I just checked tvtropes too and it listed the anime under the page of "cast full of gays" and said that every named character was a lesbian. There's that I guess for what it's worth.

Too bad she didn't end up with her boss, but them romancing is my cannon.

High-five! I feel the same way! Although I feel like a lot of people do since they're kinda perfect for each other. I'm also pretty sure she's the best boss I've seen in a video game. (I wonder how many people will misinterpret the word 'boss' here.)

Because they are not true lesbians. They just make out so male otaku audience can fap to it. It isn't yuri in any way.

I mean, yeah, there's that point of view; I can't exactly argue with that since this isn't my cup of tea either.

I'm trying to give it a fair shake though to see what the appeal is. (maaaybe I won't regret it...?)

It isn't yuri in any way.

That's also a little bit too harsh though I think. Technically, it can still be considered yuri because from what I've heard it has romantic relationships, or at least implications of romantic attraction between characters? Maybe I can just turn my brain off and not take it seriously whatsoever and maybe I can find something worthwhile; I try not to dismiss stuff no matter how unappealing something may be.

last edited at Oct 10, 2016 7:59AM

This chapter should be enough to shut down any concerns about the series not being gay as hell.

Wait, wait, wait. What? How can this series not be seen as gay? Isn't the entire premise basically using their gayness to turn themselves into weapons? They turn into weapons by getting sexually aroused, and their partners are female.

I'm not too familiar with this project, so I'm genuinely curious.

I also want to ask something about the vita game if you've played them: Are the uncomfortable phallic references and tentacles in the manga present in the game? Those are pretty much deal breakers for me.

The reversal made this worth the read....
Ummm, is it me or are we seeing alot of "A-chans and B-chans"? Is it the same author? A manga trend? Or the scantalators doing it?
Anybody know?

Same author and all in the same collection I believe.

May I just say that I love your avatar Galich? I really enjoyed playing that game; I think it's one of the most (if not the most) chill games I've played in a while now. I found it very relaxing and amusing.

Is it consensual if it's mutual rape?

Hmm...it's not consensual at the time of the first and second rape. BUT, once the second rape is done and we can officially classify it as mutual rape, that's the time it's consensual and everyone is happy in the end; lest we enter a circle of continuous vengeful and mutual sexual assault.

Also is lowering one's voice using remote control, considered as bully?

If it's against their will, yes.

"You're an exception" always bugs me, since it's a terrible foundation for anything that's gonna last and suggests there are things you normally like that the other person simply doesn't have. So if there's trouble, there's not that much other than "the unique situation" keeping things together.

I suppose in the game's defense, they all also specifically state that they've never fallen in love before until they met their partner during the course of events in the game. You're right though, the game is entirely a case of "the unique situation" pulling all these characters together (e.g. there's no one else besides the characters seen in-game that are actually their age, the village is filled with old people). Maybe it's that I personally don't trust the fact that it's a lot of circumstantial factors that brought these characters together; there's a lot of "this person coincidentally came up to me at this specific low point in my life, and now I love them for being so nice at that time." Combine that with the whole "gender doesn't matter" thing and it doesn't paint a nice setup for the yuri aspect of the relationship. I rather prefer Sacrament of the Zodiac's love at first sight that grew as they continue on with their relationship, since it's not really about the circumstance or the situation but rather it was solely the person themselves that caused them to fall in love in the first place.

Phew, now that I was able to pinpoint why exactly the yuri felt off I'll stop there. Sorry for hijacking (?) the thread a bit.

In this case I was talking specifically about myself, since I find both ways of thinking valid‚ but only follow one.

Ah, sorry, my bad.

The last thing I'd like to say about the game's yuri is that the main difference between this and other yuri works that don't specifically acknowledge a female character only liking girls, is that this game shoves the whole "gender doesn't matter" thing a bit too much. In any other genre, that would not matter at all, but since this is advertised as yuri, hearing the characters say that they would still like boys so blatantly isn't exactly a great thing.

last edited at Oct 8, 2016 12:34PM

I'm really split about it. Loving someone for who they are, not what they are (as in this case, for their gender) is kind of love I can get behind and think it is just as genuine as any other (and honestly you should love someone because of who they are), but then from experience I know I love girls, because they are girls and I'm not attracted to guys because they are guys. So while I don't think either approach is fundamentally wrong, they are both mutually exclusive by nature and I'm not sure how to reconcile those 2 ways of thinking.

Are we supposed to even reconcile those 2 ways of thinking? I think it's perfectly fine to like a specific gender (or not have any interest whatsoever with any). I do agree that ideally, it would be nice to love the person for who they are and disregard all that stuff, but that's not how all people act in real life, and it's not like they should either. It's great that pansexual people exist, but it's not like it's a superior form of love because they love the person without caring about the gender. In the end, every person is different when it comes to that and that's A-ok.

That makes me realize what might specifically be my problem with the concept that the game presents. It's kind of underplaying the fact that girls who specifically only like girls exist. I assume I only realized it with this game so it became glaringly obvious when it happened here, but I think that a lot of japanese yuri works are kind of guilty of that too.

last edited at Oct 8, 2016 12:00PM

Thanks. While I personally don't mind "because it is you" thing, I can get how understating the gender importance can hurt more than help. In theory messages like, "there is no difference between het and yuri" could be a good thing, showing that yuri is just as normal and natural as het, but then I can't help but think that it will only make people say "in that case just make it het".

You said it way better than I could. That's actually what I was worried about when I was listing this part as a complaint of mine. I know it's supposed to be a good thing that gender doesn't matter, but it still somehow made me feel uneasy in this specific case.

last edited at Oct 8, 2016 11:20AM

Can you give spoiler version?

I'll still try to be as vague as I can: the game kind of goes out of its way to tell you that "if this character was a boy, it wouldn't make a difference!" quite a few number of times. Plus a character liked another one while thinking that person was a guy because she was tomboyish as a kid. And the main character, as the game points out, is as dumb and as dense as bricks. Seriously, I haven't seen the inner monologue of such a dunce in a long while now. This is shown when she's the one that constantly says the whole spiel of "but we're girls!" or "why am I feeling this way, she's a girl!" or....argh I'm gonna go full spoiler on this one: "I'm using her to satiate my lust (which is the first 18+ scene of the game) and then NOT reciprocate her feelings (showing this in a blatant way I might add) because dating a girl scared me but apparently having sex with one is A-ok!" OR literally doing the textbook example of what NOT to do when you find out your friend is in a gay relationship by asking the oh-so-important question of: "how do you two have sex? c'mon it's just for general curiosity!" I kind of got side-tracked there, but the main thing I wasn't exactly fond of was that whole shoving it in your face how this could've easily been het. Yeah, I get it game, gender doesn't matter.

Edit: Funnily enough, the game I played before this is one is the exact opposite of this game when it came to its "yuri". While "Dead End Junction" doesn't have two female characters in a relationship, it had a female protagonist that found almost every single female character in the story to be attractive in some way while showing clear disinterest towards men. I'll continue plugging it by saying that I enjoyed that game's story more than this one (at least not including part 2).

For comparison with actual yuri games with action elements in it, Aoshiro is still better. The soundtrack for this game is pretty cool though. The background music for the 18+ scenes literally put me to sleep with how relaxing it was, although I don't think that was the intention.

last edited at Oct 8, 2016 11:10AM

Since it's fairly close to release date, I'll just give my brief thoughts on Ne No Kami:

It's alright.

Obviously no spoilers, but as for the yuri side of things, I can't help but feel this trope pervading the whole thing: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IfItsYouItsOkay

I think it's the same thing as what Nya-chan (iirc) said here in the forums about Morinaga Milk's characters too -- how they would've lived perfectly happy het lives if they didn't meet their "destined partner", or the feeling that this entire game could've also been easily het too and barely anything would change; it's only yuri because this person that this character likes just happens to be a girl.

As weird as it might sound, I think I prefer the yuri romance of their previous game, "Sacrament of the Zodiac". I'd like to give more specific reasons but what I said above is as spoiler free as I think I could go.

(and if this is still too much spoilers for someone out there, I'll happily edit it)

last edited at Oct 8, 2016 9:25AM

The problem with me at least is that Morinaga's work have become pretty predictable. Everything follows the same structure and hits the same plot beats regardless the setting. Add the pacing issues that sometimes arise and the whole thing feels like Morinaga is phoning it in pretty hard of late.

I actually agree with everything you said here, although I personally don't view it wholly as a negative. To be honest, nowadays I go read Morinaga Milk's works expecting those exact same plot beats and with that usual predictability that is present in her manga, and I'm cool with all that because that's what I've come to expect from her. The pacing issues though I have to agree is still pretty negative.

Haha, I don't know what's up with the comments not really liking all the cliches in the plot of this story. At least for me, that's one of the defining traits of Morinaga Milk's work: the angst that she puts in her stories feel samey across the different series she has. This is bad if you're looking for more variety, but it can also be considered a good thing in the sense that you know exactly what to expect when you're going into one of her works.

Plus, the fact that her stories always seem to be the bog standard setting of all-girls highschool that uses the tropes that we've seen countless times in yuri before -- except in Morinaga Milk's case, most if not all of her works execute these tropes fairly well -- means that the series that she makes work well as an introduction for newcomers to the genre.

Is it kinetic novel by chance?

Oh yeah, sorry that I forgot to mention the thing that would probably be a huge deciding factor for a lot of people. It's kinetic. I am gonna say though as someone who prefers the presence of choices, the lack of them here helps make the story feel more focused; it's still understandable though if it being kinetic will make some people dismiss it.

For anyone interested, the visual novel "Dead End Junction" has a pretty gay cowgirl protagonist. She calls almost every named female character in the story cute or pretty or beautiful; not to mention she and people who know her well state numerous times how she doesn't get along well with men. Lastly, I think that her childhood best friend pretty much falls under the trope of the love interest for the main character.

Oh, and for information about the visual novel itself it takes place in a western setting with cowboys and all that -- although replace Native Americans with a race that has half-human, half-animal (dog) features. I think it's actually well-written and the art style is pretty great which works well with the comic book style presentation. The localization is pretty stellar too in making the personality of the cast shine more, although they do have quite a bit of typos and grammatical errors, so all they're lacking is polish. It deals with issues around that time like racism and the effects of civil war, so it's pretty admirable for tackling topics like that. It's also by the team that did Cherry Tree High, so I guess that explains the yuri in this game.

BIG problem though, at least for me, is that the ending feels very much like a "book 1 of 3" kind of ending. The self-contained journey in this game is finished, but the overarching menace/problem/issue is still there and a lot of things are still not wrapped up. I guess on the bright side the team said their next game is an SRPG set in this setting, so there may be hope for a sequel.

I'm glad that Sweet Catastrophe came out and made the ending of this one into a lie, that they both couldn't keep from becoming proper lovers.

I do think GP-Kids kinda wanted to do something profound and nice here, but he(?) failed in the end. Fortunately, that mistake got fixed so it's all good now.

lol, now that I've re-read Sweet Catastrophe, I feel like the mangaka was compensating for the terrible ending of this doujin by suddenly amping up the kissing in that one and basically retconning this manga's ending. They even said something in the end about "whatever happened before or after, I just wanted to draw them kissing" or something, which makes me think they were referring to this particular event.

What the?

That ending literally felt like "How can I pass this off as "yuri" while still making Sanae straight?"

I also have the feeling that they were trying to do something deep here (something something transcending love), but it was executed so freaking badly that it felt like what I just stated above, which is not a good way to end a supposedly yuri doujin.

EDIT: I just thought of an easy way to make that ending not as horrible. Maybe if they wanted a transcending love kind of message, they could've just made Sanae aromantic and/or asexual. That way, we could still have that explanation of a special connection between them transcending love while also explaining why Sanae was having such a hard time sorting out her feelings, since she feels something special for Reimu but knows it isn't romantic/platonic/familial and so can't find a label for it; plus it would have been more interesting since we rarely get aromantic/asexual characters. Sigh, I still can't believe they had the gall to sneak in a final reminder at the final panel of a yuri doujin just to say that "they're not lovers guys! Sanae's heterosexual, she even specifically mentioned that she had a crush on a guy before!"

last edited at Sep 15, 2016 12:59PM

The captain of the basketball team reminded me that characters that have their eyes drawn that way always seem to be more interesting (or at least more amusing) than the rest of the characters.

Well this was really good; had a relatively unique setting and story plus the writing is pretty great. And look at that, not a bad ending despite all the drama.

Yes, all the idols are meant to show attraction to the producer to some extent in the games, and it is reflected in the anime. There is an alternative version of Miki known as Awakened Miki that is shown to be very romantic with the producer. Awakened Miki is the opposite of Hoshii Miki however, in that she is a very hard worker instead of being lazy.

Huh, I've always wondered how ingrained the het is in the series as a whole. Seems its presence is pretty prominent.
Oh well.

last edited at Jul 13, 2016 2:37AM

^In terms of purely character design, sure,that was confirmed. I refuse to believe they're anything similar in any other aspect though.

last edited at Jul 12, 2016 7:38PM

Made me stop playing CS GO. Since that, I feel like my quality of life has increased significantly..

That's definitely true. I was "lucky" enough in Dota 2 not to have people gang up on me, but I ended up being the one getting angry at everyone else; definitely not a healthy experience. I wasn't toxic or anything since I never took it out on people, but the amount of stress piling up per game session vs the amount of fun I was having was way too imbalanced.

I tried playing smite online but my build got called bad and my feelings are fragile so I quit foreveeeerrrrr ;~;

Compared to what I've seen in the past while playing in other MOBAs such as Dota 2, I feel like that was them trying to be nice to you.

last edited at Jul 12, 2016 9:19AM