I am always interested in Yukionna stories. They are a fascinating part of Japanese mythology. Though they usually take away men, it's always good to see variation to the myth. This seems to be entirely consensual life partnership.
You just need a genki girl as a protatagonist for monster girl stories, don't ya? Hehe.

Yes good. More shorty Human x Mythological Tall lady (except Beniko, so far, unless tall Dom female authors are also beings of legend) by this artist.

Well, females that are both tall and dom are rather rare even in het doujinshi. No, age-gap doujinshi where the male is significantly younger than the female don't count; neither does the giantess-on-male subgenre.

It's more likely to happen in Yuri though, because two women are automatically invovled every time. So one of them will usually have to be taller. Then it's just a lottery who is the dom (if there ever is one).

Kimetsu no Yaiba's adaptation is so good. I mean the design is breathtaking, they've made a great job for picking the VAs, the ost are on point (I mean Yuki Kajiura worked on them ;-;), the characters are endearing and funny (just Nezuko is enough to make anyone fall in love with the anime), the story is interesting without being cliché and the animation are so well done that it makes me cry. I wish there were more shonen/nekketsu like KnY and more male main character like Tanjirô.

That's the power of Ufotable. At this point they just can't go wrong.

I'd call that the status quo everywhere sadly.

I don't think we reached 10 yuri titles. Meanwhile we got like 2 publishers dedicated solely to yaoi and new title comes like every month or so...

[Status Quo intensifies]

France sure is behind, huh? The English ones are at the final volume soon.

I'm already glad we got yuri. We don't have a lot of Yuri translated here.

I'd call that the status quo everywhere sadly.

France sure is behind, huh? The English ones are at the final volume soon.

I was however clear it was not at all the same level drama between an unrequited love and bloom into you, nothing to see, if you were sad on the majority of the manga it is that you are hyper sensitive....
I'm not limited at all sorry because I read all kinds of manga and for yuri his share of ecchi has pure drama...... I know perfectly how to make the difference thanks.

For luminous it is not that the manga is started too softly because I read several of them that started with the drama side except that for this one the mystery about why nene wanted a amane took too long to be explained, and the explanation with hindsight is ridiculous.

It's asinine to equate drama with sadness in the first place.
You are limited in your perception of drama, not what you actually read.

The whole thing was ridiculous from the start, but that never stopped other series before.

last edited at Sep 21, 2019 3:09PM

Chapter 17 24 is out elsewhere, for those who can't wait. Though it's lagging behind the anime still.

last edited at Sep 30, 2019 4:39AM

Oof, now that's one hell of a look on Reisen. Sets my heart aflutter.

Reimu: "I might be falling for you."
Marisa: "I hate you."

Straight out of the hotspring I reckon.

It's gonna take a few Command Seals to make this relationship work...

Ah yes, the demon tail and peach symbol. And Shamiko is the black sheep in this story.
Ganbare Shamiko! Become a demon that can have great sleepovers in cute pajamas with your gf!

So that's what those openings were for. Direct access.

last edited at Sep 21, 2019 3:43AM

These C.C. Lemon ads are getting gayer by the day.

last edited at Sep 22, 2019 3:37AM

Accurate though.

Yes, ponytail is the actual improvement. El should pay attention to that.

last edited at Sep 21, 2019 6:07AM

"Who needs firepower if I'm rockin' theeese guns?"

last edited at Sep 21, 2019 3:42AM

Old school Samus being more muscular and tall weirds me out. I can believe the hairstyle at least.

It's mating season bitch.

The only issue I have with these fanarts is that Kagura is never that cute in the show. lol
Soyo works though.

If it happened to completely unrelated characters, those characters would deny it and say it wasn't a kiss but an accident, the point I'm trying to make it's because they call it a kiss and don't deny it, that means they have feelings for each other.

They wouldn't acknowledge it as a kiss if they didn't have feelings for each other, they wouldn't even blush, just be disgusted and say it wasn't that and never brought it up again.

I find that interpretation really strange. An accidental kiss could very well make you embarassed rather than disgusted. Their reactions were certainly more on the "This is really embarrassing" rather than the "I liked it" side.
Again, if you put such incredible importance on a kiss being acknowledged as if it confirms someone's feelings, you might have watched too much Shoujo anime. Just accepting that their lips touched - and that is usually what people call a kiss, no need to pretend it isnt - is not really admitting to anything.

Dating is a strong word, more than half the couples I love aren't dating. You don't need them to be dating to confirm the affection/romantic interest for each other, a couple of people that have feelings for each other isn't the same as a dating couple. The first is a couple the audience knows is in love because they left their feelings clear to the audience with their blushing and acknowledgement of romantic stuff like kissing, and the second is a couple they tell each other they are in love. The kyoani hetero couples that haven't kissed aren't dating either and that's why I got into this conversation in the first place.

The word couple implicitly means to be in a relationship. Unless we are also stretching that term to its limits, that is very much the same as dating.
For example, before Yuta and Rika admitted their feelings for each other and crossed the line into going out territory, I would never have called them a couple. Were they in love with each other? Clearly. They made it obvious and we were in the know. Still not a couple.

With Nibutani and Dekkomori we don't even have that. Because you want them to be a couple you will justify that belief with subtext, but it will never be more than subtext and not necessarily very convincing one at that, especially in a KyoAni anime. I already explained in depth why a kiss or acknowleding it as a kiss has no consequence on their relationship status, but if they can't even fulfill the most basic requirement of making clear in some obvious way that they actually have feelings for each other (even just to the audience), it is simply a lost cause.

I believe it is quite the opposite, Nibutani and Dekkomori are lagging behind ridiculously far behind the main couple, even before they actually confessed. Because for Rika and Yuta we at least had romantic conflict and tension. Because we knew. Because that was what the plot was working towards. NibuDeko has not much aside from the usual shiptease.

I don't think I can make this any clearer than that, so that's my conclusion for this topic.

last edited at Sep 20, 2019 6:46PM

How can confirmed attraction/romantic interest be behind subtext that confirms nothing?

That's super simple actually, most of the kyoani hetero couples that never got movies are in the limbo or will they/won't they kiss, for the general average audience that's the confirmation of attraction or romantic interest and DekoShinka got one in the first OVA. Sure, they didn't willingly smacked lips with each other but when you have two tsunderes, regardless of their gender, the universe itself has to conspire to make their first kiss happen.

But that is just the thing, we got confirmation for Yuta and Rika. It was not just hinted at, we knew they had feelings for each other.
The kiss was an accident, no matter how you sugarcoat it, so it is no confirmation for anything. Sure you could say they "went farther", but if that happened to completely unrelated characters, would you make the same statement?
Naruto and Sasuke kissed in like the first arc of Naruto, yet obviously they didn't end up being lovers (despite all they gay jokes).

And everyone in the show acknowledges it as a kiss, the whole cast does it in the OVA and later in episode 8 of season 2, when dealing with the stalker, they outright say that Deko already had her first kiss, Deko and Shinka themselves never deny it either they just blush at the memory but they never say it wasn't a kiss. The kiss itself is the reason they begin travelling together in the movie which leads to them cuddling together in bed which leads to the fanart in which this discussion started.

If it looks like a kiss, everyone in the show says it's a kiss, and the people kissing don't deny it, then it's a kiss.

I am sure you make a difference between a "true" kiss and a fake kiss, but I think a kiss is a kiss, no matter the intent behind it. So them acknowledging that it was one, well, it's weak eveidence, isn't it? And I don't know what gave you the idea that the kiss was the cause for them traveling together.

That's how they got ahead of all the kyoani couples that didn't kiss, while I don't believe a kiss is 100% necessary to confirm a couple in any series, if they already have it, then it can be used as a confirmation. It's like if you had a test to confirm couples regardless of their gender, a kiss would automatically give a passing grade. No reason to bring the rest of their interactions to the table.

That is a really weak passing condition then. The only thing that confirms anyone as a couple should be them, ya know, confirming their feelings and asking each other to date. At most we can add up every single interaction and repeated kissing as them going out if they don't want to actually address the issue, but clearly that's not the case and unlikely to happen.
One accidental kiss and a whole lot of not going out just don't make for a very logical passing grade. There is a reason why pretty much everyone (even the shippers) calls it subtext, not actually confirmation.

last edited at Sep 20, 2019 5:51PM

^How can confirmed attraction/romantic interest be behind subtext that confirms nothing?
Argh... Don't answer that here or this is gonna upset people again. Let's just all flood the Cafe.

last edited at Sep 20, 2019 3:28PM

Posted by @TheLostLight

@BugDevil My point was more that KyoAni often takes such large creative liberties with their adaptations that you should (in my opinion) just consider the adaptations and their respective source materials two completely different stories. So making an argument about one while using evidence from another doesn't really hold water if you think along those lines.

But if you want to talk about KyoAni and their portrayal of Yuri, I'm down, but that's an entirely different beast. First of all,

"Dragon Maid was gay from inception."

has some unpacking to do. If you're referring to Tooru, then yes, she's pretty undeniably gay (if you ignore that she's not actually human, but a dragon... but I think it counts) and KyoAni, somewhat surprisingly, left that completely unaltered. If you're talking about Kobayashi and Tooru's relationship, then... I'd have to say that in the manga it's pretty explicitly platonic. Kobayashi states multiple times that she has no interest in Tooru or women and chapter 37 just reinforces that notion further.

If we're talking about the anime, then I think people in general vastly exaggerate what it actually is, which in my opinion is the same as any other KyoAni "yuri(bait) pairing": intentionally vague. It lets people who like the idea ship their pairs and become more attached to the characters, while those who are (unfortunately) uncomfortable with the idea are able to reasonably deny any romantic undertones and thus don't end up feeling alienated from the story. I'm convinced beyond a doubt that KyoAni does this intentionally and that they wouldn't do anything to alienate fans on either side of the coin (although that could possibly change in the future as certain trends develop, who knows?).

All of that being said, I think one could make an argument for Dekomori and Nibutani being one of KyoAni's most strongly implied "yuri(bait) pairs" with things such as subliminal romantic imagery appearing upon their contact; a kiss which, although accidental, is played off with them not being simply annoyed or disgusted by it, but embarrassed and highly conscious of each other whenever it's mentioned; having the established couple's date in the movie mirrored by a date of Nibutani and Dekomori's own; and various other intimate moments such as wiping away tears, blowing on and touching the inside of the other's thigh, sleeping together in cuddling positions, among other things. They've built up a pretty gaygood track record. But yeah, in the end their relationship is the same as any other non-het KyoAni relationship: hinted at just weakly enough to be reasonably deniable. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the individual I suppose.

That Dragon Maid part is utter nonsense...
You completely misread Kobayashi's character. While yes, she is usually more ambivalent, she actually never clearly states she is not into women. In fact there were many chapters (Chapter 48 in particular), that very strongly hint at Kobayashi's changing feelings for Tooru. Chapter 37 is the one where she grew a dick and her hormones went haywire. If you somehow garnered that because she was turned off by Tooru getting out of her maid outfit... uh. Ever heard of fetishes?
And even if we blind ourselves and somehow twist Kobayashi into not interested in Tooru whatsoever in any way... that does not at all change the fact that Tooru is openly gay. It does not change the Kanna/Saikawa dynamic. Are you gonna pretend that one is "platonic" too? Get outta here.

KyoAni didn't change anything plot or character related from the manga except for the order of things and exaggerating the confrontation with Tooru's dad. Therefore, the anime is not in any way more vague than the manga was. Tooru's open love for Kobayashi completely shatters any attempt to keep it straight for those who are uncomfortable with lesbians. And again... Kanna/Saikawa. The show also teases a yaoi pairing and a shotacon pairing, so it really doesn't hold back for anyone's sensibilities.

My main problem with the Nibutani/Dekkomori pairing is, and I don't care whether you want to ignore this, that the source material still matters. If they ever finished the story, the conclusion would have to be mostly the same to the novels. There is simply no way they would ever give Nibutani an openly gay ending. Therefore it can never go beyond subtext or bait.

Posted by Komi028

To be fair DekoShinka were ahead of the hetero couple of the show before the movie happened, and most of kyoani hetero couples from other shows are below what DekoShinka showed for each other, if they're more developed that pairings involving boys and girls, then they aren't subtext or that other word I won't type.

How can confirmed attraction/romantic interest be behind subtext that confirms nothing?

last edited at Sep 20, 2019 5:42PM

^I suppose image comments sections are just not made for actual discussion, so I'll try my best. It's a shame that any form of deeper discussion is treated as a nuisance around here.
I'll delete my (shorter than the other poster's mind you) comment and instead link to the Cafe.
@TheLostLight if you want to continue this come here https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/10103-dynasty-cafe-a-home-for-off-topic-discussion-where-everyone-s-welcome?page=343. I'll repost my comment there.

last edited at Sep 20, 2019 2:50PM