I think this entire series can be summed up with, "For Fuck's Sake".

Welp, the series just went off the deep end. Can anyone in Japan write a plot where a pseudo-Catholic church does not turn out to be led by evil old folks? I dunno, just for the sheer shock factor.

Given that the Catholic Church (among others) has been behind some EVIL SH!T for hundreds of years, this is just art imitating life.

Indeed, but art does not have to imitate life that dogmatically. As a counterexample, if most manga closely imitated real attitudes towards homosexuality (in Japan and the world), a good half or more of this site's content wouldn't exist. And yet it seems much easier for Japanese authors to paint non-heteronormative societies than non-evil organized religions.

I am just saying that it could be fun to subvert the rote genre conventions.

I agree that subverting things is often good and can add some extra spice, but "just went off the deep end"? I don't agree there, because the narrative at the start is that the Church murders innocents and are the villains. It only turned out that the Church were even bigger villains than the main character thought, which at least for me was very obviously the case since the very start. Predictable yes, but so far I'm still enjoying the 4 main characters, and some of the action. I was never reading this for anything revolutionary haha

last edited at Jun 8, 2021 9:54PM

Uh...

Last chapter had concert girl thinking about house girl almost constantly on her trip, and realizing that.

This chapter had her offering medicine, telling house girl to call her if needed, buying more medicine unasked.

Yea i have no idea what some people are on tbh, last chapter was literally all about how she misses her wife when shes away

Yeah I don't get why some people are being weird about this. She couldn't have possibly known the stomach pain was that serious, but she told her wife to call if things got worse. The wife didn't call.

People saying she's self absorbed for going out and having fun is weird to me. Could she have called and checked on her wife? Sure, but her wife could have just told her to have fun and don't worry anyways. However again she also told the wife to call her, and that didn't happen. I don't think either of them are wrong here, they just have different definitions of being a bother and giving the other space. Which is basically the whole point of the narrative in this story, they're trying to work out and figure out boundaries...the stomach pain is the next step in the story. In my eyes it serves as a dramatic but realistic way to say, "Hey you should rely on your partner more, and don't hide the seriousness of your illness from them".

It's obvious they genuinely care about each other, relationships and communication are just difficult, and the story is showing different situations in which they need to learn how to go about it better together as partners.

last edited at Jun 8, 2021 9:23PM

Appendicitis is another possibility.

Hopefully not stomach cancer.

Yup, basically what I've learned from life is that the inside your body can try to kill you in many very painful ways.

Stomach pains because her wife got her pregnant? Oh my.

I hope its just an ulcer and not a drama point

Could also be gallbladder. First hand experience, plus knowing other people that also had to get their gallbladder removed, it can be pretty sudden and extremely painful.

Something something about the world being cold and hard, booba being warm and soft.

For real people? The girl saying "you cannot flirt with anyone but me" did y'all just forget that line? And when she was getting invited to a movie it didn't seem like she was being pressured onto it, not like at the begginig when she got to do the classroom cleaning cuz someone else didn't wanted to, it was just a hang-out invitation and she turned it down because if not her gf would be angry

It's funny to see the double standard some of you people seem to have, criticizing bullying so much (because it's bad, obviously, like I saw for example at the Jyoshikou Dakara Safe discussion) and at the same time overlooking or even supporting these clearly toxic behaviors

And I'm not writing any of this out of rage or something, I seriously got into the forum expecting to find comment about how toxic this was but instead I had to see this horrific show y'all put on

For me it's only two (very short) chapters in, so it's hard to see where this will go. I don't mind if it's a toxic relationship as long as it's what the author intends to portray and not something that is shown to be a cute enviable relationship, when it's really problematic.

I don't know if it'll go down the route of popular girl being more and more possessive or if it'll go down the route of popular girl doing this shit to make weak willed girl actually stand up for herself and have some confidence.

Tbh I would rather it just go full on drama yandere because the second option really makes it feel like we're gonna just OK popular girls behaviour. If it's some cute fluffy manga about how weak willed girl can't have any other friends but it's OK cause she has a girlfriend then I'm out

Yeah the main thing here is that it's two short chapters. Yes the line about "you're not allowed to flirt with anyone but me" is possessive, but it could still go in the direction of her currently acting possessive at the start just so she can show that weak-willed girl that she doesn't have to listen to her. It might also go in the direction of the series being about an abusive relationship. We'll just have to wait and see.

^All I know is that the Cubs aren't the only things getting mounted when these two are alone together.

^Nailed it lol

Chapter 13 and main antagonist is already revealed? That went fast.

Main antagonist of this story arc at least. We'll likely get a bigger villain next.

Idk why everyone keeps saying yandere, I read it as the popular girl putting these rules in place to make the weak willed girl learn how to get comfortable with saying no. I think the whole point is to train her to express herself more honestly, even if initially she’s just following orders.

I think this is the author's intention, but I do hope it makes that distinction clearer in future chapters. It's one thing to learn how to say no to people if she doesn't want to go and uses gf's orders as a push to say no. The problem comes when she does actually want to, but can't because she's afraid of betraying her partner's orders.

Anyway needs more chapters to see if this is gonna go true toxic possessive yandere route or is just a lil misguided fluff piece.

Yeah right now it seems like the story has the setup and elements to go one of two routes, one where the weak-willed girl gets help with growing her confidence, and the other where she gets used and bossed around. Could also be a combo of the two.

last edited at Jun 7, 2021 11:50PM

^Here's the link to the reactions https://twitter.com/GurAmelia/status/1401786888680198152?s=20

Yeah this seems like it's riding a thin line between kind of cute and possibly abusive so far. Here's hoping her will becomes stronger as the story progresses.

Korone letting us know that Okayu is HER cat.

^Not sure what's wrong with Ame, but well now I want them to have a threesome with Ame. She is the master of ground pounding mothers after all.

Also I'm amused that I knew this would have the pseudo-incest tag.

A Dragon getting a soft kiss from an Oni.

Pretty sure this is par for the course with their sleepovers.

^Yesss

This series didn't start off the best but then we got a couple solid chapters...the Aquarium date and the couple before that, decent romance build up and a confession. Then we get Nanase being a creep with Momo during the sleepover instead of confessing...and now we get an annoying new character. This series is such a weird inconsistent rollercoaster.

Thinking about it, many of my favorite Yuri titles are from all over geographically: SMILE (Spain), Soulmates (China), The Love Doctor (Korea), Seifuku no Vampiress Lord (Japan), and Mage & Demon Queen (Philippines).

I dont think I've ever heard of SMILE, where can I find it?

Took me a bit to find it because google wanted to give me literally everything else, like a Scholastic book named Smile lmao, but I think this is it? https://tapas.io/series/smileyurimanga/info

I'm entirely unfamiliar with the site and the comic until now, but I'll probably give it a read as well.

It's dumb, buuut it' also feels very realistically dumb teenager decision making, instead of a plot twist made to just delay things.

Yeah people in love often make some questionable conversation choices, ones that often makes things worse for themselves, especially teenagers in love as you said.

last edited at Jun 7, 2021 3:34AM

That was a fun little bonus, thanks again translators!

last edited at Jun 6, 2021 9:14PM

Well that was awkward

Right?

Come on just give her the gift, I'm sure she'd appreciate it regardless.

^Haha exactly.

A misunderstanding in GL with actual solid grounding? What is this?

Solid grounding, but born from the density and lack of foresight of telling your lady crush that you like a guy :P

The universal truth of useless dorks in love carries on, but I think that's why we're here. They're absurdly cute together.

last edited at Jun 6, 2021 2:44PM

I agree. Personally, I love yuri mangas more than yuri manhwa/manhuas but I still love them all. I respect y'all decisions since we have different tastes.

Exactly, thank you. Everyone has their preferences, but at the end of the day we should all come together under one big umbrella as a family, regardless of if we prefer Western, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, Yuri series more.

I think we should also acknowledge that there are just overall way more manga than manhua/manwha. So there're naturally going to be more examples of great/terrible mangas for people to remember and shape their perception.

Personally, I've found a lot of manhua I really like (tamen de gushi, she is still cute today, etc), even though Chinese yuri is somewhat held back by a bigoted social and political environment. Since making money of gay stuff is kinda risky in mainland China, the industry can't really grow like in Japan.

For manwha I have so far not read a single one that was better than okay, but I've also only read very few, so that might be the problem. Also, as far as I'm aware, Korea is also less accepting of homosexuality than Japan, maybe this causes problems for artists? That's just speculation though

Yeah it's really unfortunate that we'll likely never see the entirety and conclusion of what Tamen De Gushi was supposed to be. I love that series and I'm often scared of something similar happening to other Chinese Yuri authors.

I agree. Honestly, I'd say the average manhua is better than the average manga, though not by much. Because the industry can't really grow there, new manhuas often get traction by being unique instead of by being formulaic, like what happens in an established industry with serialized magazine publications.

Not that they don't have their own tropes (reincarnation isekai seems even more insanely popular there than in Japan, which I honestly didn't think was possible), but they aren't as nailed down in the Yuri genre. Though, it is probably saying something that most of the Chinese webnovels I've read have been Yuri isekai.

Anyway, Soulmates is one of my favorite Yuri stories period, and honestly this one is probably top 20, too.

Thinking about it, many of my favorite Yuri titles are from all over geographically: SMILE (Spain), Soulmates (China), The Love Doctor (Korea), Seifuku no Vampiress Lord (Japan), and Mage & Demon Queen (Philippines).

Yeah there's a lot of manga and so it spreads out the quality a bit more, plus I think just like any other country and using Hollywood for example some of what becomes mainstream popular is the fun big "blockbuster" manga. They might not always be the most amazingly written parts of the medium, but they're still a lot of fun and the popularity is understandable. And yeah there's very likely a lot more Yuri authors in Japan, and with less restrictions there will of course be a larger amount of authors that are just casually doing it on the side and for fun. Including many self published authors posting their comics to the likes of Pixiv, a bunch of which we get translated and uploaded here.

However I think the best manga and manhua are both equally great, everyone has their preferences but personally I don't like comparing one as better than the other. Instead I prefer to just appreciate that we have both. Also even though Japan has more Yuri series, I think often the best and most unique series rise to the top in the Yuri fandom, largely in part because of word of mouth. From what I know "The Two Of Them Are Pretty Much Like This" is pretty popular on here due to word of mouth, and I think I heard it's doing good in Japan as well? The series is for the most part a cozy slice of life Yuri, but I also think it has it's own unique flavoring and identity that makes it stand out for me, and I genuinely love the series.

Kind of an aside, that's part of the fun of the internet as well. Odd Taxi is a currently airing anime that had pretty much 0 hype around it at the start of this anime season, and after some weeks into the season I heard numerous people around the net saying it's a good series, so I checked it out and I'm currently loving it.

Edit: Also it's really cool that you love Yuri from so many different countries. I love that the internet lets authors from around the world share their works with everyone.

last edited at Jun 6, 2021 2:37PM