Uta: (thinking) Huh, she sure does go along with whatever's easiest, and she's basically screaming for help about that. I should be careful not to give her an out where she just falls back into old patterns.

Uta: (speaking) I think you'll love my brother and be happy living here with him forever!

Maybe I'm just being dense today, but I really don't know what in the hell is going on in that scene.

After the "it's no big deal" part, and through the whole time Kaoru is actually unburdening herself, Uta seems to be leading up to some kind of "go for it--be honest with Reiichi so you can move on with your life" advice crescendo. Then:

"Try to do what you can for now." What does that even mean?

If this were an entirely different kind of series, I'd almost think Uta was saying, "What a relief it wasn't my fault you were suffering--now fuck off with my cheating brother and leave me alone."

That's a bit too much to hope for, though, I'm almost positive.

Honestly, the more this story carries on, the more I feel like Kaoru is a pretty authentic picture of someone who struggles with chronic depression. her inability to cope with change or be proactive, her low self-image, her tendency to shut down when problems crop up...

One of the struggles of depression is that every bad thing is amplified and when they pile up they seem overwhelming. So you encourage people to just focus on the things they can do in the short term to avoid getting overwhelmed. Don't think about running to the far end of the problem, just focus on the next step. I feel like this is what Uta's getting at with "Try to do what you can for now." Just take steps where you can. Build momentum. Get things started. Break the malaise.

extorting physical services for rent

Cool erotica trope.

cheese in gyoza

I'm out of here!

But seriously, yeah, whew that chapter 8!

As for earlier discussion, why is "pay rent money, or I evict you" a legitimate business transaction, but "have sex or pay money, or I evict you" extortion?

Biology. Sex acts release neurochemicals that stimulate emotional dependency and build intimacy. As such, human society, in general, tends to afford greater weight to sexual activity than other behaviors, and so forcing someone to engage in them without honest consent is traumatic, and therefore immoral.

It's not the same for everyone, because people are different, but in general, this is why sex crimes are more traumatic than non-sex crimes, and why casual sex is so hard of a concept for a lot of people.

Simply offering an alternate payment form really isn't proper extortion. Depending on where you are it could probably fall afoul of prostitution laws but that's a different can of worms. Traditional extortion would be more along the lines of "pay me your rent and if you know what's good for you give me some nooky on the side or we will find something to evict you for."

For something to be blackmail or extortion there must be a threat made. Simply offering somebody an alternative option to save them from becoming homeless due to their own fault and failure to pay rent doesn't meet that requirement. The Land Lady made no threat.

The threat of eviction is still a threat. Legally, demanding sex for continued lodging is extortion.

As for people describing this as rape. Again that's a completely false statement and a misuse of the word. For rape to occur the sexual act must not be consensual. Prostitution and rape are not synonyms.

Having sex with someone who is drunk is rape. They aren't able to consent. Period. It's not complicated.

Wait Jupiter glows...?

It looks like a bright star with the naked eye. Reflected light from the sun, as mentioned. Because of it's size and proximity,

Get yourself a good 10x pair of binoculars and you can even see the 4 largest moons.

It doesn't tend to twinkle the way other stars do, which sometimes makes it stand out compared to the others. Along with Venus and Mercury, it's one of the objects in the sky most frequently mistaken for a UFO, so that's actually kind of a well-informed point on the story's part. I chuckled when she mistook it for a UFO.

I mean, Boob-tsundere-chan is cute and all, and it's nice to see Subaru getting a companion, but man, Subaru is trash. I mean, it wasn't a great thing that she has continued to peep on the main couple without their permission, but I was willing to let it pass without comment because she was keeping their secret. But outing somebody is a dick move, outing them to the freaking MORALS OFFICER is just an absolute trash move. It's a comedy, so we can be assured that nothing too bad is gonna come from it, but this is the kind of thing that could ruin a young queer person's life.

Not cool, kid. Not cool.

"and rei-kun... you love him and he's important to you, and that won't change, right?"
nods

The author has literally taken chapters upon chapters of showing Kaoru is not into Uta this way and really just loves Reiichi, but shows one chapter of desperation from Kaoru calling Uta because she has no one else to talk to but then you get surprised and disappointed.

Whether or not Kaoru could develop romantic feelings for Uta is a separate question from whether or not it is frustrating seeing Kaoru continue to be a doormat for her neglectful, possibly cheating husband. Like, it would be kinda nice to see Kaoru entertain the notion of kicking him to the curb, if it turns out he -is- cheating. Or even if he just keeps forgetting and ignoring important dates in their relationship. I'm a pretty freaking scatterbrained person, but if I was in a relationship with somebody, you can fucking bet your life that my smartphone calendar would be filled with reminders about our FIRST FREAKING ANNIVERSARY.

Reiichi is a d-bag, is my point.

I wish Kaoru would soon realize that Reiich was cheating on her with With so-called friend Risako.

I wish we had actual evidence that this so-called cheating happened.

I know I argued pretty hard for "he's definitely cheating" back at the time, But honestly it's looking more like he -wanted- to but Risako is into Kaoru, so I think it's looking less likely that he actually successfully did a deed, so to speak. "Unrequited Love" really is looking more and more like the best possible title for this series.

there seems to be a disconnect between chapters 1 and 2. Nozomi's recollection in chapter 1 is very different from that in chapter 2. i cannot tell if the two chapters are based on two different events or the same event that the authors reworked. i think it is going to take an additional chapter or two to make sense of the mismatch.

The memory in chapter 1 is after they got to the hotel. The memory in chapter 2 is when they were at the karaoke parlor before they went to the hotel. They had sex in the karaoke parlor, then went to a hotel to continue sexing, either because they just wanted to or because they were too drunk to get all the way home. What's the difficulty?

Nah, I saw this trope too many times, it never ends well. Nope.
So Shion took away Nozomi's boyfriend, and that's why Nozomi is angry on Shion. That's my guess.

What? Seriously, what? Where did you get the idea that Shion took away Nozomi's boyfriend? Shion wasn't the one he cheated with, if she was, Nozomi wouldn't have texted Shion for comfort in the first place and Shion wouldn't have shown up asking what happened.

There's not much point telling a story about this girl piecing together fractured memories if there aren't going to be misunderstandings along the way, so it seems pretty likely we're in the middle of said misunderstanding. Part 3 is probably going to be about Nozomi remembering Shion confessing before she was drunk and agreeing to go for it before her judgement was impaired.

If not that, worst case scenario is the one where Nozomi realizes that Shion's feelings were sincere and forgives her for taking advantage, but Shion NTRing Nozomi with her boyfriend is waaaaay off the map. Like "here there be dragons" territory.

What's the odds that she's not remembering the whole event and the actual lead up to them having sex was different than we're being shown in this chapter?

Yeah, the whole point of the story seems to be that she's piecing together what happened out of fragments of memory, and she's coming to conclusions based on that incomplete understanding. We don't know when Shion confessed, or when Nozomi got drunk.

I mean, I'm not gonna assume the end result might not still be problematic, this is a contentious issue and a lot of people have a dated attitude about it, but a lot remains to be seen at this point.

Didn't a chapter imply Kasumi and Sakurako have slept together?

I don't believe so. The "pilot" suggests that Kasumi would be fine with it if Sakurako wanted to, but the canonicity of that story is questionable and I don't believe the issue has ever actually been pressed in the series proper.

So, like, cute idea, but I just want to point out that if you really like something and you want someone to like it with you, start by showing it to them, instead of exhaustively describing it to them?

I figured that page was gonna get some people into the Miki loves Himari camp. I do think that's romantic jealousy so much as just friend-neglect. I've been there. I've been the friend that misses hanging out because my bestie got a new girlfriend. It's frustrating because you want them to be happy but you also miss the attention.

I founded also ironic to have both sisters in love with each MC.

Yeah, that's a little too cute for me, which Is why I'm hoping this is more just friend-jealousy.

That last chapter(13)...
They didn't need to flex cuteness so hard like that XD

Those characters sure are something else... everytime the mangaka tries to show their emotions, it gets through me.
I can relate so badly that my chest actually hurts, the difference is that there's a happy ending there(or so i wish, if it's a bad end, the "Cheers, i'll drink to that" meme never felt so relevant lmao)

If this series has a bad end coming, I will

A) Eat my hat

B) Sob uncontrollably

C) Add Takashima Eku-Sensei to my mental list of top 5 real-life supervillians.

Then she sees the kiss, and she -still- doesn't contact him about it, despite having his contact info, but then he comes into the workplace putting out feelers for where his fiancee is, asking questions he really should have the answers to, and honestly, from Doumyou's position, this has gotta be looking pretty bad. I think there's definitely some self-interest in her actions, but she also definitely has good reasons to think Midori is kind of a shitty person that's mistreating him. (although the reality is the other way around, but that's the thing about assholes like him.)

This is another one of those "Igarashi in Hana ni Arashi" things, isn't it? lol

It came to mind for me too, yeah. ;p

Y'all must be a hoot playing D&D: "Actually, if you look at it from the screaming hordes of orcs' point of view . . . "

(I kid, I kid, out of love. But JFC . . .)

Oh c'mon, Tazune is clearly the screaming orcs. Fuck that guy. Doumyou is more like the idiot villagers who awaken the dragon because they wanted to have their harvest festival in spite of the warnings from the old crone on the hill. Not evil, just...foolish and misguided.

But if you had a dollar for every Dynasty post lamenting the plight of that other character or shipping them with the MCs or hoping for a “Pair the Spares” outcome, you’d have . . . a lot of dollars.

Where could i get those dollars ?

The good news is you already have them.

The bad news is they're only philosophical dollars. Good for the purchase of ethical dilemma solutions at the theoretical piggly wiggly.

I agree! I really enjoyed this manga at first because the art is so good and the MC is so cute. But they just had to introduce Aki who I am starting to like more.

To it's less to introduce Aki but more making her part of a somewhat triangle in the story. Also did I skip some messages or I'm the only one to have a vibe that the sister of Aki love Himari, especially here.

I figured that page was gonna get some people into the Miki loves Himari camp. I do think that's romantic jealousy so much as just friend-neglect. I've been there. I've been the friend that misses hanging out because my bestie got a new girlfriend. It's frustrating because you want them to be happy but you also miss the attention.

Remember, though, that Doumyou told Midori she was interested in Tazune before she knew they were dating, and the next thing she knew, Midori was pregnant and marrying him. I don't think we explicitly were told the timing of everything, but whatever the specifics are, Doumyou has two possible conclusions: Midori either went after Tazune after doumyou told her she was into him, or (what actually happened) they were already dating and Midori didn't say anything when she mentioned her interest. Either one of those is kinda shitty and might stick in Doumyou's craw

Her next role in the story was when she confessed her feelings. She says she wants to confess to get over her feelings, and that she'll give up after. She explicitly asked Midori's permission to do so, and she was like "eh, sure, why not haha"

Then she sees the kiss, and she -still- doesn't contact him about it, despite having his contact info, but then he comes into the workplace putting out feelers for where his fiancee is, asking questions he really should have the answers to, and honestly, from Doumyou's position, this has gotta be looking pretty bad. I think there's definitely some self-interest in her actions, but she also definitely has good reasons to think Midori is kind of a shitty person that's mistreating him. (although the reality is the other way around, but that's the thing about assholes like him.)

Yeah, Minami's dad was an abusive drunk who came after her with a knife.

Note that this would not be incompatible with the parental murder-suicide story Shizuka describes (though realistically she gave her own horrible backstory to establish shared ground.)

No, but it would be a bit of an odd narrative choice to leave "she buried the bodies of her parents" out of the earlier infodump about a traumatic backstory.

Shizuka found out, intending to lord her backstory over her, but realized she sympathized, so she is sharing her own backstory because she feels like Minami can relate.

That's a pretty debatable reading, as her self-described motive for prying rather appeared to be genuine curiosity about Minami...

She explicitly says it was "to keep the advantage" though. The next time she sees her, though, she immediately gives up that "advantage" by sharing her own background

Curiosity is what drew her to her in the first place, but she explicitly stated her reason for stealing the answer was to have an interpersonal advantage over Minami.

So holy shit. Shizuka's mom pulled a murder suicide and Shizuka had to bury the bodies. That is so dark.

Goes ways to explain why she's so chronically fucked up, certainly.

On another note, was I the only one to notice that Shizuka's version (recounted internally ie. without any need to gloss things for the benefit of the target audience) of their initial acquaintance indicates the one Minami gave Iori way back in ch 12 is basically BS? Not that it's hard to see why she'd prefer to tell a take that's both rather compressed and "lighter and softer"...
It does, however, have the unfortunate side effect of rendering anything Minami tells about her past inherently suspect at least as far as details are concerned. :/

The story Minami gave wasn't about how they met, it's how they interacted on a daily basis. We don't really have any reason to doubt that both stories are true.

I don't know but I think Aki's selflessness is a bit much. She's becoming both love rival and main YoriHima shipper. Don't get me wrong, I like her as a character. Calm and collected character who knew she wouldn't stand a chance. But isn't she helping them way too much? I get that Aki want to see Yori being happy but she's shipping Yori and Hima harder than most of us here.

I mean, she's in love with Yori, sure, but she's also her best friend, and a member of her band, Himari's sempai, and the big sister of Himari's best friend. She's got a lot of reasons to care about the happiness of both of them. She might also be overcompensating for her own feelings in an effort to be fair to Himari.

She's in a tough situation, to be honest. If Himari was't Miki's best friend, she could probably get away with resenting her a bit more. If she was't already Yori's best friend and in a band with her, she could afford to be a little more selfish in pursuing her.

last edited at Apr 19, 2020 7:36PM

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't red rice supposed to be eaten at weddings?

Special occasions in general (birthdays and the like), but the context here, teasing her about her romantic relationship, makes it pretty clear that they're referencing a wedding tradition.

Chapter 11 Page 17 if you look closely you can see Hima refers to the one who confessed as a "she" and that's gotta be why Momoka looks shocked cuz she thought it was a guy, but found out it was infact a girl all along! (just a minor detail)

Are you talking about the top left panel? The one looking shocked is Himari and she was talking with Aki in that scene. Momoka looks pretty calm in the bottom left panel. One thing I like about this series is that nobody bats an eye at same-sex relationships even though it’s a co-ed school.
I noticed the sudden change from “them” to “her” too, but that might’ve been an oversight by the translator because Japanese is ungendered most of the time.

Yeah, Japanese doesn't really do gendered pronouns. You can often get a sense of whether the person being talked about is male or female based on other context clues, but in a lot of situations it's very ambiguous. This is why mistake-identity-on-basis-of-gender is such a common trope in anime and manga.

As a rule, it's a good idea to avoid assuming that pronouns are revelatory information in manga. it's a subtlety that translators often miss, especially when translating a work in progress. Using genderless pronouns (like the singular they/them) can end up sounding forced in a situation where the gender of the person is firmly established, but sometimes the author is saving up the reveal for that character.

Ahhh I caught up. This was really good. Very fluffy.

I wonder why Aki isn't named Sayaka?

I think one post would have sufficed for all o.f that. You can edit it afterwards as well as you go along reading? Just... Don't spam, ok?

I read this and expected to see like 13 posts or something. it's fine, isn't it? They were expressing distinct thoughts as they read through various parts of the series. There were just three short little posts. That's not exactly disruptive.

In the first chapter she says he was beat up by her parent? does that mean current guardian since her biological parents are both deceased?

I'm certain the dead parent backstory is Deliquent's. It aligns with how in the previous page Minami comments about how delinquent refuses to answer the "how did she end up there" question too. Delinquent had to reveal her backstory to bond with Minami while also insinuating she knew her background (the "were similar" part).

So now with Delinquent feeling lonely again, I'm expecting some fluff with our resident Imouto next chapter.

Yeah, Minami's dad was an abusive drunk who came after her with a knife. She got put into the public child care system to get her away from that household. Shizuka found out, intending to lord her backstory over her, but realized she sympathized, so she is sharing her own backstory because she feels like Minami can relate.

So holy shit. Shizuka's mom pulled a murder suicide and Shizuka had to bury the bodies. That is so dark.

(sigh) So yeah, I'm out. This series lured me in with a sexy love story about a mismatched but apparently loving romance between two adult women, and it has turned into sex-addict watersports incest loli rondo. The title characters have been gone so long that it's -literally- a joke, but at this point, I don't even care if we ever get back to them, because if we did it'd probably be a chapter of them cheating on each other with their 10 year old neices by vomiting on them or something.

Note, I'm not griping about this because I'm shaming any of those kinks. If that's what you're into, whatever, that's not my business or concern, but what irritates me about this is the bait and switch. If the author is bored with their original concept, fine. Change the title, discontinue the series, and write a spinoff. This hasn't been "Tae-Chan and Jimiko-san" in well over a year.

As a seperate matter of tagging, this chapter does indeed need a watersports tag, but more than that, "Office Lady", "Glasses" "Co-worker" and "roommates" should be taken off of the series tags and only be on, what, the first five chapters? It makes more sense for "age gap" to be in the series tags, since the main character has been a sexaholic 10 year old for 2/3rds of the series now.

I think I'm slowly coming to agree with Blastaar's hypothesis.

At the very least I think it's clear that the preposterous premise being floated some time ago that "Kasumi doesn't really feel affection for Sakurako but just exploits her because Kasumi is lazy and a glutton who just likes to be fed and waited on" has taken a couple of torpedoes amidships with the last two chapters.

I feel like that one hit the bottom of the ocean awhile ago, honestly.

Thanks so much for picking this up, guys.