One of these days I want to see a one shot Ghost yuri expand to a full 10 chapter blow out of agony and regret. Something like Nagisa begins to suffer traumatic mental breakdowns from the pain of being a doomed spirit in front of Ako at all hours and begging for her company before she vanishes into nothing forever. Ako, driven to madness, commits suicide in front of her family and comes back as a ghost only to glimpse Nagisa fade into nothingness while screaming in desperate horror. Ako is left to wander alone for the rest of eternity.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

This was depressing

There’s kind of a built-in governor for how cheerful yuri stories with the Ghost Tag can be.

Because, you know, at least one of the MCs is likely to be dead.

Counterpoint: Kindred Spirits on the Roof.

Good call, although of course that would be Ghosts, plural.

But in the fair number of yuri stories about one live person and one dead person that I can remember, “bittersweet” is about the best they can do.

Man, the covers sure tease.

Yeah, as I’ve said before, the covers and spot illos are like “Here It Is—Hot Yuri Action, The Way You Like It!” while the story itself is, “Maybe Yuri, At Some Point? Or Not . . .”

I love this one either way, though.

This was depressing

There’s kind of a built-in governor for how cheerful yuri stories with the Ghost Tag can be.

Because, you know, at least one of the MCs is likely to be dead.

^ Agreed--I love the way this series shows how people can be living normal, in most respects 'happy,' lives and still be in enormous pain. It's not like they're faking it or denying reality--they do enjoy doing things like having dinner together and hanging out with friends, but That Thing is always there and sometimes just comes to the surface in agonizing ways.

Perfectly normal in everyday life, but rather a treat to see in fiction, where characters like this are usually either defined by their constant anguish or are in obvious denial about it (which is another way of being defined by it).

This invention may spell the end of the yuri genre as we know it.

^ That is definitely progress.

From a single leaf grows a mighty . . . Wait, I’ll come in again.

a woman cheating on a man with another woman is satisfying to me

I know, right?
I love cheating-themed stories so much. The cheating tag is the best.

Yeah, if you’re reading stories in order to see people caught up in interesting and often stressful situations, “cheating” can be a very good thing.

If you’re looking for implicit role models, for handbooks for proper behavior, or you’re into sitting in moral judgement over imaginary human beings, maybe not so much.

Getting really fed up with all the yuri in this manga. Why can't the author do something different for a change? Like maybe throwing in some giant robots?

Dinosaurs fighting giant apes, or GTFO.

Can we compromise on giant robot apes?

Deal.

(Maybe people would be happier if Kase slew the guys around Yamada with a magic sword instead of mostly glaring at them.)

I also wouldn’t mind seeing Yamada especially being more proactive and independent in her own chosen sphere (that is what attracted Kase to her in the first place, after all).

What, like inviting Kase to sleep at her place on Christmas night? lol

No, actually I’m fine with the progress of their sex life. lol

By “chosen sphere” I mean as a vegetable goddess: Yamada showing that she’s got special qualities beyond making Kase want to jump her bones (not that that’s anything to sneeze at).

Remember, it’s the Yamada who could say, “I want to be able to say I DID IT!” that totally melted Kase’s heart. Kase admires Yamada as well as lusts after her bod, and we might well get some reminders of why in the upcoming arc.

Getting really fed up with all the yuri in this manga. Why can't the author do something different for a change? Like maybe throwing in some giant robots?

Dinosaurs fighting giant apes, or GTFO.

The Nostradami of Doom are strong again this season I see.

They're so awfully boring and repetitive, aren't they?

It's one of the great paradoxes of Dynasty forum. The more lovely and appealing a yuri manga is, the more dry and tedious the naysayers get.

It ensues that when a series is as captivating and delightful as this one, and has characters as precious and adorable as these ones, reading the forum becomes especially dull and wearisome.

In a way it’s the paradox that comes with the territory in open-ended serial popular fiction—the audience insists that it be the same (that is, retain the qualities that define it and make it popular) while also changing (show “progress,” avoid “repetitiveness, etc.), simultaneously.

This series has always been marked by an absence of internal conflict in the MC’s relationship—they’ve been head-over-heels for each other pretty much from the start. The “conflict” comes from the dynamic that Kase is so smitten with Yamada that she thinks everyone in the universe is likely to try to sweep her away, while Yamada feels insecure about being a suitable partner for the goddess Kase. So external elements like boys or female rivals are always going to be the basis of their inevitable (and inevitably temporary) misunderstandings.

Repetition being one of the fundamental principles of comedy, I have little problem with it here, although I also wouldn’t mind seeing Yamada especially being more proactive and independent in her own chosen sphere (that is what attracted Kase to her in the first place, after all).

The Nostradami of Doom are strong again this season I see.

I’ve never figured out the payout rate for correctly predicting how future chapters of a manga are going to suck, nor where a reader goes to pick up their winnings.

last edited at Dec 3, 2020 8:20AM

Okay, wait, are they seriously acting like her crippling character flaw here is how indecisive she's being, that she doesn't know whether she wants to choose her loving supportive girlfriend who she cheated on, or her long-reviled but sexy ex with whomst she cheated? Like, she's not being decisive enough, and that's why she's such a disappointment to everyone? Am I reading that right?

Yes, you are indeed reading that right. I even think we're supposed to be sympathetic to poor Liz because her romantic dilemma is interfering with her plan to save the world, or set the world free, or some such shit.

I don't think "readers hoping desperately for the (terminal) intervention of truck-kun" is exactly the level of "sympathy" they're aiming for here.

I love how elegantly the problem was solved.

Indeed, the whole issue of marriage between parent and child is a problem only if you think about it in Westerner terms (going to a church, asking for divine blessings, all that stuff). If you think about it in Japanese terms, marriage is not different from adoption: someone who wasn't in your family register goes to the city hall with you and enters your family register — and from that day on, you're family. Thus there's no need for a family member (a child, a sibling) to marry you: you're already like that since the day you were born. Brilliant!

Wait, I feel sure there was also something about “get married and have sex,” wasn’t there?

I’m sure I heard about that somewhere . . .

Citrus Plus will be about how they can restart intimacy from a 60-floor luxury condo apartment building fire (metaphor for her burning down their relationship and lying to her and running away).

To your “one-dimensional Yuzu” point (not that I hold it against her—at least one of the MCs is consistently written), is there any indication that Yuzu holds even the slightest resentment (or any other kind of negative feeling) against Mei for that sudden breakup (let alone for Mei not saying anything about the eventual arranged marriage while they were together)?

Yuzu just seems relieved and happy to have Mei back after her successful rescue mission. (I’m starting to see Yuzu’s role as basically the same as the protagonist in hero-dog stories.) So if in fact Mei’s current character is a function of her guilt about hurting Yuzu, it’s yet another example of her carrying everything inside without communicating with her supposed life-partner.

last edited at Nov 26, 2020 11:04AM

^ elevown, we’re mostly not talking about grammar per se here, but rather idioms—those little usage conventions that aren’t strictly logical but simply the way native speakers habitually use words. It’s not at all clear why in English trouser-like things became a plural while upper-body garments are singular—they just are.

It’s like in British (and elsewhere) English the short form of “mathematics” is “maths” while it’s “math” in the US, or how Brits say that someone is “in hospital” while US people say “in the hospital”—there’s no compelling grammatical reason, that’s just how it’s done.

My joke, which has now become exceedingly tedious, was based on the fact that whatever the fuck Hino had in that bag seemed to have lost any residual suggestion of “twoness” remaining in panties (I do note, tediously, that a G-string is also a singular noun).

Not that I’m a linguist: https://xkcd.com/2390/

last edited at Nov 26, 2020 10:00AM

Where is Mei's agency?

First place I would look would be Sabu’s junk drawer, or wherever that one missing sock goes in the laundry room. :)

Although I personally don’t find either one of the HaruMatsu pair especially interesting, I agree with most of your post.

And it would be just like arch-troll Saburouta to end the series by giving us a HaruMatsu sex scene while Mei and Yuzu continue to cling grimly to their chastity while sleeping in the same bed.

I don't know what I expected

I think that's the key to why it's so funny--I half-thought maybe cutesy panties with characters on them, or frilly lacey things, or, if I'd thought a little harder, crotchless.

I did not expect that/them.

EDIT: That's not even mentioning Hino's finely honed telepathic understanding of Omichi's predicament--she's tres formidable and hopelessly useless simultaneously.

The precisely matched layouts of pages 8 & 9 are a lovely touch.

last edited at Nov 24, 2020 9:58AM

That would definitely be worse than going commando. At least she can justifiably say that not having underwear was a stupid mistake, but people will assume there was deliberate intent if she's caught wearing those.

Grammar question: would it be “caught wearing those, or “caught wearing that?

Inquiring minds . . .

In common use either of them could work. Grammatically, however, I believe "those" would be truly correct, because the bottom piece of underwear is referred to in the plural.

I was making a joke about the actual construction of the object—of course, underwear in the form of panties or boxers is “those” or “them,” but a chastity belt or garter would be “that.”

A legitimate question when the bag was opened would be, “WTF is that?” as opposed to “WTF are those?”

EDIT: I love the little apparent reinforcement in the “contact” area. Hino’s attention to detail is unparalleled.

last edited at Nov 24, 2020 8:52AM

That would definitely be worse than going commando. At least she can justifiably say that not having underwear was a stupid mistake, but people will assume there was deliberate intent if she's caught wearing those.

Grammar question: would it be “caught wearing those, or “caught wearing that?

Inquiring minds . . .

I’m dying here . . .

Well, Nene was the catalyst for Mitsuko's little wager with Mei and the subsequent modification to the Academy rules that eventually let Matsuri attend in all of her pink-haired glory, so there's that.

Right, the "gyarus corrupting the next generation" business--Nene's moment of glory.

Subsequently she's had all the presence of Mei's teddy bear and about an equally (heck, arguably less) risible story function.

Her backstory is probably best held back for the Citrus: Secret Origins spinoff.

I am gonna say this once. NENE sucks and she is boring and personally I believe that nothing would be different in the manga if she never existed,unlike Harumin and Matsuri.

I've always thought Nene was pretty obviously Saburouta trolling HaruYuzu shippers, period.

the cmt section of Citrus is even more dramatic than the manga LOL.

Not an incredibly high bar these days, to be sure.