When did they start dating? I swear I´ve missed something XD

Well, it's hard to exactly pinpoint when. I doubt it's even possible to find a certain point. To me, it was more of a gradual transition or something, blurring the line between "friendship" and "dating", and in more ways than one. Like, take, for example, how Sakurako attempted to define their relationship here:

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/a_room_for_two_ch53#5

They definitely haven't been dating from the first moment, yet they definitely are now.

I describe it as they -were- dating from the first moment, they just didn't realize it for awhile. Kasumi starts to catch on when she starts realizing how many matching things they have.

Are their kisses deleted scenes?

Dafuq r u talkin bout? Do I literally need to browse through the manga again, this time searching for kissing scenes?

First kiss happened on an insert, IIRC, and involved swapping candies First intentional kiss that was just a kiss was at the sakura viewing party, but Sakurako was drunk (but when sober indicated she wanted to kiss again) There was at least one kiss after that that was just sincere affection, the most recent was Kasumi kissing Sakurako hello when coming home from work, which is the most "these two are just fucking married" moment we've had.

Guess we know where that sniffing cat business come from...

I was thinking the same thing! I know very well that most people with cats don't have a habit to sniff their bellies, so I was curious as for where that crazy idea came from. Now we know.

Actually, I've seen this in other manga, so it seems like it's a thing in japanese culture?

And with all these of mention marriage, unless the author get yuri blocked by her editor, I'm pretty sure we will get a marriage chapter one day, even if it's the very last chapter of the manga

There was a proposal in this chapter. Saku flat out told Kasumi that she wants to marry her. Only things missing were the bended knee and the ring.

Actually, thinking about it, it's kind of surprising that Saku hasn't suggested matching rings before.

Wow, Mari used to be way more chill.

Mari is still pretty chill, though. Honestly, chill is her main defining characteristic? She's the tsukkomi to Arisa's boke.

Nah, she's definitely different. Old Mari doesn't really react to anything, doesn't even care that someone's sniffing her panties, etc. New Mari will blush and get awkward at the drop of a hat. Probably because she spent time with Old Arisa, the super perv.
It's true that she (ironically) is the straight man, but Old Mari is deadpan, New Mari is embarrassed.

Eh, she gets embarassed when she's presented with public awkwardness, and she gets a little bashful when it comes to their actual relationship, but when it comes to stuff like nudity and underwear, she's usually been pretty relaxed and nonchalant about it.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bright_and_cheery_amnesia_ch00#7 I mean the first chapter made this point pretty well.
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bright_and_cheery_amnesia_ch06#7 She also doesn't really care about or react to Arisa being nude unless the situation is intimate.
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/bright_and_cheery_amnesia_ch06#13 Heck, even when Arisa had to help her bathe, she doesn't react at all until she literally has to touch her hoo-ha.

Also, she's not "sniffing her panties", she's reacting to the fact that there were panties in the stack of clothes Mari gave her, and Mari is just pointing out that they're unused, so she doesn't care. ;p

Wow, Mari used to be way more chill.

Mari is still pretty chill, though. Honestly, chill is her main defining characteristic? She's the tsukkomi to Arisa's boke.

last edited at Apr 7, 2019 4:28AM

aww rats! I was looking forward to seeing how she reacted to getting her memory back. i guess we'll have to slog it out for another chapter or two.

Last chapter explicitly said on the last page that we were getting a flashback arc starting with the next chapter, so...I'd settle in for a bit of a wait?

Yeah, these three goofballs wouldn't be able to keep it a secret if they knew. There'd be endless teasing.

Yeah, you're probably right, but the series puts so much emphasis on "they're secretly dating" that I think it'd be the best possible punchline if they weren't actually fooling anybody.

I swear one of these days they're going to come out to their friends, and everyone's just going to be like "Yeah, and?" "Wait, you thought it was a secret from us?"

What are Y'all talking about? They just explained their relationship and in 53. Like seriously Sakurako spelled out the exact nature of their relationship and the reason the don't label it before having a lie-down on Kasumi. And already resolved to be together forever. It's a frequent event, actually. All bases are covered at this point. All of them. They're in love, They're going to be together forever, they're accepted by each other's family as in-laws, they cuddle often, they kiss often enough tfor it to be casual.They flirt all the time,hold hands, sleep
in the same bed in lingerie. What more do you need?

^I absolutely agree with everything you said here, but to answer that last question:

I do think the label holds some significance. It'd make me happy to see "partner who's something like my girlfriend" becomes just plain "girlfriend" (along with the other stuff still intact) before the manga's end. This is not to downplay the love for each other they've demonstrated all throughout the series, but just as kissing is a symbol of romance, so is stating or at least thinking concretely that the person you love is your girlfriend, at least to me.

I feel like that line was mostly about Sakurako not wanting to overstep.

This chapter made me smile despite a migraine. I've been waiting since the beginning of the series for a moment like this. Kasume kissed her! Kasume, who never shows interest in any sort of physical romantic intimacy, kissed Sakurako of her own volition! We've never seen anything even close to that before. That was awesome and adorable.

(✿◠‿◠)

Kasumi is often the one initiating physical intimacy, though? She initiated their first kiss, she did the "lying naked on your lap" thing. If you go back through the comments, somebody posted a series of links not too long ago, IIRC.

Am I the only one who thinks what Sakurako described with her labels is "wife"?

No, you are not.

Looks like a suitcase on page 109, so she left. One might argue that it's not really adult yuri with basic communication incompetence like this. Was expecting the worst when I saw Shuninta's name, though.

The shot of the girl with the suitcase is the happy working girl, not the neglected girlfriend. Look at the hair length and the energetic nature of the panel.

You're right.

This still leaves us with a story where at worst, she left, and at best, basically nothing happened at all because they won't talk to each other.

Given that it's just a narrow slice of their life together, I doubt any major life changes are happening during this story. The point of the story is probably just to remind people not to take their partners for granted and that neglect can happen with the best of intentions.

Wh-oh, riiiiight, Thanks for disillusioning me early, Dynasty, this'l make the rest of the day way easier.

The only thing I have to say about Ch. 52 was that I was surprised to learn that clarinets could be part of something called a "brass band" considering that it's a woodwind instrument.

Well... Even though saxophones are made of metal, their structure is similar to the likes of oboas, clarinets and flutes, so saxophones are also counted as woodwind instruments, despite not containing any wood (well, the same "woodwind instruments, despite not containing any wood" thing also applies to flutes, but you get my point), so a woodwind instrument being in a brass band isn't nearly as far-fetched as you'd expect.

Actually, Saxophones are classified as woodwind because of the wooden reed on the mouthpiece. The distinction between brass and woodwind in an orchestra can be pretty well split up by the style of mouthpiece. The exception is actually flutes, which (usually) have lip-plate style mouthpieces that don't have wooden reeds.

But "brass band" is kind of a vague term. It can refer to a military band, a marching band, or certain types of jazz bands, and a Clarinet wouldn't be out of place in any of those. It's hard to tell from the context what type of band they're talking about, too. She says she'd have a hard time playing in front of people, so you get the impression this is a little private group that plays for fun, which seems more likely for a jazz band.

That said, https://www.theclarinet.net/History/cleveland-brass-metal-clarinet.html It's not like clarinets can't also be made of brass anyway.

Is it just me, or was the whole “clarinet/nimble fingers” thing sort of lewd?

I think that was the point. People who play instruments often have very nimble fingers (percussion can fuck off I guess). Nimble fingers are like magic for lesbians.

Hey, waaaaitaminnit. Have you even SEEN a drummer work those sticks? You wanna talk about nimble fingers...

Shoujo ai is made up term by westerners, because they needed a way to market SFW and NSFW yuri and needed a clear distinction.

And yet despite this supposed distinction, most yuri manga are either tagged both, or just yuri even when it's SFW. Talk about useless

Eh, that's because Shoujo Ai -isn't- really a term made up by westerners. It's a term used in japan, but it just refers to the girl's love genre in general, as does Yuri. They're just synonyms. There is no real distinction in how the japanese industry uses the terms, from what I've seen. But somehow this idea that yuri=sexytiems and shoujo ai=innocents got started and they started getting used as seperate tags with supposedly seperate meanings.

But you honestly never know at the beginning of a series where it's gonna go by the end, and since the terms mean the same thing in Japan, you routinely see series marketed as "girl's love" (shoujo ai) that end up having sexual conduct, or series marketed as "yuri" that don't, so western fans that think the tags started out in japan make wrong assumptions about what the series is going to be.

It's actually REALLY EXASPERATING.

You could at least pretend to care.
Edge syndrome is a serious issue. They will cut themselves eventually and then it gets so messy.

Point taken. I'll definitely try to work on my "pretending to care" skills.

I guess even wishing for random horrible outcomes for fictional characters that one finds annoying is a form of caring . . .

You don't know that's their motivation! Maybe they just (justifiably) believe that the situation is untenable, and that Kaoru will inevitably leave Reiichi without an escape hatch, ending up homeless and forced to turn to prostitution to survive, at which point their sincere hope is that Uta will find Kaoru and rescue her from the gutter! ;p

I can't agree. I mean, I think this is where it is For Kaoru, sure, but with what we've seen of his and Risako's behavior when they're away from Kaoru (hell, sometimes when they're with her) I think it would take a special kind of naivite to rule not guilty.

We’re not disagreeing—I’m talking about what has been made definitively clear in the text itself. You seem to have considerably more faith than I do that the author couldn’t potentially pull some fake-out to explain away all the circumstantial evidence that so apparently points to Reiichi cheating.

We’ve also established that you have considerably more respect for the writing and structuring of this series than I do, so what I see as authorial dithering and intentional withholding of information from the audience for no legitimate reason you see as . . .something better than that. I actually hope you’re right.

Fair enough. I dunno, when I look at this series as a whole, to me it just looks like pieces of a puzzle gradually snapping into place. Every little revelation that we've gotten, Reiichi's cheating (probably) his background with Risako, Kaoru's mother's death...It all feels like it perfectly explains behavior that previously seemed a bit off. The characters feel like real people, too. Even Reiichi, cheating scumbag though I believe him to be, I kind of understand why he's like that. He married Kaoru out of obligation and pity because he felt responsible for her mom's death, because his deadbeat mom was literally responsible for her mom's death. It all feels to me like a perfectly credible clusterfuck of bad decisions made with good intentions. I'm just hoping the author has a route intended that untangles it, tho there's no way that isn't messy.

I've just had a lot of "oooh, THAT'S why." moments with this series, and I appreciate that feeling.

last edited at Mar 26, 2019 7:52PM

Love without sexual desire is platonic. Love with sexual desire is romantic.

Both are romantic, one just happens to be platonic as well. These aren't mutually exclusive.

What's wrong with just using words, to mean what they mean.

Words don't have meaning. They have usages. Communication means making sure that your usages sync up with the person you're talking to, otherwise you have a fundamental inability to understand one another.

Stop insisting that people conform to your idea of what the words mean, and try understanding the ideas behind the words they're using, as they're using them.

Romantic love means different things to different people, Instead of demanding that they conform to your usage, explain what it means to you and ask them what it means to them.

Actually, I wonder if both Marikas swapped world.

If both Marikas were "abnormal" in their respective setting, it could mean the missing Marika was straight in a yuri world.

Not that she had a choice. What could have been the trigger of them swapping? Hope we will get a reasonable explanation.

I was considering the same thing actually. All the little evidence across the board implies that yuri!Marika wasn't "normal" and never had a girlfriend etc. Kazami's memory of her might also play a role there.

This yuri!Marika apparently liked occult stuff and sci-fi books according to the bookshelf in her room, so maybe she did some weird ritual or the like. It's hardly going to be reasonable haha

I can see two mutually exclusive twists. 1, It's been implied, I think that Kazami was interested in her world's Yurika before she swapped, and seized on this opportunity to date her. So maybe at the end, Marika has to swap back with her other self, sad farewell, but she finds out that her Kazami is also into her back home. 2) The Yuriworld Marika was straight, and did something to try and get to a world that has boys. Meanwhile Marika Prime is actually gay, but was trying to conform because of a past trauma, so at the end they stay swapped..

Flash news: not every yuri manga has a yuri ending.

True, though het endings are way less popular than they used to be.

Wait, there was a time when those were popular?

Yes. I mean, not with yuri fans or queer genre fans in general, but with manga artists, it used to be. Manga in the 70s and 80s was replete with "It's a phase" stories or "and then they moved on and got married" stories, because they reinforce the "Normal" sociopolitical paradigm. Hell, this is part of why some older fans on these forums are so goddamn traumatised that they see het endings loom the instant a male characters hows up in a single panel.

For any of us that actually empathise with LGBTQ characters and want to see ourselves represented, the current trend of girl meets girl, girl gets girl, is kind of a recent phenomena.

Reiichi is kind of the wild card here. He has shown both signs of just being with Kaoru out of guilt and actually loving her.

Quite so, which is one reason the failure to clarify what the deal with him actually is feels like the author simply withholding information from us in order to preserve the possibility of playing that wild card in whatever way happens to be convenient when it’s needed.

Reiichi cheating?:
* Preponderance of the evidence: YES
* Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt: NOT YET

I can't agree. I mean, I think this is where it is For Kaoru, sure, but with what we've seen of his and Risako's behavior when they're away from Kaoru (hell, sometimes when they're with her) I think it would take a special kind of naivite to rule not guilty.

Of course, “he really loves his wife but is still cheating because reasons” is like the oldest cheating-husband cliche in the book, so common and hackneyed in real life that it’s relatively uncommon in fiction, because after all, if you’re cheating what difference does it make if you “really” love the person you’re cheating on?

Evidence points to "He married her out of pity after her mom died". He likes her, but his heart belongs to Risako and always has. Plus -she's- clearly bitter about the fact that she lost him to Kaoru's personal tragedy. I seriously doubt it's a -coincidence- that his "business trips" happen to keep coinciding with wedding anniversaries and birthdays and couples holidays. I don't think he pays attention to those things, but I'd bet money Risako does. I know there's no concrete evidence on this point, but it just makes too much sense to ignore.

What I find interesting about that is that, if he doesn't turn out to be an asshole homophobe ("But you're both girls!!!"), he'll probably end up feeling EVEN SHITTIER about everything. If he doesn't already know, which honestly also wouldn't surprise me. It'd add a lot to his feelings of being trapped and disgruntled about the marriage if he knew that he was also tearing out his little sister's emotionally traumatized heart and stomping all over her feelings all the time.

Again, the extensive list of things that supposedly matter but don’t actually matter for long stretches of the text is the basis of my dissatisfaction with the series, countered only partially by the several signicant things it does well, or at least sufficiently well enough to keep me reading.

I disagree, but I feel like it's pretty subjective, so I can't argue with it. ;p I think we've been setting up dominoes up to this point, and Uta just kicked over the first one.

Urgh..., this manga is slow. It's interesting, how many volumes it takes for Kaouru to develop romantic feelings to Uta, 4 or may be 5? I mean, they should, somehow, end up together, it's a Yuri Hime manga after all.

Flash news: not every yuri manga has a yuri ending.

True, though het endings are way less popular than they used to be. I still suspect this is going somewhere relatively happy in the end. Right now I'm wondering if Uta facing her fears and pain of rejection might inspire Kaoru to do the same with Reiichi and confront him about the affair.

Mhm, if this is alluding to climate change, then the main difference is that it's seemingly far away. If you told people "in 60 years all men will have died out if we don't start doing things now" they wouldn't do anything either.

But the closer you get to the actual crisis the more likely we are to do something about it ^^; Planning long ahead is unfortunately not a strength of current human society.

The problem is that it's a question of if we don't do something -right now-, then in 60 years.... The consequences are far away, but the urgency of the solution is most definitely not.

On page 18, shouldn’t the line be, “then you won’t have to leave here anymore?”

On re-reading the chapter I have the usual dilemma that I can’t quite tell if the problems and ambiguities are with the character or the writing—is the character supposed to be so vague and unaware of her own emotions, or is the writing sending contradictory signals?

She went into the room to confront Uta about the fact that Uta is in love with her, then acts shocked (in the previous chapter) when Uta says, once again, that she’s in love with her.

Eh, I don't think it's that hard, Uta confessed, but Japanese is ambiguous enough that "Kaoru, I like you" can be brushed off as just an affectionate comment between friends or family. She denied it because she wanted to deny it, but she knew what she really meant, and eventually she had to break down and acknowledge it, but even through all of that, she couldn't -really- believe it. She doesn't WANT to believe it.

She seems to realize how painful it must have been for Uta to live there feeling as she does, then she treats her like a little kid who can “go back to the way things used to be.”

Because she needs to believe it -can- go back. Uta has always been her primary support structure. Without Uta, she's walking on a tightrope without a safety net, and Risako's been kicking the line.

These things aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but sharper writing would clarify how to understand them.

As another example, I think we’re supposed to perceive that Kaoru prepared herself mentally for the conversation, but then froze up at the crucial moment. But the line “What would be the correct way to answer her?” makes it sound like she hasn’t given the matter any previous thought at all.

I don't think she hasn't given the matter any thought, but she's in a situation where there ISN'T a correct answer. At least not one that goes where she wants to be. She's getting faced with a harsh reality. Uta can't be family anymore. It won't go back to how it was. The only way forward is change, and change is terrifying for her right now, because things are going badly with Reiichi, her "best friend" is stabbing her in the back, and the only person she's ever been that close to besides is Uta.

It’s sort of miraculous that I find myself still caring about Uta as a character—I want to see things work out for her, but I’m not sure the writer wants me to think that Uta needs to get away from Kaoru as fast as possible and stay away permanently.

Maybe Reiichi will come home and somehow make everything all right. lol

Reiichi's probably boffing Risako about now, honestly. :p

I'm not sure what to think of this chapter tbh. Kaoru's feelings seem so fuzzy. Kaoru's response to Uta makes it clear in my opinion she doesn't feel romantic attraction for her as of now, otherwise she would probably not say she doesn't feel the same way so quickly. At the same time, she has such an emotional dependence on this poor girl, and only thinks about herself. I mean, seriously, if you are not gonna respond to her feelings, just let her move on! I hate this type of woman.

Well, first of all, she didn't say she doesn't feel the same way, she said she can't respond or accept her feelings. The following panel is focused directly on her hand with her wedding ring, that isn't an accident.

She isn't even considering that she might feel the same way, because she's married to Uta's brother. Even if there are feelings down there somewhere, she's not going to go looking for them.

As for the last bit, I feel like that's a little unfair. She's -trying- to let her move on. She's hoping they can still be together as family. Yeah, that's naive, but I can't really hold it against her. Uta and Reiichi are her ONLY FAMILY. Her mom is dead, her dad is gone, her in-laws are insufferable. She has couple of business acquaintances, and a small group of friends that aren't -super- close, one of which is almost certainly boffing her husband.

Honestly, up until the hot springs trip, Uta was kind of her only sanctuary.

We've been primarily seeing Uta suffer in silence up to this point, but I have a feeling that things are going to get pretty freaking dark for Kaoru now.