thank you for the bdsm yuri

interesting first chapter I suppose, but this is Yukiko so I'm severely hedging my expectations

It's really interesting how Shibasaki-sensei wants to help Masono and really sees a reflection of herself in Masono, and yet she is denying her own "self".

There's two aspects here which Shibasaki currently sees as oppositional, but may in fact be two sides of the same coin. Shibasaki excplicitly says that "the moment what someone wants from me, and what I want to do for them align, it makes me feel good." This is contrasted with "doing something to hurt someone else, there's no way it would make anyone happy."

She's caught between her fear of hurting others that comes from her own past being bullied, and her desire to do the things that others want from her. She clearly finds it pleasurable, but she thinks that this aspect of herself is essentially the same as the people who bullied her in the past so she tries to ignore and nullify and repress it. She says she wants to be the person for Masono that she would have needed as a kid, but in many ways Masano is the person she needs now. They have a mutual need, and a desire to fulfill it, but Shibasaki rejects it

You know if you squint this could be a metaphor for how yuri often cracks people’s eggs

Considering that double suicides weren't exactly uncommon in old school class S, I shouldn't have been surprised that this series would go this dark

it does seem like there is an actual magic connection between them, I wasn't entirely sure whether it was magic or if the prince was just tired as hell last time

The author has me tied down on the rack and gives the handle another turn.

"Ah! No more!" I cry in pain.

"No more?" she asks coyly.

"No... more..." I beg, secretly savoring the delicious emotional angst.

I think we might at least be getting some catharsis (just in time for new different kinds of angst), if both Takara and Ema end up at the lesbian event and run into each other then it'll at least expose to each of them that the other one is a lesbian

surprisingly dense considering there's only three pages.

The fact that this is a regular occurrence for the two of them combined with the subtext that each of them are turned on by it but neither wants to admit that, so the vomit lady uses the player guy as an excuse which also makes the helper lady jealous and feeds into the desire they each have for one another. The casual way vomit girl licks helper girl's fingers as soon as she offers them, it's a real practiced type of intimacy.

i hate it when i, the designer of labubu, have to deal with my hot girl marketing agent

As someone who loves kisses in Yuri, this was beautiful!

205 kisses, if only counting every time the word "Kiss" is used on the page after the 178th.

206 if the final press of their lower lips also counts.

You two have 94-95 more kisses, give me more!

thank you for the stats, I love kissing

It feels weird to me that yurihime is ony 20 years old. Sure there was yuri shimai before but to think that the modern form of the magazine, a juggernaut of the yuri genre, has only existed for 20 years is still really crazy.

To make it extra wild even if we include yuri shimai it's only a couple years older. Yuri as we know it is such a young genre of fiction that it just feels weird to think about.

The modern concept of "yuri" as a genre is relatively young, but i consider class S and lesbian fiction in girls magazines more generally to be direct precursors to contemporary yuri, which might be why it feels so weird. Theres a rich history of japanese lesbian fiction going back a century, but yuri the genre and yurihime are so recent within that longer history.

I love when characters have baggage I love when characters are drifting aimlessly I love when people feel stifled by their family and the hometown gossip lets goooooo

Its funny how much a single chapter of a pretty simple comedy is just breaking peoples brains.

People will twist themselves into all sorts of insane logical pretzels to avoid ever acknowledging a character as trans. We've now come to the radical conclusion that a "yuri heroine" actually cant be a woman, but is in fact a "moe existence". And of course we rehash the same tired arguments about how "erm akshully femboys are radical and cool and trans women are conformist/evil".

I for one am looking forward to more of this series.

I'm inclined to agree with the commenters here at this point. The final page really cements the fact that any ambiguity about the protagonist is unintentional, and the purpose of the story is to laugh at the transphobic caricature.

if you wanna draw a series about a fat old trans woman you can do that, but this isn't it. Theres something to be said about stories with non-passing characters, but this is more of "haha isnt this mental illness funny" type story. Theres no attempt to make it a reality even when the mc dresses up. No shaving or wig or anything that might make it seem remotely possible for someone to actually transition.

Its entirely "man in dress is funny" and not "old fat trans woman learns how to express herself".

This series reminds me of otherside picnic.

The fear of knowing/being known, but also the joy of knowing/being known. To know/be known is to change. The connection that overcomes the alienation of the universe. We crave freedom but need stability, true freedom is also true loneliness, the bonds that connect us also bind and limit our realities. Stories expand our own limits and show us things we can't imagine ourselves, it's a freedom that comes from being bound up by the ideas of many others.

I find page 18 a particularly compelling depiction of dysphoria, really looking forward to where this goes

Thank you to the gender-affirming care isekai truck.

Good luck girl, hope you get some smuggled in hrt or something

And Sumi-chan's reasoning is also something that bothers me a bit. Of course, she's been shown to be "insecure" and not feeling enough before, but to think she's doesn't deserve her Onee-sama and that she should rather hand her to someone else?? Why would she think that? Mental gymnastics at its finest. Haruyo's shown to have a deep appreciation for her, even if I don't think Sumire's love and Haruyo's love are "the same". But why would she go so far as to distance herself from her? It doesn't make sense to me

I think the pacing was perhaps a little fast, but the reasons are clear: Kasumi hates herself, has since the beginning, and thinks she doesn't deserve Haruyo and Haruyo would be better off without her.

I think there could be another layer to this as well. On some level, she might even view this as preferable for her to be the one to "end the relationship" of her own volition before Haruyo (in Kasumi's mind) gets bored with her and leaves.

It's bad. Hurry. Have to hurry. Have to find who sent the letter. Before I melt away.

^This line on page 26 and Kasumi's behavior on the pages before feel like she's trying to preventatively "wean herself off" of Haruyo, in order to protect herself from the supposedly inevitable parting they're going to have soon. She wants to end the relationship before it's too late for her to go back to what life was like before Haruyo.

this is insanely romantic. i'm sold. like, i'm already a sucker for class S-inspired stories (marimite, anyone?) as well as the rose/candy yuri dynamic (rose being the older girl who's mature, reserved, probably has some kind of emotional baggage that closes her off, and candy being the younger girl who's naive and sincere). huge thank you to the scanlator, i'm bookmarking this one

I am more or less familiar with class S, but I hadn't heard of the rose/candy dynamic. That's a good label for part of the depth and nuance in their relationship. Kasumi is essentially a rose who plays at being a candy as a form of escapism while Haruyo is the opposite, a candy playing as a rose.

It ties really well into their underlying reasons behind seeking out this class S relationship. Haruyo is infantilized by being the youngest sibling and casually by the way her friends treat her and sought to become more mature, being in control and relied on by others was her fantasy when writing these letters. Kasumi is burdened by the death of her friend, and feels an acute lack of support, probably tied into her identity as the eldest sibling in her family. She seeks out the class S relationship because she wants a space where she doesn't have to be the strong/resilient person, she desperately needs a place to be openly weak and express all those emotions she's been bottling up.

Let's not pretend none of us old men here reading yuri wouldn't switch in a heart beat if it was real possibility haha

dysphoria hydrogen bomb

oh my god they made labubu yuri

blessed day for miosule enjoyers

The panel of Haruyo's hand in Kasumi's hair made me feel intense emotions

there's a pretty deep insecurity pervading the way michiru interprets shino's actions. Definitely feels like something they'll have to work through, although given that this is a high school fling I doubt either of them are thinking about the long term.