Also! someone who knows Japanese and doesn't mind a bit of spoiler of Euphonium LN, would be so kind as to translate what does this means? https://twitter.com/ultimatemegax/status/1115692715772141576

The non-blurry part says "On this day, Kumiko and Shuuichi stopped being a couple."

From several posts on the JP Yahoo! Answers it seems the Chuurenpoutou myth was popularized by the 1969-1972 mahjong novel 麻雀放浪記.

Coincidentally enough the manga adaptation of the novel is being scanlated and the first reference to the Chuurenpoutou myth was scanlated just yesterday (ch. 37):
https://mangadex.org/title/5343/tetsuya-jansei-to-yobareta-otoko

The general idea behind the myth is due to the rarity of the 'pure' form of the yakuman, similar to the 13-way wait of the 'pure' Kokushi Musou.
The pure form of Chuurenpoutou is: 1112345678999m
With the given shape, a player can win on any manzu tile 123456789m (the 9 possible winning tiles is the origin of the yaku's name).
However, due to the furiten rule of Riichi mahjong (forbids winning off other players if you discarded one of your own winning tiles at any point), to legitimately achieve the 'pure' form a player needs to complete the hand without ever drawing any duplicates. The occurance of that is rare enough that apparently the hand has been joked about as requiring "a lifetime's luck".

^

そう思っていると突然その男は僕の見ている目の前でツナギのホツクをはずしはじめたのだ
As I was thinking that, that man suddenly began to unzip himself right in front of my eyes

突然 and 僕 are really common words. If you want to improve kanji recognition/general japanese comprehension, install a browser plugin like rikaikun
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rikaikun/jipdnfibhldikgcjhfnomkfpcebammhp?hl=en
and make it a habit to read japanese text. Sites like pixiv/syosetu have plenty of fanfic/original fiction to practice on.

So according to the author's notes the father is Marisa after genderbending herself, whom the author refers to as "Mario".

^ I just finished reading Lonely Yuri too. That was perfect and left me breathless by the end. Short form visual novels actually are an amazing medium, you really can't find this degree of development and happy ending easily within the pagecount confines of manga or subtext confines of anime. Reminded me for the first time in a while of the kind of emotion that het romance could never hope to hold a candle to.

http://www.dlsite.com/eng/work/=/product_id/RE079647.html
(Minakata Sunao did the art.)

Read this blog entry. Despite it's based on ep.1, it's still mostly correct. And I'll keep posting my thoughts after every episode. As long as there's anything to add. But I'm pretty sure there will be ^_^ The previous entry could be an interesting read too, but it's far less precise as I posted it without even watching ep.1 - purely based on two manga chapters, some rumours, and analysis of Ikuhara's tropes and influences.

That is just. Amazing.
You made me lose my words.

^ Have to agree, that's some great stuff. I'm having a good time with the show as well, this season is turning out pretty solid.

I don't think the ending had anything in particular to do with anybody being an asshole.

Risa liked stuffed animals because they were cute.
Izumi liked Risa because she's cute.
Nakabayashi (the guy) criticized Risa's fondness for cute things, saying she only cared about appearances.
Risa apparently gave up on stuffed animals in order to appeal to Nakabayashi.
As Nezchan described, Izumi felt her own attraction to Risa was shallow, because of how easily Risa gave up on her inner character (liking cute things).

The ending comes as Izumi discovers that Risa hadn't given up her love for cute things after all, and was still the same on the inside. Risa's love for cute things is an integral part of her, because (as Risa says) she's "a girl". Izumi decides in the same way not to give up on her love for Risa, because that's also an integral part of her. So the ending is about Izumi calling up Nakabayashi and telling him to let her come along so she can harass(?) them on their date.

http://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/chouchou_nannan_ch05#13

Fuckin' lol. Snow White's plot really seems pretty dumb laid out like that. Then again, fairy tale themes are practically sickeningly primitive by definition.

As for the story itself, I'm with everyone else who is slightly hesitant about fully getting behind Nao. The story's title is 'Call and Response' -- since Aoi's oblivious, maybe it's Chihiro doing the calling and Nao doing the responding? Each step pulling their underhanded natures more to the surface. Don't take this srs.

I dunno where the idea that Yomi was in love with Mia came from. Or that she was using her relationship with Mahiru to distract herself from it.

Here's my read of the plot:
- Mahiru is in love with Yomi, confesses. Yomi accepts but the feelings are obviously stronger on one side.
- Mia is in love with Yomi too. Mia continually tempts/tries to act on her feelings by doing things like making moves on Yomi while she's asleep.
- Yomi is turned on by the forbidden temptation of her sister's actions. When Mia lays herself out as bait in response to having seen Yomi with her girlfriend, Yomi finds herself returning Mia's seduction.
- Yomi feels that she herself is a lewd/easy woman. She sees the same thing in her sister, and connects that (in terms of blood/heredity) with their never present mother, who is always out with random men. The latter fact disgusts her, so she cannot accept her relationship with her sister (for both their sakes). She also cannot handle the guilt/feeling of having dirtied herself for having cheated on Mahiru, so she puts on a brave front and announces she'll move away.
- Mia's feelings towards Yomi probably did not arise from a simple sexual urge which threw away the rules of society, but rather their home situation where Mia also felt the lack of parental figures herself. Mia's advances upon Yomi echo Sakana no Miru Yume to me: an attempt to bind Yomi to her, to secure some small degree of stability.

The "coward" in the title could refer to all three characters. Yomi for running away from the responsibilities of her act upon her sister, and the potential rejection of Mahiru to her unsightly/weak true character. Mahiru for brushing away her deepening insecurities regarding Yomi's feelings, and allowing their relationship to persist as lukewarm water. And Mia for attempting to abscond herself into a private world of pleasure and security, making her sister a substitute to a wider world where she would have to stand weak and alone.

The story reads to me as complete. Just as all three characters were cowards, all three suffered, were punished, and correspondingly could be read as freed. Yomi who has firmly stepped out from the shadow of her lust. Mahiru who has found the courage to demand more for the price of her affection. And Mia who in her regret may have found a resolve to face the world upright. Overall I like the themes and relationships of this oneshot. I always find something of worth in Yui_7's work.

last edited at Jan 3, 2015 10:11AM

This is definitely a pretty neat development. For the sake of things like this, I wonder if the idea of integrating relevant releases from external sites onto the release list might not be something Dynasty wants to play with; providing them with the same searchable presence and bumpable discussion available here as for other releases.

Hibari was one of Kaede and Micchi's other otaku friends. If I recall right it was the tabletop RPG chapter when they got introduced, so probably ch. 13.

Merry Christmas indeed. This was too damned good. Props to Girls in Boxes for the string of releases these past few days.

Since Tomo went out of her way to state that this is in a parallel universe from Dizzying Asterism, I wonder if she has plans to put out something else for that continuity. I totally would have just assumed this was a sequel otherwise.

All this confusion, lol. I hadn't heard of this series before either, but even if it's subtext, it's pretty neat that the author herself is making yuri doujins for it.

And yes, the fact that Ooshima Towa and Ooshima Tomo are roommates and using such similar pennames is pretty interesting, lol.

Incidentally, although Ooshima Towa is not to be confused with Ooshima Tomo, I believe she is indeed to be confused with Oshima Towa [edit: have confirmed they are the same person]. I only happened to stumble across Tomo and Towa's relationship as well as Towa's name on a random series in my 'To Read' list a couple days ago; it's pretty neat to have a more recent idea of what Towa's worked on.

last edited at Dec 24, 2014 12:20PM

This is probably my preferred ship for the second years. Been wondering if anybody would actually ever do it. I loved this a lot (Kotori especially was great, but then she's my favourite second year in the first place), now I'm just wondering if I'll get to see a story with at least explicit kisses amongst all three combinations of them.

^^^ Nice, I was thinking it was just about time for me to look mine up too. I'll be available for a challenge anyone who likes at "Sol_Falling", apparently.

About controllers, I've got a pro controller as well but haven't tried it out yet much 'cause I've given it precedence to my bro/flatmate when we were playing. I found the gamepad extremely awkward at first myself but then once I looked into singleplayer/Classic Mode (and began compulsively grinding for custom moves, lol) I've begun using it pretty exclusively because you can use it without even being in the same room as the console/TV, haha. I guess that would be my recommendation if you wanna get used to it (play while using the gamepad screen), 'cause it honestly just feels pretty much like a supersized portable in that case. (Although a standard controller like the GameCube's probably really is better for Smash; I think I will switch over to the pro at some point.)

On a separate note, Dat classic mode tho. I tried it out a couple days ago just planning to beat it once with each character in order but... first I got massacred a couple times against the surprise final boss forms, and then I found out there's also some kind of crazy labyrinth thing at intensity 8.0 or higher. Shit was nuts, I made it all the way down to Zelda before I crossed the 8.0 intensity wall. Afterwards, I figured I'd take the chance to go all the way for intensity 9.0, but even the regular stages were insane (8 player "free for alls" where you have 7 level 9 computers all actually chasing after you, holy fuckin' shit haha). I eventually figured out that Zelda's neutral B makes a great way to stall while everyone's coming after you, and then finally took down the boss with her sweetspot airs. It was like a hell of frustration which took hours to get through, but the taste of victory was pretty sweet in the end.

Of course, I only found out afterwards about equipment and custom moves, lol. Custom moves aside, I hadn't realized equipment was so damn cheap. After I finally beat 9.0 Classic with default Zelda, I thought it'd be freakin' impossible to do that again with most of the other characters. Since I happened to check out the character customizer due to being curious about all that stuff which dropped from Classic mode, however, I began noticing equipment with effects like 1.5x damage at 0% (This shit has got to be banned in competitive play, lol). For anybody who ends up having trouble with any of the single player stuff, I really recommend trying out at least some of the options there, 'cause it's primarily thanks to that that I've been able to subsequently 9.0 classic with at least 10 other characters in a row.

last edited at Dec 21, 2014 3:49AM

^^^ Question is what did Nico invite Maki there for in the first place? Ooshima's NicoMaki works haven't had much of that tsuntsun dynamic lately even though that's like the NicoMaki thing (mostly 'cause it doesn't actually work so well once the two are together?), in some ways you could say this doujin was that dialed up to eleven.

The thing I disliked about anime Nico was that she really was just that self-centred, being pointlessly snide towards Maki and stuff because she stood out more than her. It was an obstacle to shipping for me 'cause it just seemed like Nico couldn't be in any functional relationship, like how could she even love someone if she was that obsessed with making herself the star. I've basically come this far as a NicoMaki fan by saying "lol, screw the anime characterization" but this is close to the only doujin I've seen thus far that's actually dealt with that conflict in Nico's personality.

lol, 'but did it have to be rape?' I dunno, but the way Nico and Maki were blasting each other with words and feelings sure did make the sex delicious.

Anyway, I loved this just as much as Ooshima's other stuff. Hooray for me, I guess.

last edited at Dec 17, 2014 2:13AM

Awesome new chapters! Thanks for the work!

About the two uncertain points in ch.6:
Page 67, panel 2: The referenced character is Toudou Shimako, another Marimite character. She comes from a Buddhist family and so dresses in kimonos at home/on her days off.
Page 69, panel 7: That kanji you're looking at is probably just a miswritten 犯, as in 犯人.

All this UST coming from Yuzuki towards Aoi, lol. Can't wait for the moment when she gives in.

Chapter linking for this from chapter 1 to chapter 2 is broken.

Whoa, this is from the actual artist of the latter Three Fairies series. I guess that makes this semi-official. Pretty cool.

Eiki is the cutest. Hooray for this. KomaEiki is great, but I'd totes be up for some ByakuEiki too.

First of all, commercial arguments about Ume's works really lack in perspective. As an artist, Ume has already hit it huge with Madoka and Hidamari Sketch. There's absolutely no reason to expect her to make a work about incest or whatever just because "that's what Japan wants".

What it actually comes down to is what does Ume want. And in that regard, yes it's clear that Ume has a history of doing both yuri and het. (She also has a history of hardly ever edging past the line of subtext in her non-doujinshi works, this is in fact the more likely scenario for this series, you won't be seeing much het even if the story actually is heading in that direction.)

My own feelings about Ume are that, whatever her inclinations are regarding het, you will be extremely unlikely to ever see her actually shitting upon yuri. And that's what leads me to chapter 3. As an individual chapter, it has an effect of strongly reorienting the story towards yuri. For the story (interpreted as het/pseudo-incest romance) as a whole, it comes off as mildly schizophrenic. My personal interpretation is it's Ume backing off on the het/incest angle. A true yuri end would still be a surprise, but I don't expect the het now to get past subtext either.

You've got the red string of fate imagery from chapter 2. But if this really went het after ch.3, that'd be really shitty. Why introduce a yuri side character in the first place? And why make it seem like the guy would be interested/supportive of a yuri relationship? If he ends up getting together with the sister regardless, it'd be like a deliberate demonstration of not taking female-female relationships seriously/seeing them as competition.

I'm gonna bank on this not going het for now. Guess I'll just drop it if it ever actually does.

I'm glad Ritz is giving Nodoka some good development. She's personally my favourite player because her digital style is the only (conceivably) imitable mahjong style in real life, so I'm actually always hoping to see her kick ass against this series' monsters. (Ako is also my favourite player from Achiga as well, so I gotta admit the stuff she said in this chapter was really satisfying.)

There are other characters who are my favourites in Saki for being freakin' awesome (Toki, Sukoyan), but Nodoka's probably the one I've been dying most to see win. So glad this match is finally here. Hype!

In terms of canon + popular consensus, the only subtext Koromo is ever involved with is with her and Fujita, I think (kinda awkward on account of the age gap, not to mention being kind of one-sided so it doesn't get much serious play). The standard Hajime x Touka subtext is also present in this work. I agree that the focus of the doujin is kinda undeniably not yuri so I would be for the removal of the tag.

All that aside, though--shit, that was seriously cute. Aside from doing really great stuff with the characters, it makes me recall the excitement which followed the first anime season. Thanks for the bump!

^ It isn't like native speakers are gonna be particularly rare? In the first place the specific 'xiao' being talked about is the one written 小, which typically means 'small'. When prefixed to a person's name it does have a very similar sense to "chan" or "kun" in Japanese; you'll see it used as a term of endearment from parents towards children, between people who've known each other since they were young, or between peers/coworkers sort of indicating a subordinate or kouhai relationship.

(Take my Chinese fluency with a grain of salt, as I didn't grow up over there, but the above is my sense of it.)