I'm still shocked at the people somehow blaming Shouko for Satou murdering her. You people are fucking insane. If we ever meet in person, remind me to run the fuck away, or preemptively call the police.

last edited at Nov 12, 2018 3:07PM

The tutor isn't really running a scam (at least when it comes to lying about her credentials). She never told Suzu that she was a student at Tokyo University. Suzu simply misunderstood what her mother was telling her. You can see on here that the mom knew all along that the tutor was from a member of the Toudai family, or worked at the Toudai grocery or whatever, not that she went to Tokyo University. The mom hired her knowing the truth.

So she's a predator and a terrible person, but at least she's not lying about her tutoring credentials.

Whether Stella's doing the right thing depends on what her plans are from here. If what she means is "I don't think you should see her today, but I'm letting you know she's fine, and come back tomorrow so we can discuss things properly" or "I won't let you see her right now, but once I talk to Mel and get her side of the story, then you can come see her" then that's probably the right thing to do.

If she means "I'm never letting you see Mel again" based on this flimsy evidence of something Marie said, then that's probably not the right thing to do.

However, Marie is basically lying at this point by withholding the whole story from Stella. She's clearly in the wrong, since she's messing around with Mel's relationship with Master out of her own selfish desires. But that kind of makes sense, she's basically a child so it might be too much to expect her to act like a responsible adult.

You sure are funny, there are a lot of contries who enslave others humans, but they won't say that to the world ofc. please inform yourself before saying such a thing.
You have just said it, according TO HUMANS LAWS. HUMANS AREN'T GODS who have the right to decide of how others species have to live. Though they want to be, want to control others everything and animals.
Please reread what I wrote ealier.
Humans laws should apply only to humans not others species.

Yes, forced labor is still legal in many countries, usually as the punishment for a crime. And some degree of slavery exists illegally in the form of human trafficking or indentured servitude. Neither of those things applies at all to Mel's situation. Plus they aren't the same as chattel slavery.

And yes, I go by human laws and human definitions. Humans are the only animals that have laws and the power to enforce them. Maybe you disagree with that and think it's wrong, but that's just the way it is. Let me know when dogs or monkeys or whatever establish their own rule of law and gain the ability to enforce it.

For one thing "domestic animal" is different from "slave".

Are you sure ? Have ever asked a dog or a cat if they wanted to be your domestic animal ? No, people just decide that by themself. It's go the same for slavery .

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. My dog is a dog while slaves are, by definition, human. It might be difficult to spot the difference, but there are definitely some clues if you look closely. I'd be happy to give you some tips if you're having trouble.

Back to the topic of the manga: slaves are humans who are considered property and forced to obey their masters. Slaves historically existed in societies with legal structures that allowed humans to buy, sell, and own other humans as if they were property. Slaves that attempted to escape were considered lawbreakers and were forcibly returned to their masters.

These days, slave-keeping societies are rare, but every human civilization considers domesticated animals to be property that can legally be bought, sold, or owned. No human society has any rules granting domesticated animals legal rights. They can't bring suit against humans, and generally their human masters have the rights to do to them whatever they like, including killing them, though sometimes there are minor restrictions on what masters can do to their pets. As you say, domestic animals can't choose their masters.

So, it's very obvious that Mel isn't a slave, nor a domesticated animal. The kidnappers were attempting to capture Mel and Marie and then sell them, but it's clear that they're acting illegally. Your personal definition of slave might be different, but in the real world "slave" applies to people who are treated as property. Mel can choose her master, her master is required to obey certain laws guaranteeing that she is well treated, and she cannot legally be bought or sold. Her rights are certainly restricted compared to that of a human, but she doesn't meet any of the definitional requirements of "slave".

last edited at Nov 11, 2018 7:41PM

Then tell me why does Mel still have a collar on her neck ? That just make her seem like a domostic animal.

For one thing "domestic animal" is different from "slave". Also, neither slaves nor domestic animals have any rights whatsoever, and in general the government has no say in how masters treat their animals or slaves (except with some very basic laws against unnecessary cruelty, but historically those are rarely enforced, and easy for masters to avoid). Neither slaves nor domestic animals are allowed to choose or reject their own masters, which is a right given to beastkin.

I'm not saying they're free, or that they have equal rights. Obviously they are in a subordinate position, and their rights are very limited. But their situation is not the same as that of slaves, or that of domestic animals. There are some similarities, but also major differences.

There really are no real world equivalents to the position of beastkin in this world, and claiming that they're slaves, or pets, or children, or whatever, would be a gross oversimplification.

last edited at Nov 11, 2018 6:42PM

I think beastkins are mostly treated like underaged and not as slaves. Come on people,all of their masters seem to be wealthy and treat them very good. Master told Mel she could do whatever she wanted in the house, Mel chose to help as a maid.

Agreed, they don't seem to be enslaved. However, they still are given less freedom than even children. Generally, children are allowed to enter restaurants, purchase bus tickets, and visit public parks by themselves without being stopped by the police and returned to their guardians (unless there's something very strange about this society).

so there slaves? oof that really put a dampener on the story

I don't know if they're slaves, but they're certainly not considered equal to human citizens. The fact that they can't use public transportation or even go into restaurants by themselves proves that. However, it does seem that the state takes an interest in their welfare, to an extent you wouldn't see if they were slaves.

My interpretation is that they're sort of permanent dependents: they are considered legally incompetent, incapable of caring for themselves or living independently. The ones we've seen are all treated pretty well and I get the impression that if protective services discovers that they're being forced to work they'd be removed from the master's custody and the master would be punished. The fact that the kidnappers even exist is sort of proof of that: the requirements for adoption are strict enough that many people fail, and resort to illegal means to acquire their own beastkin.

So it's still fantasy racism, but not quite to the level of slavery.

Lezhin is a fucking scam (I can't believe I spent so much money reading such mediocre comics...). This site is way better.

Urgh... timeline.
I thought I was done with all the Marvel-DC alternative universe stuffs...

There are times when time-travel shenannigans are worth it, and the story of a girl whose future self sends her back in time to fuck her mom is definitely one of them.

Where are you guys reading the raws?

https://www.sunday-webry.com/series/1105

Make an account and play the slot game once a day to get coins, or you can spend money to get special coins. You can use the coins to buy manga chapters temporarily. The first week a chapter is available you can only read it for cash coins, the second week it's free for anyone, and after that you can use the free coins.

Also, volume 3 goes on sale next week, which I think will have chapters 25-36, a pretty good deal for just 650 yen. But with the way Sunday Webry is set up, you can read all the chapters for free if you're patient.

last edited at Nov 7, 2018 7:39PM

Oh no, I wasn't trying to say that the storm was brewing in the next few chapters, haha. I was referring to the more recent chapters. I haven't read the latest one (the read-in-advance one), but the title is so ominous :'))

Oh yeah.... That title hints at scary things to come. Oh well, we'll find out tomorrow when the chapter's out for free.

This series is always so great, hope it gets an anime.
And I thought maybe there would be actual Yuri between the other three friends in that volume extra. I'm kinda disappointed tbh. lol

I doubt the others will be lesbians too. This just doesn't seem to be of the "everyone is gay" variety of high school yuri—it's not like A Kiss and a White Lily, since boys seem to exist in this universe and these three have each brought up how much they'd like to find a boyfriend.

Drama incoming though.

To my mind, drama doesn't really start until chapter 41, when the name of the series finally starts to make some kind of sense.... Up till then it's lots of Hana and no Arashi (except in flashbacks).

last edited at Nov 7, 2018 3:45PM

Is it ending nooooo

No, this is just the end of Volume 2. Volume 3 comes out next week, and the author is still releasing weekly chapters online.

End of the final chapter, Master's name is revealed: Itou Hachi

I think my preferred regional response would be "u wot m8?"

I'm intrigued. Please elaborate on the matter about the language thing

Well, I'm exaggerating a bit, but there is quite a bit of awkwardness resulting from Master's lack of a real name. Usage of "you" is uncommon in Japanese, since usually people just call each other by name when speaking to them, but by necessity Stella and Mist use "you" quite a lot—Master doesn't have a name for them to use, and they can't call her Master since she isn't their master. When Stella is talking about Master indirectly, she uses "kanojo" ("she") which is also uncommon in Japanese—usage of third person pronouns is pretty rare, usually people just call others by name when speaking about them as well. It's not completely out of the ordinary, but it's clear that the characters would probably be calling her by name if she had one.

It'd be too rude/overly familiar for Marie to refer to Master by pronoun, so she calls her "Mel's Master" to her face, or just doesn't use any form of address. This isn't entirely unusually, since people often refer to each other by their position or by some other relation ("Manager", "President", "Teacher", "X's grandmother", etc) but it's still awkward here, especially considering that Mel calls Stella "Stella-san". Obviously I can't have Marie calling her "Mel's Master" to her face in English since I don't walk up to Bob's mom and say "Hey, Bob's mom, how are you?"

I think the way people refer to each other is one of the most consistently awkward parts of translating. At least this isn't as bad as in Happy Sugar Life, where it wasn't until chapter 21 that someone finally referred to Asahi by some gendered language. I assumed he was a boy from the beginning, but nobody ever used "he" or "him" or "son" or "brother", so I was anxious that it'd suddenly be revealed that he was actually a she and had been from the beginning.... This kind of thing happens a lot when characters discuss people. In English you have to use a gendered pronoun, since people almost always say "he" or "she" when discussing someone if they know their gender (I know usage of "they" is possible, but when discussing a known person, it's restricted to the very rare cases in which that person doesn't identify as male or female—this situation is basically nonexistent in manga). When translating sometimes you just have to guess the gender and pray that the person isn't introduced later in a way that proves you wrong.

last edited at Nov 5, 2018 8:15PM

... Oh man, now I'm imagining Hulk being hired by Master (FFS, give her a name already! I'm just a straw away from writing a tweet to Itou Hachi begging her to do this) as a guard for the manor, and the two of them bonding over their shared love for Mel's adorability (platonic in Hulk's case).

There are times where horrendous things are done to language in order for her namelessness to be maintained. In particular when Mist, Marie, or Stella are talking to her or about her, they speak in a way that just doesn't make sense. I feel like Itou Hachi committed to the idea of leaving her nameless early on, and was just too stubborn to quit even when it stopped making sense.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/oneeloli_manga_123#2

Mel's age is mentioned here. Also she looks a bit older than in the main series

In chapter 3, narration says beastkin are chosen by their masters at age ten, so it might make sense that the doujins are set some time after the events of the manga series.

That is a good question: how is Itou Hachi expecting us to view this system? Is she thinking we're going to interpret their love as a metaphor for homosexuality or miscegenation, acts that, despite society's disapproval, can be ethically practiced? That would be a pretty odd expectation on her part, since it ignores the power dynamics and obvious differences in maturity between Master and Mel.

Is it meant to be a metaphor for pedophilia and try to convince us that real world pedophilia is unfairly condemned? That too would be a very strange message, since in many ways the power dynamic between Mel and Master is even more unbalanced than that between a human adult and child, since Mel is not only as immature and helpless as a child, she's also part of a legally dependent group with no independent rights. By any real-world standard, this relationship would clearly be predatory and immoral.

Maybe it's not supposed to relate to reality at all, and it's just a self-contained story with no external message.

Yes, there are definitely still some holes. All I'm saying is that enough information is given to us that all fits together that I feel comfortable in assuming that answers to the other questions do exist, even if we never get to see them. A coherent setting that is only partially revealed is different than an incoherent setting where there simply are no answers to the questions the audience has.

In the one case, the author has established a world that just isn't entirely conveyed within the narrative—naturally, a work can't tell everything there is to know about its world, or else it would be a textbook rather than a story. In the other case, the author has abdicated their duty by just throwing in random details with no coherent structure behind them.

A lot of fantasy and sci-manga manga (and stories in other media, especially young adult books and films) have the bad habit of just dumping a bunch of information on the audience out of nowhere. Oftentimes this is done by making an audience stand-in character—someone who doesn't know what's going on or is new to the world, so there's an excuse for other characters to explain things to them, or for they themselves to remark upon things, which provides an excuse for the author to explain them to the audience.

Here there is no character who's new to this world. Everyone we meet knows about beastkin, and there's really no reason for them to discuss their origins or lifespans or whatever. Itou Hachi cheats a bit by throwing in narration like in chapter 3, but other than that we just have to piece everything together ourselves more naturally through observation and inference. This can of course be abused by bad writers who use this as an excuse to just not bother creating a coherent setting and hiding it by hiding information.

Basically, I'm just saying that I trust Itou Hachi that answers do exist even if we never get to learn them. In many works I don't trust the author and accept that the answers aren't given because the author never came up with them in the first place.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I'll say that the social status of beastkin is elaborated upon a bit more in the next chapter, to the extent that I think Itou Hachi did have some kind of plan for this setting, and isn't just making it up as she goes along.

Obviously I can't read her mind, but this does appear to be a consistent element that was just in the background all along, rather than some last minute asspull.

Even starting from Chapter 3, this section was pretty explicit about their subservient nature:

The most distinctive features of beastkin are their animal ears and furry tails. Due to their similarities to humans and their adorable appearance, they are gradually becoming common as companions. From the moment of birth, beastkin are managed by the state, and humans, after a thorough evaluation, can be approved to adopt a beastkin as its master. Thus, until the age of ten beastkin live and study together in an institution where they wait while dreaming of the masters who will one day appear before them.

Note: the line about humans being approved to adopt them says 人間だけ as the subject. I'm pretty sure here this means "humans, and humans only"—beastkin cannot adopt other beastkin.

last edited at Nov 5, 2018 1:10PM

Maybe it's a regional thing but I don't know anyone who wouldn't consider it an awkward thing to say and I'm American. This includes people I know who have actually said it as well. All of them fit into the categories I listed of being socially awkward or being caught off-guard. It's a similar situation to another odd response that happens frequently in manga and webcomics where someone's at a restaurant or a movie theater and the employee they're interacting with says "enjoy your meal/the movie!" and the person replies with "you too!"

Well, there you go. It's probably different in different English varieties then (and I don't just mean American English vs British English, but maybe specific smaller regional variations, or social class or just personal idiosyncrasies).

The "enjoy your meal" "you too!" thing always sounds like a silly mistake to me as well, something that I laugh at if I hear someone else say it, or feel stupid if I'm distracted and say that myself. After all, they're serving you a meal, it's not like they're about to eat. I don't know if I've ever seen this misused in a manga translation, it's just the sort of thing really awkward people do and people on the internet joke about.

But "I love you" "me too" sounds fine to me.

last edited at Nov 5, 2018 10:31AM

Notice how in the original conception the main theme is about social class rather than about “the border between humans and animals.”

I think the border between humans and beastkin is an issue of social class. The "institute" at which Mel and the others were raised seems similar to the kinds of places the US and Australia and Canada forcibly took native children in order to "civilize" them and prepare them for lives of servitude in white society. The government here seems somewhat more interested in preventing abuse than those governments did historically, since it appears there's actually some fear of social services coming and taking Mel away if they feel her master is abusing her. However, that doesn't change the fact that beastkin apparently cannot live without a guardian, be it the state or a master chosen for them.