I agree, at this point their relationship isn't doomed at all, but it will end up failing if they don't open up to each other about the uncomfortable emotions they're feeling. I think jealousy and possessiveness are normal, to a degree, but they need to communicate their feelings and negotiate what to do about them.

It seems Miwa is starting to come out of her shell, she's probably found the resolve to make a stand for their relationship and actively work to maintain it. Now I guess we need to see if she goes through with it, and if Saeko manages to own her jealousy.

I want more stories like this, that are not so much, or at least not only, about falling in love, but rather figuring out how to keep loving, how to establish and maintain a relationship. I felt that Bloom Into You somewhat fell into that category (although more on the "learning to love"/"defining love" side), while this one takes it one step further, probably partly due to being set in college rather than high school.

The positive developments and the problems are what make me think they're gonna go the "break up and get back together" route. The one-shot played things off like they mostly just went out because they were both gay, but the serialized story is definitely showing us Saeko falling hard, but neither of them is being honest about their feelings. I bet they turn into -that- couple.

The couple that breaks up, and gets back together, and this happens so many times that the friends just start to assume that the breakups are temporary.

You mean "let's bang" isn't about firing explosives at one another? Man, no wonder my last relationship didn't work out.

No wonder you thought that's what it means. You're a physics major IIRC.

Sounds more like a chemist thing IMO... o3o

Where's that one post Heavensrun made in the Futaribeya thread months ago when I need it?

The one about solar intensity at the beach?

I feel vaguely uneasy. This is going too smoothly. Either we're nearing the end, or something has to go wrong soon.

You mean "let's bang" isn't about firing explosives at one another? Man, no wonder my last relationship didn't work out.

Context matters in everything.

What is this, a Matt Easton video?

Not enough sabers or falchions.

and I think if a Mochi book had a male-sexed protagonist, it might be something like a divide-by-zero error on the entire universe.

Oh well

(shit i forgot about that one)

(cough) I mean, Ah, but you see, Clearly Mochi and Majoccoid recognized the havoc that would be wrought by that story about a boy who was dressing like a girl to impress the boy he liked, and so therefore they created -this- series, about a girl who was dressing like a boy to impress the girl she liked, in order to cancel out it's effects!

So as you can see I actually remembered that one-shot and accounted for it in my calculations.

(nailed it.)

last edited at Jul 10, 2020 3:13PM

Now let's pull up a chair and have a conversation about "rape culture".

There is no point so you can put your chair back where you take it.

The notion that "if you do x I won't be able to control myself and will sexually assault you" is a lie made up by people who either want to excuse rape or put the blame for it on the victim. Empowering rapists is what I would call a problem of rape culture.

oh my god, are we really gonna have a discussion about this? it's obvious that kanda wasn't implying that, she would never try and do something without consent. you literally see her ask "can I touch you" in one of the last panels. pls, go back to Twitter and use that energy on real rapists.

lol, no. Just because a work contains no actual rapists, it doesn't make parroting of pernicious rape apologia beyond criticism.

I contest the suggestion that "all men are wolves" or "if you get naked I won't be able to control myself" are "rape apologia. There is a fundamental difference between telling someone, before they decide to disrobe, that if they disrobe you will want to have sex, and using someone's dress or behavior after the fact as an excuse for rape. One is a means of establishing consent, the other is an attempt to excuse acting without it.

Context matters in language.

The idea that people, especially men, have no control of themselves when they get horny is a myth with negative social consequences, and noting when a piece of media reinforces that myth is entirety fair. This doesn't mean the person noticing it is offended, or looking for something to be angry about, it just means they are looking at the media they consume with a critical eye. Which is good.

This doesn't reinforce anything of the kind, though. If anything, the opposite is true, because she says she doesn't think she'll be able to control herself, but once Ookuma starts to undress, what's the first thing she does? ASK. She didn't have to ask at that point, Ookuma had already pretty clearly stated enthusiastic consent. But she did, because she -isn't- out of control.

This also doesn't mean mean that liking this makes you a bad person. I still like it. I enjoy tons of problematic shit. That's okay! If it weren't, there'd be basically no media we'd be allowed to enjoy.

But there is a point at which the overzealous labeling of things as "problematic" has deleterious effects. There's a "boy who cried wolf" effect that comes into play. The alt-right explicitly uses overzealous criticisms to dismiss and discredit the entire conversation so they can radicalize people in the other direction. I've had perfectly rational, intelligent people in my life who I've had to reverse engineer out of awful views because their first exposure to a progressive topic was overblown mania.

Being critical is great, being overly critical is counterproductive.

Edit: I am really glad it worked out though. At first I thought that Ookuma would stubbornly stick to her delusion that Kanda was a boy. Then at the end, when Ookuma was getting undressed, I had the surreal thought that she would end up being a guy. It all made sense in my head. The really old fashion ideas on staying chaste during dating, The whole weird issue of Ookuma having problems identifying genitalia. I thought for sure it would turn out that Ookuma was a boy and that Ookuma's parents raised her/him as a girl for some strange reason that would only make sense in a manga. Ookuma's wacky parents would be introduced in the next character begging Kanda to not tell Ookuma the truth. Thus starting the next story arc.

A few people have suggested this idea, and I could see it happening if this wasn't a Mochi story. Mochi usually doesn't have guys at all (like it's honestly kind of novel that Kanda has guy friends,) and I think if a Mochi book had a male-sexed protagonist, it might be something like a divide-by-zero error on the entire universe.

Oooookaaaaay That was... over the top.

I mean I get the concept of a character being redicuiously dense for comedy. But that was just sad.

I would be willing to bet, given the nature of the rest of the scene, that at least some of that was an act because she wanted to get a close look at her lover's naughty parts.

Now let's pull up a chair and have a conversation about "rape culture".

There is no point so you can put your chair back where you take it.

The notion that "if you do x I won't be able to control myself and will sexually assault you" is a lie made up by people who either want to excuse rape or put the blame for it on the victim. Empowering rapists is what I would call a problem of rape culture.

You're taking the scene way too literally. First of all, I don't know the exact japanese in the original, but you routinely see "attack" in manga referring to consensual sexual advances. She isn't literally saying she's going to sexually assault her, she's saying she's going to make a sexual advance. I don't know how anybody reading this comic could think Kanda is the type of person that would force herself on Ookuma without consent. You are conflating an absolutely innocent scene with people who make excuses for actual sexual misconduct.

She's saying "If you strip in front of me, I'm going to want to do stuff to you." Ookuma then -literally- says that's the plan, and that she will consent if that happens. Then she does strip, and Kanda literally asks for consent directly despite the fact that she already has it. There's no assault here, nor threat of assault, or anything approaching a threat of assault. Just two absolute dorks nervously approaching the concept of maybe wanting to do stuff to each other if that's okay.

You are jumping at shadows in a well-lit room here.

"put Kanda in a really difficult position right from the start."

I don't see it. Sure, Ookuma mistook Kanda's gender. Kanda could have said something right then. Or at any time in the past 6 months. Including early on, when she asked Ookuma "what if I were a girl?" and Ookuma basically shrugged. Kanda put herself in this position.

If someone mistakenly thinks you are the opposite sex, That's going to bruise your self esteem. If they're also smitten with you, you have the awkward combination of being both insulted and flattered at the same time.

She got herself into the relationship because of a stupid impulse, but it was Ookuma's...overpowering enthusiasm that made it difficult for her to come forward at the start, and then she caught actual feelings and started to become afraid of losing her. Everything there came from a place that was well-intentioned, if irresponsible. I'm not saying it's all Ookuma's fault, it's definitely mostly on Kanda for not coming forward earlier, but if you don't think any of that would be difficult to deal with, I don't know what to tell you.

And it's real easy to say "Haha if you were a girl? I dunno, I guess I wouldn't care" when you are absolutely convinced that it couldn't be true. It didn't necessarily do much to alleviate Kanda's worries. The fact that she apparently meant it wouldn't help Kanda in that moment, but it -does- make forgiving her much easier for Ookuma. Like I said, it's pretty easy to forgive someone for something you didn't really care about.

I STILL want a reveal at the end that this has all been the yuri Mom's manga. lol

Nah, if it was mom's manga, the feelings would be more obviously reciprocated. ;p

This didn't really come off as sweet to me. I think the longer the lying went on, the more I couldn't get fluffy feelings from this manga. She just accepted that her partners has been lying to her? What a doormat. Toxic behaviour.

It isn't like Ookuma is blameless here. She's the one that mistook Kanda's gender in the first place, and if she stops to think about it, she could probably think of a number of situations in which she said things that were unintentionally hurtful to Kanda as a result. That's an honest mistake, but it's still hurtful and also put Kanda in a really difficult position right from the start. Kanda is also expressing serious remorse and regret, and apparently gender isn't an issue to Ookuma anyway.

It's a lot easier to forgive someone for something when you honestly don't care about the thing you're forgiving them for.

The fact that they're actually communicating honestly now is anything but toxic.

Ookuma, being slightly thirstier than a salt desert.

"I might....attack you..."

"That...is the plan."

What flower is this? https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/handsome_girl_and_sheltered_girl_ch10#15

I think its crown of thorns maybe?

Makes sense. A flower with two pink petals.

Can we just talk for a second about how it took her CLOSELY inspecting Kanda's crotch? I mean, I know she's sheltered and dense but did she really not recognize the difference between male and female genitalia?

I think it's more that she was averting her eyes instinctively.

It's perfectly fine and everything, really happy with how things are turning out, but I found that rather funny

I'm honestly pretty surprised. I thought with it being Christmas eve, the parents would definitely show up to surprise her in person, creating a new awkward situation for comedy hijinks, but nope, parents aren't there, sexings imminent.

Is Saeko a trans guy??? And was hurt and ridiculed for it before, now hiding behind long hair?
I'm very confused now. Saeko is very boyish in everything regardless of verbal expression of gender

And what will be now, after Miwa asking for switch?

I've heard pretransition trans guys are not comfortable with their bodies, but I'm not sure why Seako is not a switching type. Is it physical or emotional insecurity?

How to make a difference between a trans guy (possibly hidden) and a lesbian in such unclear situation like here, at this point in story-line?

I seriously doubt Saeko is trans. That isn't the kind of core protagonist trait you drop on the audience 20+ volumes into the series, especially when there are already several one-shots documenting these character's lives. She was just a tomboy as a kid.

I think it's 95% about sexual attraction.
You can't love someone by hiding every side of your hurtful part, and also, never really tolerate the weak part of your partner.
I think Sae likes Miwa a WHOLE lot, but it's not love (yet?).

Sex is how Saeko retreats and distracts from the things she's scared of.

It's very hard to talk about trauma and whatever happened to Sae must have been pretty seriously traumatic of she loses her appetite just by getting a little brush with it. No pictures at all of the school prince? That's hard to believe.

My guess is she got caught or outed to her dad and things got bad. It doesn't seem to have been a scandal at the school since the other students were so flippant, but something definitely happened.

It's not impossible, but I don't think her mom would be encouraging her to tell her dad about Miwa if he had a bad reaction before. It feels to me more like she got heartbroken. I'm guessing every picture she took during middle school was with her best friend, who broke her heart, and so she threw out literally every photo she had because they were all painful, and she doesn't want to see anybody or remember anything from that period because it all brings up grief and trauma.

cut to a Nikaidou-shaped sillhouette climbing up a clock tower opposite the publisher's office carrying a long rectangular case as you do

Nah, she'll want to use her hands.

Also, Idk if it's just me but I was thinking maybe Saeko thought she was trans/played the role of a guy in middle school? That could explain why she doesn't want to talk about it at all and how there's no pics either. She doesn't want to be reminded of that time in her life. And talking about how she's annoyed about her hair and wants to cut it but feels like she can't. Maybe that's another clue to the fact that she wore her hair quite short and was trying to be a boy?

Chapter 3 implies otherwise.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she was just tomboyish and cool, so she attracted the "prince" role at her girl's school. Lots of girls acting flirty and idolizing her, but when she actually fell hard for somebody, they shot her down hard and traumatized her, and she doesn't want to remember it.

Actually, given her thing with Jealousy, that might be the core of the problem? She got Jealous and possessive and the girl she liked got squicked out by it?

The more this goes on, the more confident I am that the situation in the one-shot is going to happen, but it isn't the end of their relationship. These two have "break up and get back together" written aaaaaalll over them.

Yeah I kinda feel like that will happen. Or they might stay broken up but end on good terms I guess

Well, we know (in the one-shot continuity) that they stay on good terms after the breakup. We also know they still have sex periodically after their breakup.

The more this goes on, the more confident I am that the situation in the one-shot is going to happen, but it isn't the end of their relationship. These two have "break up and get back together" written aaaaaalll over them.

No way would that tail not be going nuts in the last panel.

Wait a second, Eli is a guy's name... hmmmm Ally might be a better short name for Alicia though?

I've been pronouncing it "Elly" FWIW.

"If you read this manga your intestinal yuri bacteria will be more effective in fighting your het bacteria"

SOLD.

(Wait, do I even have a het bacteria?)

I have this mental image of a bacterium kabedoning another bacterium against a cell wall...