I absolutely cannot imagine this manga in particular giving its main character a single wholesome monogamous happily ever after. That would violate the whole ethos of it.

To whoever is scanlating, quick nitpick

A castle is a specific term that refers to a fortified manor, that had a license to do so. (known as a license to castle)

Unless Remilia has that she's got a Manor or Mansion, not a castle.

This is a pretty weird point, and I don't even know where to start with it, but it was addressed to me for some reason ("whoever"... the credits are right there) so I'll respond to it in pieces.

As to This as I was writing that I was still waking up. Forgot it was you

1. 99% of the time the Scarlet Devil Mansion is called a mansion, but in that specific line Remilia inarguably calls it a castle, presumably metaphorically in a "my home is my castle" kind of way. Did you think the translator decided to call it a castle on a lark, or that I should've changed it in translation because it didn't fill a technical definition?

Hence why it's a nitpick

But anyways Remilia is over 500 years old, so she probably does know the difference between a castle and a mansion. It just reads weird because everywhere else it does get referred to as the mansion. Maybe in the original Japanese it makes more sense when combined with the rough historical knowledge a lay person would know, but in this case it feels like it creates a different image as to what Remilia is referring to.

You're disagreeing with a fictional character's word choice and complaining about it to people who have nothing to do with that and it's weird. Are you also gonna complain to the translator about Flandre using boyfriend when referring to people who aren't boys?

I seriously can't even begin to comprehend the problem with being an orphan Toxic Mom has. I've certainly been exposed to plenty of different bigotries and stereotypes and biases but "don't let your daughter date an orphan"? Literally never, what on earth even is this.

Her mother has absolutely seen it, she's seen Makino's vastly improved test scores and got called to the hospital from Makino overworking. If Toxic Mom doesn't believe in Makino and the Power of Gay Love at this point then that's entirely on her

Well that's certainly an even more chuuni name lol.

Ruruka is the only character that makes Toudou look reasonable

I’m hoping she gets laid by one of the other girls so she stops simping over Toudou lol

She’s a reminder to how degenerate Toudo used to be

I'm rooting for her and the Chuuni mangaka girl, I think they'd be both cute and very funny together. Ruruka was right there in her intro chapter after all

Edit: double-checked her name because even that is funny: Shirashiro Kurohime. White White Black Princess lol

last edited at Apr 29, 2024 1:43AM

Is the Blue Monday song choice part of the meme she's using, or is that an original twist

We will see Lapis's journey to polyamory complete on ao3 if nothing else :P

This story is so sweet it gives me canaries more please

A romance so sweet the queen of the elves declares it ancient forbidden knowledge and sends her enforcers to arrest you for reading it

No new chapter this week, but we're blessed with this hilarious "introduction" instead:
https://twitter.com/agu_knzm/status/1784438628183404822

I'm not super surprised (the combo of a soft fantasy style and then a princess eating cookies covered with ants off the ground probably served as a wall for a lot of casuals) but it's still sad news. Hope the author's self publishing goes well for her.

Kaguhara was already a funny character but getting outside her head and only seeing her externally has made her so much funnier somehow.

I think it makes perfect sense that high school yuri especially doesn't ever really fit my experience actually being a teenage sapphic. Especially since I didn't go to a private super high class all girls Catholic school like apparently 90% of kids in Japan go to, if yuri manga is telling me the truth :P

There's a few different adult "yuri" manga that has this feel like "This is not inspired by other yuri manga it's inspired by real life". Stuff like how Run Away With Me Girl spends a lot of time on the emotional battle of the pull of personal gay desires and the pull of your whole entire world telling you to be straight instead (much to the consternation of the comment section lol), or Ohana Holoholo's portrayal of bisexuality (much to the consternation of the comment section lol).

The Guy I Liked is the first time I've seen this kind of approach used for a teenage story. I honestly think the biggest obstacle a lot of angry posters have is that this isn't a story about a gay romance. It's a story about being gay. And a whole lot of gays spend their whole teenage years without any romance because we're all so anxious and isolated and frequently soaking in the self-denial society demands from all queers of all stripes. The fact that these girls have gotten as far as they have in how long they've known each other? Well above the curve when we compare them to real gay kids instead of yuri manga.

This is precisely it. I think a lot of people, subconsciously, want the proverbial U-haul romance where two people throw themselves at each other in a heat of passion and desire. In many cases though, things take time? Slow burn romances are real? Being a teen with a billion feelings to manage and also trying to figure out dating, let alone dating in a non-cis-het frame takes time and energy and isn't always front of mind. Also, queer relationships often exist in messy gray spaces for significant periods of time, as do really many relationships. Hell, we invented the word 'situationship' in the 00s for this sort of kind-of-but-not-quite-a-thing-but-maybe-getting-there. It's fascinating because in this case, Joe and Kanna are an obvious parallel/secondary couple who are also dealing with a lot of complicated emotions and a lot is going unsaid though there's obviously a lot of affection between them.

Idk, it's nice to see romances that are situated in stories about life generally vs. being wholly about falling in love hard and fast. Everyone here has stuff they're working through - their relationship to music, what they want in life, past choices, making friends and being open about themselves even just on the level of interests. And they've all made so much progress. Aya actually has music community and a pseudo-second family with Joe, Kanna, and Mitsuki. Mitsuki is slowly realizing that she doesn't have to live like she's some forever outsider who has to hide her true self from the world. Joe and Kanna are doing the messy business of patching up an old relationship (maybe?) that ended not because of incompatible personalities or a lack of desire, but life calling them in different directions which is the hardest sort of break-up because its not really anyone's 'fault'.

That's such a rich portrait of life, esp. in this punk slice of the world that exists on the social fringes, that you almost never get to see in media.

This is such a good post and the fact that it's starting with adding onto mine makes me feel all warm and fuzzy ^_^

I can't agree with you more.
That's why while l can (kind of) sympathize with Koto, Erika is totally another story.

I even laughed out loud when someone claimed Erika is the most mature out of the three.
Then how can she not be able to let go the girl who never likes her and even tried to use her as a rebound？？？

At least Koto did try to move on but sadly found herself couldn't.

The one who really needs to grow up here is Erika.

Maybe I'm misremembering but didn't Koto go through a long series of rebounds, and when she finally turned to Erika for one Erika turned her down bc she knew it wasn't real/earnest?

Also in general I don't find it hard at all to sympathize with someone "not moving on" when the person they love is hurting right by their side every day. She continued taking care of her personal life just fine at least.

last edited at Apr 25, 2024 6:13PM

I think it makes perfect sense that high school yuri especially doesn't ever really fit my experience actually being a teenage sapphic. Especially since I didn't go to a private super high class all girls Catholic school like apparently 90% of kids in Japan go to, if yuri manga is telling me the truth :P

There's a few different adult "yuri" manga that has this feel like "This is not inspired by other yuri manga it's inspired by real life". Stuff like how Run Away With Me Girl spends a lot of time on the emotional battle of the pull of personal gay desires and the pull of your whole entire world telling you to be straight instead (much to the consternation of the comment section lol), or Ohana Holoholo's portrayal of bisexuality (much to the consternation of the comment section lol).

The Guy I Liked is the first time I've seen this kind of approach used for a teenage story. I honestly think the biggest obstacle a lot of angry posters have is that this isn't a story about a gay romance. It's a story about being gay. And a whole lot of gays spend their whole teenage years without any romance because we're all so anxious and isolated and frequently soaking in the self-denial society demands from all queers of all stripes. The fact that these girls have gotten as far as they have in how long they've known each other? Well above the curve when we compare them to real gay kids instead of yuri manga.

last edited at Apr 22, 2024 9:06PM

I am very unnerved by how their big dangly earrings stayed on during sex. That's just asking for trouble, the kind that hurts enough to be a mood killer.

Well now that that's over, we can get back to talking about this gay comic full of gays. Hey y'all remember just like a month ago there was a chapter where Aya said to Mitsuki directly "you are the same person as 'onii-san'", thus telling her to her face that all those feelings of love apply to her? God this comic is good.

The term being corrupted by westerners does not destroy the original intent of shoujo ai . It’s basic research, you can just look at references, read actual articles, consume the manga and content tagged it, etc l. Idk why you guys are over complicating it and trying to tie loli in, it’s pretty dishonest and bad faith

You can go read Wikipedia and they'll literally tell you the exact same stuff lol. They've even got a bunch of citations and junk, but I'll let our resident brain genius look them up if you don't believe it lol
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoujo_ai

I may not have intelligence or mental faculties but at least I can actually enjoy this comic about gay alt rock girls. If mental faculties means you can't enjoy good art then forget em, I say.

Who said anything about sex? Strawman city

It’s about wanting romance/lesbian content as a lesbian, and not dragging fans along through volumes of no relationship progress so they can plug uninteresting dude chars and make money off cds. At the end of the day consume what you desire but I will always criticize crooked stuff. I don’t care if it’s nsfw, could give less shits

I just don’t enjoy the bait and switch from an interesting romancing to a slow burn with all these chars idgaf about that are trope after trope copy and pasted from other mangas. Maybe I’m just expecting too much

Great convo tho salute

We weren't strawmanning you, we were ignoring you and talking about something someone else said. The stuff you're saying isn't really worth responding to. Sorry for the confusion :)

The idea that yuri is inherently sexual or erotic is a thing Western comics fans made up like 15 years ago, it's not a thing in Japanese. There's been a handful of different authors who say they dislike the label but not because it's sexual but because it's a specific genre with conventions and fans with annoying expectations, as we're seeing live in this very thread.

Yeah, that is more in line with what she actually said during that older interview. I don't know where this idea that "yuri" implies sexual content comes from. Ironically, "Shoujo Ai" is a unique tag that I don't think is interchangeable and if I understand its usage correctly, is the more sexually charged term in Japan. Someone can correct me.

Don't know if it's true but I've heard multiple people say the phrase "shoujo ai" in Japanese has lolicon vibes to it. What I am confident in is that it's not an actual genre name or commonly used tag.

I have no idea why those older fans coined "shoujo ai," it's a completely fake term. They took the words for girl and love and mashed them together, meanwhile in Japanese they actually use the borrowed English "Girls Love" lmao. Those weebs were trying to be more Japanese than the Japanese I guess. No idea why they wanted to divide yuri up on those arbitrary lines instead of just using a second goddamn tag to indicate content. Best thing about Dynasty by far is the complex tag system.

The idea that yuri is inherently sexual or erotic is a thing Western comics fans made up like 15 years ago, it's not a thing in Japanese. There's been a handful of different authors who say they dislike the label but not because it's sexual but because it's a specific genre with conventions and fans with annoying expectations, as we're seeing live in this very thread.
Also the idea that Arai would dump her intentions and interests for a paycheck with this series that's been an act of love and passion for most of its run is just cynical and kinda insulting. What reason has she given you to directly attack her character like this? And it doesn't even make sense for the corporations to ask her to make it not gay, because they have enough sense to realize that if their attachment to a piece of media ruins it people will hate them instead of like them. Nobody likes it when you kill the golden goose.

That was just to set up the twist of Sayaka and Kasumi being in a relationship, nothing is implying either of them would be fine with multiple partners.

Oh I don't think Kasumi "would be fine with multiple partners," I think she specifically wants that for herself lol. That girl's secretly way more bold than anyone realizes, and that's been the theme of multiple reveals about her, right from her introduction where Michi thinks she's friendless only for Kasumi to reveal she's got a senpai bff with matching hair styles. Bet she ain't vanilla either lol.

Like yeah, sure, it's a crack theory basically. But for all the things I can explain away, there's one I can't: why did Kasumi come out to Michi because " I want you to be friends with Sayaka-senpai". She just watched a whole chapter of them getting along for her sake, so what role does she imagine being openly gay will play in that friendship?
It's fun to think about, if nothing else. :P

Yeah I'm not gonna expect the book until new years at least probably, but I'm glad they take their time with it because so far all the official translations have been excellent and I don't want to see that quality drop.