Not gonna lie “Lord of the Red Riding Hoods” caught me off guard. It’s a… unique direction to go with that story, at least.

Either way, this looks neat, so I’m in. I will admit that I do not vibe with the concept of Jiminy Cricket x Pinocchio, though

Well, that was karmic.

Done in by her own creation like a true mad scientist.

done by the author for stupid shock factor at the end, if the author actually had skills to write we will had got a better story but this is just UGH

The hell are you on about? That was built up from page 1. Just because you dislike the story, doesn’t mean it was poorly written.

Honestly I just find the plot fundamentally unbelievable. You're telling me someone who can whip up an intelligent, human-passing synthetic with full sapience couldn't get funding from corps? Techbro investors would be dumping money on her faster than you can say "cheap labor." And that's not even getting into the idea that someone smart enough to make a sapient robot would go "oh you're just a robot, let me edit your mind now that you're obsolete."

Just incredibly contrived for the sake of the "disturbing" ending.

I’m going to disagree on the second part. There are some really stupid intelligent people in the world. All it would take is her being confident enough in her position as the creator, and underestimating just how much the AI has evolved since she created it, to think that her robot wouldn’t harm her if she grew tired of it. People treat other actual humans like crap all the time, why wouldn’t someone do it to a humanlike robot?

Your first complaint makes more sense, although the setting does appear to be a bit more futuristic, so it’s possible that her technology isn’t quite as cutting edge as it would be for us.

last edited at Jul 27, 2024 4:30PM

^ Oh, don’t do that. You kill the bird, and those same no-lives are going to spread out and infect the rest of the internet. Heck, one of the reasons Twitter/X is the way that it is is because a bunch of people left Tumblr after it started going under (you know, that lovely site where an organized campaign of harassment drove an artist into attempting suicide, all because she drew fan art portraying a fat character as skinny), and brought the toxicity from that site with them to other sites, with Twitter being impacted the hardest. They’re like viruses, once they reach a critical mass, they’re just hang around until their host is destroyed, and then find a new host. Best thing to do is ignore that site entirely and let the Twitter mobs there cannabalize themselves. Either that, or shut down any form of social media for a few weeks so that they’re forced to go outside and interact with people.

^^18? I’m pretty sure she’s only supposed to be a couple years older. At worst, she’s a rising senior, so 16 or 17, and I don’t even think she’s supposed to be that old. Don’t know where you got 18 from. Granted, I didn’t really see the ship, but it wouldn’t be that bad.

In your heart, not your shirt!

Although swing girl doesn’t seem to mind.

Kudos to Wakaba for keeping her verbal reactions to the minimum.

Poor Matsuri, though. Not sure if ai was used or not, but if so...... oh, doomed yuri.

Something I've been wondering, if the "I hate you" with the main couple means I love you, does Matsuri's "I love you" mean I hate you?

Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s actually a really cool idea. Making Matsuri a toxic, two-faced types who mask their hatred with false affection would be such a twist, especially with how highly Wakaba seems to think of her. I’m not actually sure that’s the direction the story’s going to go in, but it’d be so good if they did.

Look, I know what it really is, but everytime I look at that 3rd panel I can’t help but see an incomplete fancy mustache.

Goddddd this manga is driving me crazy!! Their feelings are so complicated!!

I kinda agree but more in the vein of "I can't make sense of any of this" :P Late to the party so I just read the available chapters in one go and I straight up don't get what their deal was in middle school or whatever, that whole situation leading to their falling out involving the senpai I just don't understand, maybe I'm too stupid.

You’re not stupid, you probably just misread something. From what I gathered, Wakaba had a crush on the senpai, and told Komaki. Komaki reacted to this by winning the senpai’s affections, promptly dumping him in a particularly painful fashion, and then telling Wakaba that the whole reason she went for him in the first place was so Wakaba couldn’t have him. I’m pretty sure she did this in order to keep monopolizing Wakaba, but Wakaba figured that the reason Komaki did it is because Komaki hated her, and blamed herself for Komaki developing a personality twisted enough to hurt people in such a way (not to mention getting her crush stolen). This caused the two of them to have a falling out, and thus, this story. Does that help?

last edited at Jun 21, 2024 5:49AM

Well there's the bath, also this chapter really gives me the impression that Wakaba is even deeper in the hole than Komaki. Especially as Komaki seems genuinely surprised by the kiss on the bed.

I'm also getting the impression that Komaki is a coward, and that she's doing all of this because she's afraid of asking Wakaba out, but doesn't want anyone else to have Wakaba's 1st time experiences. It's almost dating with extra steps...

Yeah, on top of taking Wakaba’s first, I also think Komaki’s just looking to fulfill a fantasy of being with Wakaba, since she seems to be convinced that it can never happen otherwise. At the same time, though, I do think that she’s still holding out some small hope that Wakaba will eventually return her feelings, and I’d be very surprised if she ever goes so far as trying to use a win for actual sense (it’d essentially be the same as giving up on the two of them ever really getting together).

puts up the ultimate defense

Forgets to defend the rest of her body

Well she kinda had to drop the defenses on the rest of her body to put up the ultimate defense. Which seems risky since missing the block would mean almost certain death.

last edited at Jun 5, 2024 2:20PM

Well, can’t argue with that!

“Then prove to me that you weren’t lying about studying even now.”

Why am I thinking about another pointless arc like the one in Kase-san that wrapped up recently, where Kase had to compete against a classmate to, by some eldritch logic, earn the right to live with her girlfriend of many years?

At least in that one the classmate was an overly clingy friend and Kase was a airheaded doormat who let herself get pressured into it. The girl here is just some random chick who is creepily obsessed with Nagisa. Nagisa didn’t even get a chance to accept her “challenge.” She basically just harassed the two of them and ran away.

last edited at Jun 3, 2024 11:38PM

“Then prove to me that you weren’t lying about studying even now.”

The correct response: “Bitch, I don’t need to prove a goddamn thing to you. Go find someone else to stalk before I call the cops, and don’t you ever come near me or my girlfriend ever again.”

On a lighter note, that Sebas callout was brutal. Didn’t need to do him that dirty.

last edited at Jun 3, 2024 2:49PM

I’m so confused by this chapter. Komaki said how she feels and then believes she can’t go out with wakaba? Wtf is this bs?

Well, the person she wants to go out with appears to be straight (if the tennis club incident is any indication), has told her- directly to her face- that she hates her, only hangs around her because of a weird bet they made, and has said that she wouldn’t believe Komaki if she did confess to having feelings for her. Granted, Wakaba clearly does have something akin to feelings for Komaki boiling beneath the surface, but unless she can read the subconscious mind, I’d say it’s fair for Komaki to assume that she wouldn’t have a shot trying to properly go out with Wakaba.

last edited at May 21, 2024 7:25PM

Does she still let other people touch her girlfriend? I couldn't handle that.

I would strongly advise against dating prostitutes, then…

On another I just had a thought for more drama, won't Mashiro get into major trouble if her agency finds out she is dating Makino?
Since isn't advised that prostitutes don't date a former client.

I imagine that depends on the specific agency, though I admit that I’m not really up to date on the standards of the Japanese lesbian delivery health industry. All the same, if she’s still working as usual, what the hell would they have to complain about?

last edited at May 17, 2024 10:39PM

Turns out things can get actually funny if you aren't constrained by purposefully hiding the perspective of one of the characters for like 15 chapters (yes I'm still perplexed by that). I think this chapter was my favourite one yet,

Yeap. Recent chapters are much better now that we actually have two characters going back and forth. Considering how extremely emotive she is now, it's still hard to square with how blank she was for the beginning but it's a very welcome change. Much more fun.

I like to imagine that Yuzu still seems that subdued to everyone around her, and the reason we’re seeing her all emotive is because her perspective has been opened up, allowing us to see what’s just below the surface.

That poor principal…

She's gonna have a bad surprise if she thinks Makino is being "tricked" and that "revealing" Mashiro's job will make them break up, but I have a feeling that Makino will come out on top, simply from the fact that for all her scumminess, she's genuine and honest.

"That woman works as a prostitute!"

"Yeah, I know."

"We've met through it."

"I've payed her with the money you gave me."

Ah, I see your are proposing the “give Toxic Mom a heart attack” solution. A risky move, but a definitive one.

Yeah yeah I agree the story was cute 'n cuddly and all. But Edison wasn't really a scientist. He was more of a businessman who took real scientists' inventions and marketed them as his own. Ayano should have worn a Nikola Tesla yukata instead.

While most of Edison’s fame did come from the patents he owned, rather than the devices he created, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a scientist as well. He personally invented the quadruplex telegraph, which is what funded Menlo Park in the first place. Not to mention that, in creating Menlo Park, he assembled a team of brilliant scientists and provided facilities where they would make multiple contributions to technological advancement. I’m not saying he wasn’t more of a celebrity businessman, but I am saying that he isn’t as unworthy of recognition as people online often seem to believe.

On a lighter note, shout-out to that candymaker. Dude said he could make any shape they wanted, and he damn well meant it.

Good thing you asked her on a date already before going to battle, leaving it for later is one of the most classic death flags.

I don’t know, “Let’s go on a date after this” also makes me nervous. Gives me, “I’m not going to be able to go on that date after all”-type premonitions.

The flashbacks reminded me of Mashiro's illness. What ... happened to that? Like, I don't need death flags or hospital visits or anything, just some indication that she's still a somewhat sickly person instead of being like "she had a bit of time off school and now she's in perfect health and we'll never speak of this again".

I think it was mentioned that her condition has improved since Nagisa has started helping her. She still needs to take extra precautions, but she’s capable of doing regular things without randomly fainting. Her condition has definitely been pushed pretty far into the background though, and it didn’t help that Mashiro has not been the focus of the story for the past couple volumes.

last edited at Apr 25, 2024 2:53PM

^ When has anything ever stopped a Greek god? Trying to ascribe morality to the sexual escapades of the Greek gods is an exercise in insanity, because I don’t think that there are any taboos that they didn’t violate at one point or another.

Glasses girl, you are several months too late to be pulling this goofy-ass maneuver. Those two are practically married by this point, rings and all.

As for the death flag comments... what are you talking about? This manga doesn't really have the kinda vibe that we should be expecting a major character death. Or any character death for that matter. Or is something going over my head?

Yeah, at least as far as I can tell so far, Mashiro has a fairly mild case of the "Delicate and Sickly" trope--an unspecified "medical condition" that positions her as vulnerable but plucky and which can make her BSOD and end up in the infirmary from time to time as the plot requires.

As a general principle, "Delicate and Sickly" ultimately could go in any number of directions, ranging from being entirely cured by love alone or by some random health improvement (medicine, exercise, etc.) on the one hand to, yes, death, on the other.

But for the plot to head off in a tragic direction would constitute a truly epic tonal swerve for this particular series.

EDIT: I almost mentioned the contrast with "The Summer You Were There," which announced from the beginning and then regularly reminded us throughout: "She gonna die. Not kidding. Take it to the bank--dead as as doornail. I'm serious."

With how light-hearted this has been for its entire runtime, the tonal swerve caused by Mashiro dying would go beyond “epic” and well into the “neck snapping whiplash” zone.

Oh you motherfuckers… you got me.

What the heck is wrong with Shizuku's eye in the last panel? That's just ... eerie.

She’s turning into prey, so her eyes are migrating to the side of her head to allow for a wider field of vision.

Also, it does seem like animal comparisons in English are usually more particular. It’s not “you’re just like a dog,” but something like, “you’re as loyal as a dog.” We note the feature we want to highlight first to avoid accidentally making any unflattering remarks.

To me "you're as loyal as a dog" also seems insulting lol. It would sound to me like they're calling me a blindly obedient. I'm not sure if it's personal or cultural in this case, but, for the record, most of my family agreed.

Well, maybe not that one precisely. I was just trying to keep with the dog theme and made something up, but there are more common expressions. “As sly as a fox,” “as wise as an owl” (and yes, I know they're actually really dumb, but it’s an old expression), that sort of thing. The point is that English speakers tend to note the trait being complimented, rather than just referring to someone as being that particular animal.