I mean, I know it's just the buildup to a punchline, but "Have you failed before?" "Enough that I stopped counting." kinda gutted me.

I know the sound effect is "nibble, nibble" but for a moment the font made me read "wibble" and now I think that's a perfect sound effect for that situation where you nuzzle into a breast and make the nipple go in little circles. Wibble wibble wibble!

Well, given that they only seem to use one bed even with Hayate in their hotel room implies that Fate got over that shyness. That said, Midchildan beds sure are big; I think their bed in their RF6 apartment is around Wyoming King size (7'x7' or 213cm per side) but the post-Airport-fire hotel bed was more like an Alaskan King size (9'x9'/274 cm x 274 cm).

(This post sponsored by the Beds Named After Western States Commission.)

Like she says, it's supposedly a huge event. There's a huge cultural emphasis placed on sex as a rite of passage, as the thing that makes you an adult. It's part of why virgins get mocked for it; not having had sex is a sign of immaturity. This is all bullshit, of course, but it's been ground into a lot of us.

The outfit Ayano is wearing (and sniffing) is from a chapter where she gets it from her mom, who got it from a neighbor; she wears it out and it turns out the neighbor was Kyouko's mom, and it was an outfit Kyouko had gotten for, yes, cosplay. It's a cute and sweet chapter.

To be clear, no, the Himawari/Sakurako series of books where Himawari is sniffing Sakurako's clothes, Secret Flowers, is by Goyac. Scent fetish isn't super-common in Yuru Yuri works, but it's also not extremely rare in the world at large.

It's hilarious — and manages to break my heart twice. Once on Kyouko's reaction to Homura's faith, and once on Homura flashing back to Madoka's family after her ascension, and deciding that even if she's evil itself, she can't take any of their memories of her away. Not again. There almost needs to be a tag for this kind of gutpunch in the service of an almost immediate punchline.

Whoever this "Homaru" character you keep referring to is, this manga was about Homura.

I'm still laughing at those brilliant smiles on page 9. "Yes, I do know how often you masturbate. Best friends!"

Ami/Makoto shipping is based on ongoing comeraderie, though the "evidence" comes from mostly the episode this pic is from (in SuperS) and a gag in the first series in which Sailors Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter get stuck in a very narrow alleyway, and Mercury takes a tumble while Jupiter gets a long, blushing stare at her backside beneath that short skirt.

Not sure where the idea that Usagi was into girls before Tuxedo Kamen shows up comes from — he's in the first episode and she almost immediately swoons. That said, Usagi swoons over a lot of people; she's no less into girls for her het crushes and relationship and she's easily read as bi (and possibly poly). Seriously, Rei and Usagi do have a love story that spans the whole show, even if it does not turn explicitly yuri.

(For those actually wondering about the original anime as LGBT-friendly, I'd say it's a mixed bag. The third series, "Sailor Moon S", introduces Haruka and Michiru, who are (or at least become) clearly a couple but I don't believe they got an onscreen kiss; they're completely the origin of the yuri-sex-is-handholding meme. The fifth season has the Sailor Starlights, who present as male in civilian form but are female as superheroes. There are a couple of gay male minibosses and another miniboss who... is complicated but who appears to be a trans woman usually; they're each treated — I can't say completely respectfully, but their sexualities/sexual identities are not why they're villains, if you get me. There are otherwise close female friendships that need only the slightest bit of goggles, and a fuckton of early-1990s cis/heteronormativity. I think the best description is at worst, fair for its day, and trailblazing on a few fronts.)

last edited at Jan 25, 2020 3:24AM

It looks to me like the artist isn't trying to portray tribbing; Yukiho seems to be grinding against Alisa's pubic bone, and Alisa is just into that, rather than specifically getting off. (My current working theory is that the whole Japanese cultural construct of sexuality, including the whole seme/uke, tachi/neko thing, means that Japanese creators are a lot more comfortable with only one partner getting actively pleasured than Western ones do.)

It's distressingly cute for a tentacle book, but I agree with telamon up there — adding habitual child rape to the list of Presea's canonical brutalities is maybe a bit much as a throwaway setup line. (I mean, we all agree she didn't learn that from Lindy, right?).

However jokingly, it does bring up a note of concern about Nanoha and Fate's relationship — the worry that Fate is a little too eager to subsume herself into whatever Nanoha wants. I think that StrikerS and subsequent works manage to avoid that by having Fate have her own life and career (which is certainly inspired by Nanoha but not completely stuck to her), but it is a concern.

Y'know, if you're going to insist on making these comments insulting the author and insisting on your interpretation of the characters on every single one of Maitake2's works, is it too much to ask that you spell the names right?

Ah, Kotori. Cute, and sweet, and fluffy, and also a possessive, manipulative sadist. Good times.

last edited at Jan 24, 2020 2:31AM

@juanelric You could go Natsuki with Ryo — they match pretty well as rock vocalists with some contrasting butch/femme energy. If you're too attached to the other age-gap ship of Ryo/Koume, consider Miyo as another biker-type. Or, since Natsuki has a kind of Western music/classic rock feel, you could ship her with Kate, the English girl, or Cathy, the American who can't speak English.

That said, Cinderellas do seem to pair off easily, don't they? It probably helps that the stable is so deep.

last edited at Jan 23, 2020 8:32PM

For what it's worth, while a lot of the Cinderella Girls anime is about the idols' relationship with their male producer, it's also about how they're good friends™. The anime for Idolmaster classic seems to have teased idol/P shipping, but Cinderella Girls does not. I've no complaints about lack of CG subtext, but I've been around for a long time so maybe my goggles are stronger than some.

(The Cinderella Theater shorts do hit producer romance, if that bothers you. That said, I got into the fandom via those in comic strip form, and they can get pretty subtexty when not directed at P/you.)

Really, it's just a convention of (Japanese) romance stories— a quick bit of shorthand that everybody is familiar with, so the author can get on with the story without spending pages on exploring the physical and psychological effects of attraction and the process of young love. You might as well complain about umbrellas.

"...do you mean biologically or legally?" is possibly the best reaction ever.

Edit, June 2021: Apparently, Seicross has been re-released for Switch. Draw your own conclusions.

last edited at Jun 29, 2021 1:33AM

I'd assume that it's just Yukiho's shyness being not quite compatible with extensive anal play.

It's kind of interesting that it's clearly Yayoi and Haruka together here, but in the chapters closer to the "present", it's Haruka with Miki. (Presumably that contributes to Yayoi's uneasiness/teasing at the end there.) You rarely see fan artists or writers posit a dating history like that, even in their secondary characters, unless it's a canonical relationship that has to be broken up for their ship to work.

last edited at Jun 29, 2021 1:28AM

I'm mostly wondering why Eins is so enamoured with Fate's rump on the cover. No, scratch that, I know exactly why, I'm just confused at the timeline that can have Innocent's Eins gazing at (adult) Fate's behind. Then again, time travel is possible in Innocents...

C'mon, her fighting style as a preteen kickboxer does not preclude learning to fly later. (I suspect that post-Nanoha-stressplosion, Midchildan magic pedagogy puts flight combat off until middle school.)

Really, the whole franchise has some of the best adoptive parents in any media. Lindy, Fate and Nanoha themselves, Genya Nakajima (who gets absolute top marks here), and I think we have to include Hayate, honestly. (Rinne's parents also seem to be good people, though her arc kinda depends on them not being great at parenting — pushing her abruptly into the rich girl school where she got bullied, and not tempering her cruel streak in her juvenile bloodsport career.) Heck, if I remember Triangle Hearts right (and that part is still semi-canon), I think Miyuki is technically adopted (she's supposedly the dad's sister's daughter) and Momoka is Kyouya's stepmom, so adoptive all around. One of the themes of the whole series is that you can choose your family.

I really do love the part early on in A's when Chrono is expositing about what's known of the Wolkenritter, and Fate's response is, "Artificial people? Ah, so they're like me." Chrono and Lindy immediately fall all over themselves to reassure Fate that she's real, which is great, and it also sets up how created doesn't mean fake for them, either.

I think it's the Birds and the Also Birds.

This is such a great book. It's obviously NanoFate (as is only right and proper) but doesn't ignore that Nanoha has other people she cares about and who care about her — and that her loved ones care about each other, too. Fate really should be studying for her enforcer's exam, though (I think she failed it twice while Nanoha was recovering).

I like the look at Vita, too — her psychology is always fascinating, as a six-year-old who is older than civilizations. Her manifest guilt, both as the one present when Nanoha was injured, and as a person literally created to be a protector, is really something to see. Hayate is great as disability senpai, and at giving the little workaholic an excuse to rest.

Nico is the only one whose family isn't pretty affluent, really. Hanayo's family, at least in the SIDs, has a yard with a shed in it, there in Akihabara; Nozomi's parents both work and move a lot because of it, but I get the feeling that they're workaholics and neglectful, rather than needy. Honoka's family's manjuu shop is pretty big and well-established, if not constantly bustling. Rin is an unknown quantity, but seems solidly upper-middle class. Maki's family is obviously richer than any of them, but you don't get the picture that Umi's is too far behind — or at least, is not behind in terms of pride.