I can't really judge this arc until we see how it ends.

It ends with the flaming deaths of Shima and Yuzumori, and the destruction of Mimika’s house, of course.

It’s going to be a “kamikaze” attack, after all. :-)

I think it has to do with the master feeling lonely and adopting a little pet to keep her company?

That's certainly right, and most of the series shows the two of them being sweet to each other, with the master coming out of her emotional shell by helping Mel in various ways.

The story where the master gives Mel a visible love bite to prevent her from working even though she's ill is a good example of a (to me) simultaneously squicky and quite adorable scene that would be, well, a lot worse/borderline criminal under just slightly different narrative premises (to say nothing of real life).

And the scene with the Halloween kidnapper, which reads as Mel being rescued by a loved one, could also be seen as a conflict between two pedophiles.

To tell the truth, the way this series makes me feel slightly uncomfortable while I'm liking it so much is probably the most interesting thing about it.

I really have liked this series, and still do, but there have always been a number of weird elements at or just below the surface that combine into an unsettling subtext (and sometimes text).

1) Mel’s status as a furry displaces our normal assumptions and creates a great deal of uncertainty about a lot of fundamental premises. Mel is certainly young, but in beastkin terms, how young? In flashbacks to the orphanage (?), Mel’s classmates seem to be at least late adolescents, and with no idea of their lifespan/developmental pattern, we also have no idea of how much of Mel’s apparent childishness is due to her age and how much is her personal naïveté and inexperience.

2) In the context of the story, Mel’s collar seems to be a voluntary personal ornament, which doesn’t change the fact that it also reads as sex fetish gear.

3) What is Mel even doing there in the first place? There’s certainly a master-servant relationship, but Mel’s role working in the house seems to be entirely voluntary. And we have almost no idea of the wider cultural practices concerning the beastkin—what even counts as normal in this world?

None of this is to say anything about the morality of the relationship one way or the other, but just to say that this has always been a loli d/s story. And it’s always been incredibly cute.

I'm pretty much convinced that every artists ever is interested in drawing porn/sexy stuff at one points, especially for characters they created.

For example, one of the best Archie artists, Dan DeCarlo, had some yuri in him (link definitely NSFW):

https://ibsearch.xxx/images/4339374

I hope next chapter will be good but at the same time I'm afraid everything will go to hell...

Me too, but I strongly suspect that both of those things will be true at the same time (especially since we apparently have an entire volume for things to work themselves out).

I must admit that the descriptive parts of this explanation sound like they’re accurate, but I’m still having trouble understanding the basis of why this situation is particularly awkward in terms of plot construction or storytelling.

the little focus there is [on Touko] just makes her look very one-dimensional.

At this point, she actually is pretty one-dimensional, and your post gives a good explanation of why—since she’s on the outs with Yuu, all she has left of her identity is this increasingly threadbare goal of putting on the play, no matter what its content.

Only Yuu, Touko, and Sayaka know that putting on the play is particularly important to Touko’s sense of self or that the theme has any parallels with her psychological state. (Koyomi has no idea that she’s hit so close to mark in regard to Touko’s character.) Touko already knows (from her sister’s senpai) that her “become perfect like Mio” project was based on a flawed premise from the start, so the play just gives her an opportunity to consider an alternative to her present dead-end course.

You’re right—one or more big confrontations are looming, but the performance of the play itself doesn’t have to be it. I’m just not sure how that translates into the narrative device of the play being problematic.

this climactic play-within-a-play stands out more and more as an obvious fictional artifact, something too convenient to exist outside of an imagined story

Yeah, that just ruined Hamlet for me too. :-)

The idea that “immersion” in this story depends on the plausibility and correspondence to reality of its plot strikes me as paradoxical, to say the least, given that the basic premise of Bloom Into You is one of the most obviously artificial fictional constructs I’ve ever seen—starting with a conveniently overheard love confession, a coincidental encounter between two girls who have never experienced love motivates one of them to instantly (and apparently sincerely) fall in love at first sight because she thinks the other girl can’t fall in love with her, and the other girl agrees to allow the first girl to love her despite her own (supposed) inability to sustain an emotional relationship.

And I’m not sure which part is more improbable—Touko’s instantaneous love for Yuu, Yuu’s willingness to go along with it, or the chance that two people with these odd psychological dynamics would encounter each other in the first place.

If a given reader is thrown out of the story for any reason, well, that’s that. But even though Bloom Into You is one of my favorite manga (hell, one of my favorite works in any medium) in a very long time, I’d put sheer verisimilitude way, way down the list of the qualities it even seems to care about.

last edited at Nov 5, 2017 6:03AM

Sayaka observing whats happening between Touko and You and saying nothing so far.

This one was nicely done--barely discernible on the page (it's a very wide shot), but quite suggestive given the previous chapter.

Is this manga still going really well?

Despite the comments on this chapter (mine, anyway,) overall it's going as well or better than ever--it's just that there has been a crucial confrontation (or several) looming on the horizon for some time now, and (again, for me) anything that doesn't get us there by the most direct road is way down my priority list. But I wouldn't call the story's direction problematic at all.

Doujima x Akari end game? More likely than you think.

Ah, put those two on a bus for all I care. I realize that my reaction to this chapter is mostly me being greedy—I just want Yuu and Touko locked in a cage for an emotional grudge match, and nobody comes out until they’re ready to Take It To The Next Level.

But that’s why Nakatani’s in charge instead of me.

All she's saying are lines for the play until she thinks "wrong?" from there on everything is Touko thinking about how she believed Yuu would help her

That was my first thought too, since she’s looking away from the script when she says, “You told me you’d help me,” but then I remembered that Yuu is playing the nurse, so maybe that line could go either way.

The ending with Touko wasn't that bad, I thought of it as foreshadowing for next chapter and while her thoughts are repetitive, her last line delivers because it shows her disappointment on Yuu.

Actually, aren’t several of her statements there probably lines from the play? She’s looking at her script, and the phrase “Ever since I woke up” applies to the amnesiac character. So everything in the round bubbles in that sequence except Yuu’s name may have been written for her.

I think all relationship problems should be resolved by writing and starring in a play about them.

Point taken, but the main conflict here is only a “relationship problem” in that it’s about Touko’s relationship with herself and her own sense of identity; the play is a way to get Touko to come to terms with her insecurity and self-hatred. Once fake-Touko resolves into a real-Touko there will be room for a real relationship with Yuu.

Man, my phrasing really must suck today: "last time" = previous chapter. Sorry.

Important cards started getting put on the table in Chap.26--the new script, Yuu's understanding of Sayaka, Yuu starting to push against Touko's wishes. I don't see this new chapter adding any new elements or doing much with the existing ones. But I could certainly end up being wrong about that.

last edited at Oct 30, 2017 3:04PM

I thought the Koyomi one was the marking time one

I probably misphrased it--you're right, that chapter clearly was a delaying move in terms of The Great Getting Yuu & Touko Into the Sack project, but at least it did involve and develop the character of a (perhaps arguably the) central player in that particular moment of the plot.

As I said, maybe this will pay off somehow later, but after the tension getting ramped up so nicely last time, I would have welcomed any number of developments besides Akari Haz A Sad About Basketball Boy--Again.

Maybe Nakatani-sensei will make this pay off somehow, but unlike the chapter about Kanou, this one really does feel like it's mostly marking time. Even Touko's introspection just repeats things we've heard her say/think before, and the only character I care less about at this point in the story than Akari is Other Student Council Boy, The Lazy One.

On the other hand, the cut to Touko's "You think you actually know me?" panel was nicely done--in context the scene is clearly in a group setting, but at first glance it looks like Touko's telling off Yuu for her presumption in changing the script.

Let’s not get too far ahead of events here. IF Mei is engaged, and has been for some time, that’s something that does reflect very badly on her character. If her general emotional reticence all along has been at least partly because she’s been aware that the issue of an arranged marriage could come up at any time, or if it has in fact just popped up again very recently and she hasn’t been able to bring herself to say anything to Yuzu about it, that’s a rather different issue.

I still think that in storytelling terms this plot turn is awkward at best, and while Mei’s opaqueness as a character does make her occasional emotional breakthroughs all the more dramatic, it also renders her something of a blank slate, which can be pretty irritating when she comes off as unstable or inconsistent. (Edit: And we also never see any private interactions between Mei and the traditionalist side of the Aihara family, so that represents a whole Pandora's Box of potential future plot twists.)

The “interrupted confession” (or any lack of crucial communication between Yuzu and Mei) is also a bit contrived when the principals live together and sleep in the same bed.

last edited at Oct 29, 2017 1:41PM

Feb. 13, 2018 can’t come soon enough.

http://tinyurl.com/ya3tjehj

The defenses of the fiancé development are fairly convincing to me as far as the overall plot goes, but I still tend to side with those who think that just a couple more hints from time to time that this specific problem was still potentially on the table would have made it seem less abrupt, and would have constituted better storytelling.

Here’s hoping the whole thing blows over in a chapter or two, and our two incompetent lovebirds can get on with the task at hand.

last edited at Oct 28, 2017 9:33AM

I admit, the frequent references to Kase-san being "cool like a boy" do get pretty old,

I have no idea what’s actually being translated here, but I take that as being “cool, in a boyish way” as opposed to “cool the way that boys are cool.” Because in the world of Yamada and Kase, boys are generally not very cool.

I actually like the repetition of the whole “We’re both girls, but we’re going out, etc.” formula—feels kinda like a series theme song.

Takashima just writes fluff

This is certainly true in that the story takes a bunch of stuff out of the equation that would or could make the relationship between Yamada and Kase much more difficult: societal and peer disapproval, the presumption of heterosexuality by themselves and others, and, for the most part, even the mere presence of parents. And even the single antagonist/rival is just based on a misunderstanding.

That clears the decks for what the series does do well, which is to show how each of them helps the other to understand themselves and how they come to understand each other. Kase first gets interested in Yamada not from a glimpse of her luscious little thighs (that comes later), but from overhearing Yamada insist that her motivation for working hard is internal rather than external, which motivates Kase to do the same. Kase of course helps Yamada come to see herself as a capable, admirable, and attractive person.

It's certainly not "realistic" or dramatic, but I think the series does an extraordinary job of establishing and developing its characters. Plus world-class adorableness, of course.

[Kase] tried dating other girls but it never worked out.

I was wondering about this, and I think the story is kind of ambiguous about it. I’m pretty sure we can reject the rumours that Kase was a player—that’s the kind of thing that always seems to follow the “cool prince” types in yuri manga. And we know that the supposed affair with Green Drops Senpai was untrue.

But when Yamada says that Kase has more experience, she doesn’t really deny it (unlike the wonderful Girl Friends idiots, who are shocked to find out that they’re both virgins). The “girls shy away when they see my body” (and who can blame them?) statement is also a little ambiguous—some of the nakedness is P.E. related, but apparently not all. She also tells Yamada that she will never fall in love with anyone else, and (assuming the translation is precise) it’s notable that she doesn’t say that she’s never been in love with anyone else.

I don’t know how significant any of it is, but I did notice that, except for the sports senpai, every time Kase has the opportunity to disavow any previous experience with girls (as often happens in yuri manga), she doesn’t do so explicitly.

And she certainly seems like a gal who knows her way around another girl’s blouse buttons and bra strap.

So, I'd rather think Yamada started high-school as aromantic, then became Kase-sexual when she met her.

Technically true in terms of character type, I guess, but the contrast was with Akko and Mari in Girl Friends, both of whom had (rather unfortunate) het experiences as well as a good deal of angst before accepting their feelings for one another. Yamada’s resistance to her own same-sex attraction was precisely zero. And I’m looking in the “Yamada is not completely a lesbian” evidence folder, and finding . . .

Yamada did have some doubts at first about whether a love relationship with Kase was socially possible—her “but we’re both girls!” worries—but Kase got her squared away on that score quick enough.

last edited at Oct 27, 2017 7:36AM

I don’t know—unlike the Girl Friends duo, Kase and Yamada each knew they were in love with the other one from the start. After all, Yamada says, “Please let Kase-san be in love with me!” in Chapter 1, and they were both checking out each others’ bodies/lingerie in the locker room immediately, too.

Yamada’s been a little lesbian from the jump—she just took an extraordinarily long time to figure out the nuts-and-bolts of what that entails.

last edited at Oct 26, 2017 5:59PM

Like others, I too want to see Kase and Yamada progress in their new life together.

On the other hand, I’ve always thought that every moment of the origin, growth, and development of Kase-san’s desire to jump Yamada’s bones needs to be depicted in exhaustive detail.

So I’m good either way.