Ah yeah, I remember those days back in school, when you arrived in the morning and a bunch of random students stood around commenting on everyone's appearance as if you couldn't hear them. Good times, good times.

There was always a certain level of creepiness in their works; this is not the first time we saw some sort of fucked up relationship in them. It's just usually burrowed under more moe gloss. One of the reasons I don't really like their works. At least with this there's no pretense.

Shame it doesn't end with her taking the knife and butchering that psycho though.

Especially since it also includes Yuri. So clearly this is not to be taken as a "not a valid lesbian" thing or any somesuch bullshit.

Everything just clashes, at least to me.

At first glance it's "alright, let's do one of those cute girls do cute things non-stories. With animal ears!" Then someone decided that that had been done a few billion times too often, so someone said "let's include a romance story! And as an obstacle, I know, the ears will have this thing which will have to be overcome!" And, sure, that makes some sense. But then someone went "great, then let's have it all be sort of ecchi, but not really!" and someone else went "well, while we're add it, let's make all the new characters have that same issue as the heroine has, for their own style of animal-ears, except for them it won't really matter since we're just using it for 1-chapter-ecchi-not-ecchi-romance-jokes".

And then everyone agreed that that's the way to go. And now it's a mess that's neither a romance nor really ecchi, not a comedy, but not serious either as its thin premise about the protagonist's problem falls apart a little bit more with each chapter ...

I'm getting too old for this shit. ^^

I mean, we shouldn't stick to all Japanese stereotypes just out of tradition. There's more and more women who go back to work after having a kid (more than 50% these days Google informs me), just as there's more and more singles in Japanese society in general (depending on age groups at least 30% and up).

So while those attitudes of course persist and you might get comments and so on it's nothing outrageous anymore.

That explains why it's XX and not XXX. Yes. Should have made that connection.

English title maybe should only use one X? "do X" is a common phrase. Although it is somewhat perverted so "XX" is maybe fitting ^^

^ heh. Oh well.

It's one thing leaving someone at the altar before the vows are said. It's a completely different thing leaving someone at the altar after you said "I do!" and the officiant has declared you and your partner husband and wife. In the second case, you are already married when you leave!

But this is Japanese. The ceremony is meaningless anyway (as far as I understand, I might be wrong). I just take it as a dramatization. In real-life, only the entry in the family register (the infamous koseki) matters and that happens in an administrative setting, not in church.

last edited at Oct 17, 2019 4:26PM

Pretty sure basic storytelling also involves not adding unneccessary information. We have an office lady forcing herself to fit into society, cooky freelancer who's in love with her being all "fuck that", and boom, you have the setup for the series to come, which is the pair developing their post-confession relationship while also dealing with the consequences of their impulsive decisions. It doesn't need any more exposition than that.

That's like saying that it'd have been for Luke to take a lightsabre and go kill the Evil Emperor on a Death Star. We got a hero with the means, an evil bad guy and a superweapon; now we can have them fight it out and all is well. Everything else is surplus to the story and a waste of time.

And if the author really just needed that much they could have done it in 5 pages. Or maybe 2. One before the marriage and one for them running away at the altar. And I'd probably would have seen that as more legitimate since although I don't like it it's often that first a conflict is established and then afterwards we get to learn what lead up to it and so on. But here we're starting out chronologically so I expect the author to also actually do something with the build up.

But, whatever. Clearly we won't agree. I think this chapter was pretty awful - some others seem to agree - you don't, and some others also don't.

This is probably the first time I've heard someone complain that there's not enough drawn out angst.

I'm not of the "instant gratification" crowd. There's no point to anything if there's no proper build up. Insta love sucks, insta power sucks, insta tragedy rarely works ... take your time and establish what the heck is going on. It's basic storytelling.

And, I mean, the chapter is long enough to do something that goes beyond what we got. It doesn't necessarily have to be my random idea, a creative writer no doubt could come up with something more interesting. But still. Sort out the basics. ^^

^it's just too exaggerated here. Like, first time she decides she's going to get married, she doesn't even know his fucking name. It'd be reasonable to use one of those arranged marriage services, get to know each other a bit, go on a few dates, see if you're at least vaguely compatible (beyond income ^^) and then decide that they'll get married soon. And likewise something like "I'll keep working until we're having our first kid" or something.

We could have had 1 or 2 chapters or so where the two friends become more and more estranged while this happens; maybe have them show some worry or whatnot for each other or ...

But such slow development clearly wasn't dramatic enough for the author.

last edited at Oct 17, 2019 10:29AM

...and there's just the right amount of ennui.

The right amount of tediousness and boredom?!

Personally I'd probably have gone for some sort of transhumanist cyberpunk-ish thing where - among a lot of other things - animal ears are just one of many possibilities. And I suppose you can voluntarily grab a bunch of animal personality mods, if you want. If you absolutely have to have the heroine go rape-y at the start you can still say it's some sort of bug or accident or she got cheap used ones with a software package that she can't personally pick or whatever.

But you'd have to actually make some sort of effort at world building for that and these manga always go the "oh, animal ears, so cute, so we have that, and that's it" route. ^^

Yeah, that ... was a thing ... that happened ... I guess.

This reminds me of the catgirl thing. I don't really see the ... substance. It's all "moe" shine but can't say it manages to grab my attention. Not awful, but not great either.

Also they aren't floppy bunny ears so 0/10.

I always faithfully used the Japanese Nanami theme for Win7.

Chapter 13.1
Chapter 13.2
Chapter 13.1 +α
Chapter 13.3
Chapter 13.4
Chapter 13.5
Chapter 13.55
Chapter 13.6
Chapter 13.6 (Second Half)
(Chapter 13.6 +α)

... this is more hilarious than I thought it'd be.

A meddler.

I really hoped they'd work out things on their own. But of course not. In romance stories, nothing ever happens if it's just left up to the people actually involved.

Well, I'd certainly agree with Maou, and incidentally also Prison Whatever thing. But, eh, as long as it's good it's good. If the end is a let down again at least it was worth reading until then ^^;

I like this. Well, I tend to like stories that go against expectations in a blunt way - like the husband here, and how they are dealing with things. Instead of endless soap opera-esque twists and turns this feels more satisfying to me.

That alcohol thing is more sad than funny. But still funny.

Irrational seem a fancy word to said stupid here.

Well, I suppose of you consider emotions to be stupid, there's an argument for that.

Even after what happen with the old woman ? Bazu really is strange, she call out Mashiro to be too much softhearted after the cat case and said she doesn't like that kind of behavior but if Mashiro will had act the opposite she would have call out for being like everyone else. Dunno just pick a side girl, you can't hate humans for being heartless creatures then blame Mashiro for acting the opposite and prove you all humans are not bad.

Angry people acting irrational. Who'd have thought that that's a thing; never seen before ... ^^

That long-haired style was pretty neat for her, too.

Plot twist: the guy killed her deliberately like this to turn her into a noman, and then someone else recruited her to work for the same organization. It was all according to keikaku!

The beautiful start to an incredible unhealthy relationship. Haa. It's so touching.