic that should be handled with care. you can disagree with one another but keep it civil and try to understand that other people may experience these things differently from you.

be kind to one another or i will reprimand you.

if anyone makes you feel uncomfortable or attacked, feel free to reach out to me via dm on discord. you can find me on the dynasty server.

I definitely could have been a little nicer in my last post, so I apologize if my tone got anyone's hackles up. I stand by my reasoning, but I'll try harder to resist my natural snark.

like sure, toxic actions happen in irl relationships without always proceeding to abuse. but we also need to take them seriously as a society? and they still very frequently doom the relationships? there's a reason even "just a slap" is an infrequent source of drama for the true endgame relationship in josei anymore. if taken seriously it is incredibly hard to come back from. compare run away with me, girl.

(facepalm) Slapping someone because they kissed you without asking isn't abuse or a toxic action. It's self defense.

Don't get me wrong, the kiss in this case is a fairly benign infraction as well, but Kurumi was still the one in the wrong for kissing somebody without asking first.

And yeah, sure, let's compare with "Run Away With Me, Girl":

In that series, Tazune had already established a clear pattern of emotional abuse. He considered her his property, he only went out with her in the first place for selfish reasons, he negged her constantly, and what's more, the background established that he is explicitly a misogynist who viewed women as inferior. Oh, and his reason for hitting her was because he was annoyed that she politely asked him to be involved in their wedding.

Compared to here, where Ruriko slapped Kurumi because she panicked over being kissed without permission.

Not to mention he didn't just give her a slap on the cheek. He clocked her with his bag, just straight up decked her. Her nose was bleeding.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/run_away_with_me_girl_ch06#31

The fact that you compared that to this is nuts to me.

(Edit: Man that series was good, though.)

last edited at Aug 25, 2023 5:50PM

Ruriko slaps her after the kiss and is surprised that Kurumi apologizes. Also that uh laughter on pages 102 and 103 doesn't really look like laughter.

That's because it's not laughter? She's giving a strained cry of exhaustion and relief.

"Oh no, I got you wet!"

Yeah and there's water on her, too!

they already are a couple

No- they are a real couple when one says please go out with me / be my girlfriend- and the other says yes - and they start kissing etc. Sure it looks like they both want to be - especially Haruka- she is knowingly actively persuing kanae - but im unsure if Kanae knows whats up yet- she might not of thought about about it.

You know not every couple goes through the whole confession/asking out thing. Some poeple just get together. They mutually realize what they've got going and just go with it.

Agreeeed, manga was a whole ass W all around. Progress is steady. If anyone read this and got the idea that things are going to stay the same for Japanese society, the workplace they're at, or even just for Hiroko and Ayaka themselves, they completely lack critical thinking skills. Life is not utopian, relationships aren't perfect, and people are messy. Sal Jiang made a fantastic piece.

Glad to see someone else as excited by the conclusion with Risa, what a cute couple x.x

I also appreciate how when the bar patrons found out that the biggest player in the bar was dating Risa their collective reaction was "IF YOU HURT HER SO HELP US..."

CALLED IT

Just gonna point out she's also had Hiroko's friends encouraging and supporting her? She isn't acting in a vacuum of information here. Everybody around them knows HIroko is super into Ayaka. Ayaka has seen firsthand how Hiroko reacts to her. She's been told about Hiroko's trauma. She knows why Hiroko is trying to cut her loose and she knows her reasons are unfounded. She has good reasons to believe that Hiroko is actively running from her real feelings, she isn't just clinging to a delusion because she can't let go of a crush.

Yeah, if somebody says no, you should respect that. But there's nothing wrong with being honest about your own feelings, either. She didn't force herself on anybody, she confronted her honestly and directly. And she was right?

Do you guys honestly think she should have just let Hiroko continue to run from her feelings? Stick to shallow relationships? Hide from her trauma? Go back to hitting on random chicks at the bar?

The problem with this "I can fix her" and "she will be happier with me she loves me" is that sure, maybe you're right and it's in the best interest of everyone... But maybe you're wrong and the other outsider are too. (honnestly friends are usually the last person you should ask that kind of things) Ayaka does not read the manga she exists in. She has no way to know for sure it's the right thing to do. Even for us readers you could argue it's not 100% certain.

When someone says no, it means no. If you insist and harass and press on, you're being a harasser. It can be pretty damaging for the person you interact with. I've been both Hiroko and Ayaka and I can say this for sure. :) Sometimes you say no to someone you love, and yes, it means no.

I don't think you have been Hiroko or Ayaka. I think you're projecting your experience onto them. But every person is different and every relationship is different, and trying to apply blanket rules that ignore context is silly. She may not "read the manga," but she saw the expression on Hiroko's face when she tried to break things off, and it was absolutely the most heart-on-her sleeve "I don't really want to do this" face that could possibly have been drawn. Kicked puppy territory. Ayaka has plenty of evidence to tell her what's really going on here. She knows the story about Chinatsu-Senpai from the bar patrons and Hiroko's co-workers. She knows about the promotion and she knows Hiroko is waffling on it despite being the perfect choice who everybody admires and looks up to.

What's more, Ayaka isn't actually demanding a relationship here. She's demanding that Hiroko be honest with her, which she wasn't. She was literally lying about her feelings. Ayaka knew she was lying about her feelings, because Hiroko is actually really visibly bad at it. She also was demanding that Hiroko stop underestimating her, and stop underestimating their coworkers, who, all evidence suggests, aren't the kind of homophobic dickbags that drove Chinatsu away.

And I think it's fairly unfair to dismiss this as "I can fix her". "I can fix her" is typically the siren call of somebody who is enduring an abusive relationship in hopes of turning it into something healthier, not a person who is earnestly trying to be there for a traumatized loved one. This is "I can help her". And not just "I can help her be with me." This wasn't just about Hiroko running from her feelings for Ayaka, it was about Hiroko running from everything, including that promotion. She was basically about to fall into the abyss. What happens after that? Depression, loneliness, stress, career stagnation...That's what steeled Ayaka's resolve in the first place.

In a better society, I'd just say Hiroko should go see a therapist, but Japan is actually pretty awful about mental healthcare, so an intervention by a concerned loved one is probably the best she could hope for.

(Hell, this isn't even just about Hiroko and Ayaka. Hiroko's reluctant to accept promotion because of her trauma. Ayaka is watching the person she likes limit herself personally and professionally over this. It's no wonder she isn't willing to stand for it.)

Absolutely, she'd have been labelled a pest a long time ago by this point in the story if she were a male.

To keep things short, at the expense of details: very little of what happened in this story could work if it were a heterosexual relationship. The dynamics and issues of the story depend on their being lesbian and the relationship type being one that's been historically mistreated and criticized. A comp that could be serviceable might be an interracial relationship set years in the past maybe. It could work as long as the lead woman acted as conflicted as Hiroko and struggled against societal pressures as she did. Been done before.

This. This story is explicitly about the fact that there is a generation of older people right now dealing with the fact that they grew up in an environment that was far more homophobic and intolerant than the world we live in now. You see it in these forums all the time. "Why is XX like this? Why don't they just acknowledge their feelings for YY? Nobody cares about gay relationships these days!" There is literally a generation of young people that are currently navigating the social landscape that have no idea what it was like to be literally afraid for your physical safety when you were young if people around you found out you weren't straight. They don't realize the trauma that induced on the people just a few years older than them.

Hiroko was right on that line. She built this department up, everybody there admires and respects her. Nobody cares if she's into women. But she's still pushing Ayaka away, not because she wants to, (she's miserable over it, There was specifically a panel about how she looked like she was going to cry after she turned Ayaka down,) but because she's controlled by an irrational fear induced by a personal trauma.

last edited at Aug 9, 2023 12:15AM

Everyone's loving Ayaka but I get the feeling that in real life she would end up in jail pretty fast.

You can love Ayaka, but don't be like Ayaka ;)

This idea that your love will win through sheer willpower is very toxic, because 99% of the time the thing that prevents your love from happening is the other person, and whether their reasons for saying no are good or not is irrelevant.

Ayaka is forcing Hiroko and whether it's for the best or not is irrelevant too, she should just stop.

I love Ayaka, but I think my love for her comes from romanticizing something that really shouldn't be.

Yeah irl she should've taken the no as a no and moved on. This is one of those cases where I think people would see her behavior way differently if she was a man, y'know

Just gonna point out she's also had Hiroko's friends encouraging and supporting her? She isn't acting in a vacuum of information here. Everybody around them knows HIroko is super into Ayaka. Ayaka has seen firsthand how Hiroko reacts to her. She's been told about Hiroko's trauma. She knows why Hiroko is trying to cut her loose and she knows her reasons are unfounded. She has good reasons to believe that Hiroko is actively running from her real feelings, she isn't just clinging to a delusion because she can't let go of a crush.

Yeah, if somebody says no, you should respect that. But there's nothing wrong with being honest about your own feelings, either. She didn't force herself on anybody, she confronted her honestly and directly. And she was right?

Do you guys honestly think she should have just let Hiroko continue to run from her feelings? Stick to shallow relationships? Hide from her trauma? Go back to hitting on random chicks at the bar?

Dude, One sentence from a giant article about a fashion style is not "the requirement." Gyaru is a fashion genre, and this is distinctly different from everything in that genre. There is a whole giant article there, with tons of pictures. You can just look and see this is super different.

Being stubborn doesn't make you suddenly right, it just makes you look like you aren't capable of learning.

And that genre covers what we see here,which that sentence does state.

Whilst tons of pictures doesn't mean all the subsets are covered by those pictures,that is unrealistic.

Just because you're being stubborn doesn't mean you're right,you're just ignoring what it right there.

Sure, bud. Whatever you say.

I just caught up with this series.
Why would Kase even entertain doing this race in the first place? Fukami should have no say at all about where Kase wants to live or who Kase wants to be a roommate with.

That was the first question everyone had, and still has.

After seeing their interactions, I think it basically comes down to Kase being kinda dumb, but also she sort of lied to defuse the situation?

It definitely seems like she has no intent to stay even if she loses the bet. She is moving in with Yamada. Period. She's already told Yamada to commit, and last time she talked to Fukami about it, she used the "If I lose, I'll tell you why I'm moving," which is a clear shifting of the goalposts. The race is no longer about "I'll stay if I lose" And honestly, that's way less egrigious. "I'm going to stay until we resolve this race, but I'm definitely leaving" is way more fair to Yamada than "I'll stay if I lose." It's a little unfair to Fukami that she agreed to the race under false pretenses, but Fukami wasn't being remotely fair to Kase thorugh this whole thing, so I can't really get too mad about it.

She seems to think that win or lose, she's trying to use the race to give Fukami some kind of closure so they can part amiably. I don't know if this was always the plan, or if it's a pivot after realizing how unfair it would be to Yamada to honor the original bet, but either way, it's less stupid than it was originally.

A promotion might also mean that she isn't directly working with juniors anymore ...

This is true. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm not making any assumptions.

Bahahahaha. I can't even with you, you really don't realise what you're doing? You're purposely trying to frame yourself as the "right" way with all of your language, then saying that's not what you're saying, then saying that is what you're saying, then saying why are you getting defensive while giving a point-by-point defense of your position.
Let me just end this, because if you literally don't realise that's what you're doing, there's no point in carrying this on any further, you're going to continue to be obtuse. Let me just say that if you re-read back specifically on the line where you said 'you're assuming, but I'm positing', instead of 'you're assuming, and I'm assuming', you're elevating your opinion higher than anyone else's and refusing to take anyone else's point of view seriously.

Maybe we use this word differently, but to me to "posit" something is to put the possibility forth, not to assert it as truth. I wasn't putting my opinion higher than anyone else, I was suggesting another possibility and then I went on to explain why I think it's more reasonable. You, on the other hand, are ignoring that entire part of the post in order to try and critique my...tone? I guess?

Maybe check that habit. Might not bother you in RL, but it'll for sure get you into entirely avoidable fights on discussion boards from your belittling of other people's opinions.
(I also want to point out, I can have a discussion about my point of view and then decide I no longer want to take the discussion so seriously without being belittled as "being defensive", I just wanted to discuss the potential, as I had assumed you did until you got so hung up on "everyone else is wrong but me")

And now you're getting belligerent and disrespectful about it while ignoring any actual arguments, because you're being defensive.

There's a whole post after that "I'm not making assumptions" where I clarify exactly what my position is and why I hold it, but you ignored all of that in order to insult me and throw a temper tantrum over the fact that you don't think I'm taking your opinion seriously.

I'm done with this conversation, but I wasn't going to not call you out on that bullshit.

Let me guess, Hiroko is offered a promotion but she's afraid people will spread rumors about her sleeping her way to a promotion just like what happened with her own senpai.

That's probably it.

I dunno, She seems more torn than apprehensive, and the culture in the company has obviously changed a lot since then. My guess would be that she's been offered a position at another branch or something. Maybe a good opportunity, but it means moving away.

You're making assumptions to suit your preconcieved notion.

It is highly amusing how much you don't understand that is exactly what you're doing here.

You're really reaching straight for "I know you are but what am I?"

I'm not making any assumptions. My take is that we don't know what they said, but intentionally and explicitly telling her to cosplay as trauma-senpai would be very weird behavior indeed. I mean, we all know that's weird behavior, that's literally why you guys commented on it.

I'm just pointing out that there is another, perfectly normal explanation, which is that the girls at the bar have a sense of their friend's preferred type, from just knowing her for years.

Look, we don't know what the girls at the bar told her. It was a dramatic gag in a comedy manga. It was meant to be obtuse. It literally could be either way.

And yet initially the explicit assumption of several people in this thread was that they either told her what senpai looked like and she intentionally dressed up as her, or that they told her to dress like that without telling her who she was resembling. (As...a prank, I guess?) The only difference is that you guys are assuming they intentionally did the weird thing that most people wouldn't do, and I'm positing that maybe it was a perfectly normal accidental coincidence.

If we don't know, the thing that normal people would do is a more reasonable assumption than bizarrely myopic pranking, in my opinion.

I'm still sticking that your take is weirder though. Hiroko has literally hit on every girl in that bar. She didn't have a "type" fro the bar according to what we've seen here, so how would they give an exact look based on her old senpai?

We know Hiroko has hit on many girls, but she has explicitly not hit on every girl in that bar, the extra chapter is specifically about a girl she hasn't hit on.

We haven't seen how many girls she's hit on, or how many she's passed on. We don't know if she brings the same enthusiasm to every pass, or if there are girls for which she tries harder. We don't know whether there's a general trend, but it's also very probable that Hiroko has spoken to the girls in the bar about her preferences. I'd argue that's way more likely than Hiroko going: "Here is a picture of my old crush, who I still like, who lost her job because people thought she might be gay. Just in case you ever decide to traumatize me with this knowledge later."

Which, I should point out, is entirely irrelevant. My first comment on them not being "friends" to give that advice was entirely to point out the absurdity of the joke, and I didn't mean it in an actual critique of the story so much as, 'lol, those girls at the bar really suck, lol.'

If you weren't feeling defensive about it, you wouldn't be taking posts responding to other people as criticism of yourself.

last edited at Jul 21, 2023 1:56PM

You're right that none of them ever met her Senpai but we saw in earlier flashbacks that Hiroko told at least some of them (bartender at least) the gist of the story. It's hard to say how much she said about her Senpai's appearance, though.

In an era of cell phones, it's likely she showed them a picture/s. To get it that close in the first place they must have had something to go on.

You're making assumptions to suit your preconcieved notion. If Hiroko has any pictures of her senpai, and it's entirely possible she doesn't, not everybody takes photos all the time, that doesn't mean she'd show it to anybody, especially to anybody who she's told the story of "we were getting close but she had to quit to protect me from getting outed." Showing a picture would be treading on possibly outing her to strangers. Not cool.

"To get it that close" assumes the GOAL was to make her look like Senpai's mini-me. Nothing we've seen suggests that they were intentionally going for that. It's just as plausible that they noticed that Hiroko has preferences and just, like, answered a direct question about what they think her preferred type is.

last edited at Jul 20, 2023 11:00PM

p.59 "Even though that was supposed to be senpai's exact type."

If you ask about somebody's type and you know their ex-girlfriends, of course you are going to describe them?! That's common sense, nothing crazy about it, as it is evidently true. That's not the same as "and you should totally turn into an exact copy of them".

Also, the chapter specifically recalls the "womanizer" part, implying in a sense that while she had plenty of conquests none where as meaningful as "that one" (so obviously, that's her type - exactly correct).

I think the thing is a lot of people are assuming that this was intentional? As if they specifically directed her with advice aimed at making her look like that specific person, but I doubt it was that deliberate.

She asked the girls at the bar what Hiroko's type is. None of them ever met "Senpai." They would have run down a list of the kinds of women Hiroko tends to hit on. She likes dark hair, she likes this kind of hairstyle, etc. It just happened to be that because Hiroko was hung up on Senpai, that's reflected in who they've seen her go after, leading to the unintentional resemblence.

I’m sorry we’re misunderstanding each other. Your argument was that “Koga doesn't value Aya in the same way, and I don't mean like she's in love or not, just does not care enough about her.”

That’s what I’m arguing against—romantic or not, their relationship is not (yet) of a nature where Koga’s failure to tell Aya about the offer to move says anything at all about how much Koga “cares” about or “values” Aya. Certainly they have different attitudes about the subject—one has to make a decision and the other one fears being left behind.

Your original statement (the one I just quoted) absolutely implies that Aya cares more for Koga than Koga does for Aya, an idea that the entire chapter contradicts.

Okay, we can agree to disagree, I think the chapter shows it, that's just how I felt while reading, not making a post-reading analysis, you think it does not. That's it then, debate settled

It's worth mentioning that Koga not telling Aya does not mean that Koga thinks Aya doesn't deserve to know, or that she doesn't want to tell her.

It's very possible, I would say even probable, that she doesn't know what she wants to do.

Kanna said she came to steal Mitsuki away to America. We know, and Mitsuki probably knows, that this is actually an attempt to get back together with Joe, who isn't going to move without Mitsuki. She isn't an idiot, she is probably aware of the fact that her uncle, who she cherishes, gave up the love of his life to give her stability and care, and it has probably occurred to her that if she were to move to the US, her uncle would be happier. That's a pretty good reason to consider going regardless of what's going on with Aya. Mitsuki is also very interested in western music, and probably culture in general. Going to the US probably sounds like a pretty cool opportunity.

But she's also aware of her feelings for Aya and the budding thing that's building up between them. Choosing to stay or go isn't a simple decision, but some part of it has to feel to her like choosing between her own happiness and her uncle's. He knows that, too, which is why he makes a point to tell her that he doesn't regret staying at all. So she doesn't know what to do, so she's doing what she does and stewing about it internally until she makes a decision.

They don't seem to be around, so either they've passed or they're deadbeats. The fact that Joe was considering leaving her behind at all suggests that she does have other family in Japan, though.

Maybe not deadbeats, but workaholics that are never home. Seems more likely to me.

I don't draw a distinction. A parent that doesn't take care of their kid is a deadbeat. I don't care if they do it because they're a shitty alcoholic or a busy CEO.

Ayaka loves Hiroko so much that she took a major risk for her. Ayaka doesn't care about being in the closet. She's not bothered by it like Hiroko is. She's not stupid though. I'm sure she's aware of the risk here. She's putting herself out there and risking the backlash and possibly losing her job or destroying her career. She loves Hiroko that much.

It's also worth mentioning that Hiroko is literally, explicitly, the reason Ayaka is still working there.

i know this isnt based in America but damn from what ive seen irl is that people really dont care about some someone elses life like this

Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of people in the US are really kind of oblivious to how bad things are other places, and even how bad they were here just a couple of decades ago.

Most people don't care, that's always been true. But the question is how much do the rest care, what are they willing to do, and how much will others turn a blind eye to?