The core of the issue then, is that there's a fundamental lack of characterization in these later chapters. Everything Adachi thinks and is shown to do is so heavily centered around Shimmura that Adachi themselves has become hollow in nature. Who even IS Adachi outside Shimmura? I don't even fucking know anymore. It's all like a shitty version of the co-dependence trope without the "co" part. I have the impression that to some people this might be a realistic interpretation of their crushes as a dumbass, moody teenager, but from a narrative perspective I feel that this is a serious decline in quality compared to its more humble beginnings.

I'm not sure I understand your point. You concede that it is realistically feasible for a teenager to behave like this, but then attack it for "lack of characterization" anyways? It's fine if you don't like Adachi's characterization, and as a result have lost interest in the story, but to say that this isn't characterization is just bizarre. Are authors not allowed to write about certain types of people because you don't find them to be interesting...?

Adachi is what drew me into this series, because I was literally Adachi as a teen. A disaster gay who had no interest in anything in life but love. I got a job when I was 16 just to buy things for the girl I loved, my only hobbies were the same as hers so I could spend as much time with her as possible, and eventually I had a full Adachi mental breakdown too. I was certainly not an interesting character, that much is true. It probably had a lot to do with why my feelings were never reciprocated - I didn't have a personality outside of being obsessively in love. It's perfectly understandable not to like such a character, but I was glad that an author out there wrote a story I could relate to so strongly. If you can't relate to Adachi, it's easy to see why the story wouldn't be for you, but that's not a flaw in the quality of writing at all.

---

Thaaat being said, this following chapter was where I kind of lost interest myself. After last chapter's bombshell, the drama is swept under the rug as though it never happened, which I did not find to be very narratively satisfying. Granted, while my take was that last chapter's Shimamura felt uncharacteristically callous to me, given that it happened already this chapter felt like a very Shimamura thing to do, but it became harder for me to relate to Adachi at this point. Here Adachi has a much stronger will than I did as a kid, because I would have continued breaking down until the relationship was ruined if I didn't find some kind of resolution to my emotions rather than just pretending it never happened. That panel where Adachi is ranting in her head but says the diplomatically correct thing to not make her own life even worse? Absolutely not me.

last edited at Dec 24, 2022 10:49PM

Though I think the essence of this trope is that, as demonstrated by different commenters, people starts having clear recollection at different points of their life, but don't realize this is the case unless they compare.

Ironically, I think the existence of this trope actually reinforced my belief that everyone remembers their early childhood, since the forgetful person is typically portrayed as having wronged the forgotten person, implying that it's abnormal. Before having ever directly asked real people (you are all real people, right?) about their experience, it seemed like stories conveyed that other people do remember friends from age 4~5... except when forgetting them would be a convenient plot point.

Interesting to hear other people's perspectives, I guess not remembering your childhood is more common than I thought.

Same opinion here. The premise may have struck a dissonant chord for some, but I don't doubt that it'll be top-shelf fluff in a matter of chapters.

Right, I can understand not liking this trope but I think some of the commenters here have clearly never read Hachiko. I'm convinced she can't go a day in her life without drawing girls making out, so regardless of the premise I trust Hachiko will deliver the fluffy goods, and probably sooner than later.

Not criticising the comic, I love me some Hachiko, but I am curious: has anyone actually forgotten a childhood friend? Is this something that happens, ever? I mean, I've forgotten random classmates, but I'm pretty sure I remember all of my close friends from when I was 5, and I didn't even promise to marry them. This trope is strangely common for how unbelievable it is to me, but maybe other people have different experiences?

I wish this was even 1% canon, this ship brings me such joy. my favourite new pairing in years ((I guess technically not new because the manga is older but I didn't read it ok))

Not bait. Subtext. Why doesn't anyone ever learn the difference.

Ditto. Do you think you unilaterally get to determine what is bait and what is subtext? LycoReco was the most blatant bait-not-subtext I've ever experienced (in fact -- it even had a subtext male relationship for you to be able to tell the difference between subtext and bait), and you don't get to invalidate other peoples' experiences by telling them they don't know what words are. If you enjoyed it, all the power to you, but you aren't winning anyone over with this kind of insulting comment.

It"s funny how quick people to forget that this person (hooded woman) was somewhat their gardian angel up until now. They forget this when something doesn't go their way.

Doing good deeds does not give you a quota of bad deeds that you're allowed to do without being criticised for them.

which mean the "hooded woman" was not responsible for this, as someone else could have bought it instead.

She clearly manipulated the situation. If she is indeed future Elsa, this is particularly bad because she knows that placing the potion there will lead to this outcome... but it doesn't even really matter who she actually is. I think independent of judging whether it was right or wrong, the outcome of this scenario is not enjoyable or romantic. Seeing Evie fall in love naturally would have been much better for a romance story than her feelings artificially being accelerated 100x by a drug. Kind of like using a cheat code, there's no satisfaction to it...

also everyone is calling evie dense but she was literally drugged no shit she's going to attribute the feelings she just started experiencing after being drugged to being drugged

I think it's safe to say that she didn't just start experiencing these feelings...

I didn't mean "feelings" in the abstract, I meant the literal feelings she described as being new this chapter. The potion did do something, and it's hardly dense for Evie to attribute those feelings that a drug "awakened" in her to, you know, the drug.

I'm honestly surprised by how well-received this turn is. I guess people are so starved for yuri that literally any
forward resolution to their romance arc is acceptable, up to and including drugs. It's weird to me because the author clearly knows it shouldn't be done, hence current Elsa's dilemma, and then... did it anyways. I don't find "Evie realised she likes Elsa because she was 'accidentally' drugged" to be a particularly romantic development.

ehhhh so current elsa has ethics but future elsa is willing to drug evie to make it happen??? this turned out to be super dumb after all???? she literally time traveled to drug evie what?????

also everyone is calling evie dense but she was literally drugged no shit she's going to attribute the feelings she just started experiencing after being drugged to being drugged

hope the direction this is going in is "future elsa is a villain" cause none of this making any effing sense otherwise

last edited at Oct 30, 2022 11:13PM

Like, I'm not trans, but I imagine a lot of trans people who haven't/won't/can't fully transition(ed) wish for this kind of normalcy. It sounds like a nice world to live in.

Agreed. I appreciate yuri that doesn't even acknowledge that a question about 'parts' could exist. I think it's great when two girls love each other, so they make love, and that's the beginning and end of it.

last edited at Oct 27, 2022 12:27AM

The spirits in a classic martini are Gin and Dry Vermouth, for some reason it says "Dry Belmont" here?
for some reason

To clarify the 'some reason': Japanese makes no distinction between v/b and l/r, so Belmont is rendered in Japanese as ベルモント (Berumonto) and Vermouth is a very similar ベルモット (Berumotto). Pretty easy mix-up to make, particularly if the translator isn't a subject matter expert!

last edited at Oct 24, 2022 10:15PM

Well, after arguing about it at such length, I figured the least I could do was watch the 4th alchemist episode on 400% speed to see if they elaborated on anything. We got a much more detailed balance sheet this time:

.

・Still no explanation whatsoever for the treatment costing 20 million
・Iris and Kate are now Ryza's slaves
・After one day of working for her they repaid 3500 of their debt. That almost confirms the previously established standard of 1mil per year income for part time work, except for the fact that that was two people's labour, but at this rate they'll earn their freedom in about 20 years
・The assistant is still not being paid. Guess it's fine if other people work for free, just not herself
・We've finally established a recurring expense: ingredients. The price of which make absolutely no sense.
・She profited 1.7mil, even after spending 2.6mil on ingredients she hasn't used for anything yet. So her net worth has increased by at least 4.3mil in one day, not counting the fact that she now owns two slaves
・Donated 1% of one day's profit to her orphanage to assuage her conscience
・Does not seem to be in danger of starving

Future Elsa is potentially very disappointed that she didn’t get Evie to finally get it on with her past self. Either that or this was an incredibly roundabout way of getting into contact with Evie.

Step 1: Make Evie horny
Step 2: Make Evie angry at present Elsa
Step 3: Steal Evie from present Elsa

Sooo…not sure why those girls were so intent on Suletta’s intentions with tsun boy when she’s literally the bridegroom to the wealthiest heiress in the universe, like, every single point they made about him applies to Mio as well. Weird interaction there, for a society where same sex couples are supposedly commonplace (from Mio’s perspective anyways).

If we're being charitable, I'd say it's because he actually proposed. And they seem to have taken it to mean there was some prior relationship between the two of them (Chuchu commenting on a lovers' quarrel, and the other girls asking how long they've been involved). Which is a reasonable assumption, at least in comparison to "marriage proposal out of literally nowhere". Also, it's probably common knowledge that Mio-Mio wants nothing to do with the engagement and is trying to break it off.

All of that being said, I understand where you're coming from. Feels like they dropped in the gay engagement as pure bait and have pretty much just left it by the wayside. On one hand it is cool to recognise that same-sex marriage is valid, but on the other hand it was just a plot device and there's not even a modicum of subtext between Suletta and Mio-Mio so far, which is pretty disappointing. I guess it's cool to talk about gay girls getting married but not cool to show it. (I do hope I'm completely wrong, of course. I would love to be proven wrong more than anything!)

Actually, no, those were the potions she made later for the grizzly hunt. (And after checking this I need to correct myself - it wasn't the 20M that left her in need to get the ingredients from the grizzlies, she pointed the need for make up for the loss out when discussion merely these potions. Presumably because the 20M treatment will eventually be paid for.)

Ah, right, fair enough. Doesn't really change my point much though.

The herbs around her house are certainly a nice part of her new house's beneficial location, but by no means the only ingredients she needs.

I'm not saying they are, but what I am saying is that she didn't lose very much treating Iris. If just the ingredients around her house alone are worth 20mil, something is seriously wrong with this worldbuilding.

the anime just does a very poor job of actually depicting basic details of its premise and instead mostly just runs on vibes

Well, this much is definitely the case. She's hired an assistant but the rudimentary "balance sheets" at the end of each episode make no mention of paying her, so it seems the employee at least is working for free. Then stuff like the insane "20 million in the red" this episode - that's 20 years of part-time work, from the limited information we were given. When all she did was use the herbs growing around the house to make potions. And those potions were listed as a separate item, -100k. Not that she paid any money for them. But anyways, it really seems she's valuing one single day of her labour alone at 20mil.

I'm not willing to be charitable with any ambiguity because, in my eyes, it is utterly inexcusable if a series is going to attempt to tell people that putting a price on a life is moral. If that's the theme of your story, you'd better make it abundantly clear that she's literally going to starve to death if she doesn't wring every last zeni out of her patient. As it is, it certainly does not pass a vibe check.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 11:53PM

My point is you reacted to that "money is more important than life" line in anime as if it was something completely foreign to you and something you could not even comprehend anyone could think and labeled anime the most vile thing to ever exist for saying that, when our current world is full of that wherever you look. I'm not saying it's good or that it shouldn't be changed, but the fact of the matter is, it's the world we're currently living in, so I found your reaction to that part of anime very... confusing. Maybe I'm just too used to how our world is fucked up, so when watching that part it didn't really bother me, because it was no much different than what we got, but your apparent lack of that real life experience was definitely weird.

Either way. I really don't have too much strong feelings about this show. I have many more issues with capitalism and our current society, but as much as I hate it, I can't simply ignore its existence, so I was simply baffled you acted as if something like that never happens irl, when it is all around us. We seem to disagree on details and I don't really care enough to rewatch episode to make a more in depth argument (especially since i kinda only watched parts of it the first time). I have no desire to continue this conversation, nor I really wanted to argue that your overall worldview was wrong or put you under impression I had some personal issue with you. Your posts simply came off as too innocent and way too overemotional, but if I was wrong about it, then I'm apologizing.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I'm saying. Obviously I understand the real world sucks. My problem is the author is justifying the state of the real world. The people like you and me, who criticise the flaws of healthcare in the real world? In this anime, they're portrayed as bad people. They were constantly told to shut up, and the anime itself outright called them awful, and we've even got a commenter here calling them idiots, showing the message the anime wanted to convey was received loud and clear. The author wrote 3 minutes of monologue justifying and defending the state of the real world instead of criticising it. That is what I find to be absolutely vile. I have never before in my life seen an anime attempt to defend not providing emergency healthcare to someone in need.

And that's also the difference with Birdie Wing. At no point is Aoi in BW portrayed as a fundamentally good person, and her wealthy family is portrayed in a very negative light.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 9:52PM

On top of that the "free mansion" she got was also clearly framed as her kinda getting scammed.

I wish somebody would scam me with an 8 bedroom mansion in need of 5 minutes of cleaning. Gosh, I'm just so gullible. Please scam me, I'm begging you.

Are you saying that orphans that get raised in orphanages are "rich", because all their basic necessities were taken care off and they were allowed to go to school? Are you seriously advocate to remove welfare systems because it makes people "rich and get free stuff"?

You are really misrepresenting my stance completely and putting all kinds of words in my mouth. She's rich because she has a fully paid 8br house, a full alchemist toolset for free, got a free Bag of Holding and sword and everything else, and she's literally in the 1%. Alchemists are nobility in this world, both in terms of wealth and social hierarchy. Even if her liquid assets are small right now because she bought the books, she still has a massive net worth.

I'm not saying it's bad that she received free things. I'm saying it's bad that she received free welfare and refuses to give it to anybody else. That she would literally let somebody die rather than return the favour, when her entire life is a result of people giving her free things. She talks on and on about how much her work is worth. Think of all the labour she took from other people without giving them any money. From the orphanage, from her tutor, from her school. She's a complete hypocrite. If everyone followed the ideals she talks so much about, she would have starved to death when her parents died. And the world would have been a better place for it without such a selfish person.

she won't have money to keep her shop open

She doesn't need money to keep her shop open! She owns it! She has no expenses to pay whatsoever, other than food. Somehow I don't think she'll starve, even if she saves someone's life without charging them 20 million. Maybe she could settle for charging them enough to buy food for a while, if they can't afford to pay 20 million. Or maybe if she showed an ounce of generosity, villagers would show her generosity for saving their life and not let her starve. Because if you don't make everything about money, don't make every single interaction with another human a transaction, people will help you back. That's how villages worked for thousands of years, before city-based capitalism removed the human element from society.

Also, I want to reiterate that I'm not saying she should work for free 100% of the time. If the patient has money, they should pay. But if they don't have money, she should still save them.

It's unfair and not how world should work, but that's the sad reality of one we're living in.

The reality of the world we're living in is that doctors will save you in an emergency regardless of whether not you can pay. At least in most countries. I'm sorry if you don't live in a country where that's true, that is really unfortunate and I'd hope for a better future for your country. But for most even our sad reality is 100 leagues ahead of this greedy kid who has been handed everything in life on a silver platter and still demands more.

This in fact seems to be something that happens all the time in our world. Especially USA

And I thought the world was in agreement that USA healthcare situation is insane, not something to be defended as a good thing. Apparently I was wrong.

And it's incredibly funny coming from someone who unironically enjoyed Birdie Wing.

What does Birdie Wing have to do with anything? Birdie Wing doesn't have the author writing monologues about how people are worth less than money, while portraying anyone who disagrees as a bad person. How is your takeaway from anything I wrote that "people aren't allowed to write about wealth inequality in stories"? My problem is portraying inequality as a good thing, while saying it's the way society should be. Birdie Wing does the exact opposite. It is a story about the people in poverty fighting for a better life. Unlike this, which is a story about a rich person arguing to get more, more, more, more and anyone who disagrees in the story is labelled as a bad person.

Come on, she even said that she would save her anyway in case they didn't have the money

She very much did not say that. She said she was glad that they would pay, because she also wanted to save her life. Implying that she wouldn't have if they didn't agree to pay. And when pressed further on it she said she "might" have saved her anyway, before immediately going into a 45 second monologue justifying letting her die.

Real pharmacists have three main expenses: the price of renting or buying the building they work in, the price of ordering medication, and the price of hiring employees. In her case, two of these are free, and the third... she hired an assistant frivolously on a complete whim, which was wholly unnecessary for a low-traffic apothecary out in the boonies, and is by no means a necessary expense. All told, though, it's virtually impossible for her business to actually run in the red on account of having no necessary expenses. At worst, she would just need to wait for herbs to regrow to make more money.

I'm not saying educated labour doesn't have value. Obviously people who are able to pay her should pay her. But her labour is not worth more than human life. I was really not expecting this much pushback against the idea the idea that lives matter more than money!

Especially when she's both rich and wouldn't be anywhere in life without the countless free things she'd been given herself. According to her own ideals, she should have been left for dead when her parents were killed, instead of being provided with free shelter and food, a free education, a free mansion, and free tools. Maybe that would have been for the best.

I'm finding it genuinely disturbing that I'm apparently the only one who sees any problem with putting a price on life. I thought society was, like, generally in agreement that healthcare was something everyone should have access to. That we need to do more for those in poverty, not less. Yet here we are with a girl who won't even meet the low standards of our very flawed real world, who wants to go even lower than that, and everyone's on board with a girl who would let patients die on her doorstep being portrayed positively as she lectures the idiot adventurers on the virtues of a purely transactional society.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 5:50PM

but it makes sense to me that an individual person working alone couldn't afford to provide lifesaving treatment for free

She is literally under zero financial distress whatsoever. She got a mansion for free!!!! The herbs she used for making potions were free, growing all around her mansion!! The villagers gave her expensive free stuff as welcoming gifts!! She gets everything handed to her for free, she's already set for life considering the property she owns, and in the end all she lost were some herbs. Which, even if they're worth money, literally grow on trees. Don't watch it, because it's egregious, but if you watched it I think you'd see what I mean.

The price of the treatment is literally listed at the end of the episode as bringing her 20 million into the red.

This doesn't make a lick of sense. Whatever the number of the balance sheet says, she lost ingredients she got for free and spent a day's labour on the task. She didn't have 20mil to lose in the first place. It seems like 20 million is the number she's charging the adventurers, and that's being put on credit - but depicting that as a "loss" is not how business accounting is done, at all. And her services being 20mil for her literal first day of working really drives home how insanely well-off alchemists are, when we already know that 5mil took her multiple years of part-time work to save up before.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 2:01PM

but it's also not something she can afford to do for free.

Not that she should do it for free, but nonetheless she should just do it, period, and worry about recouping her losses after the fact. That said, when it comes to literally saving a life, it honestly is something she could afford to do for free. Her day-to-day business involves selling potions, not healing, so it's not like she's providing all of her services for free by saving somebody in an emergency.

Speaking of free things, she got gifted an 8 room mansion for free. Depicted as a "fixer-upper", of course, that took all of 5 minutes to fix with magic.

And the whole story they presented about it being a financial reality of this world really falls flat when alchemists are established to be the elite of the elite, practically royalty in all but name. They made sure to hammer home how above everyone else she is; she's the only person in the village with an indoor bath, something which is the norm only among nobility even in the capital. She's no starving artist.

Also, I might be misremembering, but in Ep1 didn't they literally say alchemists were subsidised by the kingdom?

As we learn later, she very much needed the ingredients from the grizzlies to avoid bankruptcy herself after the treatment.

[X] Doubt

She lost at most one day's labour, plus some grass growing around her shop. She hasn't bought anything and has no debts, so the prospect of bankruptcy doesn't even make sense.

being aware of the options and making the choice first certainly beats being presented the bankrupting bill after the fact.

Well, if you set aside the fact that she never mentioned a price and then sprung that it was several years of lowly peasant adventurer income after the fact...

One should also not forget that we are not dealing with a modern society that has health insurance and easily accessible hospitals.

Indeed, we're dealing with a fantasy world where magical 16 year olds solve everything from amputated arms to giant flaming bear invasions.

So yeah, all things considered, while this did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, it's far more realistic for the given setting than your usual OP healers performing miracles left and right with no cost to themselves.

Well, she is literally an OP healer who did it at no real cost to herself beyond a handful of ingredients (that she got for free!!!!), not to mention being an OP fighter who put the actual adventurers to shame.

This entire story is a masturbatory isekai self-insert fantasy in all but name. Which is fine if you just want to telling a relaxing slice-of-life story for escapism, but considerably less fine if you want to moralise at length about how actually, money is more important than lives,
and going so far as to have the characters call the adventurers awful people for daring to say she should value human life. I don't want to hear anything about realism when the entire premise of the anime is an escape from realism into the easy life of the 1%er who is better at everything than everyone.

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 1:48PM

You think you've seen it all when it comes to problematic anime, and they still find new ways to surprise you. The third episode of this season's alchemist anime was gross. They bring not!Ryza a patient with a severed arm and she really has the gall to say "I can save her life... if you're loaded". Not only that, but when they protest the vulgarity of her actions, she literally stops what she's doing and instead of treating the patient (WHO IS MISSING AN ARM) goes into a freaking lecture justifying putting a monetary value on life.

How does an author arrive at such a fundamentally vile worldview, to the point of feeling they have something insightful to contribute to society by soapboxing about it in their story? Even the US, which is notorious for pushing hundreds of thousands of citizens into medical bankruptcy every year, still provides emergency treatment no questions asked. That's the absolute minimum, the lowest of lows to be able to say you live in a society, yet here we are with an author confidently asserting that people deserve to die if they don't have money. Watching this left an absolutely sickening taste in my mouth. This is Mushoku Tensei-tier "anime was a mistake" material. Although I guess it's really "WNs were a mistake".

last edited at Oct 20, 2022 7:40AM

I have high hopes for this manga, now it seems it is just a time waster with the plot going nowhere...

It's a romance story, that delivered on the romance. What exactly were you expecting, Sora and Ayaka to save the planet from an alien invasion? In a world full of yuri manga that actually end with the relationship going nowhere, levying this criticism at this one seems downright bizarre to me.

At this point, it'll make more sense to make a sequel series for during their college life.

They probably would if they could. I'm guessing what happened is they wanted to keep going but got cancelled, so they just ended up drawing a bunch of extras in their spare time.

last edited at Oct 16, 2022 7:20AM