Just watched the dubbed version of the anime, do the voices put anyone else's teeth on edge ?

yes

@shojie07

That is a great explanation. I appreciate it very much. I'll confess, I never looked at Yuu from Touko's perspective. However, even with that insightful response, you hit on my specific confusion. Touko has a blurred and twisted view of love, and yet she has true love for Yuu? I don't understand this. On the flip side, Yuu at least says she doesn't understand love at all. I'm fine with this, and I even feel her pain. But, you know what? It's Touko that I find myself most intrigued. She throws me for a loop. I can't help but to pay more attention to her. So, yeah, I look forward to these two sorting things out as well, because this is a fantastic story.

Ok, I want to chime in.... My two cents...

As the story is, right now, we should not know if Yuu and Touko actually have a happy ending, so to speculate that their love is true is jumping the gun. As a reader, I'm more interested in the journey not the destination. At the same time, it needs to make sense to me. Touko doesn't make sense to me. Thus, I'm inclined to not trust her feelings and have a tad bit of animosity toward her for hurting such a wonderful person. However, with that said, I'm won't dismiss that tiny ray of hope Touko planted when she said she misses Yuu. Was that love? Not convinced, yet. How will I be convinced? I'll just wait and see.

Damn, that sure was enjoyable to watch. Too bad I'm either not observing enough or not memorizing enough to get into the very scant few ever so slight deviations. But, I still gotta say that I'm glad they've been sticking to the manga thus far.
Now, the question is: will they get to a certain point in the manga and then wait for the manga to finish for a season 2, or if they'll skip a lot of events (some of which we don't even know now) to just show how the manga will end? The latter is something that I really frown upon, as I can say from my earlier experience with anime...

It seems to me, at present pace, the anime will end at the equipment room kiss. Not sure how they would fit in the rest of the manga if they continue not skipping a beat.

I do believe there is more dialogue in the anime, but not by much.

Well, Sayaka will gong to have spin-off story? Is that true? But different author?

Yes, and I hope it gets a translation quickly!!

I was under the impression that Sayaka's big role will be during the school trip. She will either confess to Touko (because at some point she will break) or Touko opens up to her and asks her for advice (rather unlikely, but maybe one leads to the other).
In the end Sayaka is probably going to give the push Touko needs to face Yuu again (one way or another). Predictable? Maybe. But I have faith in Nakatani-sensei to make it interesting.

Of course—I keep forgetting about the school trip. We’ve all been through so much suffering since it was last mentioned.

Well, the anime has helped... With the waiting part at least.

last edited at Oct 22, 2018 8:31PM

One of the basic aspects of her character is that Sayaka has never tried to get Touko to do anything she doesn’t want to do or to use Touko for her own purposes. So I just don’t see her trying to take advantage of Touko’s emotional confusion by trying to grab her on the rebound. But I can see her undertaking a confession that she knows to be doomed for the sake of her own integrity—-one of those, “I know this won’t work but I need to say it before I can move on” deals.

Yes, and how much has Sayaka changed? I think a lot. Well, as far as Touko is concerned. She's come out to a stranger, told Yuu that she loves Touko, and went against Touko's wishes to change the play ending. All this after realizing that Touko may actually be getting close to someone else. So, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding her confession. As a Sayaka fan, I hope she can move on without running away like she did the first time, because her next move would be an all boys school. LOL.

I wanna talk Sayaka... I gathered by the YagaKimi tweet, the next chapter is a Sayaka chapter. I'm glad to see that Sayaka is still an important character to have a chapter dedicated to her at the pinnacle point of the story. It gives me reason to believe that Sayaka will not be a blundering plot hole. Then again, this could just be a device to extend the story to fill the next volume. But, I'll give the author more credit, for now. That being said, I can only guess that Sayaka's story is not a simple one either. It's obvious, at least to me, that she will not end up with Touko. I don't want to believe that she is a weak character, and that by her merely conceding to Yuu will satisfy or fulfill her closure. Nope! I've invested too much interest in her for her story to end so neatly. Hers may be a tragic one, but I'm ready to endure it.

This last chapter reminded why I liked this manga so much in the first place (the previous two or three chapters were kinda "meh" for me), so much so that I cried reading the very last page.
After a period of self-found (self-imposed really) balance, Yuu breaks under the pressure of her unreasonable promises and she's back to facing one of the very first themes of the comics: am I able to love? Can I really be part of this game not just as a spectator but as an active member? Does what I feel even count as real love? And so on.
Like, who hasn't felt that way at least once? And this will be particularly true for queer people, but who hasn't held themself back or straight-up repressed their feelings for the sake of peace and quiet? Who hasn't shrugged off their emotions with a "whatever" whenever things turned out just the way you feared? This is the thing that I think makes this comics so much more relatable, and it's by far the theme I want to see explored the most. I really look forward to seeing how Yuu will climb out of this ravine. Keep it together, girl

First of all, thank you for being honest about the tears.

I agree that if you're human you should have questioned love at some point. For me, it's yet to be answered, and I've been around the block a few times. (Let's just say I'm not a Millennial. hehe) I would never trust Touko or love, so I'd move on. Thus, in my mind their whole relationship is fubar. (In this acronym, the "r" stands for repair.) I'm very eager to see how the rest of the story unfolds. I would say that this is the part in story telling that's called the dark moment, or the point where Captain Picard is out of options to save the Enterprise. Meaning, the epiphany has yet to come. I'm interested in how the author will shed some light for me on how these two will finally understand what love is, because anything is better than what I've experienced.

Do keep in mind though, that the first couple of episodes (and last 2-3) are generally of the highest quality.

Well, that's disappointing. I figure in a drama series the background/atmosphere would play a major role. I loved the background scenes in this anime. They made the anime.

Funny, how this also is true in western comics. First and last couple of pages are the best art.

But, I've noticed in this manga, the art is good throughout. It's the character placement and page composition that I admire.

"Listen, you fucking idiots, what did you think all that kissing and cuddling was about, anyway? Go get some of Big Sis's cheesecake and feed it to each other in the equipment shed, and don't come out until your hair's all mussd up and your clothes aren't buttoned right."

This is one of these times I really regret having no talent at drawing, because I would pay good money for someone to draw that panel.

I took a stab at it...

Equipment shed? Check.

Messy hair? Check.

Cheesecake? Check.

Incorrect buttons? Well.. they're still in the shed.. lol

https://twitter.com/ch_windsor/status/1047763205559336960

I don't think there's any indication that Touko has been intentionally exploitative, though--although that "clinch" panel seems to have been newly drawn rather than pasted in from an earlier chapter, the closest previous image to that one is in Chapter 22, p. 7, where Touko is literally saying, "Don't fall in love with me, okay?" In other words, she's remembering and feeling guilty about a particular moment when she was not considering Yuu's feelings.

Ah! Thank you! I had forgotten about that scene, and the fact that Touko originally turned down Yuu's invitation, because she might take advantage of Yuu. However, Yuu was fine with it.

It making better sense to me. :)

I need help. Perhaps someone could either agree with how I feel or help me understand my confusion.

On page 18, I'm a little confused and frustrated with Touko's words.

"I can't answer Yuu's feelings."

The way I'm reading this puts Touko in a bad light. She's already told Yuu that she loves her. I don't think she's incapable of returning love. I think she's incapable of accepting love. Otherwise, I have to believe that Touko was lying and abusing Yuu for her own selfish emotional needs. I mean, just look a couple panels above and you see Touko in a dominant sexual position over Yuu. If what everyone says here about the author's visual clues are true then I would perceive Touko's thoughts as acknowledgement of her using Yuu for her intimate desires with no strings attached.

I don't want to have ill feelings toward Touko so, I would have rather it said,

"I can't accept Yuu's feelings."

It would make more sense to me, and I would have a little more sympathy for Touko.

"these feelings have nowhere to go"

damn
that hurt. I knew all too well.

I love how the author adds these lines to the beginning and end of the chapter making sure the reader is feeling the correct emotion.

It seems to me that Rei would be someone to spot Yuu's heartbreak quickly. The seed was planted in chapter 33. Rei could be the one that explains to Yuu that she'll know if it's love if it breaks boundaries, and being in love with a girl is a big boundary.

As for anybody else, excluding Maki, no one knows about Yuu's relationship with Touko, so they wouldn't assume she was having "love" issues.

ooh boy... wow, so it seems (to me) that they both have given up on the relationship... even though it wasn't a "real" relationship to begin with.... and now they are both dealing with the backlash of something they kept denying. Well, I have no sympathy for them.... at least I'm trying not to... sniff sniff... you can't play at love.

One thing that bothers me (possibly just me) is that only Sayaka has come out to someone. She knows who she is. She has someone to talk to. Yuu and Touko don't. Is this what the title of this chapter implies? I'm really not sure.

You see sex between high school girls pretty often in yuri though. 7u7

In fact it's pretty common in real life as well, y'know.

I didn't want to admit this.... blush

Just wanted to say that I enjoy reading this discussion. It really does add to the manga.

Any who...

There's something that has been bugging me for a while... And I've been waiting for it since the chapter was released. At the end of chapter 5, Yuu speaks in retrospect. I can't remember the exact quote but it goes along the lines of... "At that time I didn't know I'd have to give up something to stay by her side..."

Was this just volume ending flare to keep the reader interested, is it a mistranslation, or has it already been revealed and I just missed it?

So, yeah, waiting a long time for that "something" to be revealed. However, now that the confession has occurred, I feel that wrapping things up too quickly would just annihilate my "need for drama" addiction. I'd like to see a trust issue arise and be resolved. Trust is very difficult to mend, and Yuu may have had her trust in "love" and Touko shattered. I'd be disappointed if the author goes too lightly on this. Thus, my need for drama. And, we all know what comes after heartbreaking drama that ends with happy reconciliation... makeup sex!!!! Oh wait, we're talking about highschoolers... so just a long kiss with the sunset in the background... sigh...