I'm sure a lot of people find flower giving cheesy or old fashioned but it worked so well here it makes me wish more yuri series did it

It's cool that, even having read an embarrassing amount of school girl yuri, I still sometimes encounter new series that can make me go "woah". This one comes with a remarkably cinematic presentation that despite the mundane nature of everything that happens, feels entirely appropriate. The plotting is perfect too; every chapter made me slightly reconsider what I thought I knew and what I should expect, and even though the twist feels predictable in hindsight, it kind of wiped the playing field clean and made the future feel unpredictable.

I'm really impressed because this series is working with building blocks that I wouldn't normally find interesting but the end result feels totally fresh and exciting.

Yes, it needs to be reminded that Battan isn't a yuri mangaka. And she never pretended to.

Her stories are about human relationships, not necessarily WLW. "Kakeochi Girl" and "My Sister's Friend" are less about lesbians than about life struggles, emotions, love and growing-up.

She recently published a oneshot (for the first time!) in Yuri Hime and Fatale Game seems to be geared toward relationships between women, but there's no guarantee there'll be no meaningful interactions with men.

Just enjoy the story for what it is, without expectations it'll glorify WLW, ala Sal Jiang.

Well, whatever Battan's original vision was, Run Away With Me Girl ended up with a reputation of making lesbianism look quite stylish and cool. And I don't know how the concept of two women being in love could take a backseat in a story where the main character who is a woman "steals" her pregnant ex-girlfriend from her abusive husband, especially when it's depicted in such a gorgeous art style. RAWMG is about human relationships and all those other stuff, but it's about those things mostly from the perspective of women of a certain persuasion.

That's not to say that I have any hard expectations for Fatale Game, but I don't see how Futami seducing Nanakusa and ruining her life would be this fundamentally different strain of yuri from Sal Jiang's Black & White. I guess it's possible (though unlikely) that this series ends up spending the same amount of time on Futami managing the male mangaka in her rotation as the female ones, but that would also mean a presence of F/M relationships on a far higher level than in RAWMG.

Maybe I'm also a little confused by what this glorification of lesbianism is supposed to look like if Sal Jiang's work engages in it but RAWMG does not.

Chihiro Orihi is like the grim reaper of futanari fan comics, knocking on the door of every music franchise

I have a feeling this story would be crazier from Chihaya's perspective. Like Hodaka's perspective is strange because he takes it all in stride, but I only now started to think about what might be brewing in Chihaya's head. Since Hodaka is taking to this so well, she probably feels less guilty and less like a victim of a horrible curse than she used to, but those hangups must still be around and combined with her worries about their future she must be keeping a lot of feelings bottled up.

And, okay fine, I'm also thinking about all the inappropriate thoughts that she keeps quiet about. Such as "woah, this is kind of like if I was cheating on my boyfriend with his hot twin sister"

last edited at Aug 11, 2025 6:18PM

Sadako clearly has no clue about romance (or relationships in general) so this arc will presumably teach her how that works.

After Hana leaves with Moon, Marina pushes one of her legs between Sadako's legs, pulls Sadako's thigh up at a like 140° angle while dipping her, and tries to kiss her on the lips. And in 7.5 she "accidentally" has her fingers on the side of Sadako's breast. So never mind romance, Marina goes way past just hitting on her and ventures into night club grinding territory. Sadako is so oblivious it's kind of giving me Born Sexy Yesterday vibes, or I guess the lesbian version of it.

Tsubaki looking at Ayano like she hung the Moon... My heart can't take it

It is indeed cute and wholesome but can u really count this as yuri? It seems to lean more toward subtlety than yuri. The characters are not in love, and there dont seem to be explicit sexual attraction between them.

Kiyoko Iwami drew a oneshot of 20 pages where a college girl gropes a high school girl's boobs and makes her let out a moan. Within an hour of meeting her for the first time. But sure, nothing gay happened here.

It seems like Nagi's choice of karaoke songs (which was also kindly uploaded), Tsugunai, explains her reasoning for breaking up with Manatsu the best. As Nagi views it, to make amends for initially using Manatsu, she has to break up with Manatsu because there are better people out there for Manatsu.
But Manatsu will surely show Nagi that she isn't looking to date a "better" person~

Thanks for the translation! Love Amazaki Suika's adorable dark haired girls with low self-worth

Tsugunai is crazy good. It's considered one of the late Teresa Teng's signature songs, though it doesn't seem to be that well known internationally.

Youtube
Spotify
English translation

last edited at Jul 13, 2025 6:05PM

I find this story a little bland so far. The other works of the artist may not be that compelling, but they make it hard to look away: 'Let Me Hear You Moan, Kanade-san' had the gimmick of juxtaposing rural slice-of-life against explosively absurd BDSM scenes, and Kimi wa Shoujo was refreshingly unsettling.

Unlike in those other two series, there is a lot of talking in this one. (If each chapter was half as long, with less talking and more horny nonsense, I would not be complaining.) I think an attempt is made at setting up stakes and creating tension, but so far it's all pretty hard to grasp. The teacher feels kind of empty-headed so far but she is hot as an "S" so I hope to see more of her in that state.

If current trends continue, Miki will have about 4-6 dog-coded girls in her orbit in her third year

I did not know this existed until today. I was excited at the prospect of an older women Yuri. Unfortunately this definitely isn't me. Yet another manga about how important it is to be feminine and pretty doesn't appeal to me. Even though I have been wanting a Yuri about older women.

When you dismiss a yuri manga about women in their 60s because the apropos of their meeting was beauty, but with feminist sounding words. Bleak.

I do want to clarify that my critique, and how I usually critique fiction, is very out of universe, non-diagetic. It doesn't really take into account how the characters feel in universe.

It's very common for manga about adult women to show the ways in which women navigate and negotiate their position in patriarchy, which includes beauty. I find it a little odd that you took issue with that in, of all things, a series about two lesbian women in their 60s.

You have the right to dislike any piece of fiction for any reason, but that does not mean the commentary where you express that dislike is insightful enough to be considered a "critique".

She looks so cute and happy with her bbq :-3

She just wants to grill, for God's sake

It's the kind of story where the spooks are more often than not a load-bearing structure for the yuri. The hot springs scene with Kozakura is even a note to the reader that the Otherside entities are hinting at something Sorawo's unconsciously looking away from. More often than not it's family trauma that scares her away from a conventional relationship with Toriko or some aspect of her relationship with Toriko that she's stressing over.

Sorawo at the end of every File:

last edited at Jul 10, 2025 12:04AM

I also despise seeing BDSM get used in toxic works. I hate the fact the kink is viewed as "that fetish where people hurt each other", when it's in fact entirely predicated on consent, communication, trust, and love. Setting boundaries and establishing dynamics and what kinds of play the partners are looking for is important, and seeing that being wholly eschewed feels kind of... Dubious to me.

A fictional work that does not claim to educate on the topic of BDSM has no obligation to fulfill that function; it's not the responsibility of artists and creatives if the sex education people receive is often severely lacking. And the charge that a fictional work is misleading about BDSM requires a stronger case than just calling its story vaguely "toxic".

If vast segments of the population believe that sexual acts in the context of BDSM are magically except from requiring consent, the situation is so cooked that just more wholesome depictions of BDSM are not enough to fix it. As for the importance of things like communication, trust, and boundaries, these principles are hardly followed consistently in queer dating outside the context of BDSM, never mind straight dating where sex is still largely viewed as something a man takes from a woman. So I don't understand being this concerned about the fictional depictions of specifically BDSM, as if our society had dating and sex all figured out otherwise. You might as well be mad at any sexual content in "toxic" works for not dispelling people's misconceptions and nasty beliefs about sex in general.

I saw the tags and was hoping this would end up being fun and fluffy, but I guess I was unfamiliar with the author.

Weirdly enough, this is exactly the opposite of my experience. I expected much worse form the tags, and despite what a lot of other commenters are saying, I have so far seen no indication whatsoever that it won't turn out just as fun and fluffy as the first chapter suggested. As for the author, they have enough variety in their works that it could go either way, and even if they didn't, surprises are always possible, just look at Usui Shio.

Yeah, this is quite fluffy compared to ZenKowa, given that it's a romcom. The main character is comically ineffectual in her attempts at revenge, and all the target of her revenge did to her was reject her love confession. Also, there is puppy play. Not sure which of these elements is supposed to be dark.

Is the King of the Underworld... Santa Claus?

Holy shit, peak is back!!

Misa's ability to make every problem seem surmountable by funneling it into a Scenario is really inspiring

The genderbent MC acts exactly how a typical (shoujo manga) guy would. All protective, princess carry included.

MC is pretty much a guy inside, so it's pseudo-yuri.

It seems as if, upon learning that the character shaped like a girl had a dick and a pair of balls in the first 12 pages of the story, some yuri fans will discard all of the lessons about the arbitrary nature of gender roles that one might encounter through such a hobby, all of the 'girl princes', all of the hype moments of girls standing up for and protecting each other. Or the fact that this site, one that is known for curating yuri manga, has a dedicated tag for the Princess carry. Incredible work.

Note also the context of this supposed moment of masculine excellence. Previously in their relationship, it was Kyouko who was known to chase away bullies, so the idea that girls are inherently meek and helpless creatures has already been rejected in this story. And Yuuri was only able to step in as Kyouko's prince, to act just as cool for the girl he loves as she once did for him, after he was turned into a girl. After his balls were swallowed by the spirit world, or whatever it is that happened to them.

I have encountered (in my opinion quite boring) gender-bender stories where the main character being "still a guy on the inside" while inhabiting a female body and persona goes completely unchallenged by the narrative, but this story is just getting started; Yuuri's understanding of their own identity may change yet. So I think it would be too early to dismiss this series as "pseudo-yuri", even without knowing that the creator designated this story as just "yuri".

Given Remu is a teenager, I don't take her claim of "only dolls" any more seriously than the stereotypical yuri protagonist claiming they could never like a girl. Romance manga like to use ironic framing, like her saying this to her future love interest, early on in the story, while a teenager like Remu can be expected to still be figuring herself out.

the rest of your post aside, because it's all splitting hairs and i'll agree to disagree... being a teenager is not too early for that, at all. when you're talking about fetishes, they start uncomfortably early -- childhood, very often. i have an exclusive fetish like this and i've had it since i was probably 8 or 9. it shaped all my early development for several years to come and into adulthood, and my experience here isn't unique.

sure, her sexuality absolutely will develop and may broaden with time and experience. i hope it does, for her sake, and ultimately it's the author's call. but in my eyes, they're deliberately setting up her experience and feelings as "other", so narratively it would be pretty terrible to just drop that for a nice neat resolution ("actually, she's healthy and normal!").

the yuri example is also irrelevant. if a girl in a yuri claims she's straight, it's 99.9% of the time a form of comphet, or just ignorance. straight is default(tm) so she just never thought too hard about it, and it's intimidating to go against the societal grain. but remu is already aware she doesn't fit and she isn't default. that ship sailed! why would she be wrong?

The funny thing is that straight romance does this too. The heroine has an independent spirit, or "does not understand romance", or she's a modern career woman married to her job, or woefully disillusioned with men after a bad breakup. But then she meets that one guy... The typical straight female lead also starts out believing she wants one thing and then over time realizes what she "really needed the whole time" was something else.

But this is not limited to the romance genre either; a protagonist's understanding of their own wants and needs is subject to change in all sorts of stories. Sometimes this is used to impart a moral lesson, but certainly not every such change is about bringing the character closer to what's considered normal, proper, or healthy by mainstream society. Remu becoming interested in flesh and blood women would not necessarily "fix" her. She could still feel like an Other, make bad decisions, and have a thing for dolls.

The wine splash and slap combo was hot af

last edited at Jun 29, 2025 7:42PM

... well she can't know for sure if miasma wasn't something of a catalyst, can she? :P

I mean, there's no miasma around is there? And it doesn't look like she's NOT feelin' the same way.

The fact that Luliam remembers everything and was not straight up controlled by the miasma doesn't mean that the miasma did not affect her judgment at all. She complained about her head being fuzzy before they started the purification, and I find it hard to believe that she was lying about that. The miasma may have had an inhibition-dampening effect similar to alcohol.

ah yes, the "voluptuous" build that's still pretty thin.

"Y'all got any voluptuous builds?"

"We got thin with slightly bigger boobs."

last edited at Jun 22, 2025 3:39PM

Cute ending, but feels like it chickened out of its premise.

i feel the same way. the oneshot and subsequent first chapter seemed to be setting up a totally different vibe. like the mangaka wanted to create toxic yuri but didn't have it in them so we just got like, teasing/comfort for 8 chapters.

I never saw a strong indication that this would get more messy than something like Can't Defy the Loney Girl.

Compare chapter 1 of this to chapter 1 of e.g. 'Zenbu Kowashite Jigoku de Ai Shite', and the difference should be night and day. The squishy nature of the term "toxic yuri" may make it impossible to say that one belongs in the category and one doesn't, but I don't think the toxic designation is warranted by a BDSM-coded relationship or an otherwise mild power imbalance by itself. If it's hard to think of any content warnings that may apply, it's probably not that 'toxic'.

last edited at Jun 21, 2025 5:49PM

Bettelheim is actually a jewish surname of hungarian origin; baring evidence to the contrary, i don't believe Teren Mikami intended such Eindeutung. Statistically, foreign authors are more likely to accidentially create asemantic abominations instead.

I didn't think about her name deeper but if it's the name of a Hungarian-Jewish noble family, that makes it kind of ordinary for a vampire, since Elizabeth Báthory and Count Dracula are also from that region

last edited at Jun 15, 2025 10:00AM

To be fair, Oliver actually referred to the prince as a women when they first went to meet her, so it's unlikely she was revealing anything that was actually a secret to the other people in the room.

It's not about whether it was new information to other people present. It just makes me feel gross to see information about someone's sex be wielded as a weapon against them. Sure, in this case it was only used to catch the prince off-balance, and the prince had almost killed Himeka, but this is still a pretty specific thing the creator chose to put in the story.

On which page did Oliver accidentally give away the prince being actually a girl?