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.

Takemiya Jin is perfect and has no flaws, shut up.

Sorry to have to disobey--I adore Takemiya Jin, but the one problem I have in reading her is that sometimes there's not a lot of variance in the visual design of the characters, so I get confused about who is who more easily than usual (especially when I'm following a story/arc that's been spread over several different collections). That makes it harder for me to read a bunch of her work in a row, which I regret, because I adore Takemiya Jin.

Just to clarify, although the chapter strongly implies that Mei has, or will have, an arranged fiancé, nobody has explicitly said so yet, correct? Himeko's lack of response on page 7, the subtext of the cafe owner's phone call, and Mei's reticence at the end all seem to point in that direction, but at the moment there's no actual evidence that "Mei's fiancé" is anything but an assumption by Shiraho and Matsuri.

Of course, when you think about it, just because Professor Slimeball McRapey was sent on his way doesn't mean that Mei's side of the family hasn't continued to expect her to eventually marry some more suitable prospect.

And they're unlikely to look favorably on "going off to be a lesbian with my stepsister" as an alternate life plan, either. (Although it works for me.)

I love this one too, and it's a good example of where the official translation is fine in itself, but I like the Dynasty translation far better (and thanks, Yuri Girl 1001).

In particular, the character of Hirosawa loses some of the flavor that makes me like the character so much--"squatting as though to poop" becomes just "squatting," etc. I don't have the volume at hand at the moment, but her line "You are loved, kitten-chan" in Chap. 5, and her thought balloon, "These airheads are really something else" while the kouhai squee all around her, are a couple of my favorite moments in the series, and the official translation really flattens them out.

Also, I understand that the Mom's line, "If your sempai isn't the jewel of a palaquin!" might be a little opaque to some Western readers, but changing it to, "Maybe you'll marry rich!" makes her a much less sympathetic character. The official translation does clarify some phrasing in a couple of spots, but this series is an example of one that I'll tend to re-read here even when the hard copy is sitting right there on my shelf.

(And, "Yo! Seductress!" is obviously better than "Yo! Player!" on the grounds of rhythm alone.) :-)

last edited at Oct 23, 2017 10:16AM

I don't know why Girl Friends is so popular among men

In my case, since I mostly favorite by creator rather than by title, I was really just saying "Morinaga Milk" by listing her best-known, complete long work.

(I probably like Secret of the Princess even more, although I think that Girl Friends is less flawed and more fully developed.)

I’ve wondered about this too, riverFlower, since there doesn’t seem to be any direct explanation of what that “something” would be.

But I have always assumed that, since immediately before that line Yuu mentions her desire to “stay by [Touko’s] side,” it was a foreshadowing of the shift from “I love you even though you don’t love me back” to “I’ll continue to love you only if you don’t love me back,” which is the weird and toxic emotional blackmail that makes this series so fundamentally unsettling.

I think it doesn't matter if she had won or lost the rock, paper, scissors match, the self-loathing would be the same.

Your reading is probably a stronger one for the story—I was going by a couple of things that happened to people I know. In one case, a person bugged someone else into doing a job they were supposed to do, and that second person got hurt pretty badly (not killed, thank what or whoever)—messed that first person up for a long time. In another case, a friend was supposed to go to a concert but had to bail because of work, and the person who did drive wrecked their car and three people were badly injured. That was more a “there but for the grace of what or whoever” thing, but the friend still felt bad and weird about it.

But I still think the story is at some pains to make clear in that scene that which kid went out was just a matter of chance—that it wasn’t literally Touko’s fault that her sister was killed. As you say, that’s sort of irrelevant to Touko’s feeling about it.

In fact, she should have died instead.

But in that scene it's clear that the mom asks someone to go to the store, and Touko's scissors beat Mio's paper (in our family we used to flip a coin to decide which kid would run out for milk/bread).

There's definitely guilt there, but there's a subtle but significant difference in degree between "It could have just as easily been me" and "It was supposed to be me, but I refused to go."

^
No, that's a great way to pull together what I was trying to get at. And I don't think your citation is cheesy at all--that's what the whole story has been pointing toward, and makes me think that things will turn out a lot more happily than we've been fearing.

After all, although we've been privy to Touko's darkest moments, looking at the series as a whole, when she's not being "perfect Touko" for the public, we (along with only Yuu) have mostly seen her being cute, vulnerable, and affectionate.

(Touko's squee in reaction to the picture sent by Yuu's sister is right up there among my favorite scenes in the series.)

Because she hates herself.

But why exactly does she hate herself, and which "self" is it that she hates?

There's what Yuu calls in Chapter 10 "your weak side and your perfect side," which together are what Touko says Yuu accepts: "all of me."

But we actually have:
1) "original Touko": shy, hiding behind her sister.
2) "perfect Touko," which she thought was an imitation of Mio Mk.2, but now has learned is not, at least not entirely.
3) "real Touko": the both sides that Yuu accepts

So does she hate herself for:
"Really" being original Touko all along but faking being Mio Mk.2
Failing to live up to being Mio Mk. 2 (and she thinks putting on the play will fix that)
"Really" being empty inside, like the girl in the play and not actually having an identity at all.
None, all, or some of the above?

She's clearly got some combo of survivor's guilt (if the rock-paper-scissors game had come out differently, she would have been the one killed) and imposter syndrome (where she feels like a fake no matter what she achieves). But it's not so clear what exactly it would take to redress that.

I'd prescribe a regular regimen of GBSs, but that's just me.

She views as stepping in to force Touko to change as "low."

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I read that whole sequence completely differently. Sayaka acknowledges that both she and Yuu see the need for Touko to change, but Yuu was the one who had the courage to do something about it, so she's not interfering with Yuu's plan to spark a change in Touko. It would be "low" of her to side with Touko's wish to keep the old ending of the play, because she knows that the new one may well turn out to be better for Touko.

So Sayaka's annoucement of her love for Touko is the answer to Yuu's original question: "Saeki-senpai, why did you agree to use the new script?" (That's how I read it, anyway.)

Again, the new version of the play doesn't really force Touko to do anything (so it's not quite the same as enrolling someone in rehab against their will). It's just providing an opportunity to rethink the emotional/psychological box she's put herself in.

last edited at Sep 30, 2017 1:44PM

^
As long as we’re mentioning imagery that may or may not be significant, with this latest chapter I keep thinking of the Yuu-to-Sayaka baton relay in Chap. 14. But this feels like it goes the other way—Sayaka in some way passing something (I can’t quite say what, exactly) on to Yuu.

Maybe it’s just that the race prep is where Yuu and Sayaka make their first real connection (the chapter ends with the two of them agreeing that Touko can be a pain), and here they deepen their mutual understanding of one another.