Different people enjoy things for different reasons. Some people don't need any plot in their porn. Speaking personally, I actually do need to like the plot and/or characters to enjoy my porn, but my standards are different than they are for SFW content. Sometimes they're lower; a hentai manga will have to devote a majority of its page count to sex which naturally limits its storytelling, so you have to take that into account. But in other ways, my standards are just different.

Specifically, I am far more tolerant of scumbag or even just plain evil protagonists being portrayed...not necessarily positively, but getting everything they want anyway. That's where I differ with you regarding I Won't Sleep With You For Free; Nakano is certainly a terrible person but I enjoy reading about her anyway. (And there are plenty of hentai protagonists far, far worse than her.) I'm not sure why this might be though...

By the way, if you're interested in this topic, I *highly " recommend Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says.

It's absolutely true that the protagonist exhibits colorism. What is much less clear is whether the story approves of her colorism. In the climax, Keika follows the protagonist's request to stay indoors (== get pale skin) as an apology, but the narrative equates this with death. So I think the most natural interpretation is that the protagonist's colorism is analogized to Keika's controlling parents and ultimately portrayed as a bad thing.

Even if you disagree with my interpretation, I don't think it's fair to say the chapter as a whole is colorist just because the protagonist is (at first, she arguably gives it up at the end).

The way this chapter ends, with Keika staying in her room being portrayed as a bad thing, is implicitly critical of the characters' attitudes at the start. The umbrella at the end demonstrates that she's developing a healthy attitude toward the sun, going outside without destroying her skin and risking cancer. And yeah, as Iski123 says I don't think this is meant to be taken super literally.

Thanks for the chapter! It was interesting, and I'm looking forward to future ones.

I really liked the art in the last couple panels

It certainly isn't definitive since Chihomi said it in a joking manner. But I kind of find that more suspicious...it sounded a lot like a "I'm joking to cover up the fact that I'm really serious" situation to me. As for her previous boyfriends, she could be bi or just plain lying. We'll see though!

Thanks for the translation! I hope your midterms went well.

Not much to say about the chapter itself, it makes sense to have a more low-key one that focuses on Yurika's character development after the intense flashback arc. I do appreciate how the mangaka is taking time to develop all of Yurika and Minamo's relationships, not just their romance; it goes a long way toward making them fully fleshed-out characters.

And then there's Chihomi...now that's a suspicious line at the end there lol. Unfortunately for her, Sango seems very straight. I looked over the character sheet for a potential pairing for her, and Minamo's classmate Chirua stood out; they're both minor characters, would have a fun "nice girl x mean girl" dynamic, and their names both start with "Chi." What more do you need?

This manga takes like, a flying leap in quality each chapter. What started as merely a cute ghost gag manga is now a genuinely emotional rumination on both the downsides of parasocial fandom as well as its ability to bring different people together even through tragedy...and also jokes.

And I loved seeing a glimpse of how her bandmates felt when they were forced to keep going even tho they were devastated (meaning that the theory that they are evil was debunked)

Hmm, I'm not so sure. Ange and Nonnon seemed devastated, but Theia is more ambiguous, and the fact that she seems to be the new leader is a mite suspicious. That Honami's cause of death is being kept ambiguous means that the circumstances surrounding her death are almost certainly going to be plot relevant in the future, too.

^ Good point that Yunduo's reaction is neutral. I don't really see her becoming an antagonist, I think she's been portrayed too positively for that, but I can definitely see her being...more concerned than excited, shall we say. After all, if Peachtown is like most rural areas it's going to have a lot of homophobes, and Xiaoen having such an important position within the town adds an extra layer of complication.

As an aside, the hot pot in this chapter looked delicious lol.

I feel for the two friends, they're going to have to work overtime

Edit: I kind of disagree with Gelert_Xross. If vampires had to kill humans to stay alive, I don't really think it would be immoral of them to do so. There's an extremely NSFW (and het) manga that explores this idea with succubi called I Was Rejected By The Succubus President (it's actually pretty good IMO, though I've only read the first volume).

are you dissagreaing with the idea of not being immoral from the point ov view of a monster?? cuz that’s what apmost all monsters in fiction think when it comes to eating humans to survive, and I almost allways take the human side,

I'm saying I don't think it's immoral to kill if it's necessary to survive. I don't automatically side with humans in fiction.

I can't remember--have we established whether these vampires kill people when they suck blood? I notice on this hunt there's a human kind of flat on their back, either out cold or dead. If these cute kids are doing a murder every time they go out for a meal, that's an awful lot of death on the human side and suddenly I'd be kind of sympathetic to the vampire hunters.

But maybe they just sort of drain 'em till they're woozy and tranced out? I mean, if I were a budding vampire hunter, I could see letting a vampire go if I knew the person they were feasting on was basically OK, but not if they were crouched over a freshly murdered human, you know? "Well, there she is with a bleeding corpse and she'll kill again soon, but I've had two or three pleasant conversations with her--guess I'll let her go this time!"

The immaculate is right, it's been established vampires don't have to kill humans. From Chapter 1:

"Drink only the amount you need, so as to avoid killing them."

That said, I imagine it's likely that some vampires are not as...*discreet* as our girls. Additionally, Colette has probably been propagandized to believe that all vampires are evil and kill humans, and so she probably does think that she just let a couple of killers go. So there's still room for moral ambiguity here.

Edit: I kind of disagree with Gelert_Xross. If vampires had to kill humans to stay alive, I don't really think it would be immoral of them to do so. There's an extremely NSFW (and het) manga that explores this idea with succubi called I Was Rejected By The Succubus President (it's actually pretty good IMO, though I've only read the first volume).

last edited at Oct 13, 2022 8:03PM

This is the first chapter I think is like...legitimately good? The pacing is still too fast (a bit more time spent establishing Emielle and Colette's friendship would've made the ending hit harder), but a real fundamental conflict between the two leads that arises from their different life experiences and personalities and not a dumb misunderstanding is very much a rarity. I'm definitely curious to see where this goes. Normally the idealistic protagonist is proven correct, but this has actually been a very dark manga and, like BreadBunny says, it's very difficult to see a path for Emielle and Colette to live in peace regardless of their personal wishes.

Kids in general have a lot more independence in Japan than they do in (most) Western countries, possibly due to a combination of the low crime rate and ubiquity of public transportation. Apparently about 5% of Japanese teenagers live alone; this article gives additional context.

Reminds me of that one deltarune meme with Susie that goes like

Inspiring, a bully using the right pronouns while beating the shit out of the student

Inspiring: This Progressive Bully Torments Transgender Students Using Their Preferred Pronoun

Heh, the premise of this reminds me of an argument I had a while back with someone who thinks relationships between step siblings are wrong regardless of the context around the relationship. This premise was basically a "what if" example I came up with and they still considered it wrong.

You should've asked them what if two (unrelated) people get married, and then their parents get married afterwards. Are they now morally required to divorce?

"They seem to be really good friends," he says, as Song Li sits there stone-faced while Luoluo chatters at her lol.

I don't think Xingyuan is even considering settling down permanently yet. She was just thinking of sticking around longer than usual because of her crush on Xiaoen before her trauma came back.

Aww, how sweet, she wants to be best friends

I like how this manhua manages to show that Xiaoen is very good at her job without needing other characters to constantly comment on it. She'll need those people skills to break through to Xingyuan lol.

I would suspect it of being pure placebo snake oil, but then there's Evie...

It might just be making her drunk lol

All these things can be true: Nakano genuinely wants to help Miyako in her own way; Nakano has romantic feelings for Miyako; Nakano is a bad person. I'm not morally judging Nakano when I point out she's done despicable things. I think it makes her character more interesting!

It's cute, but I can't condone her driving her scooter while sleep deprived, especially taking a passenger with her

It's okay she shotgunned energy drinks off-page

Anyway, Minami and yuzu are probably going to end up together but it’d be something (not a good something) if this goes a whole other way. We might even have to see minami accept that loving someone with everything she has means nothing in the face of unreciprocated feelings.

A manga about the childhood friend always losing, from the perspective of the childhood friend... oof. You have a cruel, sadistic mind.

"The percentage of childhood friends who end up marrying is only like, one percent..."

Little did we know this was actually very brutal foreshadowing

Interesting, slightly weird for Pei Yu to just act like she doesn't recognise the other girl though.

Probably she was worried that Liaoliao didn't remember her. The flashbacks suggest she felt abandoned when Liaoliao got popular and started hanging out with other friends.

Anyway, I enjoyed these first three chapters. The art is fantastic, and aside from some clunky exposition in chapter 1 I like the writing and the characters. Thanks for translating!

Huh, interesting. The more you know