Much as I like the series I still think it's understandable it just didn't do too well; the first volume was just kinda ... a bit of this, a bit of that; at the same time nothing really, with no real clarity of where it was going and what it tried to do ...

But, yeah, still a shame. It's just fun how it nonchalantly always subverts the drama moments by instead doing some casual dorking about.

... although apparently it wasn't going for a real harem anyway and where's the fun in that so good riddance ^^

Teacher looks suspiciously lusty.

That entire little arc felt stupid to me. The super convenient amnesia. The meeting again and that working out. The father who is crap but actually also kinda isn't because we don't want anything we'd actually might have to develop just random trite tropes. The promise and how that now just happens to be happening. bla bla.

Those last two pages ...

Meat in Japan is more expensive than in most Western countries, but it's also a matter of life style. I mean, if you are from a family that only orders pizza on special occasions, pizza will be nice to have. Or fast food. Or even kids that don't get soda often and love when they get a coke. Doesn't necessarily mean it's about money.

It also needs to be added that (I think) chicken isn't generally considered to be part of this "meat meat meat!" stick; it's the cheap thing you probably get often enough.

I mean, sure, Reunion has too many of those typical anime-style "mwhahaha I'm such evil look at the edgy rubbish I say HA HA HA" characters so you can't really sympathize with them. But their motivation in principle makes sense to me. And wishy-washy Rhodos with, sure, an admirable goal of "we want everyone to get along!" but a rather nebulous plan on how to achieve it is ... weird to me.

If you fought both sides as some sort of human-infected alliance that'd be against either extreme that'd make some sense to me, I guess. But just firmly sticking it to Reunion seems like a stupid course of action.

I just find it weird since usually I wouldn't expect much of a story from this type of game anyway. Just some really basic plot. Instead they went for something that certainly has some "shades of grey" but it's just not working for me.

Story as far as I got was pretty stupid. Reunion clearly have the right idea, and I have no clue why Rhodes Island are supposed to be good in any sense of the word. But I suppose it's also meant for Asian market - social compliance is a virtue on it's on, I guess ^^

Me, not paying too much attention to the game: oh, some potions are running out. Guess they are left over from the big event. Gotta use 'em up. Let's see how many ...
...
... 17?!
Whelp. That's going to be some level-ups too, just for that bit of extra sanity I clearly need right now :D

This was supposed to be 2 volumes?! See. We also sometimes can get good things instead of just axed stuff.

I'd say there'd be more point to this if it were codified as "gay panic" somewhere, but from what I've seen it's just a descriptive label put on certain defense strategies in court; it's not like anyone says "we invoke gay panic rights!" or somesuch.

And I'm not sure how much that matters, but it seems the strategy had rather mixed success even during times when courts were incredibly homophobic, and also it seems more of an issue for gay men, not so much lesbians.

So, yeah. But in general I'm not a big fan of lingual censorship. Language is so contextual; and it should be primarily judged by the context it's used in, not so much with just a banhammer on anything that's ever been misused by somebody. But of course I can also understand that if for example you were personally a victim of such a thing you wouldn't find it very funny to see it all the time again ...

Pretty sure there is a mothers day yuru oyako chapter, just has to get translated.

It's already been translated. It's also perfect.

I like Minami’s definition of cheating, it’s very accurate.

Only if the cheater gives any shit.

Okay

Personally disagree with inserting stuff like that into the panels. I'd rather have the author's original work maintained to the greatest extent possible.

I'm actually really curious what if anything was there in the original japanese.

"Degenerate sluts". So basically the same thing; it's all fine.

I find the main thing with Pompeii (or whatsitsname) is having an AoE healer to counter the multi-damage and burn. I know everyone keeps talking about this or that 6-star that can just kill them, and, fine, cheese ;) , but if that's not an option (or you don't want to) then I say ... AoE healer is the critical component of the setup.

There's so many of these by now I'm starting to wonder how many Japanese highschool girls casually prostitute themselves ...

Cast: The 3 Oden Sisters
Yes, they are critical to the plot.

And delicious.

I vaguely remember a scene like this somewhere ... "why did you stop?" "Because you said ..." "I didn't mean ...!" Something like that. But I can't remember where.

But, yeah. Tropes gonna trope.

Um... didn't she ask if they could drop the honorifics and then keep using the honorifics the rest of the chapter? WTF?

When she says "drop the honorifics" she's making a request to shift to a less formal mode of speech.

They were previously both referring to each other as "-san" which is the appropriate way to show respect to someone who is older or a work colleague. Kaori asked Kayoko to drop the formalities when talking to her, because Kayoko is older and Kaori wants to be spoiled a bit. So Kayoko switches from "-san" to "-chan", because that's an expression of closeness to someone younger. It is still considered polite to refer to someone older than you with a respectful honorific, so she stays with "-san"

Dropping the honorifics entirely is something you wouldn't really expect until they're like, family levels of close

I think (judging from Kdramas) that the equivalent phrase in Korean is “Let’s lower our speech,” meaning not “drop honorifics entirely” but “drop down one level of formality.” Which to US people would still sound rather formal.

From my understanding there's essentially two common ways to express this in Japanese: one is basically saying "let's stop using keigo", aka formal speech, which might or might not also imply using less formal honorifics.
The other one is "yobisute is fine", as in "you don't have to use honorifics". But while this literally means "no honorifics" it's often to be taken as "we don't need to use 'formal' honorifics" (so a -san to -chan would still be fine); maybe a bit comparable to phrases such as "make yourself at home" - it might be meant literally in some cases, but often it's also just an invitation for more informality.

I mean, characters are saying "this was just the prologue, now it's the real beginning". Not saying that necessarily means anything, but technically this still needs to resolve both Bazu's story and that of the sister, and possible set up "alright, this is how life will continue from her on out" chapters, so I'd say another 10 or so chapters minimum for a thorough exploration of those themes.

But as has been shown time and time again of course you can never truly predict these things. Haru and Midori was a shocking example recently; at least have expected half a dozen more chapters there too ^^;

So I can also imagine all of this wrapped up in a single chapter. Since Bazu's story and the sister are clearly connected you could make one confrontation that somehow solves everything and be done with it.

last edited at May 6, 2020 11:24AM

What's the point anyway? So if I say I know a DV manga that's both comedic and serious, you'll change your mind about this one, or what?

That's not how it typically works and frankly sounds like a waste of time all around.

That manga/anime/vn extensively work with tonal shifts should be known to anyone anyway. It's particularly masterfully done in any KEY story, but doesn't mean you don't also get stuff like MuvLuv - dork-about-in-highschool-oh-suddenly-alien-invasion-everyone's-dead. It's pretty common.

honestly, after the abuse, id just rather see anyone OTHER than the main couple. they tend to be far more interesting anyways. the main couple part of the story cant decide on whether it wants to be serious with the abuse or not.

Yeah, right. That other side couple for example, with the little sister obsessed with her older sister, who considers her love interest on the same level as a pet dog; and her love interest, who is so fucked up she pierced her childhood friends ears for sadistic pleasure - aside from beating her up way more often than Iori ever did - and only goes along with little sis now because she's physically capable of beating her.

But at least the enabling otaku relationship is so perfectly healthy.

Thank god people are never hypocritical; it'd be very embarrassing reading all the comments without a hint of self-awareness.

What a surprise!

... said nobody.

What I hate about these "protagonist gets secretly manipulated into things" setups is that they are such a stock feature of manga storytelling - or storytelling in general - but the protagonists never, ever do anything about it. They just go on; fine, you lied to me, you played with my emotions, you did who-knows-what, but I'll do whatever you want anyway "because it's the right thing".
It's such a lackluster background to stories. Needs more "fuck this then" reactions.

I know all these lectures about how the author means for us to take the events of the story are kindly meant, but they're totally irrelevant to how readers respond to the story.

That's rich coming from the guy fighting a Room for Two crusade for the last year. :p

Bonus content co-written by Mocchi.

We need more characters like Iori, instead of all those saintly fake people you usually see in fiction.

Also - the way those dishes crash without any consequences should be a strong hint to how visuals in this manga aren't always meant to be taken literally. ^^