Next chapter will be an interlude while Kamejiro prepares for volume 2. So expect ch11 and the conclusion to this flashback in November.

I found this chapter particularly well constructed. The whole manga is—as you might expect of a retold story—but 10 is noteworthy in its escalation.

Since we've already seen the foot of the spirit tree in chapter 5, there's no need to make it a tranquil spectacle now. It can serve as a dedicated action setpiece. Sara anxiously races her way up it, beating increasingly painful setbacks in the manga's longest action scene so far, which makes the reprieve even more welcome. And you're almost distracted from the fact this is the story of how Sara got the sword, as the blooming spirit tree begins a countdown to the real action.

Last chapter already speculated the uniqueness of blood from Children of Spirits. The start of 10 introduces two ideas: butterflies being attracted to the blood and the possibility of using blood to imitate a CoS yourself. The latter obviously plays off with the proposal to drink Natalia's blood—now needing no explanation to not sound insane in the already chaotic climax. But the former comes back subconsciously when you see butterflies clouding around Natalia like flies. Which, instead of naturally macabre, comes off as ethereal and surreal, downplaying the violence.

That surreality is pivotal for the transition from lighthearted action to a brutal life-or-death scenario, bridging the gap so it doesn't feel quite so disorientingly shocking. The oddity of a casually talking butterfly breaks the trauma of Sara liquefying. The cute SFX (which are not just me translating it that way; they're all in the raws) only take the slightest break for sharp contrast. It peaks with this dark comedy: Luis cheering Sara on as she licks the blood from his sister's cratered face.

We know this is all a flashback, so the tension is subdued, more dreamlike. It can flirt with brutality without dissonance.

There's an ongoing escalation in the uncomfortable moments the manga has put them through; from Natalia eating the ant-ridden cookies in ch2, to the post-puke kiss in ch7, to the blood drinking in ch10. The bar keeps rising. I'll warn again, the original went to some dark places beyond this, and it seems all-but-guaranteed this version will do the same. I used to worry how that would reconcile with the lighter, sillier atmosphere but it seems like that was needless.

Some other minor points, like the nod to the woods' shortcut or the harmony in Sara saying she can't cast her convictions away as she throws the fake sword aside, don't add much but they're satisfying. Or how there's no need to explain what happened to Natalia either, given all the times she's fainted and bonked into trees. And the skeletons on the path at the beginning do put a dark shade on things from the start.

I also think you should make a note of Sara condemning Natalia's obligations to her family rather than to her people. It's a bit of projection on her part and a hint at her past. That first page is definitely not the whole of her backstory.

In 2019, before the twitter version of Princess of Sylph had even started going, Kamejiro published a 2-part doujinshi covering Sara meeting Natalia and taking Sylpheed in her place. There were some heavy retcons after, but parts of it remained canon to the later series.

And it looks like chapter 9 and 10 will be following roughly the same story. Major differences in that version include:

1. Sara being concerned Sylpheed's ritual itself would kill Natalia, in her poor health
2. The minister encouraging Sara to try taking Sylpheed because of this
3. There being no replica of Sylpheed
4. Sara tricking Natalia by putting her to sleep with magic
5. The lack of Sara's backstory, which is probably being saved for later.

The first half ended with Sara going off to the spirit tree, same as 9.

Instead now Sara's alone and somehow Natalia has to not find out about any of this. But there's a few exciting things from part 2 which are very likely to happen again. As noticed, the blood's going to be important.

While this chapter feels like the calm before a storm, there's still things that stand out as a reader of the old version. You now get the full picture of how isolated Natalia is, idolized and reliant on maintaining the peoples' faith in her. That faith became one of the core conflicts at the end of the first arc.

There's also some foreshadowing in the extra I feel like highlighting. It's a bigger spoiler, but I'll be vague.
Natalia's headache could be because of mana exhaustion. And her armor is arranged a certain way.

webmanga-sousenkyo.com
Pixiv is running a 'favorite web manga election' through the 31st and Kamejiro's asked fans to nominate Princess of Sylph.

All you need to do is hit the blue 総選挙にノミネートする button at the top, then fill シルフの花姫 in the top box and submit.
You can nominate multiple manga too (like 見えてますよ！愛沢さん for example) but be sure to only submit one name at a time, or they won't count.

Any manga will do so long as

• It was first published online
• The 1st volume will release as of December 31st, 2023
• The latest chapter has been released after December 31st, 2022
• There are 5 or less volumes published as of August 31st 2023

Yeah. And there's also that it wasn't completely harmless, since we see that something grabbed senpai's leg, left a noticeable hand print and likely made her fall there too.

True, I guess at this point I just mentally file Sayaka as completely impervious to ghosts. Plus it got her a girlfriend.

This manga has got me COOKING.

Here's what we know:

Good writeup. I'd forgotten we had a hard date for Aizawa's death.
I really should reread at some point, but I'm bad at looking at my older work.

I assumed the pentagram only appeared on Michi's neck after the dream and wasn't there all along, transferring Aizawa from the desk to Michi, but I don't think we have proof. Michi hasn't even checked the desk yet to see if that mark disappeared. Another thing I'm wondering is if Aizawa herself recognizes what the mark is for and what rules bind her, or if she's totally clueless.

That little ghost girl was missing her eyes. The storage shed ghost had way too many eyes. When the image of Aizawa got corrupted when Michi called out to her, her eyes have been particularly separated from her face, one pulled to the top right and the other to the bottom left. Michi and senpai can both see ghosts and share a special fuzzy eye design nobody else has. There's definitely something very specific in the plot going on wrt eyes and/or eyeballs. I would guess the too many eyes ghost and not enough eyes ghost are directly related.

I'm not sure if those ghosts were particularly important or just one-offs. There's also the long-mouthed ghost at school and whatever that guy Sayaka saw was. Sight is definitely a big theme that keeps coming up though.

I also get the impression there's a more major incident Michi's not talking about. Chapter 1 shows a glimpse of something with a bunch of arms, and she's afraid of getting possessed. Also whatever approached her at the festival looks like something new. There could be some kind of gathering of spirits going on, considering Sayaka's mentioned seeing more of them lately, but whatever's at the top of the mountain is probably on another level from anything we've seen.

If you look carefully at the Perfect Yellow front page you'll see that among the verdure that surrounds Aizawa there are other things, hidden among the leaves, mostly plushies—bear plushies, rabbit plushies, and even a Michi-chan plushie.

I think they might be the other 3 members of De:Lphinus actually: Theia in the top left, Non in the middle right, and a portrait of Ange beneath her. Just going by the hairstyles. I could be wrong, but it would also fit the idol theme. When volume 2 is out we'll have a clearer image, though I doubt it'll show much more.

On a tangent I'm kinda shocked the idols still haven't made a real debut as characters yet. We saw some behind the scenes hints in the first few chapters, but they've only made background appearances ever since. Then again they just plain didn't exist in the original twitter version (which only went about as far as chapter 5). Still, Dorothy's drawn more side art of them on twitter since the serialization started than they've gotten in the manga itself.

I'll admit I have an unreasonable fixation on the mystery of Theia: she's often shown paired with Aizawa, had strong feelings towards Aizawa's death, deliberately cameos in practically every chapter, had a damn pentagram randomly inserted into one of her speech bubbles—there's got to be something there. I'll eat my translator hat if she doesn't do something in volume 3. But maybe that's waiting until Aizawa gets unbound from school.

This manga is impressing me so much. It started so innocently and now it all keeps coming together.
The Kasumi subplot was perfect setup for

1. Telling us the romance is going to be taken seriously, as Michi gets worse at dismissing her feelings for Aizawa, and
2. Lulling us into a false sense of security before hitting hard with the fact Michi can't do it like Sayaka.

We can now safely assume Michi is having her memories erased. The 1st hint was when Kasumi contradicted Michi by saying they'd spoken before chapter 3. 2nd case would be whenever Sayaka saw Michi and Aizawa talking. 3rd was the night of the summer festival. 4th is potentially right now, where Michi is uncharacteristically unconcerned with whatever the hell just happened.

There's an implication Michi's younger self(?) is behind this; her shoes are seen reflecting Michi's as she runs from Aizawa. We know she can independently protect Michi—though this was more like an attack on Michi instead. Maybe it's a condition of the mark binding them? Since Michi's losing memories, it's possible she's the one who originally made that mark on Aizawa's desk too.

The festival is also a new focal point. Japanese folklore often puts powerful spirits up on mountains, and festivals are when they tend to get strongest. The way it's harmlessly introduced at the start of the chapter only to be sinisterly re-contextualized it at the end exemplifies how seamlessly this arc tied back into the plot. Since Kasumi couldn't hear the person crying, it was most likely still a ghost. Younger Michi, or...

We see this chapter it's October, which should be only a couple months after the summer festival. And it's already been over a month at least since Aizawa died. It's not hard to connect the two. Michi can't remember that night. Confronting Aizawa makes Michi feel like she's about to remember something horrifying. Was she there to see her die? Did she bind her back to the world of the living?

2nd big reveal: Kasumi saw Michi and Aizawa talking. But that could have been before or after she died.

Let's assume before. The problem is, while Aizawa clearly liked Michi a bit from chapter 1, she wasn't head over heels for her yet (Or at least, it took her a while to stop kissing and looking up other girls' skirts.) So they couldn't have known each other too well. It makes it hard for Aizawa's regrets to be specific to Michi too. Unless Aizawa's also missing memories, which could explain why she's so immature now. Though I think it's safer to say she was just acting out her mature idol role.

Still, Sayaka also drew the pentagram mark, which should only have a connection to them after Aizawa died. So was Michi talking to ghost Aizawa? There's a suspicious shadow covering half of Aizawa too, which can't just be artistic liberties from our dense Picasso. Either way, at the time Sayaka saw them, there was already something supernatural going on. Sayaka also mentioned a few chapters ago how she's been seeing the mark everywhere, and that more ghosts have been appearing recently. Something big's going around.

Anyways, too many questions, no answers to be found. The plot's now feeling a lot more evenly spread with both Aizawa and Michi having their own share of questions. A perfect ending to the 2nd volume.

Also every single panel this chapter was too cute. It's almost unfortunate how good the mystery stuff is here because it's overshadowing Michi's cuteness, Aizawa's dorkiness, Reona's lunacy, Kasumi and Sayaka's couple fluff. Dorothy's getting too good.

Minor details: Sayaka draws on a flyer for the Koga(古賀) Festival. Koga being a city in Fukuoka, in southern Japan. Likely where the story's set.

The frontispiece and title, Perfect Yellow, are a reference to the Satoshi Kon film Perfect Blue.

Perfect Blue of course being a psychological thriller about an idol faced with the darkness of fame and starting to lose herself. I wouldn't draw comparisons yet, but it's something to keep in mind.

Yellow is also a particularly common color in western horror at least; The Yellow Wallpaper and The King in Yellow are two major examples. You wouldn't think it, but yellow can be a surprisingly difficult color to work with. In the right tones, it represents prosperity and luxury, like gold or fields of wheat. But if the hue is slightly off or there's unevenness, it easily slips into a sickly color that brings to mind decay or deterioration, and it fades easily too. It's a color of two great symbolic extremes.

And of course yellow was Aizawa's signature color in De:Lphinus. Which is probably all it means, but it's fun to ramble.

@BLAMEY just want to drop a note that Odoroo Dorothy-sensei is going to have a oneshot name "Extreme Super Darling" [エクストリームスーパーダーリン] in the next YuriHime 2023/10 issue, coming out 2023/08/18 Just in case you're interested in working on it

Thanks, I'm definitely going to take a look. Won't promise I'll be translating it, but I've liked a lot of the shorter things Dorothy's worked on in the past. They usually have the same sweet but twisted feeling. Aizawa has actually been relatively tame in comparison.

If anything the message is simply, "it's not worth stressing over your dreams if they're getting in the way of what's truly important." And that you're going to have to work and suffer a little for the things you love. So yes tearing up the marriage certificate was a symbolic gesture of throwing away the dream of making a living on the island and getting married there, because it wasn't feasible. It turned out to be more stressful than returning to the city. Which isn't presented as something inherent to the countryside or city—it mirrors Haru putting herself through the same needless pressure as in chapter 1—but them simply making poor decisions and weathering out a rough patch in their lives through commitment to each other. They aren't rejecting the idea of ever getting married at all either.

Really it's just a story about love persevering. In the end they're just as in love as they were in the beginning. The stress couldn't break them. They never wanted to change society or escape working, they only wanted to be happy together.

Now it's hard to say if that's the story Keyyan always wanted to tell, and it certainly wasn't meant to run through all these plot points in a single chapter. But that's the story we got. The only other endings I could imagine on such a short notice would be serious downers.

From what I heard of what was going on with the author, I feel like the author’s personal life just made this series too painful to keep writing so they just wanted it to end because it was starting to affect them personally too.

Entirely possible. I can't imagine what it must be like to write a story like this while also going through the same pressures yourself. Worse if you're going through them alone.

There's sadly plenty reason to believe this wasn't a natural conclusion. The frequent unexplained hiatuses, volume 3 ending a full chapter (40 pages) shorter than usual, the narrative undoing a few themes in the end (Naruko going from being an example of 'work being something you can love and not just suffer through,' to being an example of 'needing to work harder to even enjoy occasionally work' comes to mind, and seems depressingly like Keyyan speaking through the characters. A lot of this chapter felt like that.)

The fact that Suit has gotten reprints and officially licensed into English shows it was a financial success, and Yuri Hime isn't quick to end manga that disappear for a few months, so I really don't know what happened. I'm kind of tired of thinking about it.

I really cherish this manga. Haru and Hinoto have such a raw, grounded relationship the likes of which are rarely found—they share all their best and worst together with unshakable faithfulness, and a casual intimacy in every quiet moment that leaves no question to the depths of their love. It was never scared to confront real, uncomfortable issues yet the strength of the romance kept you hopeful. The drama was purely external while the yuri remained a constant source of comfort—an example many writers could learn from. If Keyyan feels like making another serialized yuri manga after this, I'd very much look forward to it. Though I don't think I'd have the heart to translate it.

Volume 3 releases in September, and the usual bonus chapter might be quite a bit longer to make up for the shortened page count. It's no guarantee, but there's possibly a still happier ending on the horizon. Though in the greater context of Keyyan's situation I think this was about the best ending we could hope for.

More hints at Sara's past. In case you hadn't noticed, the dial's shifting from Natalia being a mess that needs Sara looking after her to the other way around. Kamejiro recently summed up their relationship as, "If I take my eyes off her, she's going to get herself hurt (x2)" which I find very appropriate.

Unfortunate that the chapter cuts off right when we're getting to the plot, but this was a nice peaceful break. Sweet to see Natalia turning down every doubt and only growing more curious and concerned for Sara. When she isn't feeling vengeful.

We're back on track with the original here; while Sara never got kidnapped by Snake Princess, they did have a sleepover at the castle the night Sara told Natalia the truth. And Snake Princess looks to be settling into the same old untrustworthy support character role. You can even see her poking out of the teapot again at the end.

As for the extra, it'll probably make more sense later. Just know that Sara's actually fairly reserved when it comes to sex and intimacy, so she's genuinely shocked at getting called a pervert.

last edited at Jul 23, 2023 3:00AM

Did not see that reveal coming even though I probably should have. I'm so used to manga dancing around the idea instead of committing straight away, even with a side couple. And it gives me hope Michi and Aizawa's relationship will get serious at some point too.

Cute how, after unlocking the power to touch Michi, Aizawa keeps doing it after. Holding onto her arm, hiding behind her when Kasumi comes up, shoving Michi into Kasumi's arms (and looking adorably conflicted about it), resting her chin on Michi's shoulder at the end. Hopefully this ghost gets extra clingy. Hopefully it's not a bad thing her powers are evolving by the chapter.

Dorothy confirmed this is the end of Kasumi's arc for now, and ch12 will be the end of volume 2, so my guess is Michi's about to run out of excuses ignoring the mark on her neck. It's been a while since we had any serious supernatural or horror moments. Also I imagine Michi's now going to be even more suspicious about the kiss instead of trying to forget it.

I just gave a try at reading it with a ton of google translate (sadly I haven't learnt japonese by osmosis from manga/anime yet lol) and from what I understood the mangaka said it was just chapter 1 and everything else is in the fanbox. Is the prequel (what is here in dynasty) what is being published at the moment or it there a direct continuation too?

The old chronology would go like:
1. Princess of Sylph (doujinshi)
2. Princess of Sylph (twitter)
3. Princess of Sylph: For Ranunculus (fanbox).

The doujinshi covered Sara getting Sylpheed, which was canon to the twitter manga but was also retconned a little. The twitter manga began with Sara approaching Natalia, the same as the serialized manga, and ended with them leaving the capital. The entire thing is considered the 1st major chapter of the overall story. For Ranunculus covered a bit after the end of the twitter manga but it didn't run for long before the serialization offer came.

The currently serialized manga (the one here on dynasty) here is incorporating everything that came before into a new, ideal version of the story.

I always feel like I just make this more confusing whenever I explain, but you need to understand the series wasn't that structured at first. The story began with some loose ideas that evolved over time. This new version has lots of new material to make it fresh for long-time fans, but the basic plot seems to be the same retold. Uniquely though, this version is spending far more time on the beginnings of Sara and Natalia's relationship. The original didn't have the same tension between them and quickly reached Sara explaining Sylpheed to Natalia.

So when I call these first 7 chapters prologue, I'm just informally referring to this being the earliest phase of the story before the main plot begins. The core conflict was never Sara gaining Natalia's trust or breaking the news about her family sword, but the consequences that came after that reveal.

Additionally, Kamejiro wants this version to be explicitly romantic. Before, there was always this vagueness between the main story, where Sara and Natalia are just friends, and the indeterminate future shown in bonus art where they're lovers. Kamejiro always wanted to gradually bridge the gap between the two but never found the chance. Even so far, the serialization's been much more blatant about Sara being attracted to Natalia, and of course the vomit kiss is something new too.

I imagine the next couple chapters will make it clear how much of the plot's the same. Sara's confession of how she got Sylpheed will probably resemble the early doujinshi story; there's been several hints her backstory hasn't changed. From there I expect the pace to pick up, since the 2nd half of the twitter manga was already a more focused narrative. There's not as much that needs to be fleshed out, or anything newly introduced that would complicate it.

TL;DR: this version on Dynasty is meant to be a polished retelling of the entire story that will hopefully continue as long as possible into brand new adventures. Kamejiro's said if the serialized version fails she'll try to go back to self-publishing the rest, but ideally it won't come to that.

last edited at Jun 30, 2023 1:25AM

It's so refreshing seeing volume 1's chapters in normal human size instead of the postage stamps the web version gives me to work with.

Awesome. Really looking forward to whatever they do. They also said they don't think they handle emotional scenes well but I think they've done a wonderful job.

I get the feeling Kamejiro is pessimistic in general; the original had some powerful moments. There's a specific scene that comes to mind for pillar of my heart's payoff which will be devastating even if it's simply copy-pasted.

Anyone know where I can read the webmanga? I'm super curious because ppl keep mentioning it here ;_;

It's not translated, though here it is on the author's twitter. Heavy spoilers of course.

I won't say I'm not considering translating it, but it would take me a while. And I'm not sure how worth it that would be if the serialized version truly does end up being a greatly revised version of the same events.

This is the prologue? Like, there's a whole entire rest of the story after this that we get to see? They're not just going to run off into the sunset?

The original web manga covered what the author calls Arc 1: The Capital Incident. Everything so far in the serialized version is likely prologue for that; it's gone well out of its way to flesh out the beginnings of Sara and Natalia's relationship in a way the original mostly sped through. The drip-feed of lore we're getting does seem to be setting things in place for the same incident to occur. And it ended with some consequences that necessitated the two going on a journey.

Kamejiro started this serialization with the intent of getting past that point and exploring more of the world. By now everyone could guess there's an earth nation and fire nation in addition to the wind and water nations, and there's even a decent amount of art for what the princesses of those nations are like—some very minor spoilers here—despite them never appearing in the original story. It's one of those stories the author has been brainstorming for a long time.

Which is all assuming the manga is successful enough to get there and other fun things to worry about, but yeah. While it's not set in stone or anything, Kamejiro wants this to be a sprawling fantasy adventure.

Cool Natalia is finally back. Sadly that tends to come at the expense of happy Sara.

In case anyone forgot, children of the spirits have near limitless mana unlike normal humans. Next chapter will probably get into the consequences of Sara taking Sylpheed. Fun to note that the original pre-serialized version reached the Sylpheed reveal in 50 pages (out of 300 total) while the serialized manga is now doing it at about 250 pages. I expect things to speed up now that the prologue is over.

As for Snake Princess, she's gone through some significant changes in this version. Used to be more passively manipulative yet helpful, but now she's a lot more overtly villainous. A recent concept art for her hints she comes from a noble family that fell into ruin, likely due to some kind of betrayal by common folk which might explain her extreme stance. And yes she is a princess like Natalia so I don't know why she's going around calling herself Undine. But she never had a name in the original so for all I know Mizuchi's it.

About the extra, I hope that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect another kiss before their change in wardrobe. This is their first "plot kiss", but the old version's extras had a lot of non-canon kissing (and much more.) Kamejiro does want this version of the story to be more explicitly romantic.

Sadge
But at least they didn't completely reject it like some other people cough Kozue Amano cough

If you want a more accurate translation, it's more like "I don't go out of my way to read yuri, but I do often find myself really getting into manga from people who draw it." It's not a rejection of yuri by any means. I still wouldn't hold my breath for Liar Satsuki to get an explicit yuri ending, but the only reasonable outcomes are for it to stay as subtexty as it is or everyone to die.

Also, I wouldn't call Komachi reliable, but I wonder why Satsuki never told her about the premonitory corpses, given how often she was involved with them.

Back when they were saving Sensei, Komachi just naturally joined the team as Satsuki's hall pass. Some people assumed Satsuki told her off-screen but I doubt it. I think what happened is Komachi never questioned anything and Satsuki never questioned her not questioning anything. Those two get along like matches and gasoline; Satsuki's naivete and history of social rejection causing her to gladly take at face value the crazy girl who approves of everything. She hasn't considered that she'd need to explain the whole story to Komachi.

It's like when Satsuki saved Komachi recently. Satsuki tells her she's going to die, Komachi says Okay! (I'm going to die then!) and Satsuki is so happy someone easily trusts what she's saying. They're never really on the same page but Satsuki sure thinks they are.

Especially if it skips a month as well.

Frankly it's been skipping a lot of months. Around the start of volume 3 there was a 4 month hiatus with no explanation given, and it's skipped months 2 more times since then. All of these were unannounced. During the hiatus, it was listed as returning every month and never did. It's clear there were some kind of production troubles. But that alone isn't enough for Yuri Hime to axe a manga. Chasing Spica for example has had an incredibly spotty attendance rate from the 1st volume, to the point YH almost suspended its publication; still only a temporary measure.

It's also uncommon to announce the final chapter 1 chapter in advance. And it should be noted Throw Away the Suit Together did get reprinted, which confirms it was selling above expectations, so that's confusing too. If it's because it was getting too depressing, surely YH's editors would have checked over the direction it was going, and YH isn't averse to publishing bleak manga these days either. The premise simply leads itself to ups and downs; there's no reason to think these girls wouldn't pull themselves back up and find happiness again. It's all a big mystery we'll probably never understand. This certainly isn't the way it was planned to end, not just narratively but thematically. The story's always been a reflection of the author's state of mind. I'm afraid the ending's going to be as dark as Keyyan's likely feeling.

Akira's growing self-doubt also got a lot of focus in the past few chapters so it would be strange to just cut that all off here.

That's one of the main reasons I'm sure she's alive. But an injury is going to make her feelings of uselessness a hell of a lot worse. This could be a turning point where Satsuki starts getting confronted with the value of saving people. It wouldn't surprise me if Akira's dad manages to get away with this and Akira takes the student council up on their old offer to kill him, fearing for her own safety. And with everyone believing more people need to die to stop the deaths, Satsuki would have a tough time talking anyone out of it.

But everything's sort of reaching a fever pitch at this point so it's tough guessing at the structure of the rest of the story. It could be that it's all set to wrap up in the festival, with Satsuki's momentary vision calling back to chapter 1, but there's still so many subplots unresolved and main points that remain mostly mysteries. I keep thinking back to Shi ni Aruki's finale taking up around half the manga. In any case somebody's bound to die soon.

last edited at Jun 15, 2023 5:17AM

But I also desperately need someone, preferably Michi, to enlighten her that she can fucking see the fucking dead.

It's hard to tell exactly what tone this manga will end up taking—pure fluffy comedy or mixing in more dangerous dramatic elements as it goes—but Sayaka is currently exposed to everything Michi fears and has no idea. They've really got to work that out.

There's an impressive web of misunderstandings between them but it's all on the thinnest ice. Sayaka could easily see Aizawa's idol goods and strike up a conversation that quickly leads to learning she's dead. Michi on the other hand thinks she can continue as normal, but there's an implication the mark is putting her in real danger which ignoring ghosts can't protect her from. At least she knows trusting Aizawa is an option now. I think she's still a little scared of Aizawa herself, and Aizawa did comically toss her around the room this chapter so it's understandable, but sooner or later Michi'll give in. The real question is how Aizawa reacts to learning her crush has seen her being all gay and dorky this whole time.

Since this is Kasumi and Sayaka's little side arc I don't expect big revelations next chapter, but 12 should be the end of the volume and maybe that's when we'll see things start to move. Dorothy did say upcoming chapters would investigate the strange circumstances of Aizawa's death and the special connection Michi and Aizawa have, both of which are hard to get into without Michi interacting with the girl.

This reminds me that Kasumi mentioned she has interacted with Michi before the story began, I'm really curious to see what went down and why Michi doesn't seem to remember it.

I even went back and checked the raws and Michi cleanly states she hasn't spoken with anyone in class since school started, so yeah it feels like setup. Whether Michi got possessed or it was just some passing words that meant a lot more to Kasumi and Michi totally forgot. They are cute together, the way Kasumi looks after Michi, and she's one of the softest characters I've translated which is a fun change of pace.

I don't think Aizawa would be happy with Michi ending up with anyone else (she's a very possessive spirit) but maybe right now she feels like things between her and Michi are impossible. Meanwhile Michi seems to be the most skittish member of the cast towards anything romantic, but I like the detail that, when she imagines talking to Aizawa she's unconsciously touching her too.

On another note...Honami literally never talking has gotta mean something, right? It's not a ghost thing, we've seen ghosts talk in this manga. And she certainly wasn't mute while she was alive, she had songs. If it turns out she's not actually dead, not a totally unreasonable prediction given how different she is from every other ghost in the manga so far, that has some potentially quite dark implications...

Important to note that even in flashbacks she never speaks. Which I think is just for dramatic flair and not indicative of any condition she had while alive, but it hammers in the point that Aizawa is mute. And it was very deliberate to show us other ghosts can talk. Getting Aizawa's voice back or finding out why she can't speak will probably be a major part of the plot later.

Every time a new chapter is translated, I come here to write that this manga is CRAZY GOOD.

I fear I'm becoming repetitive and boring.

I don't know how it is for other scanlators, but with all the time it takes typesetting manga, I drive myself crazy with every wild thought bouncing around my head. A lot of the time I lose all perspective on the chapter since anything gets stale when you've read it 20 times. So I always appreciate every comment and reaction, no matter how meaningless they might seem. And writing out big walls of text helps detox my brain.

Since this is another 2-parter and chapter 7's raws aren't out yet, I didn't want to skip ahead guessing which bits of the flower meaning are relevant.
But one of the most common meanings for Kochia is to bare all secrets.

Even having read the original, I'm excited to meet Snake Princess in person since her character's gone through several changes. But she's likely going to be just as important to the first major arc. Glad to see Natalia back to her usual cool self too.

So Komachi isn't weird with Seo, just Akira. And also everyone else.

I assume when Komachi says she loved the old Seo she means how willful and individualistic she was. It's what she told Satsuki she admires about her too. Komachi might idolize anyone willing to break away from social rules and follow through with their desires, good or bad. Too early to guess what that says about Komachi, but it probably isn't what Seo wants to hear right now.

Alright so, is it just me or did the President's moral suffered retcons? Because he went from "Some people deserves to die" to "Everyone will die you shouldn't interfere" to "Some people deserves to die" again?

Because like, why on his view Satsuki deserves to live but their Teacher doesn't? What is the reason that makes someone worthy of life in his eyes? He doesn't know almost anything about the people he is judging

Above board, Kai theorizes changing fated corpses results in another death happening later. He wants to make as little changes as possible but would save someone's life if they were valuable enough. During Sensei's arc he did say he'd be happy to save him. Satsuki is too valuable to let die regardless, since she can also see deaths, but he does consider her a good person too.

The contradiction here is his methods of murder have all involved probability and generating countless corpses for each kill, sometimes even getting bystanders' corpses to show up, but obviously that doesn't bother him.

In truth, I think he's desperately searching for justification. Ever since killing his teacher he's wanted to believe he's doing the right thing. He doubles down on this idea that some people are just so rotten death is all they deserve. And so this belief that fate demands death (which he has no proof of) reinforces the idea that his kills are simply the best outcome.

Satsuki is especially important because she's a moral paragon with the same powers. If he could get her to compromise her morals and admit his way is right, that would be incredibly reassuring. They wouldn't be murderers, just death's cleanup crew simply doing what's necessary. The pleasure he takes in killing is more like a fervent denial that he's doing anything wrong, since he can't take any of it back. He'd be a lot like Satsuki in that regard, traumatized and driven in an attempt to make amends for an early encounter with death.

Personally I'm not going to take this theory that each life saved results in another death as fact yet. There's just not enough evidence besides the incredible rate of deaths. If we're meant to tie this into the massacre in the first pages of chapter 1, why hasn't there been another mass death event like that? It's always one or two bodies. Clearly there isn't some death backlog that gets paid back all at once. So that must be something beyond this rationalizing of fate. It just seems to be important that Satsuki gets the trolley problem in her head for now.

• Expectation: Senpai will finally shine some light on what's happening and help steer Michi in the right direction.
• Reality: Senpai is clueless and there's no brakes on this train.

Didn't see that coming but I love it. From a girl who sees ghosts and refuses to acknowledge them, to a girl who doesn't understand ghosts and always calls them out. The status quo won't survive a single normal conversation between Sayaka and Michi if Aizawa's present. And if I were Aizawa, Sayaka would be the first person I'd try to get to help untangling this mess.

I guess this confirms Kasumi's hairclip was hidden on the locker because of bullying. Sayaka's line about lots of creepy people at school lately either means she only got these powers recently or something's drawing all the ghosts here. And while she is dense as a handsome brick, Sayaka's not a complete idiot. She came up with a clear excuse about club to get Kasumi out of talking to that guy and is extremely wary of Michi. Not without reason since Kasumi might have a crush on both girls.

There's also a bit of weirdness in Kasumi saying chapter 3 was the 2nd time she and Michi spoke, while Michi did say she'd never spoken to anyone since school started. Could be important.

Though it's understated (it'll be hard to beat this chapter's lack of ghosts record) I love Dorothy's varied approaches to horror. Even these silly drawings come with tense anticipation and letting your imagination run wild with the ghosts' actual appearance. The blood and sounds of the cat in particular must be nasty, but the man is practically deformed beyond recognition; he's like something out of Otherside Picnic. This manga's making a strong example case for the shared elements in writing comedy and horror.

I've probably brought up this crackpot theory before but bear with me.

Way back in chapter 27 an unidentified girl presumably asks Seo to go to the deathtrap Prez set up. Now more than likely that's Sayoko, but the ambiguity led to people wondering if it's maybe Komachi instead. The trouble is, this girl uses "Seo-san", Seo's family name. Seo's given name is Mizuka.

Why does this matter? Well Komachi has this habit of calling everyone by their given name. Satsuki-chan, Miho-chan, Sae-chan, etc. With one exception: Atou-san. Which got played off as a gag, but is that really all there is to it? It could be she makes some special distinction for both Akira and Seo. We've never seen Seo and Komachi interact before, but if I could play a little game of connect the dots:

Miho bullies Komachi but stopped 1 year ago. Seo was Miho's partner in crime and probably bullied Komachi too. Something happened between Miho and Seo that led to Seo wanting to kill Miho, and also seemingly may have given Seo suicidal tendencies. There's reasonable room to think this little devil-horn-hairclipped weirdo was involved. It could give us some backstory, and also answer if Komachi was ever accomplice to Prez's murders.

As a bonus connection, the girl Seo was bullying back in chapter 27, who looked at Komachi(?) with admiration, is now the girl Komachi catches bullying Seo. I'm actually more excited/afraid to see how this plays out than last chapter's cliffhanger.

The term "anxiety yuri" just keeps being more appropriate. And I'm especially shocked here. I didn't think Keyyan was willing to be this cruel for a manga that began so idealistic. Hopefully that brighter tomorrow is still on the horizon, just a ways further off than they thought.

The concept that everyone is fated to die as a result of Satsuki's actions has been referenced 3 times: twice from Kai and once from Satsuki right at the start of the manga.

But they don't add up. Kai claims this started when Satsuki enrolled. Satsuki pins everything on the day she first saved Komachi, a year later. And I'm more willing to side with her, not only because she's speaking from the future.

We've seen Satsuki trace a clear chain of events after Michiru nearly burned Miho to death: Michiru's love took a twisted turn after she saw Satsuki attack Miho in the pool. Satsuki only got so aggressive with Miho because of the way she treated Komachi. Miho only relapsed into bullying Komachi because... Satsuki saved her that first time.

Continuing forward: Seo took advantage of Michiru's instability to trick her into killing Miho over some unstated history. Miho found out about it and now seems to be inciting a war trying to get Seo killed. Events keep rippling forward and this sense of mob justice is affecting more of the school.

I'm fairly sure there's a misdirection going on.
Satsuki's overwhelming guilt leaves her feeling responsible even for those minor connections. We know she's been obsessively saving people for years yet it's the first time with Komachi which is most important. Which leads me to believe fate isn't truly responsible for the ultimate tragedy; that's a direct result of Satsuki's own actions. There's no evidence of fate literally demanding a death for every life Satsuki saves, despite Kai's superstitions.

But it's undeniable there's an insane amount of deaths happening exclusively around her. There is a supernatural force at work here, just one that might not work like Kai thinks. After all Michiru's death didn't cause it to stop. Both meanings, metaphorical and literal, could simultaneously be true. And the answer probably isn't as simple as "let one person die to save everyone."

The question always comes back to Komachi's role. Why does Satsuki put her at the heart of it? Why not one step removed, blame saving Miho in the pool?

Well Komachi enrolled at the same time as Satsuki. She's happened to be present for many accidental deaths, including the choking boy and the girl in the library. And there's something deeply wrong with her that seems to get ignored because both sides paint her as nothing but an innocent victim.

(Once again it's impossible not to draw connections to Tokiko, which could be a great meta-misdirection on its own but I'm sure Komachi won't end up unsympathetic either.)

I don't think we're near the end yet but I do think we're at the start of Satsuki finally waking up a little to Komachi's danger. And maybe Sensei can start applying some more scientific method to the mechanisms of fate.

While this is based on an older twitter manga, this interlude is the first chapter to directly pull a plot from it, though greatly refined and extended (3 into 10 pages). It's a neat reference point for an author's growth.

I'd normally save the twitter extras for later, since they tend to come with minor spoilers, but this one released on the same day to tie in with the chapter and is way too sweet. Something about learning a language for love always gets me.

bwhahaha took me a second read to figure out the words were just backward and upsidedown, was it printed like that in the original?

Yep that's unaltered. Even the text in the book seems to be complete English sentences, though the resolution's too low to read.

And Aizawa didn't notice the other spirits in the shed, nor the MEG who may or may be not inside Michi? Could it be that Aizawa is a ghost who cannot perceive other ghosts?

It wouldn't shock me if it has to do with her nature. It's been made a point several times Aizawa is rapidly evolving and different from normal ghosts, and even if Michi isn't experienced enough to make that call it would still be an odd move narratively to contradict that. Either Aizawa can't see ghosts herself or somehow drives them off through sheer bubbly gay energy. It is weird that action scene just dissolves the moment she shows up. Maybe we'll get some kind of explanation next time.

It will probably be brushed off with something like “Kasumi-chan was too tired so she fell unconscious on top of Michi while trying to hug her”. And Michi herself will believe that and be oblivious about the Yuri ghost.
Until something like this happens a second time, maybe with another person, and/or Aizawa’s ghost herself goes straight for the mouth when “touching” her (despite not being able to feel anything, that’s as good as it gets for a sign)

I don't know if density can survive a situation this far gone. Aizawa knows what she did, Senpai might realize her girlfriend(?) got possessed and at least knows there's some horny ghost chasing this girl around, and Michi will notice Aizawa freaking out around Senpai. It all depends on if Senpai levels with Michi about her haunting but I don't see much reason to prolong it with the mark being a serious issue. The story easily has enough legs at this point to grow beyond Michi ignoring Aizawa.

Plus I really want to see that relationship triangle of Senpai forgiving Michi and giving her some guidance, Michi still being terrified of Senpai, and Senpai losing it at the dumb ghost that keeps running to Michi for safety.

Also I'm not sure how much stock to put in this, but Aizawa is the cover manga of next month's issue of Comic Valkyrie so it might be a big deal chapter.

Edit: actually, I find it super strange how, when Michi first sees that ghost waiting in the storage shed, her response is to make an excuse to get Kasumi away and then go in alone. Why did she do that?

She did mention she had a weird feeling about this one and probably figured she's better off alone since she can see and avoid it just in case. It'd be hard to talk Kasumi through that.

Michi already has a case of a ghost "attacking" her without acknowledging it, Aizawa herself, but she still naively assumes the situation won't get too bad so long as she ignores them. Which is why she thought she tripped instead of getting grabbed. Though I'm speculating that's not because this ghost is particularly unique but because of the mark's influence.

Tangentially, I like the little theme of protectiveness in this chapter. Aizawa helping Michi and crying a little when she knows she's safe, Michi going out of her way to keep Kasumi away from the slightest chance of trouble, Reona immediately getting serious when Kasumi's hurting and taking charge with Michi, and Senpai hastily jumping to conclusions in Kasumi's defense.