I don't go for vtuber ships too much, but this is just really good.

I just caught up with this and I REALLY like that the dreaded mom's not actually that bad. The fact that she ultimately meant well and had her reasons was kind of expected, but the way she readily acknowledged her daughter's growth was a really pleasant surprise.
And sure, this is great because I'm happy for Hinako and because I wasn't asking for serious drama from an otherwise comfy read, but I also really like the acknowledgement that you don't need horrifying abuse to turn out kinda depressed. I mean, her family's still far from ideal, but you know.

idk man, sometimes I wanna free up Marisa for other ships, but this feels like putting rice on my bread.

This would probably hit even harder if it was a little less over the top, but then it'd be less fun and tbh I don't really like to be hit that hard anyway.
Just the right amount of edge for me. Very nice.

I do like how the manga's not even over yet and the author just posts timeskip pictures anyway, like no shit this is where we're going.

Ok so I can count 515 touhou pairings on here, of which 15 are either triplets, Marisa x Everyone or nonsense like Zun x Beer or Rinnosuke x Anyone. Might be off by a few, but anyway, ~500.
The latest 2021 popularity poll (I'm not doing a touhou census myself) counts 206 characters, but at a glance the bottom 50 at least is troll picks (with all due respect to "hobgoblin" and "salt merchant" I'm sure they're cool guys). So let's round it down to 150.

Self-cest included, that makes 150x150 = 22.500 possible pairings, of which this site has only covered 500 so far, or 2.222%.

Weak.

Unrelated thought, but I'd really like if this manga pulled a Horimiya and just kept going after the romantic tension gets resolved.

Saw this on the cover of Machikado Mapoze - Dancing Phantasmagoria, which arranges Touhou songs in various dance styles from tango to swing to mambo and bon-odori. Highly recommended. The rest of Machikado Mapoze (and Ringing Volcano)'s discography is lovely too.

edit: dropped my link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLz7HVK7pqc

last edited at Jun 4, 2022 5:50AM

Kinda relieved the new girl has something going on with someone other than the main duo.
I mean, there's basically two ways a love triangle can go. Either one of the characters sucks and has weak chemistry and they just take time away from the couple I'm into, or they're all cool so the ending's gonna be unsatisfying either way. Ban love triangles.

On a different note, I'm curious if the author's definition of Yuri is common in Japan. Cause this is way broader than "lesbian romance".

It's the whole focus on the passing of the torch. Modelling a lesbian relationship as sisterhood is, eh, I guess, but the way graduation plays into it kills the yuri dead.

Look, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Nirvana or Foo Fighters, but

lmao Yuri Yuriyuri
I never really questioned the internal logic of these types of pairs, but that's exactly what it is.

Wait, so if Samus just turns into a ball of flesh and Lucina mistakes her for Kirby, does that mean Kirby also just feels like a ball of flesh?
I don't want that.

Surprisingly rare ship tbh.

We really could up the dere on Watanabe just a notch or two sometime soon. The premise is fun I'm not in a rush to unravel it, but Yoshioka deserves a little bit better in the meanwhile.

I like how oblivious the gyaru is to the otaku's "you're not supposed to BE the lesbian" mindset. She doesn't even actively disagree, she's just not dumb enough to think of that.

Had to google this and now I'm reading about knotted dicks. What even...

Nothing yet, she just says "Ano ne", which is something like "Hey, so...".
Her speech bubble is upside down though lol.

I can't get over seeing "I love eating when I'm hungry" tagged with "alternate reality", like nah that's normal actually.

EDIT:

The title's "おなかがすくから、愛をたべるの" meaning is actually closer to "I'm hungry, so I eat love" or "I eat love because I'm hungry".

Woha, that was nice! Such an intense buildup, but then it just stops.... Feels rather like a movie trailer

Oh, okay then. Also yeah, it really would work as a trailer.

last edited at Feb 6, 2022 6:58AM

Considering the SDM girls' popularity, I'm surprised that not every permutation of them has been done to death. Like, if you ship Meiling with Sakuya and Remi with Patche, you're left with these two. And honestly, it works.

As for the plan of improving her delicate emotional descriptions using real life romance, the first thought she had from crushing on the train attendant was 50 bodybuilders.
Mr. editor, this is never gonna work.

Yuri enough I guess, but I like that it also works ok if you read it as more of a friendship. Usually my grief with subtext stories is that they not only won't commit to romance, they also systematically ruin any other interpretation until the story's just unsatisfying any way you look at it. This one's more like the opposite. I could see Toda and Tanaka being happy together either way.

I am SO sold on this one holy shit keep going

Eh, could work. Lovely pic, anyway.

Honestly, this was the one manga where I thought I'd be fine without any explicit romance because the early part did such a good job of showing how valuable their relationship was to them either way. But the more clearly I could see that, the more all their meandering annoyed me.