In brighter news, volume 1 got a reprint and Keyyan began looking for an assistant to help with backgrounds. So the manga seems to be taking off. Volume 2 will be out in October; I assume there's a standard month break since it's not listed in the next issue of Yuri Hime.

Less exciting trivia: the newlywed Megumis live in a town called Ozuki on Kikyo Island in Kochi Prefecture (高知県小月市桔梗島). The last time that name appeared was on their marriage certificate in chapter 6, but I misread the handwriting a little.
As far as I can tell it's not a real island.

So this'll be a controversial arc.

It's certainly a choice to swap to the antagonists' PoV right after emotionally devastating the protagonist. But I'd be more surprised if Ryouko had any intention of making the audience suddenly open our hearts to them. The decision to place a page of them laughing immediately after Satsuki's breakdown was extremely deliberate. These aren't people you're meant to like or justify. Nobody wants to sympathize with them, and Ryouko's smart enough to get that.

But their perspectives are important. Kai is the anti-Satsuki: willing to use underhanded methods to save lives by setting up death. He's driven, if not straight-up blinded, by a sense of righteousness potentially born from guilt like Satsuki's. He and Satsuki both struggle to understand each other; Kai still thinks he can convince Satsuki to see things his way as shown by him getting disheartened when Michiru's death hurt her more than expected. I think he is good deep down but completely warped into lawful evil.

And it's less obvious, but Sayoko is the anti-Akira. Child of a (probably) broken home, distrustful and abused to the point of hopelessness. It's implied now she's the one with darker tendencies. Even before meeting Kai she seems to have fixated on death as a solution. Rather than any noble purpose, she's in it for attachment to Kai. But they might have their own disagreements on who deserves justice. Her whole standoff with Satsuki in chapter 39 seems like it'll be significant.

There's several points I'm looking to see this flashback cover:

• How Sayoko got the burn over her right eye.
• Why Kai's afraid to save anyone fated to die.
• What the mistake Kai made was. This page was fairly ambiguous.

If I'm speculating, Kai chose a nonviolent method and it backfired, scarring Sayoko. She pushed him to kill and the rest has been him proving he's capable of it. Looking forward, the truth behind Michiru could be what breaks them. Kai's righteousness can't handle killing innocents. But Sayoko's maybe different. I doubt she'd abandon him but that's where things start to crumble. And from there I wouldn't be shocked if they got undercut by a new villain. Like maybe Seo, since she's the only one who can expose the truth with Michiru.

I don't know if the student council will ever get redeemed and I don't think this is the kind of cliched flashback designed to do that. Rather than trying to get the audience to feel merciful, I think Ryouko's taking steps easing us on allowing someone to die. Most would agree with Satsuki that murder isn't a solution. But we're all going to have edge cases we might not admit until it's life or death. And the moment this manga gets you to cross that line, you are sympathizing with their perspective, just not them.

Their narrative purpose could easily be a cautionary tale against taking life into your own hands satisfying your own sense of justice. I feel like I obsess on this, but all signs point to how Satsuki will ultimately handle Akira and her father. It's a direct reflection of Kai saving Sayoko from her abuse, and they'll try to tempt Akira and Satsuki down the same path.

Frankly I really want that to be Satsuki's moment to tell them to fuck off and prove she can do it her way. When she's ready to come back, it's not like she'll be in any mood to pity them either.

Idk why but I get the feeling that someone murdered her. Something about that girl talking on the tv at the beginning of the second chapter just made me think “this bitch killed her”. Maybe she got jealous of our ghost girl’s popularity/talent and wanted her out of the group…permanently? Maybe the other idol girls were in on it?

Note that the Google autofill results on her name included "suicide." Though in that case it's also possible the other idol girl(s) bullied her into it, if the TL note's speculation on the last page is on point.

Yeah, it's definitely 自殺/suicide on the bottom. For such a cute manga there's some darker implications going around. The Greek myth is just my speculation, but a couple things could line up. And they do have a Greek theme going on, since the name Antheia is on De:Lphinus' channel.

I should mention the other 3 idols weren't even in the pre-serialized version. But they might be important here.
They were even representing the chapter update.

Also, can she not talk/make a sound? I know 90% of this manga’s text just seems to be the inner thoughts of our protagonist, but it seems like the ghost girl can’t even say anything?

I'm not totally sure. She never spoke in the pre-serialization and hasn't had any real dialogue yet. The "I wanna look" is either her talking or it's Michi's imagination. I assume she's still making noises though. Like, Michi hearing cat noises and getting curious.

I think it's fairly safe to assume Michiru was speaking with Seo on the phone after her suspension:

I'm a little divided on the phone calls only because I'm not sure what to make of Seo yet. It'd be odd of her to fake memory loss from the moment she woke up, and it's unclear why she'd continue pitting Michiru against Satsuki. There's also the time Satsuki found Michiru by the school store in ch38, where she was seemingly luring Satsuki for the student council. And they did get her to help them now under the promise of getting revenge on Satsuki. But then again, Sayoko's reaction to Michiru in ch48 makes more sense if they were hardly involved with her. I do think you're on the right track. But things are really murky right now.

Since it's relevant again, I should also generally restate that, whenever Michiru mentioned her manipulator, it was always singular gender-neutral, あの人. I defaulted to "they" just in case, which was probably the best compromise. But it could be a mix of the 2. Seo might be the "they" who told her about the salad oil and how Miho still wanted Michiru back, while Kai was the one who called her to find out about Satsuki. Stuff like this would get a lot simpler if it was an anime and we could just hear the voice.

Sorry for rambling about Komachi when the latest chapter has someone dying. lol

Hey, Komachi's one of the biggest ongoing mysteries even if she's been taking a backseat lately. She does seem fixated on words being taken at face value and simply wanting to be useful no matter the context. I always thought this page in ch24 was extremely significant if you take it literally. Komachi simply trusts Satsuki because that's what Satsuki wants, and puts those feelings above herself. She's obedient to just about anybody, except in certain conflicting moments where a greater authority's involved, yet she greatly admires Satsuki's independence. Considering the rest of the manga, I'd be shocked if she doesn't come from an abusive household. But given the narration in chapter 1, Komachi is key to causing the biggest disaster. I'm still not sure how literally to take that. Whether it's fate or natural consequence, and whether everyone dies at once or it's simply a cumulative metaphor.

Though here's a bit of tangential speculation on chapter 44. It sticks out how unnaturally excited she gets at the prospect of helping Satsuki kill herself. And the way she comforts her, saying she knows how scary it is to die. Ryouko was satisfied with how her expression turned out in that scene, saying "she looks just like a monster." And to anyone who's read Ryouko's previous manga, monster is a loaded term reserved for murderers. It's just something to think about, whether Komachi's had firsthand experience with death.

Ryouko also tweeted that chapter 51 marks a stopping point in the conflict between Satsuki and the student council, so maybe things will slow down now. The last 20 chapters have been relentless and Satsuki desperately needs a chance to recover. Hopefully this means both Komachi and Akira can take a more active role again, since they're the ones she confides in most.

The chart was made by the scanlator, not the author.

Come on Scanlator, just say they're girlfriend, just say it, just say it.

Believe me I wish I could. But I can at least get away with some wishful thinking over Satsuki's excitement at having a partner she can depend on coupled with her (almost) dying wish to be with Akira forever.

Speaking of which, the end of chapter 38 is now even more ominous. The first death wasn't saved for Akira's arc. My biggest fear is Satsuki being fully responsible for Akira or her dad's death. There was already a tease of that with Satsuki accidentally triggering a death for Seo. And I don't want to know what it takes for future Satsuki to consider her current self too self-centered.

One last detail about this latest chapter; Satsuki immediately recognizes what Michiru's premonitory corpse disappearing means. There's no confusion in her shock. It's likely she's seen exactly that happen before, with her mom.

There's so much to unpack this chapter, but the Seo reveal kind of blew my mind. It's very likely now that the student council had nothing to do with Miho's 2nd death and it was entirely masterminded by Seo.

We learned in chapter 34 she's been chatting with Michiru ever since Michiru met Miho. And she's the one who talked Michiru into using salad oil. Unless she worked with the student council, which seems impossible, all she'd have to do is swap the contents and Miho's dead. Why she'd do this, I have no idea, but the manga has already raised questions of how good or evil Seo is deep down. And how would the student council even know about Michiru's kinks to know to set this up in the first place?

While their reaction to Michiru's death is reprehensible as hell, this does explain an inconsistency in the student council's beliefs. Prez seems too driven by a sense of righteousness to justify manipulating an innocent girl and killing her to save himself. I mean he completely forgave Akira's misbehavior since he recognized she was a victim too. But if he doesn't know anything about Miho's 2nd death, Michiru just looks like an unrepentant psycho: exactly his kind of target.

There's a few other more speculative details. Killing Miho before she broke her promise not to bully Komachi seems weird. Prez had left her alone for a full year. All his murder attempts involved playing with the mechanics of premonitory corpses, but Miho's 2nd death was very straightforward. The corpse never changed. And if he wanted Michiru dead to cover up the truth, why let her loose for so long? Even leaving a trail with an unreliable 3rd party already seems out of character.

I could be wrong, but you don't have a full page lightning flash reveal for no good reason. It adds another layer to this arc illustrating how misguided the student council's moral crusade is; they just killed an innocent based on their own misunderstanding while Seo lives despite being a monster under the surface. If true, we have a 3rd major threat lurking around besides the student council and Akira's dad. Now we have to ask the questions of why she'd try to kill Miho, if she's really lost all her memories, and how harmless her sudden interest in Satsuki actually is.

weird question, but are there any extras with just official art? i have some of the volumes and one of the sleeves shows an official art i haven't seen before online/posted

I think some stores did offer unique bonuses with the volumes; I've seen at least one of Satsuki in casual wear. There's also a bit more bonus art floating around, some on Ryouko's twitter. There's a couple sketches from there I've been meaning to throw in at some point but nothing too significant.

May I ask to a direct link to the post? Navigating twitter is a pain when I don't have an account ^^;

Sure, I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place.

Thanks for hosting this.

For those wondering what direction it'll take, there is an earlier version up on the author's twitter, before it was picked up for serialization. It's mostly cute and a little melancholic. Though it also wasn't very long (this first chapter already adapted a quarter of it while adding quite a bit extra) so we're all in for surprises.

Here's the preview for the collab song, and it's easy to find the full version on Spotify. Pretty neat they had one written specifically for Satsuki. As mentioned in the extras, Re-riza has previously done similar songs for 2 other manga published by Shogakukan. Probably a good sign they're advertising Satsuki more.

Also uh, what a cliffhanger for the manga to take a month break on.

Man I just wanted to see if anyone talked abt whether or not the pipe thing is actually true...

That S-shaped bit on sinks is called a p-trap or drain trap; it's designed to trap a small amount of water to block gases from the sewage system coming back up. Every time you use a sink, the trap gets flushed out and refilled by water coming down the drain. It can also end up catching anything else that gets washed down.

I'm no plumber, but I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to fill the trap with detergent. They're easy to open to clean, so maybe they did that to empty the p-trap and fill it with detergent, or just poured a ton of detergent right down the drain. After that they'd have to make sure nobody ran the sink before the fatal batch of detergent spilled in, which wouldn't be hard since it's summer break. I doubt it'd raise much suspicion if an accident like this happened.

There's a lot of red flags to this one: Satsuki's accidental complicity, Seo and Michiru's shared role as someone who could expose the student council, Seo being a character few would miss. But especially how thorough it is. Unlike the first attempts to murder Miho and Seo, there's no obvious signs of foul play. Nobody would suspect this besides Satsuki's gang and Sensei, who might independently connect it with Seo's other death. And Kai pulled 3 new tricks on Satsuki here. It's so elaborate the story can't simply repeat this if he fails. Plus it's already the 2nd arc of Satsuki vs Kai.

I really wouldn't be surprised if Seo dies to shake things up. It is the big chapter 50 and all. But maybe I'm just paranoid. There's a few little things—Michiru trying to find her phone, what's on Seo's mind, how Satsuki's expression is hidden during Kai's monologue—that could hint at a different outcome.

I'm dumb and forgot this is actually the 3rd time Satsuki's gotten locked in a room and jumped out a window. In Japanese, Satsuki calls it 二番煎じ, simply saying she's done this before.

Also I can't get enough of that scene. It's amazing how a manga this tense can be that funny.

The way the letters are worded seems that people just assumed she did those things or at least that's how it is in the unofficial English translation. Seo was really mean to Satsuki but who knows if the accusations were true or if they were exaggerated.

They're like that in Japanese too. Some just plain hard to read with covered text, so I did take little liberties, but definitely bits like ように見えました and ゼッタイアイツ that ironically don't sound 100% confident. But collectively, they kind of tell a story of a 1st year getting abused hard enough to start skipping club, which might be our introduction to this new girl. Assuming it's not Michiru with a makeover. There's some confusion over that even with Japanese fans.

I think the ending to chapter 16 is a little mean-spirited, so be sure to read 17 right after.
We're now halfway through the manga, and after 18 I'll be taking another break for Liar Satsuki.
It's going to be an interesting spot to pause.

This mini-arc had a kind of funny PSA feeling to it. Like the volume 2 extra where Satsuki lectures Akira on medication. The resolution might be so peaceful it's unsettling, but I doubt Ryouko considers this subplot done. And it's welcome after Miho's 3rd death and Sensei's 1st death were very long, dramatic issues.

Though there's 2 trends I'm noticing: Every 15 chapters, there's a fun little arc. Akira sleeping over at Satsuki's house, then the library study session, now this. And every chapter ending in 8—at the end of a volume—there's a big bombshell. One of those mini-arcs had Akira and Satsuki's big fight right after, and the other had Komachi lose it in the bathroom.

So personally, I'm a little scared of chapter 48.

With chapter 46 of Liar Satsuki releasing tomorrow, there won't be a chapter for the next day or 2 while I work on that.
The end of a volume is probably as good a place as any for a break. And yes, there's still 3 volumes to go.

Sounds promising. Don't overwork yourself, a new chapter every few days would still be plenty fast. Is it completed at 34 or is it still ongoing?

Completed. The manga started in 2017 and finished in 2018. And I've gotten a lot of the prep work out of the way, so it shouldn't be too hard keeping pace. Plus it's motivating that people can finally talk about it.

Thanks for hosting this.

Same deal as with Satsuki, I'll try to have a new chapter out every day. There's 34 chapters in total.
There'll definitely be a few breaks though, like when new chapters of Liar Satsuki release.

I think it's a very interesting little mystery; a bit rough around the edges but I love seeing how an artist grows, exploring a lot of similar concepts to Satsuki.
Fair warning, it is much darker. Satsuki is a rollercoaster of highs and lows, while Shi ni Aruki is more of a constant descent.

This one's starting relatively lighter than some of the recent cases, but the circumstances are extremely dire and depend heavily on Satsuki's social skills. Akira can at least help deal with Sae, but even if Satsuki does somehow see the corpse, it's not a problem she can brute force a solution to.

This case could serve as a serious illustration of the point that, while Satsuki is a champion at saving lives in the immediate sense, she's clueless at handling deeper issues with someone's life. The circumstances of Sae's death are bound to keep repeating themselves. And I have a bad feeling the outcome here could serve as a primer for Akira's own family problem.

Now if we already use word plays, why did she not just jump. You know, on the spot, or the other way round to safety? Its all in the meaning "Im going to jump!". Unless in japanese, they have a more specific meaning here like: jump from this building, which sounds weird in english, so the translator decided to cut it?

Good question. She said ここから飛び降ります！ Preserving it as literally as possible: "I'm going to jump down from here!" So yes, she could've just jumped backwards. But Satsuki tends to have a one-track mind and crumbles under pressure. Like when she saw her and Akira's corpses in the carbon monoxide room and immediately tried rushing in to figure out why. Maybe she also sees tricking someone by omission to count as lying regardless, so she'd have to follow through on the expectation of jumping forward.

also Komachi what was that, what was with that, what were you doing you sly little snake. The prez talked about how there have been a truly staggering amount of premonitory corpses since Satsuki enrolled and you know what I think Komachi is killing people or at least attempting to.

There's a few ways to interpret Kai's statement:

1. Satsuki's creating some karmic debt by saving people which needs to be repaid in death. But Sayoko mentioned they haven't proven interfering with deaths causes the future to get worse. It's just a fear of theirs. So,

2. while Satsuki is haunted by death, it's unrelated to her saving people. On the bright side, there could be a solution to this that doesn't involve allowing people to die. Or it might not be satisfied no matter how many die.

3. Satsuki is only coincidentally connected to the amount of deaths. If you want to suspect Komachi, she would have enrolled at the same time as Satsuki.

Going back to chapter 1, Satsuki calls saving Komachi the decision that broke the gears of fate⁠—the day Komachi needed to die. But that was maybe 1-2 months ago, and Satsuki should have started school here last year. It doesn't add up. It's possible Satsuki being a death magnet has nothing to do with whatever disaster Komachi will cause.

Komachi exposes the flaw in Satsuki's approach to saving people: how she struggles to understand their perspectives or recognize non-life threatening issues, sometimes leaving them in the same environment that created death before. In that regard she's poison to Satsuki. Outwardly harmless but deeply troubled, well-intentioned(?) but happily enabling her most destructive tendencies. I don't think she's a pure monster but Satsuki will never be able to save her like this. I'll ignore that blush as she pulled Satsuki's fingers for now.

Updated volumes 1-3 extras with insert pages, covers and previews. Thanks, BLAMEY!

Appreciated.

To be extra specific, there were no changes to old pages, so if you've already read them there's not much new to see. It's just a more complete batch of everything added in the volumes.

Does anyone think this is ending soon? Cuz I'm debating if I should catch up.

I don't think we're anywhere near the end. There's still plenty of ongoing mysteries and subplots with no resolution in sight. I thought for sure we'd be in Akira's arc now after what happened in 38, but even that seems to be going for a much longer payoff. There's also a few characters introduced recently who have had nothing to do yet, but given that they got full name introductions the author probably has plans for them. The manga seems content taking its time despite the constant stressful escalation.

Yep, very good call on that ecchi tag.

Unfortunately, chapter 7 won't be releasing this month, so it's just the extras for now.

Going over the volume, there were also lots of redrawn panels in the early chapters. The artstyle has slightly shifted, becoming more refined, and I couldn't say whether that's due to Keyyan needing to juggle commitments half a year ago or just plain improvement from being able to dedicate themselves to their art now. Either way, I can't express how supportive I am.

Anyone else getting the feeling that Komachi might be a devil/demon?

The potentially symbolic foreshadowing of her hair clips aside, she randomly comes out with these lines that almost seem aimed at getting Satsuki to make a morally gray decision.

It's probably worth mentioning the publisher recently referred to Komachi as the "dark heroine."

Also they do these neat color panels to advertise new chapters.

I decided to just put this in a separate post. Shiina’s death wasn’t the only one being manipulated, Seo’s was as well. Has it ever been confirmed that it was also prez? Because he seemed to genuinely not have known. There was a long light haired girl that talked to Seo which, I assume, changed the time of death. It could be vice prez or it could be Komachi. But what would be Komachi’s motive and could she have deduced the situation since Akira and Satsuki were acting in secret? She didn’t seem to believe Akira’s excuse at the time. I think if Komachi was yandere for Satsuki we may have a motive since in both times she tried to interfere, assuming that she did in Seo’s case, both victims bullied Satsuki, it would also tie in to why she encouraged Satsuki to be more selfish.

The light haired girl used "Seo-san." Komachi makes a habit of referring to almost everybody as "given name-chan." Except in 1 other case: Akira, who she calls "Atou-san." It got played off as a joke in chapter 30, but between that and the weird look she gave Akira in 27 (also the first time she even acknowledges her in that scene), it struck an odd chord. Which to be fair happens a lot with Komachi.

If it was her with Seo, maybe that's how she talks to people she doesn't like. But then why Akira? Because of Satsuki? And why not Miho? There's not too much to go off of for this theory yet, but it's worth keeping in mind. I want to believe Komachi has good intentions but I don't trust her to be a pure victim. She's a little too proactive in influencing Satsuki, which of course our hero is oblivious to.

Something else about chapter 27 that stood out: Komachi doesn't make any attempt to hide she was ordered to keep watch on Satsuki and Akira. It made me start to wonder if she's even on the student council's side. Like with everything, the girl's an enigma.

Few things I’m not clear on. Has the prez been doing this since before that first oil incident? It’s said he cleaned up the school and troublemakers started disappearing. If he has, why hasn’t satsuki noticed before? Or does that mean she did notice but failed to stop these murders? But then why didn’t anyone? A school where students kept dying must be suspicious, no? Unless his previous methods didn’t involve anyone dying. But if that’s the case why the sudden change to murder?

Satsuki's a 2nd year, Prez is a 3rd year, and the cleanup happened in his 1st year. So Satsuki wasn't enrolled yet. It's still dubious whether he killed those students or handled it some other way but that's Kai in general. We've been given very little concrete details about him. Definitely evil, but probably more grey than Satsuki thinks.

There's still plenty of ongoing mysteries, but if there actually had been a death epidemic at this school 2 years ago, people would likely react even worse than usual to Satsuki claiming someone's going to die every week. We know she's made a reputation for clumsily saving people long before the story started, but Miho seems to be Kai's first attempted murder while Satsuki was around.

Am I misunderstanding the translator? We are well into vol 5, but they said something about vol. 4 releasing?

Chapters 29 onward have been ripped from the MangaONE app. I touched them up as best I could, but they're significantly lower quality than what's in the volume releases. Volume 4 is out on the 18th and should contain chapters 29-38.

I don't feel right leaving those chapters in their current state, so I intend to go back when I have time and re-upload them. The translation shouldn't change, maybe some adjustments to grammar or word choice, but the art will look as clean as chapters 1-28. Probably won't happen too soon, but I'm honestly excited to do it. I did something similar for 9-28 when I translated chapters 1-8. I just love this manga.

Do you know which yuri hime issues chapters 3-6 are from offhand?

Sure; 3 was December, 4 was January, 5 was March, 6 was indeed April.

I appreciate you touching things up. I feel the drama coming too, but I'm positive these two can work their way through anything.

Sadly, Ohanana's been on break since last time. Keyyan seems to be busy with work but would like to get back to it again when possible.