Huh, so, like...
The black-haired girl is not a lesbian?
And she wants to make out with the main character only to blend in?

Ok, that sounds perfectly reasonable and I can't think of any reason to doubt it.

Yeah, I really hated the ending. Really, really hated it. No doubt it's realistic to some extent, but it's not like anyone needs to tell us that, especially in a way that comes down to "just submit".

The message, in the end, turned out to be something like: "It's easier to live off part-time jobs in Tokyo than in the boondocks."

Which I suspect is something everyone and their uncle knew already.

There's a fuckton of otaku guys in Tokyo who work small part-time jobs and make enough to pay for food, rent, manga, doujinshi, anime merchandise, whatever shit they want. So yeah, we know it's feasible. Otoh on a sparsely populated island it's obviously gonna be more difficult to find a conventient arubaito. They lucked out when they were hired at that diving place; they ran out of luck after that.

So yeah, it's realistic, but... damn, I wish they had toned down the angst. ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ)

(And what the hell has the marriage certificate to do with their problems, anyway? It's not because of that that couldn't get jobs. Was it really necessary to tear it up?)

Eri making the world a better place, again.

Eri should have her own series. It would be Akumetsu all over again.

At long last, a new chapter of Ichigo Mashimaro! ＼(⌒◡⌒)／

https://mangadex.org/chapter/f3d82646-c0dd-4d43-9679-67f99d8cd18d

Omg how noice! Mayoi friendzoned the annoying one. Well done!

"You are indeed the first friend I have made in a long while."

Liar!
She made two friends and an acquaintance just the other day!

Haha glad I'm not the only one who remembers that chapter!
Mayoi you big fibber!

girl did you forget this encounter was two chapters long lol

Even then she has a point. Asumi's overall inactivity kind of blehs everything.
(In last chapter, Nanao was very responsive.)

new couple alert let'S go

Side couple often progresses faster than the main one, but here they're already a couple...

And the world thinks they're competing for the top...

...which is true in another way entirely...

last edited at Jul 24, 2023 12:15AM

"Principal, what do we do?"

"Worry not, I sense the power of lesbian love flowing strongly this year, it will bring balance back to the Force."

I was going to say something like "Hah hah, what an overplayed version of his words!" but then I realized this is exactly what the story is going to be about. (⁰͡ ͜ʖ⁰͡ )

Do we know the name of Maid-san? Someone said "Iori" in a message above, but I can't remember if it's been mentioned textually in the manga.

All this time I've been thinking of her as "Maid-san, granddaughter of Nanny-san" lol.

I didn't set that tag and wouldn't consider that manga to be lolicon. Dunno why, but there's someone in the staff who considers that lolicon \o_O/ It's just a tag I guess...

Strictly speaking, a loli is a girl before puberty. Broadly speaking, anyone who looks like a prepubescent girl will find some fans among the loli lovers. But maid-chan here doesn't seem to fit any of those criteria.

The way I see it, an early teen of average height who already has some feminine curves shouldn't really count as a loli.

I remember the first time I heard about this manga. It was in the comments thread for Black & White, after chapter 6 was released. (We didn't know it then, but it would be the last scanlated chapter: the project was dropped.) Serenata-chan wrote a long post telling us of her own experiences working in a company like the one in B&W and mentioned, near the end, that Sal Jiang had another nice manga with an office setting: Ayaka-chan wa Hiroko Senpai wo Otoshitai! That was about two and a half years ago, haha, who would have thought it would take so long for someone to pick it. But it was worth the wait! ❤ Now if only someone would start working again on Black & White... (I don't like the translation by Seven Seas.)

On another subject, I can't recall if this was discussed before: I was just today rereading some older works by Sal Jiang and I was surprised to find that this one is like a oneshot version of Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! Even the name of the main character is Ayaka, and she's an obvious prototype of the blonde we know and love. The senpai she likes is not really Hiroko, though. (She's much better.)

Are we sure "comedy" is the right tag? It looks to me like an angry dispute is imminent.

My money is on her Actually being Leo

I can't deny that thought going through my mind for a moment as well. Unlikely to be the case, though, since that would mean prince Mark trading one dark magic user for another. Can't really call your ex-fiancee a witch when your new one is the same.

Also, I was under the impression that Eve and Lillian knew each other since they were little children. That wouldn't be possible if Lillian was Leo.

Otoh I like a lot the Lillian/Touko parallel.

Is it normal when someone says 'I'm going to the toilet' to reply 'Have fun'?

It's my usual response.

My usual response is "Have fun. Bring me back something."

My dad’s joke: “Mention my name—you’ll get a good seat.”

You bad person, you made me laugh at a dad’s joke.

Nothing like a major in psychology to help you rationalize your obsessions. ¯⧵_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

It's a pity she's so drunk. If she was sober, she would sit there for a few seconds, shocked, then she would walk to Ruriko's room and demand an explanation.

WTF?

What the fuck?

What the fucking fuck?

My thoughts exactly.

I totally ship cat puppet with bunny puppet.

Know that you're my new idols. <3

I have read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and I think it's one of my favorite books

I see you're a woman of culture as well. (ღˇ◡ˇ)~♥ It's one of my all-time favorites, too!

and the reason it works is because the problematic character escalates so much in his behavior that he is basically unredeemable and also because the story frames that whole relationship as a flashback and in fact it starts with the unproblematic love interest You could also argue that the female character is a bit like Hiroko in this case because she hides that she is actually married and left her husband because she couldn't divorce him and rejects the love interest for this reason even though she likes him.

Good analysis. Anne Brontë's female characters never were all about love and romance, they weren't unidimensional beings. Helen had other priorities than love. Agnes Grey also was first and foremost about her work.

"One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy." The Course of Love, Alain de Botton.
Hiroko is indeed problematic but she isn't a toxic person who wants to manipulate Ayaka. She rejects Ayaka because she knows this.

There's one difference between Hiroko and the male leads in novels by Charlotte or Emily. Their typical toxic lead is problematic because he has one big problem that ruins everything for him, his life and the lives of his loved ones. Hiroko, on the other hand, has a number of small problems that pile up and weight down on her good judgment. Some of those have only been hinted at for now and we don't know the details—except that they have been messing up her love life for years. I think this is why we can say she's not really a toxic person... she's more like a lesbian disaster, haha.

Now I don't exactly agree with the formula of a girl liking a broken person and trying to fix them no matter what. It doesn't give a great message and that's not what anyone should be doing. That's why I hope to see Ayaka work on herself in a way and remain friendly with Hiroko without pursuing her anymore. These tropes of fixing the broken person or chasing the girl till she says yes are very old and kinda ridiculous since they are completely out of touch with reality.

Mhhm, yeah. Really old tropes, with big historical roots, and somehow really popular today as well, hahaha. In those old stories, the violent or alcoholic douchebag just needs to meet the right woman who will heal his inner scars with love, understanding and devotion. It doesn't work like that irl, which somehow doesn't detriment the everlasting popularity of the trope.

It would be nice if Ayaka could make a clear-cut choice here: stop her romantic advances and become a good friend of Hiroko's. Another chance may come up in the future, after they begin to be closer and she gets to know her better. I wouldn't mind such a development at all.

last edited at Jun 18, 2023 5:10AM

Let me give you an analogy. You know the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne? This a short comic about them:

When it comes to romantic literature for women by women, one of the oldest plot devices in the book is making the heroine's love interest an extremely problematic person: a violent man, an alcoholic, an outcast, a social climber who won't marry the heroine because she's poor, an emotionally-scarred wretch, etc. etc. The story then tells us how the heroine, through great pain and effort, redeems this person's wrongs with the power of her love and wins herself a happy romantic end. Emily and Charlotte Brontë were very fond of this sort of problematic characters, while Anne was NOT; that's why she and her sisters bicker in the comic, as their reactions to the men they see (who by coincidence happen to be the mcs of some novels by Charlotte and Emily) are completely different.

This manga follows that old and tested plot, giving the heroine Ayaka a majorly problematic love interest in Hiroko. Normally, all the readers should react like Charlotte and Emily Brontë would... that is, they should be rooting for Ayaka to break Hiroko's defenses, make her see the errors of her ways, and finally win her heart! Trouble is, 90% of the readers are reacting like Anne would... that is, they think Hiroko is a slimeball and Ayaka needs to find herself a better lover. Ooops. This is not what Sal Jiang had in mind when she created Hiroko.

In the past, there have been many series with similar premises that made the readers in Dynasty forum react the way the author expected. This manga failed to accomplish that. I won't attempt to explain why. Let's just say that Hiroko doesn't have what it takes to charm the readers (whatever this elusive quality may be) and leave it at that.

You know what? Suddenly my mind is drifting back to that time when you wrote several pieces about the 19th century's dime novels for women—and how their narratives had so much in common with A Room For Two. That was, oh, like two years ago? Haha, those were the days.

Great post as usual, Fairypixie24!! ❤ I wish you'd post more often...

Was this plotline axed? I get a feeling like somebody told Sal Jiang to rush through this arc and move to the next posthaste - to try and salvage the story.

Ikr, where the angst?? I feel we were robbed of the "Awww poor baybees!" that we rightfully deserved!

Hiroko gets some points back for finally getting her shit together and putting forward a serious, well-worded rejection.

I don't get the peepz who say Risa is no good or has no chance. There's nothing about her that is a red flag; in fact, when I try to recall what we know about her, I can only think of good things. So far, Ayaka and Risa are friends; and Ayaka doesn't think of her as a romantic interest because Hiroko is the only one for Ayaka right now... but it's a fact that Ayaka likes Risa a lot, and like can lead to like-like, and like-like can lead to love. Risa's time may very well come in the near future; there's no reason why it wouldn't.

Poor peanut. Go find another girl to treasure you; no one needs a liar.

Truer words were never spoken.

My take comes from the Western movie Unforgiven:

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

Hiroko is by now as likeable a character as sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett.