I have trouble coping with the characterization in this manga.

It seems really straightforward to me, though? Naori's dream is to be a bartender. She loves serving alcohol to people. She hardly needs a compelling reason, she jumped for joy the first time she had an opportunity to do so. I don't know why people are treating this as though they just witnessed infidelity. Neither Hinata nor Anju are going to have a good time if they expect her to be exclusive.

The second personality trait ever introduced for Naori, incidentally, right after her love for mixing drinks... was being weak to pressure. So that's also very in-line with her characterization.

I guess you can complain about the author setting up this kidnapping scenario at all if you wanted to view serving drinks to an oni as a romantic/sexual metaphor (as vampires and drinking blood often is), but in terms of characterization, it's spot on in my view. Honestly I would prefer to read about exclusivity myself, but the story was never set up for that from the beginning since it runs contrary to Naori's desire to own her own shop, and I think her serving alcohol to another oni at some point was basically inevitable.

last edited at Oct 1, 2023 3:00PM

dang those comments are lowkey rude af, poor taiga

I'm a bad person, because the prospect of her marrying this guy so she can spend all of his money on her mistress is the first time I've been interested in the manga. I want to see the fireworks in the comments if the manga about a scumbag owns it and has the most scummy conclusion possible.

Although on further consideration, I guess it wouldn't even be a particularly scummy ending for this set of characters. In fact, it actually seems like it would be a happy ending for all involved. Scumbag-chan didn't seem to think twice about marrying a guy as long as he gives her money. Rich guy would know about her mistress, since he'll know what she's spending money on, and from his actions so far, it doesn't seem like he cares about concepts like "love" as long as he gets to marry a cute girl. And the sex worker of all people should have nothing to complain about if her lover sleeps with a rich dude to set her up for life. Especially when the entire reason the girl she loves wants money, is because she's charging her for sex and dates like any other client...

last edited at Sep 22, 2023 8:24PM

Holy shit, this was the first Touhou doujin I ever read so many years ago, back when I didn't even know anything about Touhou beyond vague second-hand exposure. It was interesting to me back then, and I've always remembered it, but I never felt the need to revisit it. Since then, I became a completely obsessed Touhou fanatic, and reading it again now that it was featured made me cry way more than it had any right to. This one's definitely a trip...

It's hard to believe this is a doujin, if you showed me this without context I could believe it's straight from an official volume (pacing aside).

Not related but where does your pfp come from?

woing

I mean this in an entirely complimentary rather than critical way - holy shit, this did not need the supernatural element. The dialogue and characterization and expressiveness is so freaking good that even as somebody who rarely reads het romance, the hook provided by a gimmick was completely unnecessary because I was already completely captivated. This feels like it's in an entirely different class of quality than 95% of manga.

last edited at Sep 7, 2023 12:38PM

I guess nobody is commenting on this here because it's not yuri, but I really love this. It does a really good job of actually capturing the beauty it's talking about.

I find that in a lot of manga/anime with a competitive aspect, I don't really get what they're talking about. Like, one party will win a competition, but if you were to ask me about what I saw, I couldn't tell you why they won. In those scenarios, I feel like I just have to take the characters' words that the winner has the traits they're praising them for. Basically, "informed attractiveness", according to TV tropes, or something of that sense. But that's not the case at all with this manga. Here, the beautiful paintings are genuinely beautiful, rather than being so just because the author/characters say so. It's very well done.

All these doom-and-gloomers in the comments. I'll eat my hat if Hachiko draws a yuri manga without at least 5 chapters of lovey-dovey fluffy flirting.

Everyone's always jumping to "axed" when they don't like an ending, even though this ending was basically locked in four chapters prior.

Well, there you go straight from the authors mouth: axed. I suspected as much, because it would take way more than four chapters to address everything they had been building up.

It's got to be tough being a mangaka. I can only imagine how much it hurts to spend time drawing up a grand story only for it to cancelled halfway through, not only killing your years of effort but also leading people to think your story (and you yourself) suck.

???

Mr. Righteous holy man is under the impression that his agent won. As far as knows, Rosa and Shirafune are already dead. Why is he randomly revealing that he intends to murder Benika???? Even if that is his plan, why announce it?

That sleeping bag sex is the hottest looking thing I've ever seen. And I don't mean that in the sexual way. I think I would literally die in the Japanese summer, seems like more of a winter camping activity...

It would have been more moving if she were dead. Imagine the punch that would have had.

I would have literally died from being so upset. My top 5 favourite stories of all time are all tragedies, so it's not like I don't understand the value... but I could not freaking handle it if this was a tragedy. It was way too fluffy and innocent to have that kind of ending.

The last couple of chapters were like a punch in the gut from how jarring it was. It's not like I didn't see the signs, like a freaking halo over her head, but I thought it was just cutesy manga stuff to set up jokes like the halo lightswitch. I mean... it's Itou Hachi! How could it be anything but fluffy?! It was so freaking hard to read the final chapter because I was crying so much, I would have put the book down and cried myself to sleep if it weren't for the fact that I trusted in Hachi delivering a happily ever after. If she didn't I would not have been able to handle it.

^ I must say, I would have really preferred not to read that. Not entirely sure why you're seeing so many of those images, or how it's relevant to the comic at hand (...I struggle to imagine a fork was involved).

(Ch. 37 edit)
Okay, what the actual fuck.

last edited at Aug 3, 2023 12:52PM

wtf no
:(((((

There is no way that fork maneuver would ever actually work to stop a knife with stabbing force, especially one handed behind the back. It would either slide off the fork upwards or the fork holder would lose their grip.

Look back to Ch 16/17, and you'll recall this universe operates by the Rule of Cool, not the laws of physics for nerds.

Our perfect assassin might be getting a little bit sloppy, letting herself be so easily identified like that.

There's one particular fantasy light novel with a Catholic-esque church that's lead by a lesbian communist vampire. I need more of that in my life.

Slime?

Slime.

Someone please title drop!!

I'm referencing Tensura ("That Time I Got Reincarnated As a Slime"), but unfortunately I can't recommend reading it on that basis. The gay vampire goddess is pretty far into the story, not the main focus at all, and barely gets screen time (...page time?). Which is lamentable. How do you come up with that concept and not write your entire novel series about it?!

If you are reading/watching something from Japan, the church is the bad guy. It's a very safe bet

There's one particular fantasy light novel with a Catholic-esque church that's lead by a lesbian communist vampire. I need more of that in my life.

This chapter cemented my hunch that the author is pretty much just winging it. It's perhaps a small detail, but the name "Babylon" went from being a made-up nickname by the Church that Hibai had never heard before, to an established name that the refugees openly talk about. Given that Hibai brought Benika here for the express purpose of seeing the vigilante violence, there's no way she wouldn't have heard the name before if it's being touted out to a first-time visitor and even has children's songs written about it. I'm surprised such a blatant mistake wasn't caught by the editor.

Of course, as I said before, it's not necessarily a bad thing. This reminds me of a Hollywood action thriller flick (only gayer), which also have similarly lackadaisy writing but which can still be entertaining if you don't think about it too much. That being said, with this being the case I do kind of wish it didn't dive this deep into murky ethical dilemmas, because this doesn't give me confidence that they'll be handled meaningfully.

how they're apparently putting the skulls of everyone they've killed in a big totem for everyone to see and like I don't think that's something you do if your goals are anything less than extremely malicious.

It's pretty easy for me to think of this as not inherently malicious. Whether it's actually effective or not, one of the common reasons people support a death penalty is that they believe it's a deterrent to crime. If you are so inclined to that belief, publicly displaying executions and/or their aftermath is a natural extension of trying to deter crime.

I don't think the intended interpretation here is that the vigilantes are supposed to be fascist, or generally evil, at all. The point of this chapter is showing that life is incredibly harsh in the refugee camp, and they do whatever they must do to survive. It's all well and good to say that people should be imprisoned or rehabilitated for their crimes from a position of privilege, but when feeding a bunch of prisoners means you or your innocent children starve to death, you probably won't have the same feeling of moral absolutism about it. The reality is that a humane justice system is a luxury afford by societal wealth.

The ones actually morally in the wrong here are the government, not the refugee vigilantes, for explicitly excluding refugees from the justice system. That's a fascist policy at work.

I really don't understand why campaigning for change, but not through violence is ever considered being "a force for the status quo"

But they do use violence against refugees. According to her, they assassinate refugees, which is practically the definition of a force working for the status quo. You can't say that refugees aren't allowed to use violence to accomplish their goals when you're using violence yourself to oppress them.

Some things just take time.

I'll just leave this here...

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

last edited at Jul 15, 2023 5:43AM

I suppose it's open to SOME interpretation, but I got it from this line:
"Our influence exists only because we sow accidents among the refugees, namely those who threaten the peace or otherwise prove detrimental to the administration"
"Even if it means condemning them to oppression and exploitation?"
"They will not remain outsiders forever"

That kind of sounds to me like what I was talking about.

Your interpretation seems correct to me, but I get the feeling this was kind of a retcon by the author. The other person was also correct that the people shown to be assassinated originally were both gang members, not refugee leaders. Of course, they had to start with that concept for anybody to be remotely sympathetic to the murderer main character, and I think they maybe lost sight of that when it came time to expand on the factional motivations...

At least, that's my impression. So far I've felt this is more like a "turn your brain off" spy flick than some kind of intricate, masterfully crafted plot.

But, on that note while my brain is on, the defense provided by 'Babylon' for not helping the refugee situation doesn't make any sense to me. They contend that the refugees should be accepted without using force -- and that's literally Babylon's schtick. We got treated to a whole monologue by her about how good they are at causing undetectable 'accidents'. If that's the case, it would be simple for them to remove a few powerful figures who stand as obstacles to refugee rights, without getting the refugees themselves embroiled in conflict or the use of force.

In the end, for me at least, I think this manga is more enjoyable if I don't think about it too much. Some things are just meant to be fun and entertaining on a surface level rather than deeply analysed.

And she might be neuro-divergent.

If liking frilly outfits is neurodivergent, gods help me I do not want to be neurotypical.

My favourite pairing by my favourite mangaka, such a treat.

God x Satan, but it's yuri and will probably need 1000000 chapters for any romantic progress to happen. I feel like them having unlimited time to be useless will make it even worse.

Rival yuri is the one thing I can forgive glacial progress on, though, and this would truly be the ultimate in rival yuri.