Since manga characters already look like vtuber avatars, it would be funny if their avatars looked realistic instead.

Or something like Zen's Ultimate form

10/10, can't wait for 100+ chapters of uselessness

Rei out here making extra money...for Claire?? Is she foreshadowing something?? Either way, Claire was so f##king cute this chapter!

Not having read the original novel, my impression is that Rei is covertly putting down layer upon layer of safety nets for Claire to survive once the commoners inevitably rise up and start guillotining the nobles left and right.

Considering the setting is supposed to parallel a romance game about three princes, I'd be kind of surprised if there's a proletariat uprising.

The game is called "Revolution"

I have not watched this anime, and I am unfamiliar with the characters. Is this foe yay?

It’s an Isekai about a girl dying and being reincarnated into her favorite otome game, but she’s the villainess who dies in every route, so she tries to change fate by being nice to everyone. Inadvertently she gets a harem of her own by doing this, including all the male love interests from the game and even the heroine herself (who is the blond girl in this doujin), and a few other girls too. The other users here are lamenting that the anime pretty much focuses on the het stuff in season 2.

I guess I Favor the Villainess is still the main game in town for yuri in otome game isekai (which IS a genre).

The lack of otome isekai yuri is an incredible shame. LIke, it's a fucking goldmine and nobody's tapping into it

I've seen quite a few novels of that genre. Just barely any manga and even less anime

Wonderful way to wake up I imagine

@bloodonthewater Don't worry about it

It’s years of that coupled with sexual assault that did nothing but mold her into Turtle Mei.

To me this has precisely the same status as saying, “It’s years of that coupled with the fact that Mei’s mother was an ice demon that did nothing but mold her into Turtle Mei.”

Nothing in the text contradicts my statement, it is congruent with Mei’s behavior in the story, and there’s no less evidence in the text for my statement than there is for yours.

Nothing in the text contradicts you but nothing supports you either. The sexual assault has actual evidence (very little, but it's still there if you squint) that you just dismiss for no apparent reason other than "that's not enough"

last edited at Sep 23, 2021 6:17PM

People really need to stop projecting onto the text

Why? It does zero harm, can make engaging with the work more entertaining, and can lead to interesting interpretations that one wouldn't think of without it

Because it's a form of reader fantasizing that takes us away from the text itself. Of course, anybody is welcome to do that for themselves as much as they want. But these assertions are presented as interpretative arguments about how other readers are supposed to understand the text.

No it doesn't. Projection is a way to analyse the text. No text stands on it's own, everything is built on unsaid premises. Some are clearer than others but every text that exists does this. Projection then is a way to emphasise with the characters and to search for those unsaid premises by comparing them to real life.

There's no singular correct way to read any given story. Every interpretation that can be drawn from the text is valid, some more than others but all are still valid. The only problem is when people try to argue that only their own reading is correct and everything else is wrong. I've yet to see anyone here doing that

I'm just reiterating the same point I've already made though so I'm just gonna give up now

DY4Y posted:

People really need to stop projecting onto the text

Why? It does zero harm, can make engaging with the work more entertaining, and can lead to interesting interpretations that one wouldn't think of without it

I just don't want to think or imagine Mei being rapped if it wasn't the author's intention, saying it's harmless in this case is bizzarre, the whole manga would need a warning for readers if that was the case.

thomasina said that she could be wrong too, it is an interpretation after all and that's okay, and if she's right then there's a lot of text that needs to be changed in the manga, but we really need to be careful with such delicate subjects and don't burden the characters like that if we're not sure.

Wasn't talking about sexual assault there. Only that projecting is not a bad thing

People really need to stop projecting onto the text

Why? It does zero harm, can make engaging with the work more entertaining, and can lead to interesting interpretations that one wouldn't think of without it

last edited at Sep 23, 2021 10:35AM

What we do know for sure is that Mei was once subjected to an unwelcome kiss by her then-fiancé.

Yes, that is sexual assault

By that standard, Yuzu is the victim of multiple sexual assaults, as is Matsuri, with Mei as the perpetrator in both cases.

Yes again.

At this point, I no longer know if Senpai actually even still love the past MC, since she literally letting a stranger (they might know each other name, but that pretty much about it, and future MC has a fake name at that) do lewd things to her every single time they meet, but oh well, might as well read and see the ending if its indeed just a hentai series or actually has plot.

"STILL" loves? I would like to know why you think she ever did. This entire plot started because Senpai never reciprocated her feelings, even several years in the future.

I wonder where that comes from too. It's working under the assumption senpai would've gone out with MC had she been assertive in her youth, but I don't remember that being hinted at.

Probably this

Only 8 chapters left now. How sad. Wish this had went on for longer

Please let her be with all of them.

I like how this is one of those series where the forum discussion is arguably more entertaining and certainly had more thought put into it than the actual manga.

Lol
This is so true

Just as much unnecessary drama, though.

I'd say the forum has more

Here's where we disagree. A story establishes certain facts as true (Mei and Yuzu are stepsisters; they will get married, etc.). Until such time as a story literally changes our understanding of those facts, they are canonical.

The same is true, albeit perhaps arguably a bit more obliquely, of characterization. Certainly, as I said before, the story can subsequently supplement or transform explanations for a character's behavior or personality, but until it does, anything besides the text itself is rank speculation--Mei might be autistic, or a rape victim, or have suffered brain damage in a fall while staying at fiancé #2's house, or have undergone hypnosis to remove her previous lustful impulses, or be planning yet another arranged marriage to a man. But all of those possibilities amount to projection by readers and are beyond the text.

Okay, I actually agree with you here for the most part. I've been misunderstanding your points up to now.

When I say "there is no canon" what I mean is that readings that can be found within a text and are not contradictory to facts already established within the canon are themselves equal to canon

I believe that Mei can be read as autistic and that this reading doesn't contradict any facts already established within the canon. So, I see the reading of Mei as autistic equal to the reading of her as not autistic. And thus, neither position is canonical. Hence "there is no canon" (or the other way I phrased it "both are canon")

The only part where I seem to disagree is that I don't see these interpretations being "beyond the text" like you do. I see interpretations as a requirement to analysing a text hence why I think that, as long as your reading is based within the text, any given interpretation can be textual.

(and just to clarify, I'm not saying "Mei is autistic" I'm saying "Mei can be read as autistic")

As I said, as a free human being you can headcanon anything you like, and you can dismiss or ignore the explanations for Mei’s character presented in the text itself to your heart’s content.

Not once did I mention headcanons. In my opinion Mei can be read as autistic based on what happens in the story without that interpretation requiring one to ignore/dismiss anything. If you disagree please point out why, don't just dismiss other interpretations as headcanon

EDIT: And your point is a valid one—“can be read as” and “canonically is” are two very different things.

Personally I don't see a difference. Or to be more precise, I don't think that Mei has a canonical reading. As long as a story presents the possibility of multiple readings then either 1. all are equally canon or 2. there is no canon (both boil down to the same point although I prefer phrasing it like 2)

Mei’s personality has been explained canonically in the text, as I said—a rigid, repressive traditional upbringing and a traumatic abandonment by her father. You didn’t “mention” a headcanon, you enacted one.

Mei’s behavior might be “read as consistent” with any number of psychological or cognitive syndromes. The story has explicitly presented the “family upbringing” explanation for Mei’s behavior. Pending further actual evidence from the text, anything else is headcanon.

Once again, I don't see anything contradictory with "Mei is autistic" and "a rigid, repressive traditional upbringing and a traumatic abandonment by her father", in fact, I think it can work in the favour of the autistic reading. All the actual evidence for it is subtext that is up to interpretation, but that doesn't dismiss the quality of said argument. Nor does the existence of additional factors that lead to Mei acting the way she does

As I said, there is no "canon"

(and just to clarify, I'm not saying "Mei is autistic" I'm saying "Mei can be read as autistic")

As I said, as a free human being you can headcanon anything you like, and you can dismiss or ignore the explanations for Mei’s character presented in the text itself to your heart’s content.

Not once did I mention headcanons. In my opinion Mei can be read as autistic based on what happens in the story without that interpretation requiring one to ignore/dismiss anything. If you disagree please point out why, don't just dismiss other interpretations as headcanon

EDIT: And your point is a valid one—“can be read as” and “canonically is” are two very different things.

Personally I don't see a difference. Or to be more precise, I don't think that Mei has a canonical reading. As long as a story presents the possibility of multiple readings then either 1. all are equally canon or 2. there is no canon (both boil down to the same point although I prefer phrasing it like 2)

last edited at Sep 20, 2021 7:47AM

While it isn’t explicitly stated that her first Ex Fiancé raped her I think people have a right to assume that it wasn’t the first time he’s assaulted her.

No, they don’t. To do so is a violation of the basic premise in literary analysis that interpretations need to be based on the totality of evidence actually presented within the text, not on headcanon or on desperate attempts to make a characterization fit a preconceived set of premises.

So I guess subtext just doesn't exist?
Mei saying that "This is what a real kiss is like" combined with the things anim8tur pointed out while not explicitly stating "Mei's been assaulted before" does still imply it. It's up to interpretation

Granted, in the end, people have the “right” to believe anything they want to about the story. They can believe that Mei is autistic, or an alien, or a killer android from the future. They can’t pretend that’s based on a conscientious and internally consistent reading of the text, however.

But it is though. I very recently reread the series and I could easily read her as autistic from the beginning and nothing throughout the series ever really conflicted with that while many things (her impulsive behaviour in general, her difficulty in reading people's emotions, her inability to express herself, the entirety of chapter 22, etc) ended up affirming it.
"Mei is autistic" is 100% internally consistent even though almost certainly not intended.

(and just to clarify, I'm not saying "Mei is autistic" I'm saying "Mei can be read as autistic")

And the third shows her saying "okay" to Yuzu's desire to live like newlyweds again. Meaning she might just want to do it too.

Mei might want to act like newlyweds again? Have you forgotten (as Mei apparently has) that these two are already engaged to be married, (and canonically they do actually get married)?

What an amazing emotional breakthrough--to consider the possibility that you **might* want to act like a newlywed someday with the person to whom you are already engaged.

guess the tone wasn't carried through. The "might" was meant to be sarcastic

You know, as much as I want the scenes we all want; it's really nice to see Mei loving Yuzu in her own way. She may not show it much, but she does very much love Yuzu and I think that's pretty nice.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Mei has become the absent workaholic manga parent while sleeping in the same bed as Yuzu.

oh yeah, "assumes facts" not in evidence

Are you sure we read the same thing?

We absolutely are not reading the same thing-- most of those supposed "examples" of "Mei loving Yuzu in her own way" show Yuzu going all out to elicit some kind of response from Mei and getting absolutely NOTHING in return except a cryptic statement at the end about a "weight being lifted from her heart" that Yuzu doesn't even hear because she's asleep.

Actually, you're right--Mei saying "Thank you, Yuzu--because of your care and consideration I was able to ignore you completely all day" is the quintessential lovey-dovey Mei-bot in a nutshell.

The first two show Mei talking to Yuzu about how she still has work to do (which she has already ignored for Yuzu's sake) and feeling guilty about it. After which she feels thankful that Yuzu understands her. Also it shows that they have developed better communication skills and mutual understanding
The second two show Mei apologising for taking too long followed by her, once again, being very thankful that Yuzu understands and supports her. How do you not read at least this scene as romantic?
And the third shows her saying "okay" to Yuzu's desire to live like newlyweds again. Meaning she might just want to do it too.

You know, as much as I want the scenes we all want; it's really nice to see Mei loving Yuzu in her own way. She may not show it much, but she does very much love Yuzu and I think that's pretty nice.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

Mei has become the absent workaholic manga parent while sleeping in the same bed as Yuzu.

oh yeah, "assumes facts" not in evidence

Are you sure we read the same thing?

This was a very cute chapter

And once again I seem to have a completely different view on Mei from everyone else xd. For me she felt very affectionate and happy and just in general very loving towards Yuzu

Yeah, but at least it's something. Here's to hoping that the final two volumes have some more

last edited at Sep 18, 2021 8:55AM

^Volume 11, especially the beginning, was pretty good on the Hifumi front (you could even interpret it to be softcore confirming that Hifumi has a crush on Aoba)

Hazuki says "If you want to be someone special to Suzukaze-kun maybe you should strive for that" and Hifumi responded "that almost sounds like romantic advice" after which Hazuki said "yuri is unfolding before my eyes"

last edited at Sep 17, 2021 10:41PM