All I see happening is Yuzumori slapping some sense into Mimika

Love to see that happen, and quickly, but I suspect we may be in for at least a short spell of what in Korean dramas is called "noble idiocy." As majere says above, it's that "I'm quitting you for your own good" thing, usually accompanied by lying about one's real motivations, so that the dumpee has no clue about what's really going on.

The absolute worst version, because it's so painful for both the audience and the characters, is when, in order to do a complete break-up job, the person pretends to turn on the other one and claim that they were only fooling around or have come to their senses and now see how ridiculous the relationship really is, etc. (Noble idiocy, as the name suggests, also often requires previously intelligent characters to suddenly behave like complete morons.)

If the author remains true to the characters, there's no way Yuzumori puts up with crap like that for very long, but even someone as sharp as she is may take some time to get all this mess sorted. Here's hoping Glasses-chan has enough integrity to be helpful when things come to a head.

last edited at Sep 3, 2017 9:20AM

do you think Yuu will admit her feelings (at least to herself) naturally

I think the newly written sex scene between the amnesiac patient and the nurse at the end of the play will be all the catalyst anybody needs to put their emotional cards on the table.

It is a sex scene, right?

I don't think the new characters are necessarily hated--the Industrial-Strength Cute Chap. 57 suggests that eventually they'll integrate into the group just fine (with some bumps along the way, no doubt)--but there certainly was a lot of (justified, IMO) pushback against the idea that Chap. 58 is all about Naru bringing a new professional attitude to Eagle Jump that the company has been lacking (as opposed to showing a person who thinks the job is about following orders rather than making fun games).

I know that the survey form can't change but will just say as a point of information that I found answering the "favorite works" section a little awkward because I mostly "favorite" by creator rather than by individual works.

So I found myself listing "5 works I like a lot that are representative (to a certain extent) of my taste" rather than "my 5 favorite yuri works."

Hazuki says it straight out--games evolve as you work on them and get new ideas. And Umiko says that it would be great if every possible kink or issue in the finished product was foreseen from the start, "but that's not usually the way it goes."

I don't think Naru's tone or her failure to respect the hierarchy is the problem, it's that her focus is on the wrong things. Hazuki says, "You've made it into something really fun. Good job." That's what success looks like at Eagle Jump.

Every fictional storyworld sets up its own value system. Sometimes that's the same as in the real world, sometimes it's entirely different, and sometimes its the same in some respects and different in others. In the New Game world, working to make the best, most fun game you can is the first priority; work procedures are important as the necessary means to that end, but ultimately secondary to the main goal. Naru doesn't get that yet, and she needs to. (I strongly suspect that she will.)

It's always surprising to me how many people see the story that they want to be there rather than the actual text that is there.

Whether Naru would be right or wrong in the real world is irrelevant; in the world of the story her attitude needs to fundamentally change, which is exactly what Umiko (gently) tells her in the last two panels.

[Sayaka] is the number one enabler of Touko's obsession with becoming someone else.

That's true, but while there is something self-serving about Sayaka's strategy of pretending to be fooled by Touko's public persona, there's no indication that she's doing anything but supporting what she thinks Touko wants. And she has indeed been snippy when she thinks Yuu is overstepping her kouhai bounds, but that seems like simple low-level former-#1-friend jealousy.

If Touko's initial reaction to [whatever falls out because of the play/Yuu's hypothetical confession] is distress and rejection, Sayaka very well could turn out to be fiercely protective of the "old" Touko. But I don't think she's an inherently toxic person, (rather the opposite, in fact), and even though I'm not particularly fond of the character, I'd be disappointed if we get a full-on Dark Sayaka emotional meltdown.

last edited at Aug 31, 2017 11:39AM

It seems to me that Naru is focused on doing what she's told and following the letter of the law, while the veterans are thinking about making a game that's fun to play. That means lots of annoying changes, and it is true that vets need to be reminded how vulnerable a new employee would feel about missing deadlines, etc.. Umiko is second to none in getting annoyed at last-minute changes, but as she says, "I don't want to give up on the desire to create a good product."

last edited at Aug 31, 2017 11:16AM

Uhh didn't she just indirectly tell Maki she is rewriting the script in her text by accident?

Now that she's (almost, when she talks to Maki) done, I don't think it's supposed to be ultra-top secret--they had previously mentioned the possibility of revising the ending in Chap. 20. Koyomi and Yuu are a little worried about how the others will take having to learn a whole new ending, but minor rewrites to a (new, original) script are standard procedure in the theatre right up to opening night, and sometimes beyond.

Wow, you guys seem really close. :-)

Izzat Warlock as your avatar?

Yep, it is.

^
Thanks!

Dumb question I've been meaning to ask: how do you pronounce "Kase"?

Since every Japanese name I've ever head-pronounced turned out to be wrong when I actually heard it spoken, I'm guessing "Casey" probably isn't it.

I liked this author's work. I looked forward to more of it. But unless it ever gets an official English translation, I'll probably never see it again.

Thanks!
Touko, like all the best people, has a glasses fetish, so in the end she runs off with Kanou Koyomi; bonding over their mutual heartbreak, Yuu and Ayaka eventually run a franchise of the Yuri-esque Café together.

I'm new to this board and have a question about spoiler tags. I get it about sharing information from material that hasn't been posted here (and from anime, when there is one), but I notice people in this thread using them for things like speculation about what might happen, or even just opinions about what they'd like to see happen. I looked around the forum for more details about what counts as a "spoiler," and if it's there I missed it.

I do want to avoid spoiling anything, so any help would be appreciated.

The ability to keep me on the edge of my seat with, what is essentially a simple romance story, is WONDERFUL!

Yes, the thing that sets it apart for me is the way that the changes in the characters are so fully set up and developed. In a lot of yuri manga characters seem to just flip one way or another as needed by the plot without much exploration of why it happens (from unawareness of another character's feelings, or to acceptance of a confession, or to "Let's go back to being friends," etc.). To have come this far in the story and given us such a clear picture of how and why the characters have changed, and yet still leaving us pretty much in the dark about where things are finally going to end up is pretty remarkable. (I can think of four or five different outcomes where I could look back and say, "Ah, of course, we've been given clear indications that would happen all along.")

At this point my main irrational fear is not that the right ship won't come in (although I certainly have my hopes) but that the ending will somehow be botched or unsatisfactory. That's "irrational" because the storytelling so far has been so skilled and self-assured there's just no reason to believe it will falter down the stretch (but such things have been known to happen).

This chapter is Yuu finally accepting her feelings for Touko and, by accepting her feelings, understanding that she's at the point of no return now, and she'll have to make Touko understand just how unhealthy and unfair their relationship is so that they can have a happier, more equal relationship.

And it's going to be immensely, IMMENSELY difficult to ensure the plan succeeds.

I agree--I think Yuu is right on the verge of admitting her feelings to herself, and since we know that she always takes a long time to decide something but then commits wholeheartedly once she does, it won't be long before she articulates her feelings to others (although perhaps not to Youko first).

That's why I think the play is so important--something needs to break up Touko's emotional logjam, and we've already seen that the play hits her deeply. It's fairly clear that the changed ending, with Yuu playing a much more central role, will probably be the occasion for a fundamental change in Touko. As you suggest, cleaning up the emotional debris afterwards probably won't be very easy, though.

Yuu, who is essentially gentle, kind, patient, has lots of self-control, & above all, mature.

All true, and yet I would argue that Yuu has a fair amount of growing up to do as well. Being someone who "always does what anyone asks" is not an entirely positive thing. Maybe it's that seeing herself that way, as she does, allows her to deflect ownership of her own decisions and then lament that other people aren't being "fair." Even before she meets Touko she claims that she was "manipulated" by her homeroom teacher into checking out the student council when he simply made a suggestion, to which she had responded with some interest (a fact which she then admits).

Yet another thing that keeps me, as a reader, a bit off balance with this story is that we can't always trust Yuu's inner thoughts. It's extremely common in yuri manga to have scenes where characters aren't being forthright about something, then as they walk away or in the next scene we hear what they're really thinking; those thoughts are usually presented as the real deal. But, especially in the earlier sections, Yuu often will think things that we can tell aren't true, at least not completely. She'll say things like, "I'm just being soft-hearted," or "anyone would have done what I did," or "she's not being fair," when we can see that she's not exactly lying, but is basically spinning her own decisions to herself.

So I think there's some blooming to be done (and in fact is well under way) from Yuu's end as well as Touko's.

This can go into angsty drama, or a heartfelt open romance, and anything in between.

Totally agree with this, and that may partly be where the reader unease comes from. The title seems to promise that the characters will end up together, but for long stretches it's hard to see exactly how they can ever get there. Touko has always needed to do something, and now she's clearly being positioned to do that something, but exactly what she'll end up doing I have hopes but no real idea.

(I'll give $50 for someone to break into Koyomi's house and get us an advance look at that revised play script.)

last edited at Jul 29, 2017 2:47PM

I'd argue the relationship has always been a trainwreck since it was founded on being one sided and the fact that Touko stubbornly pretends to be a version of her sister that never existed in the first place.

You're right that it's always potentially been a train wreck, but I'd save that label for when the final damage actually occurs (assuming it does). That initial set-up ("Let me love you even if you don't love me") certainly is weird and unsettling but not so obviously toxic; it's the shift to "I can love you only if you don't love me" that's the real dysfunctional move. At the start both Touko and Yuu in their own ways are emotionally locked down and static, and the "love without being loved" dynamic could be seen as emotional practice by two beginners. But by demanding that Yuu stay that way, Touko is insisting that Yuu put herself in the same straitjacket she's in. It's no accident that Yuu realizes this with that train roaring past in the background.

last edited at Jul 29, 2017 1:49PM

The recurring trains definitely add to the story's oddly unsettling subtext. As the feelings of the protagonists get more aligned, it looks like their relationship could be getting less emotionally fraught, but there's also the possibility of an impending trainwreck (at least figuratively if not literally).