Reminds me a little of this, or maybe an AU of Still Not Normal Today. I'll just echo meadows's remark that I love the way U-Temo's stuff takes me back to earlier times in my life and makes things that felt horrible at the time beautiful.

This was lovely and I'm glad these two are still getting along, but I need to know if the cranky lolita and her neurotic friend have gotten together yet. NEED.

I just started watching / reading SHY, and it reminds me a little of this, and being reminded I remembered how much I miss this series. It's cute.

Aw boo that's probably not enough time for Rui to get her own relationship with Inaho going. Just like Subaru in Crescent Moon she's going to be consigned to yuri quantum indeterminacy forever…

–ittai? Not that I'm complaining, but where the heck did this come from? And why now?

Oh, and a lot of the references that Tama-chan makes are to other Hakka-ya projects, whether they're her Saki doujinshi or Bottle Fairy, her weird crowd-sourced manga-ish thing from the 00s.

Yeah, after chasing it down further (and watching the anime yet again for very important research purposes), most of the gal games / VNs / dating sims that might be like what we see in the manga are PC-based (and a lot of them are pret-ty lewd smh Tama-chan). There is a Love Hina game that has a very similar format on the GBA or GBC, tho.

Whatever, this has given me an excuse to try Tokimeki in Japanese (and also the original Sakura Wars, which is a good and very weird game).

Random question: does anybody have a good guess as to what gal game Tama-chan is playing on her GBA SP (or whatever it is)? My best guess is Tokimeki Memorial (and not Girls' Side (obviously)), but it is really hard to find information on Japanese-language non-otome dating sims that aren't primarily pornographic.

NOO BUT ALSO YES BUT ALSO NO BUT ALS-

Perfect combination of avatar and sentiment.

YAAAAAAAY so happy to see this on Dynasty, having had the Japanese tanks for a couple years now.

Why are we being introduced to some random childhood friend guy at this late point in the story ?? With an obviously, perfunctory ''you shold totally marry him in order to save the school Mei '' subplot to boot ? AGAIN ? Haven't we been through this already ? I swear to god, Saburouta will do anything but write about Yuzu and Mei at this point (^^) This is getting dangerously close to fanfic level writing.

If it were fanfic, Sabu would be writing about Yuzu and Mei – just look at the anthologies and doujinshi. Other writers are much more invested in the central relationship than she is.

Abolish monarchy, because it's bad for the royals!

Seriously.

That said, anybody who hasn't picked up on all the foreshadowing that Aki's temporarily embarrassed wolf royalty is reading a different manga than the one I've been reading. And an alliance with the penguin kingdom would be nice and all but the wolf kingdom? Let's be serious.

This one made me clap like a trained seal the whole way through. Yatosaki's stuff is so cute and delicate that I sometimes forget how funny it is.

Reading this I get the sense that Ohsawa-sensei had no intention for it going on as long as it did and was essentially just making it up past a certain point, but I really don't care. The characters are fun, it's about working (semi-)adults, I love the art, and I am reveling in the messiness of it all. Just don't forget Louko! Louko is life.

I see a disturbance to the fluff that this series is and I do not like it but let's see where it goes

I mean, it's Suzuki Senpai, so odds are good that Coworker-san just wants in on that action. And, this being Suzuki Senpai, they might get it.

^^ Not much to add, just, this is a good post and helped me crystallize why this portion of the series hasn't been doing much for me. Thank you for taking the time to set everything out so completely.

I knew that glass was screwed as soon as the waiter / maitre'd talked about how rare and expensive it was. RIP glass. You gave your life to advance the story a tiny bit.

Chapter 21: two young women spend 2.5 hours walking across a city at night, without concern for safety.

Either "Japan is that safe" or "male author didn't think about it".

One woman alone… unlikely to feel safe enough to wander around the city by herself (unless she's a vampire or something), probably not safe enough, practically, to risk it. Two women together? Absolutely safe enough in Japan, and not too unlikely to feel that way too. Especially if they're outside Tokyo (this is set in Chiba, no?).

This is actually starting to remind me even more of The aquatope in white sand, when Kukuru and Fuka both realize that their goals and their credentials don't line up. With this having the advantage that it's not stuck in yuri-baiting hell. (I kid, sort of… Aquatope gave up on all relationships in the second cours and just concentrated on career stuff and didn't kill off its subtext. But still…)

Soooomeday I'm gonna read a yuri manga where two characters talk about a movie and it'll be more specific than, "wow I was really surprised when that thing happened!" "I know!"

That'll be great.

I was so delighted to see Yuuko again that I just said her name out loud all by myself.

Getting a kind of "L Word but with multiple Shanes" vibe from this. Into the subscribe list!

A-Zhe reminds me a little of best boy Fang Qi. Dang, it's been a while since I reread Tamen De Gushi. I need to do that.

I went and reread all the Milk Morinaga stuff and I gotta say angst and anxiety are themes that run through all her work (except maybe Gakuen Polizei, which I've never finished because it's really not very good IMO). Morinaga-sensei has read a lot of Rumiko Takihashi and she loves to use misunderstandings and peoples' inability to communicate and lack of self-awareness to keep the motors of her series running. I think it feels a little harsher here because the scenario is more grounded and the protagonists are (theoretically) adults. But these two are nowhere near as messed up as the protagonists of, say, The Secret Recipe, who consistently made me want to give them both noogies.

Kisses was a lot better than I remembered it being, but my favorite of hers will probably always be Hana & Hina After School. Hina is maybe my all-time favorite disaster lesbian. Cool beauties who are secretly total dorks are my kryptonite.

Sal Jiang likes her big and tall ladies, and I really like the edge her stories have. Did she ever finish Black & White? And is anybody going to pick up Ayaka is in LOVE*LOVE*LOVE with Hiroko?