You would possibly right if Erika wasn't in love with Koto. Since she does, it just make me so uncomfortable.
The situation is like, one of their (Koto and Erika) common friend who always has a thing for Erika goes tell Koto "You already know Erika's feelings right？How about you decide to accept it or not？"
You know what l mean？

Tbh, l don't care to be called Erika hater. While loving Aya the most and Koto as my second favorite, l literally feel nothing towards Erika. No love. No hate. Just nothing. I really do hope l can somehow like her to further enjoy this manga. However, l can't control how l feel.

Koto asked Erika out and Erika turned her down, knowing the relationship would be unhappy. She's not some mindless obsessed love slave, she's just got some lingering feelings for Koto, and she has never chosen to pursue those feelings at the expense of anyone else. We see her do the exact same kind of thing this chapter: Rather than telling Aya "run before she hobbles you like in Misery" she tells her "think about how you feel about her in the present, if you truly love her" and then gives her a photo album. She's neither doomsaying nor papering over the major flaw in their relationship, she's giving Aya the best possible tools for her to look at that flaw and judge it accurately.

I read the non-MTL web novel. It's not toxic, it's at most angsty. I think the best description I could give this series is "Girls with depression play gay chicken"

At first the Erika hate seemed to come from people reading her negative self talk and taking it seriously rather than her being mean to herself for being in love with Koto and feeling pathetic because of it, but it's clearly grown far beyond that because we didn't even get any negative self talk from her this chapter and yet somehow she still got read as an evil schemer with ulterior motives. Although claiming this fight is none of her business when Koto and Aya both specifically reached out to her for help with this conflict might take the cake as the most baffling read. How dare she agree to help her friends when her friends specifically ask her for help

The bizarre ways people read Erika based on their hatred of her is fascinating. Aya shows up on her doorstep asking her for help and so Erika begrudgingly tries to help by talking Aya through her feelings, but somehow this is none of her business and her telling Aya what to think lol. Let's just completely ignore the entire arc of the chapter showing that Erika's advice to Aya, which Aya specifically sought out, has led her in a positive looking direction. Nah she's evil somehow lol.
Same with reading Erika's reaction to Aya's dejavu as "alarm" when we already know that Erika had a conversation with Aya that Aya doesn't remember. My read on her reaction is "oh right, damn I'd almost forgotten there's a supernatural element to this plot that we'll probably need to deal with".
Hell, I wouldn't even read Erika's actions as at all selfish this chapter. She's consistently shown nothing but care for Aya and wanting to help her, and her advice is not remotely the kind of advice you'd give to someone fighting with a partner if you want that relationship to end. She tells Aya to think more and learn more about Koto instead of going "wow she sounds like a yandere you should stay away from her or you'll end up chained up in some basement" or something. Koto's actions last chapter were genuinely VERY concerning, Erika wouldn't even necessarily be in the wrong if she told Aya she's potentially in danger. Koto wanting to cut Aya off from the world and from having agency is a huge red flag. But she instead takes a moderate low-intervention path to help her two friends in their time of need while feeling bad about herself and that's just so evil I guess

Honestly if anything I would criticize Erika for being too soft on Koto in not reacting more negatively to what she pulled. I hope Erika's planning on holding an intervention for Koto next chapter. Pull her aside and go "seriously you cannot lock up your girlfriend and keep her away from the world, that's absolutely not okay" and make sure she gets it before letting Aya see her again.

last edited at Aug 2, 2024 7:41AM

Does anyone know the name of the series about a mangaka whose works seem to predict the future, and the main character is her editor who's dealing with increasing disasters happening in the real world and the thought that maybe the author's creative work is somehow possibly causing those disasters that she predicts?

it's this one. Fully translated over on MangaDex:
https://dynasty-scans.com/series/a_girl_like_a_pilgrim

thanks!

Does anyone know the name of the series about a mangaka whose works seem to predict the future, and the main character is her editor who's dealing with increasing disasters happening in the real world and the thought that maybe the author's creative work is somehow possibly causing those disasters that she predicts?

if it’s popular in japan yes, cuz i doubt the amount of people outside of japan buy the Japanese manga when there is an already translated one >.>

Oh it absolutely can sell, that's why some English publishers even look at places like Mangadex to see what's popular as a measure of what they should license, because something being popular in Japan doesn't necessarily mean it'll sell well here (things heavily rooted in difficult to translate cultural references for example) but if it's already popular in scanlation then it's demonstrated success with a Western audience. Lots of us will buy official copies of manga we've read unofficially to support the author, too.

This took such a baking baffling hard turn in tone the last couple chapters. Incredibly fluffy from the start and then out of nowhere the mc gets pessimistic, wastes a whole year, and suddenly blondie's talking comphet. It's like the author got a sudden demand to turn this story into something else that they couldn't refuse.

Edit: alternatively, the last couple chapters feel like the protagonist made a wrong choice and now we're in a dead end path in a visual novel. She's gonna end up graduating alone next chapter and then we rewind back to their first date so she can make a different, better choice

last edited at Jul 29, 2024 5:08AM

There's people out there who find moral issue with reading scanlations of unlicensed manga? Lol

Mitsuki's just straight up wearing the boy's uniform for their school now, huh.

This plot is very silly in a way that drags it down because it's trying to be dramatic. Especially the stuff with Ceil's dad, why the hell would this king of a large kingdom try to sell off his sole heir to some random slob? What the fuck is the kingdom supposed to do about it's next generation of royalty if that deal went through? How could Ceil both have the freedom to cross dress and travel the region, enough to go to another country to meet Evi, but also must be a meek object of a daughter??? Throwing consistency and plausibility out the window just for the sake of more drama means you gain nothing because the drama is worthless without stakes and stakes are worthless without being consistent and plausible.
More than anything I feel like this mangaka's editor is doing an awful job. The whole reason editors exist is to be the big picture voice of reason who tells an author that she can't just put in every cool idea she has into this one story without caring if they mesh or makes sense, save those cool ideas for a future story because forcing them in here will undermine the overall story.

they really embody idiot couple it's amazing

brother we are no were any were aby progress, what are you talking about? idiot couple? do we even get the other moron thoughts if she is even remotely having ANY romantic feelings? cuz i only see her sipping HARDCORE for an vtuber LOL

This was extremely not subtle so how on earth did you miss it
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/my_best_friend_who_i_love_fell_completely_in_love_with_my_vtuber_self_ch36#2

No that was incredibly subtle. I think there needs to be even more flashbacks of the protagonist to be crammed in there before the message is clear on who our girl depends on for support…

This is why stories have characters say things bluntly all the time, or repeat themselves endlessly.

"You can't just tell the audience who you feel gay for! That makes me angry!"

they really embody idiot couple it's amazing

brother we are no were any were aby progress, what are you talking about? idiot couple? do we even get the other moron thoughts if she is even remotely having ANY romantic feelings? cuz i only see her sipping HARDCORE for an vtuber LOL

This was extremely not subtle so how on earth did you miss it
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/my_best_friend_who_i_love_fell_completely_in_love_with_my_vtuber_self_ch36#2

Interesting that they kept the vest of the teacher disguise while reshaping it to fit a new body, but did change the pants to a skirt. I guess the camouflage difficulty mentioned got in the way of fully imitating the school uniform?

Sorawo isn't dense and they're not an idiot couple. She knows how Toriko feels about her, Toriko explicitly told it to her face at the end of the "self-responsibility" arc. She just doesn't know how she feels about how Toriko feels because she's got a bunch of shit she's dealing with. Remember how she has no living relatives and the last ones left she was preparing to burn them alive and they just died before she could do it? This girl has had a world of shit pushing her away from being a well adjusted self aware person.
It's something actually all three of our main characters have, an acute scar from the death of loved ones that makes them afraid to get closer to other people to the same degree, because they associate love with immense pain. Kozakura has a monologue basically saying this explicitly (she talks about how much she tried to resist getting close to Sorawo and Toriko because she doesn't want them to hurt her the way Satsuki did when she disappeared, and how anxious she is about them now that she does care despite herself every time they go to the Otherside), but I can't remember where it was. I think maybe in one of the extra stories you get with the manga volumes.
Edit: one piece of it I can definitely cite: the scene where they first take the AP-1 to the Otherside, Kozakura tells them that every time they go she has to steel herself for the possibility that they won't come back.

last edited at Jul 23, 2024 3:16PM

autism representation in yuri and yuri-adjacent anime/manga has been everywhere lately huh

My theory is that authors writing what they know got more severely internal in scope thanks to the pandemic. Fewer interactions with neurotypicals to inspire characters results in more of the author ending up in there, and artist types are pretty heavily skewed neuodivergent in one way or another.

And now begins the best hot spring filler episode ever

Find it strange tbh to see people still call a character who resembles me irl an "unrealistic martyr" lol. Sadly I'm sort of used to it since I regularly see people decry my body type existing in fiction as inherently objectifying.

I got the impression that Ui's look wasn't "jealousy" but "I put myself out there to find two new members and you're gonna cause a bunch of drama and chase them away even after being shot down repeatedly!? >:("

Aya being very strong, ignoring the fact that a love song always certainly about her from her crush is written on that board lol.

That's really surprising, given the standing of the author and the quality of the work. Wonder what kind of things are going on behind the scenes...

This series is so good. I love how youthful their expressions of falling in love are, it's sooooo cute.

Nanase's profile at the end is kinda hilarious in how much it demonstrates she and Yuni are doomed. I mean c'mon favorite type is "a girl who's always smiling"? lol

Ain't gonna work out in the long term. The black-haired obviously still has a sex drive but just trying to act cheerful/pretend everything's fine for her gf's sake, but she's gonna feel unfulfilled in the long run.

This reads like an asexual woman's fantasy about the unrealistically ideal lover. Kind, pretty, compassionate, all-understanding without ever needing anything for herself. In fact, it looks like she always puts her needs after those of her girlfriend. And she says exactly the things asexual women want to hear the most in the way they most want it too. She doesn't feel like a proper character, she only exists as wish fulfillment for women like the MC.

She's definitely portrayed as basically perfect but one-shots aren't typically where you can expect a full 3d long term portrait of a character, especially when they're not the single main character. Dunno how that means they won't work out though. I'm not ace but if I had to choose between "no more sex with your gf" or "break up with your gf" I wouldn't find the choice difficult to make and I seriously doubt I'd regret it. I've gone years single and it somehow didn't kill me, so I'm pretty sure I can cope if I needed to. That might not be everyone but it certainly makes the character in the manga feel plausible to me, lol. Like sure, sex is great, but it's not as rare or special as a great romance imo. You can deal with the former on your own, you can't do that with the latter without becoming one of those "printing out my waifu so I can marry her irl" kinds of nerd

Loved the first two episodes, the actor playing Hiroko is killing it. I love how over the top a bunch of the scenes of Ayaka feeling frustrated over her coworkers paying attention to Hiroko and crowding her out are, when the one with the phone chest mounting thing happened I figured it had to be a dream sequence but nah, Ayaka's unique perspective on the world just makes shit come across as cartoonish lol