It is notable that Mimei looked almost exactly like Meguru in high school, whereas now (maybe they really did date and break up?) she looks completely different. Kasane really does have a type lol.

On this page, before Arashi really knows anything about Map, she interprets Mao's attitude in an extremely sympathetic way:

It was almost like she was saying, "I don't like you, and that makes me dislike myself too."

The setup is definitely there for her to be interested in Mao romantically, even though she doesn't consciously realize it.

This chapter gives me so much more faith in the manga. I had not expected Lapis to be a straight-up awful person who was manipulating Diana from the start (complete with a literal chess board lmao). Natori is still not a particularly compelling protagonist but Lapis plus the amazing art have rocketed this manga to the top tier of my ongoing manga list already.

This is one of the rare legitimately unique pieces of media. It's not just the premise; I don't think I've seen this precise character dynamic before, a manic pixie dream girl who's secretly suicidal and a woman who's seemingly given up on life yet still constantly reaches for the "real world" she doesn't believe she can achieve.

I think the best way to read this manga is to approach it as a deliberately heightened version of reality. Hinata isn't just popular; she's super talented at everything and literally everyone at school faints just from talking to her. The obligatory pick-up artists aren't just sleazy, they openly declare they're going to just drag girls off if they're not stopped. Shun goes through every "melt the ice queen" trope in record speed, teachers are practically nonexistent, etc.

Viewed at through this lens, the way for the manga to succeed is to just become increasingly melodramatic with each chapter. Hopefully by chapter 6 Hinata will be taking a test to become officially the smartest high schooler in Japan and will succeed because Shun psychically beams encouragement directly into her mind. This is not sarcasm.

At this point the author might as well just make a full sequel manga lol

Kaori was a homophobe for years, including at least one year after Lina confessed to her -- check out her college friend group. She hurt Lina deeply. Yes, she repented it later (and got a better group of friends), I don't hate her, but it wasn't just a single mistake. As I suggested before, the entire point of miracles is that people don't deserve them.

So you're blaming someone for having internalized homophobia, cool

It is wrong to hurt your closest friend due to unexamined prejudices, correct.

gonna be honest like I don't want to incite anyone but this story is so clearly just having fun that like, to argue about how and why certain characters are bad people if framed through the lens of real life morality seems kind of moot when the story itself literally only cares about how to facilitate sex scenes.

Honestly, I think this is kind of unfair to the manga? There's been multiple chapters at this point with no or very little nudity. Obviously the sex is a major focus but it's not the only focus; the manga is devoting a fair amount of page space to developing the characters as well. If you yourself don't care about the characters there's obviously nothing wrong with that, but I don't think it's wrong to take the manga seriously either.

Those were some really excellent expressions in the last two panels; the mangaka's art seems to be steadily improving.

last edited at Oct 31, 2022 5:01PM

Hattori Masahiko has always shown flashes of being a great writer, they just have a tendency to be kind of unfocused and all over the place. This chapter, however, is the best of theirs I've seen by far. I am legitimately really impressed by how tightly it's written; in just a single chapter we get introduced to the sci-fi premise, meet four characters all of whom are already showing some complexity, a little sociopolitical commentary, and even get a great humor scene at the end. It's good enough to make me disappointed it'll only be three chapters; this premise could easily support much more.

Yatosaki Haru does have a bit of same-face syndrome. But older Aoi looks literally exactly the same as Yuu's sister, even down to their chest size (recall that the dialogue explicitly calls attention to Yuu's chest size). And while we learn that Yuu's sister is named "Kaho," we never learn what her mother's first name is. Finally, on a thematic level, Yuu deals with very similar insecurities and self-worth issues that Aoi does, but unlike Aoi she never takes it out on her beautiful best friend/crush. In other words, Yuu is basically Aoi post-character development.

This all could be coincidence, but combined with Yatosaki saying that Aoi appears in Ami-chan's Diary, Aoi being Yuu's mother seems the most likely explanation.

How tf are people saying this is future elsa, where did it say that? I must have missed something big.

We don't know for sure, but that's what the foreshadowing is pointing toward

Xiaoen is only 26 yet she already understands that the drive to maximize short-term profit often ends up undermining the potential for long-term growth.

There are worse ideas than yuri My Dress-Up Darling

So I finally got around to watching the first 3 episodes of the alchemist anime @protectmomo was complaining about, and it pretty much confirmed my earlier suspicion:

the anime just does a very poor job of actually depicting basic details of its premise and instead mostly just runs on vibes. Given that, it makes sense that people inclined to be charitable to the anime assume things to make it make sense, while people without such an inclination will just see it as bad.

I think there are four main reasons the anime ran into problems with this plot point:

1. Very little detail is given into where exactly Sarasa gets her ingredients from. If I'm charitable to the anime, I can assume the potion she uses to heal Iris's arm is made from incredibly expensive ingredients, and/or perhaps takes a long time to make, justifying its ridiculously high price. But no mention of any of this is made, so it's never made clear why the operation has to be so expensive. This is because the anime very blatantly has put very little thought into the actual mechanics of the world and the economics of the alchemy profession in particular.

2. The "lecture justifying putting a monetary value on life," as protectmomo puts it, is not an inherently bad idea. At the very least I can see it being an interesting description of Sarasa's worldview, as well as showing her main character flaw of not understanding people very well. Unfortunately, it's been drained of pretty much all substance whatsoever (don't want to turn off potential viewers by having our MC say something they disagree with) so it pretty much boils down to "I can't always treat people for free." Which is true, but also is not the point.

3. Related to the above, it would've been easy to put Sarasa into real financial pressure if the anime didn't go out of its way to ensure that every major character has no real flaws. She could've started out in heavy debt to her master -- certainly her master had more than enough reason to charge her for years of private mentorship. She could've needed to go into debt to purchase her necessary starting capital, such as ingredients, tools, and the like. And she could've been made to depend far more on outside labor than she currently is. Which brings us to...

4. Was there really a need to make alchemists super good at fighting too? Not only does it render the entire concept of a "gatherer" pointless when alchemists can do the same thing but better, but it also (again) ruins a potential monetary cost of Sarasa's. If she was unable to fight and so depended on paying gatherers to risk their lives fighting monsters to get ingredients instead, that would further justify her needing to charge a premium. But of course then she wouldn't be the most super awesome badass character in the show and we can't have that.

In conclusion, I don't think this is a libertarian anime, I think it's just kind of dumb and not well thought out and so a basic "doctors need to make money too" plot point ended up falling flat.

Glad to see this on featured. All of these stories are great but Runner's High in particular remains one of my favorite oneshots. It captures such a depth of complexity, not just in the two protagonists themselves but in how their relationship changes and grows, the loss of innocence represented by the push leading to an even deeper connection through forgiveness of self and other.

^ Yuki doesn't hop off the train. She spells out her confession while she's inside the train and Harumi is outside, just before the doors close, then she retreats further inside. The following is not shown, but presumably Harumi then runs back inside the train right as the doors close (which is why the conductor yells at her).

last edited at Oct 27, 2022 11:29AM

Qualia the Purple

And Kaede Blooms Gorgeously

Gunjo

Mare (warning: the tags are no joke)

The Onee-sama and the Giant

Arachnid and its various sequels, arguably at least

I enjoyed the gimmick of the imaginary mascot characters mirroring Mika's emotional state

I liked this one. The dialogue and action were a bit hard to follow but not incomprehensible, and I think the style did a great job of drawing us into Yuki's PoV, since she is herself extremely awkward, insecure, and not really sure about what's going on or what she wants to do.

There's more about Aoi-chan and her story in "Ami-chan's diary"
(https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/the_girls_arcadia_fuzzy_arcadia#26)

So that was a fucking lie.
(Aoi first appeared in https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/remembrance_of_arcadia)

I think Aoi is Yuu's mother, because Yuu (and particularly her sister) look very similar to Aoi.

That felt like an ending but the story line with Ran hasn't been concluded yet... So I guess it's not done yet?

I think the panel showing her drawing of senpai is an indication that Ran has figured out her feelings. What happens next is, I guess, up to us.

Overall, this manga was pretty alright! It was too slow and drawn-out for my tastes, and there were perhaps too many secondary characters (though "Kokome-rage" is the best joke in the manga by far). But Yatosaki Haru's art is always fantastic and I appreciate the point others have made that the manga is intentionally portraying the insecurity, vulnerability, and fear that teenagers falling in love for the first time experience. I guess I would've preferred a little more substance and payoff after all that buildup, though. Still, I'll probably end up rereading it if only for the art lol.

Thanks a lot to the translators!

one of the best short oneshots i've ever read. this does such a good job of characterizing Ruka's mother through small details, i'm kind of in awe.

I assume they're referring to Dark_Tzitzimine's post earlier:

Seems like Taiyaki got her heart, broken by her first crush

https://twitter.com/tiyk66/status/1349634063628263424

同性愛悲しかったエピソード選手権といえば私も幼馴染のお母さん(小さい頃からよく面倒を見てくれてた)が最近実家に遊びに来た時に酒に酔ってポロッと「○○ちゃんは子供を産まなくても許してくれる親に感謝せなあかんで」みたいなことを言われて一瞬でそれまでの信頼が吹き飛んだことがありましたね

DeepTL

Speaking of the homosexual sad episode championship, when my childhood friend's mother (who had taken care of me well since I was little) came to visit my parents' house recently, she got drunk and said something like "You should be thankful to your parents for forgiving you for not having a baby", which instantly blew away all the trust I had in her. It was a moment that blew away all my trust.
What's more, the fact that the person I've loved since I was a little girl actually thought that I was a worthless and filthy person inside was very painful...

Poor Taiyaki.

I think if Eve is revealed to be Aoi's mother's daughter, which is very possible, it'll be paired with the reveal that Aoi is herself genetically unrelated to her mother. Partly for the ship, partly because it would make her mother's eugenicist ideology extremely ironic.

What really elevates this manhua to the next level is how the art -- aside from just being fantastic on a technical level -- is used to demonstrate the characters' emotions and development. For example, a lesser series would have Xingyuan exposit about how she fell in love with Xiaoen at first sight or whatever. This series gets across that idea with one image, that full-body shot of Xiaoen in chapter 8. We don't need her to tell us how she feels because the art shows us.

What's even more impressive, though, is how the art changes in accordance with the characters' changing mental states. There's a similar full-body shot of Xiaoen in this chapter, but it's qualitatively different from the earlier one. I can't put my finger on how, but this one is much hornier, and it shows how Xingyuan's crush has grown into full sexual desire.

I can't say this is the best story I've read this year since Subtraction Tautology exists, but it's probably the most artistically impressive story I've read this year.

last edited at Oct 21, 2022 10:33AM