Forum › Posts by inkolore
I mean... I guess it's not a useless discussion and I'm not in a position to comment much as it seems a guys' problem overall.
As a lesbian I think the MC attitude towards yuri is more commendable than the other one. But both of them are creepy anyway.
Always curious of what guys feel about yuri tho. Especially about the yuris that are clearly targetted to women. If it was just about fetishizing homosexuality (...irk...) there wouldn't be so much activity on a lot of mangas I read.
What is the population ratio of this site by the way, gender-wise ?
I haven't read this story but I can answer about the 'how do guys feel about yuri' from my POV. It's weird because I've only recently thought about this. For me there are 2 layers to it
1) The first layer is just the basic attraction to girls, like cute girls are nice and seeing two of them make out is even better (the typical reason for why straights guys are into lesbian porn)
2) The second layer however is just that yuri is very ... pure a lot of the times ? Contrast that with how our world sometimes feels : very utilitarian and cold, where people feel alienated from one another. Relationships when they happen have this extra baggage of status and performance to it - like guys wanting to impress one another with how much they get laid, or just being obsessed with sex. I'm definitely painting a biased view of the world and relationships, this is more coming from the younger & confused guy I was.
But looking back, yuri had this sense that human relationships can simply be worth it even if there are hardships along the way, including the obvious aspect of same sex relationships. Many of the stories are pretty damn unrealistic (and looking back, not very well written), and I don't know to what degree it was (and is) healthy for me to have read them, but I'm glad it revealed to me how much I value love, even though I am obviously not a lesbian. Maybe this could have also happened with non-yuri stuff, but idk I was just dragged into it for some reason, I don't really read mangas or animes in general so I don't care much about exploring non-yuri stuff.
Read it again after a long time. Some great comments in here too btw, so I'll focus more on my thoughts of what struck me rather than an actual analysis.
I can definitely see why some people hate it, I found this quite exhausting overall, but there were so many nice moments of coziness that I really felt like reading the whole thing again.
1 - The themes are great and mesh well with one another : the cruel entertainment industry, finding yourself in the world as well as in relationship to other people, the exploration of sexuality, moving on from the past, dealing with how other people perceive you, the struggles with money, the way a job can enmesh with your personal life, how women and especially lesbians are perceived, and the general confusion of that age period.
Were the themes well executed though is an entirely different question, which constitute the other points.
2 - Mood : I find that the times where we just see Yukino casually being with Setsuko to be really good. The way they just talk about their daily lives just feels very genuine and sincere. Same for the scenes where we see them with Mari - there is this cozy vibe and it really feels like Yukino has found a home of sorts. On the other hand, when Yukino is just monologuing to herself, the mood is almost suffocating. Everything feels like a disaster, when she could, you know, communicate ? I know she's insecure and that's a big part of her character, but damn if that's not unbearable at times.
3 - Drama : I just dislike drama overall so I don't have anything nice to say about it. Not only do the main drama arcs not make much sense to me (Yukino cheating and being unsure about moving with Setsuko) but they are also interspersed with droplets of angst throughout, which just made me wish the two characters could just ... get along ? Interestingly, I wasn't THAT bothered by the cheating arc and what followed (I'm mostly just confused) because honestly Setsuko seemed to have recovered pretty quickly all things considered - like within the same chapter she can still talk to Yukino. On the other hand, the constant dripping of angst and drama throughout really weighs you down emotionally, especially because I expected it to end in the last volume but it didn't, though Yukino was better at handling it.
Otherwise, when the story isn't on drama mode, it has some pretty great dialogues, which flow well and feel very real. I feel like the author is more than capable of making an interesting story without resorting to so much drama, idk.
4 - Other characters : I'm surprised (in a good way) at how likeable Mika, considering that she's supposed to be this inacessible famous person, yet she helps Yukino throughout the series as a good friend. In general, there are many other likeable ones, such as Mari, Risa and Oozawo, so it kind of makes Yukino seem like a huge crybaby at times.
Obviously, some characters are pretty awful. Like I don't really get what Shiori's whole deal is ? She just enjoys hurting Yukino for her own amusement, but I feel like that that type of person would be more concerned with advancing their career rather than that type of petty games, idk ? Speaking of which :
5 - Narcissism : I like that we can see the several sides of narcissism (not just the self-absorded + grandiosity kind), since Yukino's self-deprecation and desperate attempts at getting others to like her are a form of narcissism. It's kind of weird though because we don't know much about her childhood pre-idol times, so I don't know if it's well written per se, but I liked how it was exposed. That being said, it was again quite unenjoyable to read through at times. Maybe Yukino is supposed to be unlikeable to some degree ? Not sure. She has experienced a LOT at a young age all things considered, so you also feel like rooting for her when you experience some of what she goes through (being lost after graduation, social isolation, etc.)
Overall though, I think it's one of the more important stories on this site for me, even though I don't like it for many reasons. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, because honestly I feel like it stands out just because there isn't much like it to compare with. But it comes from a place of sincerity about life and its hardships that is really nice to read. So I'm glad I read it, I liked the ending too, but it was an exhausting read so I would definitely suggest to be wise about the time you read through this.
last edited at Jul 26, 2023 2:43PM
The last few chapters, I'm starting to really dislike Komaki for some reason and I can't quite put my finger on why...?
I skimmed through the last 4 chapters because I quickly lost interest in this, so my take might be inaccurate. I think it's the typical type of story that doesn't go anywhere, but in this case it becomes almost ... sad to witness ?
Like Hishikawa is a very pure character in a way (as pure as an obsession can get) and Komaki can obviously tell how she feels. At first it feels like she's just playing along with Hishikawa and it was pretty funny. But at this point you would expect Komaki to actually have had a serious conversation given her personality, because she does care about Hishikawa at the end of the day and wouldn't want to waste her time with this vague limbo that their relationship is in.
But this is not how the story goes, and instead the two just keep playing this game that doesn't go anywhere, and it simply doesn't fit who Komaki is supposed to be - she's not dumb and yet she doesn't make anything happen.
I don't know, maybe some people enjoy this, including the author, but I don't. The art is cute though. I think it could have easily become a very sweet story if the author was fine with writing a shorter one (like 12 - 16 chapters) with more of a direction.
It was nice overall, I liked it. As mentioned it didn't overstay its welcome and the art is also very cute. Ena is an endearing character and definitely the highlight of the story.
Their chemistry is pretty weird, the romance starts off really really fast, and in some ways they seem pretty secure with one another, enough to talk about heavier stuff, but at the same time Mishio can't just say the truth ? I'm not sure what's going on, maybe I'm missing something.
It was also very weird how much the mood of a scene could change from page to page, but I guess they're young so it makes some sense, but it could have done with more gradual shifts in mood.
Finally, the drama is not great, but at least it's not too annoying because it gets resolved quickly. Things would have been much better if there was simply less drama / lying though. The fact that the drama gets resolved immediately does feel almost like a parody (in a good way) of Momono Moto's own works, but again I'm not really sure if it adds anything.
I really enjoyed catching up, though I'm still as confused as I was in the first chapters lol. It's probably not the kind of story that can be summed up in a single point, though.
The 2 themes that I see throughout the story are the following :
1) Humans use their will to gain increased freedom from restrictions (through science for instance), but they find themselves in new situations of restrictions : the limits of imagination, the chaos of a world where nothing is tangible and susceptible to being changed when left alone, the inability to change yourself as easily as you can change the external world, the constraints that result from living with other humans (or other beings, as chapter 46 shows an example of how even a Goddess cannot prevent war).
Some actively seek the increase in freedom (Shijima's sister), some resist it (the gardener), others don't really care (Shijima) but no one seems to be able the affect the direction of that change - the same way that no single human currently can decide to just stop collective technological progress for instance.
2) The mysterious nature of reality : is the universe a story, a dream, a song, a dance, a material observable thing external to us, a simulation ? What does it mean to exist ? To be separate from someone else ? All the characters have different perspectives on the matter, and different ways of relating to the absurd world they are in, but it seems that no matter what their answers are, the main characters ultimately long for human connection at the end of the day (not super certain that this is really the trend, it's just that ch44 p08 seemed quite important to me : "The stories that began as legends are gradually shifting towards anthropocentric themes").
Looking forward to how it will end.
last edited at Jul 6, 2023 11:19AM
Wait guys can someone explain to me, I am a bit confused. I thought Okisaki is the president? But then the later chapters said that she is VP? So who is the president??? (The other students also mentioned that the current president is a Shakuyaku student too)
She is the president. The botan student is the VP.
Than how come in one part of the manga, Yukino questioned why Okisaki was not the president and it is later explained that Okisaki nonchalantly passed the workload to someone else by being VP?? I swore it was something along that line (though it could have been my eyes since I was binging the webtoon so hard at 2.30am)
Okisaki is the student council president but she's the vice president of the drama club