I kinda like the format and progression of this, even if it isn't very clearly presented. The idea of a chain of stories with sexual partners being the links is pretty neat. This is either a clever statement on complex sexual communication, or Korugane Ken just wanted to draw pretty ladies making out naked. I'm fine with either, honestly.

Or after like 8 girls chained together, you're gonna find out one of them has an STI, and it turns out it was all an object lesson on the dangers of promiscuity.

When I translated the book title, I was very confused, but it definitely says "bar exam"　司法試験. However, don't read too much into that. Rise is explicitly described as a high school student, and Kuyou calls her "Rise-nee" and is being tutored by her, so Kuyou is almost certainly middle school or younger. My only guess is that the bar exam book is a joke by the author, just like how Rise is studying signal processing in her cram school in chapter 6.

At any rate, as will be made very clear in the following chapters, Kuyou is definitely a minor, and nowhere near the age where she'd be studying for the bar exam. Nor is Rise qualified to instruct her.

Fair enough.

Jesus, the characters keep getting younger and younger. And I thought this manga jumped the shark in chapter 2 lol

I'm not convinced she's that young? I mean, it might be a translation mistake, but if she's studying for the bar exam...Unless things work VERY differently in Japan, that puts her at college level. I know Rise was high-school aged when she first showed up, but that montage suggests they've been dating for an unspecific length of time.

Edit: Yeah, looked it up, and in Japan lawyers still don't take the bar exam until after law school, so either these girls are prodigies, or they're just young-looking 20-somethings. Or the study book title was mistranslated.

last edited at May 2, 2019 2:52PM

Yikes. Chapter 7 was kind of cute, but 8 was scary.

Rise's mind apparently snapped just because she got herself a female lover and she became a molester/rapist right off the bat. After all, if you are just friends it doesn't count...

That's not really fair. You can make a case that she kissed her without asking, but Kuyou was into it pretty much immediately, and that "...Just because we kissed it's not like we had sex, right?" was a clear invitation to go further. This is cheating, but it's definitely consensual cheating.

(Edit: Well, so I said, but then again, Kuyou might be too young to give informed consent? I'm not sure if she's supposed to be young or just petite.)

last edited at May 2, 2019 2:43PM

Yuu has never cried about anything in the story and apparently not even when she should have in the past either (like losing in the Softball matches). Thanks to being not emotionally invested enough in things she just does out of obligation or to help someone.
So if Yuu cries (for good or bad) because of her current situation with Touko, that would visually show that she has emotionally matured and truly invested herself in this beyond logic and denial.

When being able to cry is not a sign of cliche weakness, but of growth... I like it!

^I will let this weeks old prediction of mine do the talking. This is how I felt about it before and how I feel about it now.

Yep. Yuu crying with happiness at her feelings being returned is definitely a fantastic narrative turn, and it is super cute.

I can only hope all other conflicts (Midori-san and Manaka-san’s relationship) get to be resolved until the last chapter.

I second this notion. We have at least 4 more chapters, so Nakatani will have to bring her A-game!

The scene with Midori and Manaka is probably the extra chapter for vol. 7, showing what they were up to during Touko and Sayaka's talk, so I wouldn't expect the main narrative to suddenly veer towards them.

I actually meant that the page was referencing the fact that her feet have finally lifted off the ground (callback to chap 1 as with the rest of this chap). & like she said in this chapter, it's not some unknown force that sweeps her off, just her own effort.

Not to be a downer, but this already happened during Yuu's first confession when she first initiated a kiss. She was also tip-toeing there.

True, but it still serves the same purpose. It underscores that the nature of their relationship has changed, that Yuu is active and invested in the relationship, that they're not just going back to the old status quo.

(snipped the rest because I agree with it all and have nothing to add)

I really love how they didn't show the kiss at the end of Ch. 40. Like...there wasn't any reason to, you know what I mean? They confessed, they were (finally!) honest with each other and with themselves, and they're together. Even though no kiss was shown, it was one of the most tastefully done kiss scenes I've ever read in all my years of reading manga.

Great! Awesome! And damnit. We didn't see the kiss but oh well.. at least they love eachother and we know now that Yuu's tears are salty too. Mmm.

how dare they not show us the kiss

Yes finally! trough why the hell did they cut out the kiss dammit!

Now the next chapter of the continued kiss please... you can’t do this to us Σ੧(❛□❛✿)

(shake head) You guys are missing the point. Lip to lip contact is all over this manga. They've kissed on at least four or five different occasions that I can remember. Hell, we got one of them in flashback this very chapter.

What's important is what's different about this kiss, and that's what the author is showing by focusing on her feet. She's an active participant now. She's pushing up on her toes to get that kiss, whereas in the others she was always passive.

Yes finally! trough why the hell did they cut out the kiss dammit!

There's actually something sweet about how they've kissed on panel so many times with only one of them being the one to initiate the kiss, but the first time they're really kissing each other we don't get to see it. I guess it's the rule of what you don't see being more effective than what you do see being used to illustrate just how beautiful the moment is.

Emphasis on her feet lifting off the ground, anyone?
Also it's cute af. Yuu on her tiptoes because of the height difference.

See, these guys get it.

The closing of the curtains... just like you’d see in a play. Brilliant. This mangaka is gifted in her talents. May she continue her work, for there will always be readers looking forward to her future publications.

I’m going to keep an eye out for the anime version of this manga in dubbed english.

I’m sure there will be a time jump for next chapter... a sort of epilogue. I’d like to see the minor characters get their loose ends tied up too.

This is only the start of the volume. Given the past setup, I'm guessing that the rest of this volume is about other people catching on to their relationship now that it's mutual.

I also expect that Touko's thirst is going to go off the charts now. Also Yuu's.

I mean, that closing of the curtain was very definitely a "we are going to make out SO MUCH" move.

Sakurako wins hand down just because she's not going "how do I even kiss a girl ?". She just freaking do it. -o-

Amnesia. Arisa's gay is so potent it WIPED HER MIND OF ALL ELSE.

How do studios decide which manga to make into an anime?

Producers look at what's currently selling and/or polling well and what gaps they have in their programming schedules, and they try to find a popular series that fits a hole in their offerings. Once they've decided what they want, (shounen anime, late night seinen anime, etc) they start looking for manga that fit the mold. If they can't find one, they either broaden their niche or start looking into creating an original program. If an anime company has ties to a manga publisher, they might be more likely to pick something from what they have, but ultimately it depends more on what they're looking for. Sometimes, if a manga publisher is really confident about the popularity of a series, they might go courting anime publishers, but that's relatively unusual.

TLDR: They go looking for popular series that fit the mold of what they already want to publish.

How long until dad asks Kano-chin to kiss so he can understand how to draw real shoujo manga....

NO. BAD. THAT'S A BAD ONIXX. NO!

Kinda sad she has her anxiety from a misunderstanding with her childhood friend. Hope she clears it up sometime.

I suspect that's just the start of it. Now she has anxiety because she's constantly being aggressively pursued by every woman she meets. :p

random posted:

God-Emperor

Trash Muppet is the proper title for someone like that. At least show them the proper respect, ffs!

Much too crude for my tastes and misses the irony of the country having de facto regressed into a plain old autocracy, or as close as makes no meaningful difference, like 1912 didn't even happen. (Reckon it won't turn hereditary yet but you never know...)

You're both wrong, the correct way to refer to Xi Jinping is as "Winnie the Pooh", because he really, really hates it.

Random question: can any of you even imagine Kasumi taking care of a baby?

I see there's a lot of talk about Saku & Kasu raising a baby.
Actually, it's the same in the new chapters: lots of dialogue about that.
It's kinda suspicious if you ask me.

Consider:

They are suddenly discussing kids, over and over. If Sakurako wants kids, what kinda kids they would be, how Kasumi's old friends from school now have kids, whether Sakurako can invent science babies... The subject had appeared before only once in 54 chapters, now for some reason the mangaka is making them broach the subject all the time.

And then:

Kasumi suddenly has food cravings. Food cravings for weirdly specific things. Totally out of the blue, she has the urge to eat a particular type of food and they have to go get it because she needs it right now. It happens not just once, but twice.

Oh dear.
Is this a giant flag I'm seeing?

Oh, Kasumi, what have you been doing when Sakurako wasn't watching?

(facepalm) Just because a woman says "I feel like eating (food)", it does not mean she's having freaking pregnancy cravings.

Not sure if you're trolling or serious, but...No, just no. There is zero chance. In fact, there is a negative 30% chance. You have intimated something so unlikely it has broken the laws of probability just so that a description can exist that conveys how not ever going to happen the thing you have suggested is.

Well i don't feel like she should be forgiven just like that.. But i suppose its better than her coming back to bully her again in future chapters

Yeah, but Tadokoro-san is a sainted buddha cinnamon bun, so of course she was going to forgive her.

*guilty gear announcer voice

D E S T R O Y E D

*mortal combat announcer voice

F A T A L I T Y

B R U T A L I T Y

F R I E N D S H I P

Considering Kirigaya bawling at the end...

B A B A L I T Y

...Baraka isn't around, is he?

No, that is a huge coincidence. Yes, all possible universes exist, so there would be an infinite number of them, but the odds of randomly ending up in one, if it were random, are infinitesimal.

No, it's not. First of all, ending up in any other universe is equally infinitesimally likely. And secondly and more importantly, there'd be infinite universes where she indeed did end up elsewhere. We'd just look at the one relevant to this story, so this is just selection bias ^^

Selection bias doesn't come into it. Yes, if there are infinite Marikas randomly jumping into infinite universes, then yes, at least some are going to have a nonzero chance of leaping into a yuriworld very similar to her own world. But we aren't looking at this as one in an infinite series, we're looking at this as a single instance, and this instance is still exceptionally coincidental and improbable among them.

While there may be infinite universes like this one, there are not an equal number of universes of infinite types. Not all infinities are equal, and of all the universes that diverge significantly from ours, only a small fraction would be likely to return and intersect. This means that statistically, the odds of ending up in a universe that diverged and reconverged is much lower than the odds of ending up in a universe that has only barely diverged or (even more likely) has diverged significantly (and much earlier)

If it were purely random, the odds of ending up in just this sort of universe, one in which everyone she knows still exists despite massive historical differences, is absurdly small. Every person in the world is just one of millions of potential people that could come out of their parents joining. If your parents had conceived you in a slightly different position, a different sperm would unite with the egg, and you would be an entirely different person on the genetic level. But here we have a universe where not only is everyone in the world almost exactly the same person as in our world, but they got that way from -different parents- utilizing an entirely different means of biological reproduction.

This is all leaving aside whether or not it is actually even physically possible for the humanity of the 1900s to happen across a means to create a way for females to interbreed in a such a fashion that doesn't so drastically effect biodiversity among humans that it is literally impossible to end up with the same people, which I thinik is an open question. Also it may not be possible for the population of that period, after a major catastrophy, to rebound into a civilization with the same population and culture that exists in our world. I mean there's a whole litany of things that might make this story literally impossible, but, I mean....it's just a story. ;p

Now you can say that the author just picked this universe to show, and sure, that could be possible, but then there's no mystery to solve, and the author would be building this dramatic tension just to pull the rug out at the last minute with "Nope, it was just random!" That would be a...unique writing choice. What the author has done in this recent chapter is deliberately call attention to how unlikely this specific universe is, which makes it unlikely that it is accidental random swap. The fact that Yuriworld's Marika was into the occult and parallel universes also makes it likely there's some design behind this swap. I mean, if you're gonna jump into another universe without some kind of guidance, there are likely way more universes where the Earth isn't even here. She'd have been better served tying a noose or jumping off a bridge if she was -that- miserable.

TL:DR version: If the swap was random, this is massively coincidental and improbable/borderline impossible, and the author seems to be indicating that there is a design to it, which they wouldn't do if massive coincidence was an acceptable narrative to them.

last edited at Apr 20, 2019 5:12PM

Also, Lily was totally into Marika before the switch, but I think we already kinda knew that. Reading about parallel worlds, purely by coincidence? Either she was trying to find something to get close to her, and saw she was interested in such things, or...

Hmm...

i'm wondering if Lily might know more about all this than she's let on?

If the many-worlds-theory holds true then a universe were history diverged massively in one aspect but otherwise stayed remarkably similar isn't a huge coincidence, it's a given, as all possible universes exist. In fact there'd be an infinite amount of them so-close-but-not-quite-our universe ... ^^

No, that is a huge coincidence. Yes, all possible universes exist, so there would be an infinite number of them, but the odds of randomly ending up in one, if it were random, are infinitesimal. (For that matter, I'd question whether it is even -possible- for 1920s humanity to solve single-gender reproduction AND to rebound in just three generations to a world almost identical to ours.) The fact that the author points this out is important. It suggests that the move to this universe in particular is deliberate.

I'm betting, with the talk about fitting in and being normal, Marika is actually gay,and in the closet, and her counterpart in the other world is heterosexual and has no possible outlet for it. The title is talking about -her-, not the MC. And so she turned to magic to transport herself to a world that has boys, and in so-doing, swapped places with the her of that world.

last edited at Apr 19, 2019 6:49PM

first you thought this was subtext

then you thought this was yuri

then we'll see that it was post transhumanist sci fi

"I wish I could upload our conciousnesses to a massive supercomputer so that our thoughts and selves could intermingle in the digital spacescape, Kasumi-chan!"

I am reasonably confident that zero of the staff here chose the tags thanks to Erica Friedman's comments. But keep writing that fanfic, I'm interested to see where it goes from here.

It totally ships you with Erica Friedman.

Jeeze, tag your spoilers!

No spoiler, I'm just speculating. ;p

So the admins tagged it as subtext only, not yuri, and loads of readers believed it. That's why there used to be so many posts debating the 'hints of dating' between them, and whether we as fans could assume them to be a couple. In time the admins realized their mistake and corrected the tagging, and that was how the silly debate came to an end. And the admins learned a lesson: never trust Erica Friedman, never.

I am reasonably confident that zero of the staff here chose the tags thanks to Erica Friedman's comments. But keep writing that fanfic, I'm interested to see where it goes from here.

It totally ships you with Erica Friedman.

Arisa vs. Sakurako, who is more dangerously gay?

Arisa. Hands down. Sakurako is really gay, but Arisa is so gay it literally broke her mind.

“Kasumi can’t imagine life without Sakurako but are they dating?”

Not really sure if anyone actually cares about that at this point. I think the college chapters have framed it well enough by now, that there is no merit to any kind of discussion whatsoever about it.

It's not like there has been anxiety or tension of that sort in RfT for a long time. Relationship just exists and that's all there is to it.

Hush now, there are people who are very invested in pretending there's a huge, active faction of people still arguing that they have no real connection to each other. You don't want to take that away from them, do you?

Nah, at this point, we're just making fun of how wrong they were, we're not really under any illusion that they're still there.

So I notice that when she accidentally mishears the topic of making out, Kasumi's only real concern is about doing it in public. ;p

Is it possible to learn this power?

Not from a Jedi.

Allow me to present you both with 1 internets. Congratulations on your win!

So I was kind of kidding before, but that close-up of Rei's reaction to "gift of a friend" seems kind of conspicuous?