I've been reading too much manhua recently because the first thing that popped into my mind for "what's gonna happen next?" is Fuuko picking up a knife and going for them.

Especially with all the blackened text boxes and sheer despair in that scene.

last edited at Oct 2, 2023 9:35PM

If this turns out to be an actor thing... that feels like SUCH a common trope in manhua. Famous actors being all about that Gay.

Manhua : actors :: manga : schoolgirls :: manhwa : office ladies

Obviously, all three do all three, but that's my anecdotal experience as to what the go-to setting is.

I'd honestly say Manhua : actors, murderers.

The number of really weird Chinese comics about Yuri killers is staggering.

Just off the top of my head:
Savior
Kill Me Now
Killing Mr. Park
Let's Kill My Husband
Killing You

If you add in webnovels, it skyrockets way beyond that list too.

The end is nigh!

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2023-09-18/shio-usui-i-married-my-female-friend-manga-ends-on-october-18/.202471

Two more chapters then.

I wonder if the author is going to do the "she's already dead" thing, where Shizuku pours her heart into the novel and finishes it and then rushes back to the hospital to find that Kaori died earlier that day.

Just one more chapter in this volume. I guess this will be it. Shizuku's novel gets an ending, maybe there'll be a confession, and then Kaori's death.

Like all good stories, I definitely don't want this story to end, but it probably has to. Not sure if my heart could take five more chapters after the next.

Is this really the last volume? Don't they usually say ahead of time if the next chapter is the last chapter of the series?

This is the last volume. The author announced that Volume 6 would be the last one ahead of time.

The logical conclusion is that we have 1 more chapter left and maybe an epilogue if we're lucky.

last edited at Oct 1, 2023 10:20AM

rereading the first chapter to remind myself of what happened, that felt like... an abrupt change in direction?

Chapter 2 was also 11 pages shorter. I wonder if the page length was truly just "the amount of space that was free in this month's issue".

last edited at Sep 24, 2023 8:52PM

I've just been reading the titles for this ever since a couple chapters after the "I'm not a guy" reveal at the concert. I was hopeful that reveal (which was what... 35 chapters ago?) would take things in a romantic direction. And then it didn't, despite how much blushing the characters did in those chapters which was entirely some new form of friendship blushing or something.

And then I saw this chapter's title, and was like "did they fuck yet?" and was mildly shocked to learn that they haven't even realized they're in love yet. My god.

I guess at 4 pages a chapter, 59 chapters is like... 8 chapters of some other manga, so I should just continue to temper my expectations until we get into the hundreds I guess?

So... Kyou speedran the confession (a few sentences after the first time they ever talked), then speedran the jealousy, and tried to use those feelings to speedrun the sex, which failed (and amazingly she didn't force Mion), so they speedran the breakup.

That was certainly... one of the stories of all time.

Excuse me for this naive question, but... these girls are Kyou and Mion, right?
Who the eff is Daisy??

Isn't it just a metaphor? They're hardy flowers that last if cared for, but they still generally die by the end of summer.

Yeah I also think it is just flower symbolism. Extremely common for flower names to end up in Yuri titles.

Wait up! They're simply roommates, right? Yuiko's in love with Mei, while the latter is tooooo dense to notice it. That was why Mei thought Yuiko might simply be doing some kind of training for when she gets married to some one else (not her) in the future. Anyway, that's some really nice art.

Yeah Mei is obviously oblivious to Yuiko's interest.

That's why Yuiko hints at the end that she wants a special wedding dress.

I can't see this ending well for them, tbh, even if Yuiko confessed to her.

Somewhat tolerable even though it isn't really Yuri. Wild - I never thought I would say those words.

The Tags are kinda confusing is it a more of a yuri or het love triangle? or equal possibility? I'll find out on my own

I would say it's more het since she makes out with the dude in almost every chapter. lol

Overall, what I feel about this manga is that it's interesting as a regular manga but somewhat disappointing as a yuri manga. I think when it comes to storytelling, the "journey" is as important as the "destination". If 80-90% of the "journey" is het stuff, I'd feel I wasted my time reading it regardless of how it ends.

Yeah it's really hard to say from the perspective of an English reader. Like others have mentioned, despite having several translated chapters, they are short, so if you compare this to a longer manga, it's like we're only on chapter 3 right now.

Maybe the het stuff drops off after a bit and then there's a slow build yuri romance for most of it. We'd need a JP reader to read ahead and provide some very light spoilers (in spoiler text), such as "yes, there's a good amount of yuri in most of the story".

The pacing is weird, yeah. My only guess is that maybe the author intends this to be a slow self-awakening/love story. Though, it's a bit too fast for even that.

Lilian deserves to be with a girl too

Honestly I wouldn't be shocked if it ends up that way.

The most "typical" way for the manga to play out from this point is to have slowly fall in love and then have the climax of the plot center around the public discovering Ciel's true gender. Then the adversity of the situation forces the two to take a stand for their ability to be together (and either they run off together or convince Ciel's parents and the public to accept them).

It looked like Lillian in this chapter was doing some heteronormative self-denial, so the perfect ending/epilogue would have her break up with Mark and follow their example.

last edited at Sep 10, 2023 11:00PM

The plot is very tired and cliche, but it's well-executed here nonetheless. The sex scene is ridiculously well-drawn. It's crazy how many negative Yuri hentai tropes it breaks. I'd say it's easily one of the best I've ever seen.

She's definitely earned a new fan.

last edited at Sep 10, 2023 3:22AM

Surprising levels of acceptance from her friends about same-sex dating. Refreshing to see.

Is hard to see, but, that's a ring.

On Chiaki's left hand in the final panel?

It definitely could be.

I honestly don't see this as a bad ending. I think all or almost all adolescent loves have to end, and it's rare for one to end in such a way that gives somebody so much insight. She learned her own sexual orientation, about love, about loss, and about how love can hurt people in unintentional ways.

Huh? Who the heck is Yonaga? And why is Himawari giving her money? Just for a hug? If so, then she sure could have tried to find someone more pleasant, at least.

Really, what the heck is going on??

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's completely lost lol.

The plot in this is really dense and driven by lots of things that aren't clearly stated, so it's really hard to read month to month.

I think I'll wait until they kiss and then go back through the whole story again.

I didn't like the slap when it happened, especially as this artist's work is usually so unchallenging and comfortable which is appealing for its own reasons. The slap really didn't match the rest of the tone of the series, imo, and a similar dynamic could have been explored without the violent reaction.

Yeah. This has sort of been an unfortunate trend in Japanese manga (and Eastern media in general) for a long time. They tend to use DV and non-consentual (or dubiously consensual) interactions as plot or character development more than us Western audiences would like.

It's up to the person who was hurt to decide whether a behaviour crosses a line or not, ultimately, and clearly Kurumi doesn't think this crossed a line enough to worry about or dwell on at this very moment, and I think that's okay. Maybe the special was a subtle way to let us know that Kurumi is at least informed of what DV is, and if Ruriko were to hypothetically become violent again, that Kurumi would know what that means and what to do.

Honestly, showing the DV special on television is already 10x more self-aware than most manga. I personally interpreted it from the perspective that Kurumi thought -her- actions were out of line in the context of DV (hence the follow-up comment about messing up), but I can definitely see the argument that it was meant the other way too.

But I also think it's okay for people to feel that Ruriko crossed a line in a way that, if they were in a relationship with her, would be unforgivable for them personally - especially if they've been victimised previously and this event acts as a red flag for them enough to end a relationship out of self preservation. It's also okay to have conflicted feelings and to not really know where you stand too, and that's kind of where I'm at personally.

Of course, that's everyone's right - Kurumi's too. She would be totally entitled to the perspective that "a drunken kiss between friends escalating into a full-handed slap is a red flag I can't accept because it shows a propensity to act to situations with physical violence."

I personally think that drinking to the level you lose complete control of your senses and begin to act intimately towards someone else without consent warrants physical actions to stop your behavior. A slap is beyond what I think is completely justified as an initial response (I think pushing her away strongly would have been best to start), but I can understand why Ruriko did it.

Edit: And I'm not beyond bias from personal experiences in this area either, since I've had some highly negative interactions with alcoholic individuals in my life. That's likely a part of why I'm willing to be more charitable to Ruriko than some.

I'm interested to see where things will go from here, whether this arc will be explored more or whether that will be the end of it and we move on, or whether it's something that will be revisited at some point. I also really love this artist's way of drawing eyes and mouths, there's something slightly derpy and soft about them that just looks adorable to me.

I think this will probably be the end of it, given that they both reflected on it and both apologized for their parts in it (even if very briefly). It's not an ideal resolution, but it's a heck of a lot better than other Eastern media.

last edited at Aug 26, 2023 2:56AM

Kissing without consent is just as real domestic abuse as the slap was, especially when you consider context here. The alternative is proceeding down the same road of thought that some people use to dismiss some kinds of sexual assaults. Physical pain is not the defining characteristic of abuse. Somebody touching you inappropriately can do so very lightly and cause zero overt physical pain. That doesn't remotely make it okay.

"I love you but I hope you don't love me back... because it would mess up your HOBBIES!"

Wut.

Yeah that was a little wild.

last edited at Aug 26, 2023 2:30AM

I was expecting the worst when I heard the ending was coming in a few chapters, so that was better than I expected.

I have quite a few series on my bookshelf where the last volume is notably thicker than the others because the ending chapter(s) doesn't fit neatly into a normal volume, there's no way this is a given practice.

Yeah, there's a decent number of series with a bloated final volume. But there's also a lot where they end exactly on the scheduled number of chapters and the ending is wildly unsatisfying and then followed up by multiple epilogues or short stories published through other means. So I think both of you are right about things that can happen.

I swear this has to be one of the most unsatisfying ending of manga history. I mean it literally end in the middle of the story directly at the start of what should be the final arc.

Nah, this isn't even close. They kissed. They're in a relationship. That's a good enough Yuri ending to make it out of the "most unsatisfying Yuri manga endings".

Now as an action manga? This ending is certainly not great.

last edited at Aug 17, 2023 8:31PM

I mean there's zero chance she shoots Rose. Also there are other solutions to this problem. The three of them could just leave and go somewhere far away.

this author really just said that accepting refugees into your country will increase crime rates and encourage folks to kill . cringe bro

Technically, the author said that will happen IF YOU TREAT THE REFUGEES LIKE SHIT.

And implicitly, if what you have is a big mass of refugees all stuck together in something like a refugee camp and treated like shit. And really, it's true enough--we don't see big refugee camps full of people with no rights in North America much, but where they have them, it gets ugly. But the very same groups of people behave very differently if they're allowed to blend into society, join a union and so on like everyone else.

Based on this chapter and this thread of comments, It just occurred to me that this plot has some similarities to Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex 2nd Gig.

The ending chapter was incredibly rushed compared to the pacing of the rest of the manga. Do we know if that was the author's intention? Were they just done with the work and wanted to move on?

I liked the ending, but I feel like it could have conveyed its concepts much better with more spacing.

Also maybe the author doesn't realize this but the last page's "good-bye" with a picture of traffic implies something I'm pretty sure wasn't intended.

I enjoy the childhood time thing so far, and I think my favorite chapter from this arc is when Evie shows up the boy practicing swordsmanship with a saber manifested from air magic. I hope there's more like that.

Holy shit, that all developed so fast.

oh damn. I also love that he deduced correctly that Rose is the safe one

Yeah, it shows in the 11th page of 34 in the background that he remembers that Rose confessed there was a person she loved and wanted to protect, and she had no reason to lie at that time since she'd just confessed to two murders.

I really like how he tips Rose off by restating something from the booth as well.

last edited at Jul 31, 2023 6:17AM