everyone can kiss yoshiko imo

wow, this manga is pulling off enemies-to-lovers a hell of a lot better than i expected in the beginning. i hope it keeps being this good

Throbelisk posted:

I just noticed that the last page is the first time we see Rei-chan's right eye, no?

Pretty sure this was mentioned a long time ago, but for those who missed it, it's just because of her hair always being over it. There's no real reason, and she doesn't have heterochromia or anything, as evidenced here https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/school_zone_ch00#2

But if we want to believe that there's meaning to it, is like the author saying "this side of me that I've been hiding" maybe? Is like... very dramatic or romantic that way, no?
I'm reading too much into it... but, it is a very serious moment to just show it without any thought put into it!

i think you're right, it's symbolic

I’m only 3 pages into this new chapter and holy shit my sympathetic-cringe meter is through the roof, this shit is so tense

ಠ_ಠ

more of the same, i see

What I find just a bit depressing is that this last chapter seems to assume Japan will still have about the same level of homophobia 13 years in the future. But I can definitely see why the mangaka chose to go this route. It’s a good reflection of Kon’s parents’ angst 13 years prior, and it gets resolved positively, just like it did before.

I really love this manga

i like the twins tbh.

my only problem with this manga is that without fail every single chapter has ended in a joke. and jokes are obviously fine, but are we ever going to meaningfully release any of the tensions between the characters? is the status quo going to remain the same the entire time?

⁄(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄

Kurokawa is a hypocrite for saying to Iro-chan that it's weird and rude to ship people IRL not to mention she's even more of a hardcore shipper than anyone else.

Kurokawa isn't shipping the two. She wants what's best for Nanaki. Her insecure brain refuses to believe she's enough, so she pushes Nanaki to someone "worthy", someone who will take care of the princess in her place.

This is what I’m thinking too—the insecure “I want what’s best for her” thing. But it still kinda feels like shipping at the end of the day. Especially with her staring. It seems less like a pining stare and more like an obsessive one.

Saeko: is driven to tears by the realization that her self-hatred is ruining her relationship

Dynasty-scans comments: Ph.D. thesis on gender studies

I'm a combined philosophy/sociology major, how dare you /s

As for the other discussions going on:

I would be very careful about asserting that Saeko's issues fall in the "trans" category, ...............................................it could seem possible that she's somewhat uncomfortable with her idea of womanhood. Being a tomboy is not a trans issue per se, though, and shouldn't be pathologised haphazardly. At its core it's simply having an atypical personality composition for a woman, not an incompatibility that requires transitioning or therapy to "resolve".

I think problem is, people see transgender persons as someone who must change pronounce, use hormones, etc. and it happens going deeper into trans spectrum, where gender identity needs physical expression through change of body features. But if someone, like Saeko, can't express sexuality through female gender role which should be easy for her as woman, it's also trans issue.

I wouldn't call bottoming the like, intrinsically female sexual gender role. That's just too strict a rule to adhere to. Women are still women even if they hate bottoming, and some women just do hate bottoming. I don't think Saeko is out of the ordinary in that regard at all. In her case I do think her baggage is affecting her sex life to some extent, but I don't think all women who hate bottoming must have trauma around it or anything. Sometimes that's just how it is.

Like, trans men can enjoy bottoming while still being trans men. Cis men can prefer to bottom and still be cis men. I think gender, and gender expression, and sexuality are a lot more complicated than just how you prefer to have sex.

I recently followed this author on twitter and she posted a preview of like chapter 42 the other day and it's still all I can think about. Why did I read it???? I skipped 20 chapters and caught a glimpse of the future, and now my reading experience is cursed by this sword of Damocles...

Anyway, sure seems Saeko's got some baggage, huh. I hope she learns to confide in Miwa if nothing else.

Really want you to spoil it for me omg

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not, but...This is her twitter, venture in at your own risk. Apparently the new chapter just came out today:

https://twitter.com/_tmfly_

no I was serious lol thank youu

no problem

i wish i could be a tree

I was thinking how Saeko have some hidden inner woman within herself, but I'm not sure about it anymore.

Now I think she is the slightest form of trans man. A straight trans man, exclusive top, who is somehow comfortable with female body, until sexually using that body in a way who Saeko isn't.

In that case, Saeko is not transsexual, but some transgender issues here are obvious. Tomboys belong to lesbian spectrum observing through sexuality and assigned sex at birth, but to transgender spectrum as well, observing identity expression through boyish look. Like both in same time.
I would be glad to hear other opinions about it, without drama and judgment to my personal point of view.

Saeko is watching herself from above "with cold eyes", it's definitely a split of personality in a moment. Her identity is "watching" her sexuality, expressed in a "wrong" way (being bottom is just unnatural for Saeko, she can't identify with it, she does not have anything to give through it, it simply is not a part of her inner being and it can't be forced).

This is my impression in current situation, how I perceive it for now.

I grew up as a lesbian tomboy and now consider myself nonbinary, so I can definitely see where you’re coming from, but personally I don’t peg Saeko as trans.

That watching herself from above thing seems like dissociation, which is often but not always a trauma response. If I were to armchair diagnose her, I’d say she’s probably got cptsd from whatever happened in middle school.

It’s true that lots of trans people report feelings of dissociation before transition, which makes sense. It’s a pretty traumatic thing to live as the wrong gender. But I would hesitate to say this is Saeko’s case. She doesn’t seem to have dysphoria (not that dysphoria is always necessary to be trans), and right now I’m not I’m not convinced that she’s secretly uncomfortable as a woman. I think she just happens to fall on the more butch end of the lesbian gender expression spectrum. When she does things like keep her hair long instead of cutting it short (which she might like better), I get the feeling she does that to better pass as straight, not convince herself that she’s actually fine with femininity and being a woman.

(And that hair thing actually works, at least in my case. Ever since I grew my hair out people have treated me a lot more nicely, and I think it’s because they can’t as easily peg me as the gay gender deviant that I am. They don’t waste time giving me the “what even are you” stare or fumbling with pronouns as often as they used to.)

But I don’t really know, that’s just what I think right now.

I recently followed this author on twitter and she posted a preview of like chapter 42 the other day and it's still all I can think about. Why did I read it???? I skipped 20 chapters and caught a glimpse of the future, and now my reading experience is cursed by this sword of Damocles...

Anyway, sure seems Saeko's got some baggage, huh. I hope she learns to confide in Miwa if nothing else.

Really want you to spoil it for me omg

I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not, but...This is her twitter, venture in at your own risk. Apparently the new chapter just came out today:

https://twitter.com/_tmfly_

last edited at Aug 13, 2020 11:50PM

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Is there a word for the sensation of thinking something is so cute you could eat it? Surely this has a name

It was a good story, very wholesome

Apparently it's called cute aggression; here's an article on it.

Ohh. That name evokes the image of an angry kitten

Is there a word for the sensation of thinking something is so cute you could eat it? Surely this has a name

It was a good story, very wholesome

I recently followed this author on twitter and she posted a preview of like chapter 42 the other day and it's still all I can think about. Why did I read it???? I skipped 20 chapters and caught a glimpse of the future, and now my reading experience is cursed by this sword of Damocles...

Anyway, sure seems Saeko's got some baggage, huh. I hope she learns to confide in Miwa if nothing else.

I for one enjoy a muscled kanan

lol at the comments on the credits page. they're always great

Japanese society is more conservative than American society

You couldn't live under this impression for ten days inside Japan without realising that it's a stereotype fabricated by a hostile foreign media that drives sales/clicks with attention-grabbing nonsense about how weird and controversial Japan is in ways that don't actually reflect reality. While Japan surely has its share of conservatism, the idea that it's more conservative than the U.S. is absurd.

Abe, while a conservative through and through, is surely to the left of Obama, for example, and Japan has never elected someone as openly far-right as Trump. The thing is that foreign media portrays Japan with an absolutely absurd Overton window. The JMSDF is maybe thinking about building an aircraft carrier? That must be far-right nationalism! Except, you know, pacifism as a national policy is extremely far left and shifting slightly to the right leaves you far, far left of Obama killing innocent civilians with missile strikes at countries the U.S. isn't even at war with (not to mention, you know, actually being in imperialist wars halfway across the world - also not a progressive thing!).

Prominent Japanese politician visits Yasukuni? More far-right nationalism! Except it's normal to honour your war dead - the U.S. does it too, and there are plenty of war criminals in U.S. graves. The only difference is that the U.S. won the war, and only the victor is able to persecute the loser for war crimes - nobody cares about their own war crimes. In fact, the U.S. is not even party to the International Criminal Court, and went so far as passing a bill authorising the invasion of the Netherlands if the Hague ever attempted to hold U.S. servicemen accountable for war crimes.

If you actually compare Japanese policies on anything to equivalent policies in the U.S., rather than holding them to some mythical standard that you don't meet yourself, there's no way you could come to such a conclusion as Japan being more conservative than the U.S.. Whether it's on healthcare, education, welfare, religion, the police, the military, gun ownership, international diplomacy, or minority rights, Japan has more progressive policies than the U.S. Virtually the only thing you could give the U.S. a point for is the legalisation of gay marriage, but in general Japanese society is much less openly hostile to gay people and was/is far ahead of the U.S. in other areas such as transgender rights.

Literally when did I say it was a uniquely Japanese thing?

"Japan is so weird!" - you're calling attention to Japan doing it, and by calling it weird implying it's not normal by definition, i.e., that it stands out from other countries uniquely. But to the contrary, it would be more weird / not-normal if Japanese media didn't feature problematic depictions of relationships, because problematic depictions of relationships in fiction are the norm around the world.

If you keep seeing weird rape stuff in manga, I think it's only natural to think "maybe Japanese culture has an issue with consent". Or maybe if you wanted to be more diplomatic you could say "maybe Japanese culture thinks about consent differently than America culture does"

Wonderful, you're really going for the Japan gawking bingo sheet blackout. Does Japanese culture have an issue with consent? The whole world does. Does Japanese culture have a uniquely bad issue with consent worthy of singling out? The US elected someone who brags about getting away with being a rapist president, appointed a rapist supreme court justice, and even the presidential candidate opposing the rapist president is probably a rapist too because the US's so-called left could never stomach a candidate that wasn't right-wing by international standards.

Meanwhile, a governmental body of the United Kingdom conducting a review of the police recently released a critical report stating that rape has been virtually decriminalized by virtue of the fact that the police no longer investigate rape, with less than 1.5% (and falling!) of reported cases being prosecuted. I'll take some shitty portrayals of consent (or lack thereof) in fiction over that any day.

But seriously, you realize "Not All Japanese" is implied when people make broad generalizations like that, right? Do you really want people to say "Not All Men" whenever they complain about hating men?

This analogy to 'Not All Men' doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. It's a complete non-sequiter. Nobody said anything about not all Japanese people being like that. My complaint is that you specifically singled out Japanese culture as being worse than your own country in regards to portrayals of abuse and consent, when it's really not. It's not that you made a generalisation that's the problem - it's that your generalisation is just wrong, not on an individual level but on a collective level.

It's frankly not worth my time to go tit for tat with you anymore.

Hope Japan sees this, bro

True. It’s one thing if one says they dislike it in manga, but to say it’s a “Japan thing” is assumptive. Especially how we always coin Japan as “weird.” If I see international foreigners talking about my country in a general sense like that just purely based mangas, I would be pissed

But it's something I happen to notice more in manga and anime because Japanese society is more conservative than American society and social hierarchies just matter a lot more there. I'm not trying to like, make Japan feel bad by saying I think they could be better about some stuff, I'm just saying I think it could be better about some stuff. For what it's worth, I still really love Japan. But I think I'm allowed to criticize it sometimes too.

The point is that characterizing a culture and its people purely by its media, with no other real-life evidence to back it up, is something I would be personally skeptical of doing. It amounts to mistaken stereotyping, as media is a product of not just contemporary social values but also the history of that medium, the specific community it originates from, messaging or lack thereof that the authors are trying to spread, what the author personally enjoys creating, and etc.

It's like saying "the glorification of violence and guns in movies and video games is pretty yikes, why is America always so weird about that kind of thing". You could try to draw the conclusion that the reason such violence is present in media is because of American society. But the actual truth is likely to be far more complex than that, so saying that "[an entire country] could be better about some stuff", through a conclusion reached by consuming fictional media, does not come off well. The argument and conclusion don't really match up.

Look, I didn't reach this conclusion just by consuming media. I'm proficient in Japanese and am on my to becoming fluent, I keep up with Japanese current events, and I'd love to do a term abroad there eventually, hopefully. It's a moderately conservative culture! There are issues with it! I don't know what to tell you!

But even if I had only ever consumed the media, I think it would be valid to come to a broad conclusion like that. Media is ALWAYS a reflection of the society that made it. And I think you can go backwards with a broad conclusion. If you keep seeing weird rape stuff in manga, I think it's only natural to think "maybe Japanese culture has an issue with consent". Or maybe if you wanted to be more diplomatic you could say "maybe Japanese culture thinks about consent differently than America culture does".

I think your example "the glorification of violence and guns in movies and video games is pretty yikes, why is America always so weird about that kind of thing" can actually be a valid critique of American society, even if I think video games as a medium are incredibly different to others by virtue of being interactive. To be clear, I don't think video games make people violent--I think people just like doing exciting things they normally can't. I think people get that COD isn't real life. But I DO think American society values violence and guns and the military, and I think some of that is expressed in what video games get made and which become successful. (But industry executives are dumbass trend-chasers too, and "successful" doesn't necessarily mean "most worthy of being called good".)

But seriously, you realize "Not All Japanese" is implied when people make broad generalizations like that, right? Do you really want people to say "Not All Men" whenever they complain about hating men? This is just pedantic.

last edited at Aug 9, 2020 8:24PM

Abusive dynamics are framed as neutral or good in manga all the time and I don’t really like it. That’s all.

Can I introduce you to Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey? The idea that glorifying abusive relationships in fiction is a uniquely Japanese phenonomon is utterly preposterous. I'd like to be able to read the comments on this site one time without seeing somebody haughtily look down on Japanese culture for something their own culture is invariably guilty of. If you don't like what you see, that's fine -- but I'm sick of people framing the things they dislike in manga as a "Japanese thing", rather than just saying they dislike it on its own terms.

True. It’s one thing if one says they dislike it in manga, but to say it’s a “Japan thing” is assumptive. Especially how we always coin Japan as “weird.” If I see international foreigners talking about my country in a general sense like that just purely based mangas, I would be pissed

Literally when did I say it was a uniquely Japanese thing? Obviously it happens everywhere. (For the record, Twilight isn't really as bad as its reputation. But 50 Shades of Grey is worse than its.) And anyway, just saying "well it happens here too" isn't a real argument. That's a tu quoque argument.

But it's something I happen to notice more in manga and anime because Japanese society is more conservative than American society and social hierarchies just matter a lot more there. I'm not trying to like, make Japan feel bad by saying I think they could be better about some stuff, I'm just saying I think it could be better about some stuff. For what it's worth, I still really love Japan. But I think I'm allowed to criticize it sometimes too.

last edited at Aug 9, 2020 6:38PM

We’re supposed to like landlady, right? Having someone prostitute themselves for rent in your building is a pretty shitty thing to do, but the manga treats it like it isn’t shitty and that landlady ultimately isn’t shitty for doing it, even if she feels guilty for it.

Prostitute? They have done it ONE time and the rest of the services are just normals services.It's not like she have forced her to do anything humiliating.Heck, it'snot like she shave forced her to do any of the services. You both make it sound like MC had to have sex and do ecchi play to the landladywhen they just have done normals things so far,beside the initial service.

You know, having reread it I think I misremembered the beginning. Kozuka tried to do actual chores at first, but was useless at it, so she tried to initiate sex to pay her bills, but landlady could tell she didn't want to and they ended up just spooning instead. And then after that her service was like, hugging and hand-holding and later on kissing. Yeah, I was mischaracterizing it, my bad

I think it’d would be boring if they got together for real now anyway.

Now what ? You know it's bound to happen by the end of it right ?

Obviously it's gonna happen--that's the whole point. But I think it'd be boring if it happened now. The story has a lot more room to tell itself, and I don't think they'll actually get together until after the contract is done.

last edited at Aug 9, 2020 6:20PM