i was kind of hoping the series would start turning into a direction i'd actually enjoy, but i guess we aren't off the "will they won't they" train just yet... i'll check back in a year and hope that there's some actual development by then

Their not being together seems to be the entire premise, so I'm starting to get the feeling that you'll be waiting for a bit or that it'll end soon after they get over it. Would be nice to be wrong though. They are sweet though, even if this recent thing is very, very, very contrived.

last edited at Feb 19, 2024 11:21AM

So this is the "promise" alluded to all the way back in chapter 57. Love the world building in this. Really intricate and clearly pre-planned. Will reread once it's all over to fully catch everything in motion.

last edited at Feb 18, 2024 3:06PM

No kidding, she is blushing all the way through and people think she will react negatively ? Even at the end she is still blushing.

The fact that she won't react negatively is part of the problem. I don't think anyone genuinely thinks she didn't like the kiss. It's that her actions don't make sense given that it's obvious she did like the kiss or at least likes her back. If you kissed someone and they immediately ghosted you, you wouldn't think they liked you back would you?

last edited at Feb 18, 2024 8:30AM

That went about as expected. It's been dragging this out forever in nonsense ways, so of course it would drag it out again. I'm just slightly surprised with how they chose to do it, this time.

last edited at Feb 17, 2024 11:11PM

Does someone know if this manga is in hiatus or cancelled and where to buy the raws, please? I need this ship like I need the air I breathe.

It's been completed for a while now.

Who's the new girl? Maybe I don't remember, but I don't believe she's been introduced before

She was introduced 1 or 2 chapters ago, beyond that I don't remember what's been revealed about her relationship to Shen and Jiang yet at this point, so I can't speak on that. You can get an idea of what their history might be based on the fact that she knew them both and thinks it's karma that she's meeting them again (and compares meeting them again with meeting her ex).

last edited at Feb 13, 2024 10:47AM

That revealable information is hilarious. Also, Jiang's natural (and oblivious) romantic pressure is too much to handle. Of course Dir. Shen would cave so quickly.

last edited at Feb 13, 2024 9:40AM

lol "inappropriate intentions"

Well, that's certainly one way to word a confession.

Ren Xing: LEGEND

Even more so after today's chapter. :-)

Already living the married life and her SO hasn't fully caught on yet (or won't admit it yet). Smooth is an understatement. And now she's giving out good advice!? Too much power for one person.

last edited at Feb 14, 2024 8:41PM

What's Shimamura's deal exactly? Why is she the way she is? Could someone explain it to a dummy like me?

I'm a bit lazy so these 3 quotes from the LN might help a bit (last 2 are light spoilers that we'll likely get to very, very soon but are vague enough):

(1) I wasn’t really a…considerate sort of person, for lack of a better word. I was no pure-hearted saint. As a result, I hated feeling indebted to anyone, because that would mean I owed them kindness in return. But it was wrong to perform kindness purely out of obligation—at that point, it wasn’t truly kindness anymore. I stumbled over this paradox over and over until eventually it began to affect my well-being. I knew maintaining strong interpersonal relationships was an important part of living a good life, but if it kept causing problems every time…

(2) For some reason, Adachi came to mind. Maybe I saw a common thread between her and the dog sleeping wearily beside me. She always looked so defeated whenever things didn’t go her way… She was the kind of girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, which I could appreciate. It really helped me understand her. If I were to sum it up, Adachi just…didn’t have much experience dealing with people. But that was exactly what made her so interesting to me. Speaking as someone whose overexposure to social interaction had left me numb to it, she was my polar opposite…and every now and then, I found myself tempted to protect her the way I wished someone would have protected me.

(3) “You don’t have to worry, dear. You’re already a kindhearted person.” I looked back at her and shook my head. “No, I’m really not.” Was she just saying it to be nice? Even I could tell I wasn’t the considerate type. I was missing that soft, gentle quality that actual kind people had. Then she whirled around to face me and said, “Hougetsu, you’re a real perfectionist, you know that?”“…I am?” No one had ever said that to me before, and I wasn’t sure how to react. “You don’t have to live your whole life in symmetry with everyone around you.”

“You try too hard to keep your relationships perfectly even. When there’s an imbalance, you start feeling uncomfortable. Frankly, you’re so sincere, it’s hard to believe you’re related to my daughter at all!” Setting aside the casual diss toward my mother—me, sincere? I thought back to how I handled the phone call at the river and found myself perplexed. “I don’t really get it,” I replied, like the ignorant child I was.

last edited at Feb 9, 2024 7:53AM

"Why does nothing go the way I expect it to..."

Because you act and think like a shitty person and a shitty parent, so your expectations are correspondingly shit. If you were less shitty at either of those, things would go your way considerably more often. :-)

I mean, Makino is the same and things are going pretty well for her.

Even disregarding the fact that Makino (no doubt because of her upbringing) often exaggerates how much of a scumbag she actually is, the key difference between her and her mother is that Makino does not have children and does not abuse her parental and financial authority over them. Being a shitty person and a shitty parent is a lot worse than just being a bad person, so I don't find it surprising that things are going better for Makino. :-)

Disagree. I don't think Makino's upbringing or her not being a mother somehow lessens or downgrades her shittiness or how scummy she has consistently been, her mom is awful too but I don't see her as worse than Makino (or better. They are just shitty). The only real difference is Makino got lucky and fell for a person who needed someone like her as a partner.

Makino has not been that bad to others, without provocation.

last edited at Feb 7, 2024 3:07PM

Shimamura being naturally introspective and self reflecting is definitely a pretty key part of her character.

The one girl makes stoic seem positively ebullient, revelling in detachment.

As alluded to in this chapter, she's named after it, so that fits (especially in the novels). I love her introspection and general outlook, though. She takes things very calmly, at her own pace and is honest about herself. She's also quite nice and thoughtful. A very intentional and unique character.

last edited at Feb 6, 2024 11:41PM

Is it something I did?” Given how much this story likes to oscillate between angsty drama and mushy sweetness, I feel like it could go either way.

No you're right. It doesn't take itself very seriously. I doubt anything really bad happens but I wouldn't be surprised if she tries something again.

I’m thinking/hoping it’ll be the first option. This chapter at least shows that she cares enough about Makino to help her even after she refuses to come home, so she seems to at least care about her daughters in her own shitty way. She even apologized to Makino after realizing how much her recent actions had hurt her.

Should she be pat on the back for that? This is the bare minimum for a parent. It's not not a compliment to think, "Wow, looks like she does actually care for her daughter!?" That should have been a given. The floor for her is beyond low. Her feelings can be whatever, it's actions that matter in the end. Her actions have been terrible, misguided or not. If she didn't apologize and visit her own daughter in the hospital, she would have been a whole different level of trash.

She'll need to do a lot more than that and I'm not holding my breath. Her response to a previously aimless daughter finding a partner she loves, a place to live independently and confidently stating that she'll continue to study hard and succeed, is to wonder why things don't work out like she wants. It's still a negative to her. She's still just as self centered.

last edited at Feb 6, 2024 11:18AM

Really nice short. I love Yadokawa in general though. Who wouldn't swoon over free/discounted sweets?

kind of incredible that the TL note literally states that the title is a reference to how people signal having a girlfriend and it's about two women yet let alone yuri, this isn't even tagged subtext.

Oh, I didn't notice the tags. You're right, even without the TL note, this one is clearly at least subtext (especially since the title seems to be from the perspective of our MC). The dialogue about the boss, was pretty heavily suggestive, if not outright screaming at us.

last edited at Feb 5, 2024 10:37AM

This is all really interesting. I don't feel like that final smile was genuine. Also, considering how much is left, I really wonder how this will all pan out!

Another amazing chapter. Everything the story has built up is used to characterize the interactions between the 3.

I still enjoy the story but at this point Mai is like an industry plant, and with barely any marketing. We're just supposed to want her to win out based on....?

Is it really any wonder that many are supporting actual developed character relationships over empty pinning for someone we essentially don't know, based on a non-crush from when they were basically toddlers?

The setup and choices of this manga have seemed suspect the more it's become clear that we really are supposed to view Mai as an end goal, rather than a catalyst. "I Won't Sleep With You for Free," is almost the same type of story but handles this specific issue much better.

I do feel like introducing nanao, while positive in the short term, kinda went too far and is detracting from the entire idea of the lesbian brothel escapades the story was built around.

This has been my feeling as well.

last edited at Jan 29, 2024 6:33AM

I didn't expect to see so much intense hatred for this series when returning to the forums with the new chapter. I'm surprised but everyone has their opinions.

It's mostly just one person, whose interpretation of the events of both versions, I'd disagree with but there's way too much to respond reasonably. Yeah, though preferences and opinions will always vary.

That aside though the new chapter was fun, the cuddling was cute, and I hope the woman spreading the nasty rumors falls down a well or something haha

She seems hilarious. I mostly enjoyed our Nun's complete disinterest towards those advances. She really danced and twirled her way out of that one.

last edited at Jan 29, 2024 6:00AM

Out of all the couples, they're my favorite. I like them all but these two have a dynamic that I enjoy the most.

Buying a car for the two of them is a big step; considering a home, is another. Seems like before that conversation, Asako hadn't really thought about how serious their relationship has become. She's treating Miyako like a life partner without realizing it.

We knew we'd have to deal with Miyako's identity being revealed eventually. Been building to that for a bit now. Seems like she'll blame herself when things go bad. She's been worried about her ability to provide Asako and "normal" life and this will certainly be the opposite of that. Asako will have to reassure her.

last edited at Jan 20, 2024 4:54PM

We've got an old fashioned chocolate showdown in the hallway. Looked like they were about to wrestle.

last edited at Jan 18, 2024 10:40AM

Hopefully soon, ideally to me, Kiki immediately realized "wait that actually just fucking happened" and runs after her.

That would be great but we still have the loaded gun of that other girl's warning from a few chapters ago. I'm expecting that we'll see the pair struggle after the confession and that will affect their dancing, just like the girl warned. Then after that, maybe things will come together fully, proving that girl partially wrong. Or maybe this is an opportunity to show that girl that her fears and apprehensions were completely wrong. A couple of good ways it could go.

last edited at Jan 17, 2024 11:30AM

She definitely could've worded that better lol, it's valid for her to not want to associate with her anymore as friends after confessing but making it seem like an ultimatum made this bad for the both of them

Well, a confession between two best friends/childhood friends kind of inherently is an ultimatum—it’s trying to get what you want at the risk of losing what you have, which is why so many useless MCs agonize about it so much.

Agreed, to both. This is a similar scenario to another series right now. Perfectly reasonable to distance oneself from a crush like that--just need to do it right. It's the reality of the situation. Can't force someone to date you but you also shouldn't be forced to feel that pain constantly. It's unfortunate, but the friend made her choice to date her. We don't know enough about them to tell whether the friend has feelings or not. Also agree on the headlock thing but I feel that was meant as a joke between friends (though pg13 could suggest something else).

last edited at Jan 17, 2024 10:09AM

The reverse is also true, just because the story try to tell something without romance in it, doesn't make it good automatically…

But no one said that.

No, but at the same time, saying "People don't seem to be able to appreciate a story without romance these days." is a bit harsh when the said story is average at best. It's too easy to blame it on the non-romance, when I think a lot more people wouldn't be disappointed if the story was better. I can appreciate an average to mediocre yuri story, because it's my jam, but an average to mediocre story like I think this one is, I'm just like "meh, I should have dropped it".

"I didn't like this story," is different from "worthless" and "nothing happened."

Did you see this comment, for example?

the story was just the teenager getting to figure out her life and that is all, the god damn yuri tag and the age gap tag should be god damn wipe from this manga, there was 0 relationship progression, there was 0 yuri in this story, unless you consider them becoming friends yuri and age gap??? like wtf was this story???

So by their own comment, did nothing really happen or?

Anyway, not necessarily this series but it often becomes clear from the way comments are constructed, that if the romance isn't the ultimate focus there's something wrong with the story. Depends on the community though. Series that are more adventure and plot focused for example get those kind of comments a lot, no matter the quality.

last edited at Jan 17, 2024 7:18AM

The reverse is also true, just because the story try to tell something without romance in it, doesn't make it good automatically…

But no one said that.