What made people mad about this? I'm sort of confused actually. It is OOC, it doesn't portray either Sayaka or Homura in a good light, but I mean it's not like the original work doesn't already touch on those things. It's not like it isn't true that Sayaka has a dark side to her which when placed in a different world could manifest in even more hurtful ways. It's not like Homura hasn't done fucked up, selfish shit to trap Madoka. So while I would not want to reread this or even like it, I think it is compelling for exploring those sides of them in an exaggerated setting with the circumstances built for it.

It was still really gross though when Sayaka basically rapes Hitomi. And Kyouko would NOT have just grabbed Sayaka and kissed her after the bullshit Sayaka was pulling on her. In a work of OOC characters I think she was the most OOC. "It doesn't bother me at all" my ass. She's the one who chases after Sayaka's witch demanding to know if it wasn't Sayaka who had believed in heroes and justice or whatever.

Oh well. I still like it for being one of those "let's see how fucked up the characters can get" stories.

Uh what the fuck. Art style was good, first part was starting to get interesting in setting up a pretty new spin on Sayaka's idiocy, Homura's reaction at the end was gold, but everything else was trash. Straight up porn even in the way it was initiated, drawn and heavily out of character. Color me dissappointed.

(I will admit though that using the soul gems like vibrators was a genius touch.)

(I'm mentioning this because I'm tired of people complaining about certain romantic developments at the end of Gamma that were not what they were hoping for... even though imho everyone and their uncle should have been able to see these developments coming a fecking mile away!!! Geez! Anyway, you're warned, 'k?)

I guess Nezchan was one of those who wanted incestuous onee x loli at endgame and wasn't too happy when the sisters found different lovers each on their own? :P

Thank you so much for the spoiler, now I can read this series in peace. I hate incest works and now I can at least stomach reading Gamma if an incest ship isn't the end game.

Post-coital morning-wake-up Yuu is the hottest Yuu.

More like post-Koito Yuu, amirite?!

I'll show myself out.

Well-played.

For the actual chapter, I'm happy with how things played out. The moment it became clear they were both on the same page was when Yuu noted Touko had a good set-up and I got so excited. This chapter fulfilled expectations and hopes I didn't even know I had for the consummating of their relationship, Yuu taking the initiative as she had longed to many times before, their future including taking Touko's acting seriously, and the actual sex scene. So amazing. Wrapping up Touko's acknowledgment of what she had asked from Yuu before, Yuu's love for her anyway, Touko in lingerie (just like in Yuu's daydream! also shit Touko looks so hot there lol), their inevitable change and their inevitable sameness, and the choice that always underlies love in just ten pages. Beyond the story elements, I absolutely loved how lovingly they're drawn in those scenes. There's a magical sense of closeness and intimacy between them, a sense of just how little physical distance lies between them. I can all but feel their bodies pressing together.

Before I was worried about how Nakatani would wrap things up with only two chapters left, but now I'm content. Whatever the final chapter will be, it will be a fitting conclusion to this awesome series.

Also Yuu finally got to eat Touko's cheesecake! In more ways than one.

Ah fuck. I wish my Chinese was good enough to read this quickly. There's so many chapters.

How beautiful. I loved the koi fish and the dragon they formed. The little koi was extremely cute. And for Kokoro to try and understand such a new emotion, and succeed halfway, ha. I admire that attempt at understanding.

Eh, it's a gender swap, not cosplay or transgender.

Well, that's not something I expected to be reading. The author was right, people not into this type of stuff should have stayed away. XD It was pretty.... different to me when all was said and done, but to each their own.

I liked it a lot actually. Simple, but hey it got the message across. The last panel is intense and I find that delightful. Yuuka's secret feelings sure don't match up with her persona though. XD She's all cutesy, bubbly in the first two pages.

I would agree with her eyes having a sort of crazy look in the last page? But not yandere really? Just very deep and dark and extremely hungry/longing, based on that flushed face. She seems to have self control and degrees of reason. I can't tell if she's touching Rui's hand or not. She's definitely looking at Rui though, cause second to last panel of fourth page shows her back with her facing Rui.

Yeah these are pretty different types of like anyway lol. I'd want to see more.

...up until a man appears to be sentenced to death for committing petty theft.

Remilia can't drink enough to kill a human. So he'll be fine.

I think the hair decorations are different between reality and "Beniko and Sora" (Empty vs Filled, Scrunchie vs String?). Rereading it that way, it looks like the real Saku never left her notes for Kasumi to see. There are some tricky transitions in there!

That was brilliant, figuring it out. Clever use of story telling in this work.

Ahhhhh I love them so much. Ryuunosuke's works are always healing.

Pretty out of character with the sex, but then I realized it was Mira and everything made sense.

Oh darn I came looking for doujins/fan art cause of the NA release, and can't believe these first came out in 2017 with the JP release and there's been almost nothing else since.

Ah I wish Ayumu and Haruka could have had a stronger bond than between Haruka and Shinku. Although the later two parts were much more persuasive in showcasing Haruka and Shinku's relationship so that was good.

I liked that Haruka was disgusted by her sister doing things with her, but if it's with her cousin guess that moral outrage doesn't count. XD It added a nice touch of characterization.

Akuma no Riddle did this concept wayyyy better. This was a mess honestly and cause I hate incest generally, the sister reveal was bleh. Jesus what is with all of these people killing each other left and right; they don't even have a reason to do so like the academy's assassins did. From what I remember no one even dies in Akuma no Riddle. Now I remember why I stopped reading after the first chapter. I guess I thought maybe it'd redeem itself.

Why does this say completed? Is it not continuing?

What a hilarious series. I love it.

Mera needs to find ways of showing people's affection for each other besides assaulting them when they're sleeping. sweatdrop Or when awake.

This was good though. I like that for once the protagonist doesn't get to run away, cause their love interest insists on talking it out. Not having anyone to sit with at lunch was relatable. Chapter 7 was my favorite cause of the dark twist and vampire comparison. The virgin blood part made me laugh. The third wheel was a blatant plot device. Storyline and characters were fleshed out much more masterfully than in The Last Uniform. The first chapter doesn't fit in as well with the rest, being the president's perspective. I feel like it could have been cut to expand on her loneliness/family stuff instead, because she said such a stupid thing in Chapter 7 that she regretted almost immediately in chapter 9. Or even to expand on Sakurai's feelings to give her more depth. Pacing was good overall despite that. I loved the reasoning she gave Sakurai for why she couldn't do it.

I wonder why the Hakamada Mera stories I like the most have characters with messed up family lives.

This series is so old, geez. Was this Mera's debut? It's a very different style from her later works that's for sure and was rather lackluster for me. I remembered why I didn't remember anything about it from the first time I read it. Seeing Tsumugi and Beniko in the extras volume was heart-warming, but I feel like Ai and Fuuko never received the same resolution, despite being the "main" couple. Honestly they were a little boring to read about actually? Cause of how shallow the characterization was? But to be fair, I don't think that's Mera's strong point. Was dissappointing to see anyway.

All of the characters needed more background details and in-depth looks at their characters. When Ai said she wanted to get closer to Fuuko in the third volume, I was incredulous, because how do they know nothing about each other and what does she even like about her? The prince imagery shows up aproximately twice and isn't a recurrent theme, since Fuuko never does anything truly prince-like after the first chapter. There's also inconsistent characterization, cause when do Ai and Fuuko even get closer? What happened to the awkward middle school Ai? What happened to her seeing Fuuko as annoying? I saw more of a relationship grow between Ai and Anzu than Ai and Fuuko. What's up with not revealing the concern Beniko has of burdening Tsumugi until the very last two chapters. keyboard smash

At least seeing Tsumugi and her awkward realization she's just like Asagi in some ways made reading this worth it. And the chapter with her saving Beniko from getting burned was pretty hot, pun unintended.

Not a fan of the drunk, no resistance = liking/agreement line of thought, but ignoring that it's a cute story. I'd actually thought maybe they didn't do anything, because the freshman's just sitting there in the morning. True though that their jackets and neckties are gone, which I hadn't noticed on first read. And it would make more sense if they had been intimate in some fashion, even if it was just petting/cuddling, cause otherwise how could the girl expect the senpai to have made any sort of decision made when she was asleep.

These always kind of dance around what Mari is, just like the official stuff does. How long have these characters existed in a perpetual state of tease?

Always. Some little details get revealed that build on some characters, but there's still no clue as to who Sakuya truly is for example, after more than a decade. I would say Zun worldbuilds more than he character-builds and even that is limited.

https://twitter.com/93choco/status/1147664823741665280

thinking emoji

So it's the author's way to say 'no homo"

Woah, not what I expected going into the forums lol. I was wondering why the tags only said "subtext". It seems a little sad if this only ever goes as far as "girls ship" as the author called it, but I guess that can be acceptable because I think the work has been building on some lovely themes about loneliness, change, and communication, with or without the explicit yuri. It certainly would be nice anyway if the bond between Konatsu and Koyuki could be developed to that extent.

Back to what I originally came here for, I just thought after reading the latest chapter that both of them were dense as titanium. Also gorgeous art. And re-reading the earlier chapters, yeah right getting so excited over some random stranger you met for ten minutes is a normal beginning to friendships. Although, admittedly I could see that happening to some extent with someone who's extremely lonely, which both of them are. But still. I'll send prayers to the yuri goddess in feverish hopes of a blossoming romance between the two.

The omake was beautiful.

And as always, Yakumi can't resist throwing in gore of some sort. That corpse was overly detailed, which amuses me.

I liked this dive into Mai, Satono, and Okina's relationships and background. I'm so behind on the lore that I have no inkling of how accurate all of the dancer of the boundary stuff is, but it certainly feels fitting with all the doors Okina uses as a motif and I have some vague recollection of Okina being a god of mystery, secrets, and travellers. It did irk me that Marisa's element was said to be water because that's wildly inaccurate, her element's heat and light ("love") but whatever, it was a small detail.

This was a mesmerizing read. Different flavor of yuri and creative use of story-telling to highlight Hikawa's feelings. When the shadow turned into Natsuki in the second part, that was pretty exciting to see. The fact that the imagery was reinforced throughout made me happy to see. I think by the third part it's clear Hikawa's feelings have changed, considering how she rewrote the chapter.

I cringed so much each time Natsuki threatened Hikawa with blackmail but at least she recognized when she went too far. I guess in retrospect the assaulting scene doesn't look quite as bad, but in the moment it was quite cringe-worthy. If Hikawa hadn't liked it, and even if she didn't hate it, it could have been so much worse.

The last page is a pretty happy one all things considered. "It was painful, but that's all over with, so it's much better now. Both her world, and being in love with her, are my world", Natsuki says, while reading another part of the story Hikawa's presumably writing for her. It ends with a calm feeling. I just hope their communication improves cause even if Hikawa doesn't like talking as much and all that, they've got to still be able to commmunicate somehow without more misunderstandings. I did like that the mangaka did a decent job at exploring a character who doesn't express herself with spoken word and whose thoughts are revealed instead through written, metaphorical imagery, which I relate to.

Another thought is I liked how casually female sexuality was depicted throughout, in a completely natural way without shyness or anything. In Hikawa's story too, it's clearly linked with passionate, deep, sometimes even empty longing and so it's a nice break from the pure, fluffy, scandalous-hand-holding yuri.

Just a heads-up, people—I’ve got a big wall o’text percolating on the differences between connotation, suggestion, and symbolism (and also narrative staging), and soon as I get the time and energy, you’re gonna get it.

I will be looking forward to this, as I am now past my AP English days and still woefully uneducated in the literary arts.

When I said symbolism in my comment, that might have been too strong a word. In the past I've been corrected on terminology differences between drama and melodrama too for example. I like my interpretations though, because they lend more shades of feeling to me beyond what's literally depicted and said.

To a number of the other comments which say those are far-fetched interpretations, well I passed by those scenes (boat/leaf ones) completely on my first read. They clearly didn't stand out enough to have an immediate meaning like the ducks did. I don't think they necessarily have to mean anything, cause there are plenty of way more practical reasons for why those scenes were drawn that way, like the boat showing up on the first page cause then we know there are boats in the area and the leaves being there cause fall.

I like to think that Nakatani's narrative can be complex enough to allow for the possibility of such interpretations, given that there is some repeated textual evidence which is not contradicted by other main themes. And I've found that in Yagakimi, it is those every day objects, the small things which blend into daily life, which end up having the most meaning and feeling through coincidence and perhaps association with what's going on storywise. I mean, ducks. So why not other objects too which seem to have been deliberately drawn in?

Mostly I'm just surprised people even read so much of that wall of text.

last edited at Feb 4, 2019 1:53PM