That the end? Well! Nicely done! Very enjoyable read. What a ride!

Oh. Awfully true to the source material. This was splendid!

Reading the 11 pages of the discussion, it's amusing how many people didn't get the character of Kurokawa. At least at first. I surmise that, now, they must be understanding her a little better... right?

I mean, it's not that hard to get. The hetero version of the trope is as old as literature. You know what I'm talking about? The story where the female lead claims to hate this guy who is super handsome, cool, rich, popular and has dozens of sexy women at his feet... she hates him, hates, hates, totally hates... then one day he confesses his love to her and asks her to marry him, and she fly-glomps him and starts kissing him. Yeah, cuz she didn't really hate him, what she hated was the fact that he didn't pay attention to her; once that's fixed, all's well in the world and they can start making babies. What we have here in "Useless Princesses" is a variant of this old trope on a yuri note. Kurokawa doesn't really hate those haughty, beautiful, arrogant, sexy, snobby alpha bitch princesses. She loves them and puppy-adores them and crushes on them like crazy. What she hates about them is that they won't return her feelings! That's why she has these (seemingly) contradictory sentiments of "I hate her, she's a bully!" and "I want to protect her shining smile!"

I obviously need to read more heterosexual romance. If I ever want to write good stuff, I'm going to at least know what's common and what's been done to death.

It seems quite clear to me that Kurokawa is a little lesbian in the making, who may or may not completely understand herself yet. Even her love of BL/yaoi fits in the picture. (It's a genre for girls by girls, and the characters are usually projections of female fantasies, to a point that it has been described as "lesbian fantasies in male drag" by some researchers...)

I've heard a few times that some gay women had a thing for yaoi or male/male slash fiction and such when they were young. No idea how prevalent it was when I heard it or how prevalent might be nowadays.

The one character I myself find kind of puzzling is Fujishiro. Okay, so being dumped by her trophy boyfriend was a big shock, sure... and being comforted by Kurokawa was nice, yeah... but going from there to "I'm-a dumping all my old friends and I'm-a relinquishing my queen bee position and from now on I'll live with Kurokawa in a cozy little hole in a quiet corner of the classroom, just the two of us, forevah!" is, like, kinda too big of a leap... obviously there's something in her psychology that escapes me...

Very good point. Definitely noticed this. Hope there is something to it.

Also. They are probably use to thinking of Fujishiro as a bit of a jerk and a bully. You probably would get a little weary if someone you didn't like started hanging with one of your friends, right?

At least asking that friend for their side of the story before shunning them is just common courtesy (and basic decency), right? Especially when they're rather visibly finding the turn of events awkward.

Yes. You are correct but i was under the impression they were just "considering" shunning her.

Holy . . . crap . . . that last part cracked me up. Did not see that coming. and the terrific build up. I know that I and my opinions are nothing special but there are a lot of yuri that come off as junk compared to this.imho of course.

I like this.
Like, there's the problems with bully/victim ships, yeah, and there's the "Hollywood Homely" trope in play, and the popular girl is a little too bitchy to forgive... but, three things make me really like this:
1: I just really like the whole "the school's alpha bitch learns to be a decent human being" trope. I watched a lot of the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a kid, and Cordelia Chase's character arc was always my favorite. She's, like, the bully alpha bitch (a trope that I was familiar with even then because it's so ubiquitous in media about highschool, especially in America) when she's first introduced, but she keeps learning things that make her act a little less awful, and by the time Angel starts, she's become this fairly down-to-earth girl who makes Star Wars puns about her ghost roommate.
2: I really like Gyarus, but pretty much all content about gyarus is either mocking, het, or Galko (and Galko is great, without a doubt, but it's kinda doing its own thing without pandering to my desires). So, there's not nearly enough Gyaru yuri in the world. And what little gyaru yuri there is is mostly Citrus, which doesn't count to me because A) she's just a poser, and B) I don't even like Citrus anyway.
3: And finally, the first chapter- the one that's actually from her point of view- kinda comes off to me as pitiful rather than hateful? Like, I don't read that and go, "Christ, what a bitch", I read it and go, "Christ, she's got a really fucked-up view of the world, and I feel sorry for her- she's clearly been brainwashed by certain aspects of society. If only someone would open her eyes, she'd be nicer AND happier.".
Though, uh. Eight pages of discussion already. Man, people certainly have opinions about this series.

Really? The absolute majority of gyarus I've read in yuri are absolute sweet hearts! I really like them. They often have this very down to earth,every-man/woman and friendly feel to them. I don't know how to describe it exactly.(and I'm probably doing a terrible job) I should comb my favorites to get a good list of examples. My dream is for someone to pair one up with a delinquent type character. :3 but I tend to avoid het and don't like Citrus so there could be plenty of stories I've missed featuring gyarus.

I also have a thing for the bitch with a heart of gold types. Or ones that get a heart later, as is often the case.(every fellow fan of this, main Karin in Street Fighter!) Fujishiro's bossiness does have an appeal. Very quick to act even if we don't see things the way she does. And some really fun expressions. Don't quite agree with how she told her friends off, even though they were in the wrong, so I hope this addressed later and used to help her grow. And that dramatic makeover was a nice surprise! Quite the declaration.

I see why people aren't happy with either group of friends but I wonder why they are so quick to write them off? They may realize they are making mistakes later too. Also. They are probably use to thinking of Fujishiro as a bit of a jerk and a bully. You probably would get a little weary if someone you didn't like started hanging with one of your friends, right? Add to that, relationships are different in different countries. Even Kurokawa mentions the way things are likely to play out based on the actions Fujishiro suggests taking for this particular class/school.

This story is very worth putting up with a small, boring makeover arch that might not be over yet.

last edited at Aug 12, 2018 11:42PM

Mmm. Surprised I like even a few of this authors works. Her tastes and mine done match up at all. Which is fine. but the art on the credits page though!

what an interesting dynamic.

Still enjoying. I think some part of the back of my mind was bothered by that offer coming from a superior for what seemed like a date with our lead feeling like she can't refuse but eh. The comments here have pretty much said enough on that matter. Will. Stay. Tuned. For now.

Oh. A spin off. Not too bad! Might have been better with an extra chapter like someone here suggested.

@katewarner.
That's pretty much all I could remember him doing. (forgot he was Diana's friend)Doing his own thing. A budding respect for Akko. He didn't seem to like Akko that much at first. like EVERY other freaking character on the show.
I don't understand Corix. That lady was so boring.

This rawks! From what I remember of the show, what did Andrew do that's making me constantly come across these hate comments?

Ultimately, as in most stories like this one, the whole premise is demolished by the author's failure to make the main character ugly. You can't just draw a normal girl, put some glasses on her, and call her ugly. Now I have to just pretend that this character, who obviously isn't ugly, is. When the author of a visual medium forces you to ignore your own eyes in order to buy into their story, they have completely failed.

eh. Yeah! That usually does bug me more.
There are shows where characters are called fat but never drawn that way. Another where one "NEVER" wears skirts halfway through the show after wearing one for half the season. I may be remembering that one wrong. It was a boring arse show anyway.

Here. I think I was too busy expecting this turn of events, and prepared to bored to death with the makeover arch, that I didn't really think much about the visuals not matching what we were being told at all. Maybe something interesting can come from that boring old arch.

EVERY thing else in this chapter was really good though. I really like the way the lead character's relationship is developing. The lighter haired one is taking an interest in the other and even reevaluating the info she already had. Very interested to see how genuine this interest becomes. She's perusing some recommended manga. Will they click of any of them? What's going to be yuri trigger @_@. Ah. Not to many stories manage to even get me to care this much.

So one of the girls wasn't down for putting down eyebrows and one of the others actually wanted to read a certain manga? Maybe there is hope for them as well. Not necessary but it could be nice!

That was awesome! Loved every second of it. Could definitely work as a series.

hmm. Some of the comments before my last one were actually referring to the last chapter and I didn't even realize it was up some how. Oh well.

Still feel about the same. Interested in the side couple. Curious about the main one.

Don't even know what this is from but this was a nice ready.
Page 5-6 shows how all marriages will be decided upon going forward. Take notes.

Cough. Can't seem to blame people for not liking Kuro. Not sure what to say about this latest tiny development. I think, and I'm far from any kind of expert, relationships can be healthy but may not look it. I think this may be one of those but eh. Who knows. Back to waiting!

Got not much too say about the main story.

Very good!
Looks like it's going . . . light harem to me which I can deal with. I hate love triangles and harems are that turned up to 11 but looks like there will just be a few crushes and maybe(hopefully) a short lived rival.

Which is good cause everything else about this is appealing. Surprised so much hate for Kagamii. Seems like the good old, seems mean but is nice later type to me.

Glad this is still getting worked on!

That was nice.

This has the potential to do so well, I'm very excited to see what direction it goes. I like that eyebrows has her own stuff that she's into (even if she's just a classic yaoi-nerd) and I'm glad she's not been forever lesbian pining for princess girl. And also that she doesn't even really like MC much because well she's a bitch, but still likes her... ascetically? Lol

I'm just super hoping that when (because it will happen) MC tries to make eyebrows look 'cute' that it just looks horrible on her and eyebrows stays as she is but owns it. It's just her confidence that is her problem, not her looks

Even better if MC develops her own interests and doesn't fuss over her hair and makeup so much

Really im just excited to see the romance develop, this shtick is totally my deal

Yeah to all of this.

A few ideas I didn't like have already been ruled out by this very nice chapter. And the other girl STILL has a lot of growing to do which is also nice.

Really don't want the "make her cuter" thing to be prominent or even take up much of the story cause it would be boring.

MC doesn't even like the other girl all that much. Makes the how the heck do they fall for each other even more interesting.

last edited at Jul 19, 2018 3:46AM

Can you stop the Tumblr tier debate and just appreciate the cute art?

I don't think it's tumlr tier level yet. Though there is a lot of "shudup" and you're "overrating" feelings in a lot of these comments which always goes a long way in conversation as we all know.

Personally though. "Cute art" is one of the cringiest f**king things. I can stand it to an extend but the prevalence of it in anime and manga type things really gets to me sometimes. That's the real debate here! Kidding. While really don't like it I do my best to respect that others do.

last edited at Jul 18, 2018 3:42PM

I will stick to the side that says this is not whitewashing and you guys are overreacting.
I always found it ironic that the same kind of people who complain about whitewashing also changes the race of other characters, including anime characters who are supposed to be Japanese (probably because the art style and hair/eye colors make them look white). Not saying whitewashing isn't wrong, but I don't see how that's any less racist.

And besides, I don't see anyone complaining about how human Pearl doesn't have the single pointy tooth. And how she was made more attractive (because canon Pearl is rather ugly tbh). The artist just didn't color human Marina's skin at all in the uncolored pics, that's not weird. And it's hard for a 3D character to have a consistent color scheme anyway, so saying her skin color is lighter than usual is not an excuse.

I like they way cannon pearl looks and I thought the "human" version this artist did should have resembled it more . . . just my opinion though.

I was super confused because the black one was immediately not black anymore.

this threw me as well. Great comic apart from that.
Not sure why some artist take dark skinned characters and make them lighter so often but they aren't real so I guess all I can say in the end is I favor "those" elements of the original.

That was fun. Let it rock!