I think I didn't really like the scene between Io and Katra, not because I think Io should be exclusive to Kidaha necessarily, or even that they were too casual about having sex, but just because I think Io's too good for Katra. Katra's weird little harem is fine, they're all basically dumb kids who don't really think things through (plus Kidaha, who's a dumb adult who doesn't really think things through) but I thought Io would have better options at least.

My complaint is that the story keeps raising issues concerning all of the characters (list available on request) that don’t get developed in any focused way, which makes it hard to care very much about them.

Oh, absolutely. I fully agree. It's all unfocused and meandering and unsatisfying and incredibly frustrating. These are all exceptionally good reasons to dislike this manga. I just thought it was kinda funny that so many people (maybe not you, but definitely including me) all assume that this is fundamentally a story about her love eventually being requited, and therefore events should be moving in that direction, even though the title asserts otherwise. Like, of course you would! What else would the story be about? I think it's funny, but I don't think it's wrong, either.

I have to admit, it's still working for me, though. Yeah, the plot is weirdly unfocused, and nobody ever manages to successfully talk to anyone else, and it acts needlessly cryptic about basic story beats and that just serves to make everything feel annoyingly vague, but like... That's what unrequited love feels like, isn't it? It's awful, and part of you wants to just skip to the end so you can see what happens even if you hate it, and part of you suspects that the best, healthiest, most sensible choice is just to drop it and walk away, even if that means never getting a real sense of closure, but part of you hopes that if you just stick it out for long enough, you might just get what you wanted. Even if another part of you isn't even sure what you want anymore.

And I think that's the point? I genuinely think that it's deliberately trying to make readers feel miserable and confused, as a way of further exploring the theme of unrequited love, and more deeply understanding the irrational actions of its characters. I would never say that it's an enjoyable story, and I'm not even sure that it can be a good story, but I personal find it fairly effective, and in those terms I like it. I'm sure you can definitely construct a much stronger argument for why none of this actually makes sense and that the manga does a ton of things really badly that makes it much less effective at what I'm saying it's doing, but it's still working for me, so I'm okay with it.

last edited at Dec 25, 2018 8:45PM

Lmao with people getting frustrated that the romance in a story titled "My Unrequited Love" isn't advancing quickly enough. I honestly do get it, this manga is deliberately slow and agonising, and if you're not into that, then I can't blame you for having a bad time. But for all the many valid complaints you could have about this story, you can't fault it for false advertising.

Y'know, given the tone and content of the other chapters, I maybe should've expected it, but ending your sentimental romance/coming-of-age story by literally saying "statutory rape can be good, actually" is pretty gutsy. Like, lmao, it's not even trying to hide how messed up it was that Natsume took advantage of a naive teenager just because she was bored and horny, it just pretends like it's all okay as long as Maki can look back on it later and tell herself that it's a good memory, even though it's screwed up her ability to connect with people romantically. I dunno, it's not like I haven't read manga with big, morally dubious age gaps before, but there's something that feels particularly shameless about this one. Maybe it's the weirdly sentimental atmosphere? I'm not sure.

I don't think you read my post or the one it was quoting if that's what you got out of it. Certainly if "I've never really heard of a man staying in drag in their public life just because its a fun hobby they enjoy." and "as it would occur in real life, which would be with a trans character." aren't openly an attempt to erase the legitimacy of crossdressing then jim crow laws must have been about diner logistics.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to pick out the exact core of your argument from your unbroken block of run-on sentences, but I don't know, dude. Maybe I'm being a bit naive today, but when someone says "I've never really heard of [obscure but real phenomenon], I don't think it happens" and you know for a fact that [obscure but real phenomenon] happens, my first thought is to tell them that yes, actually, it does happen, not to accuse them of being awful bigots and start drawing comparisons to Jim Crow. Like, sure, if they reject your explanation out of hand, or display a continued pattern of willful ignorance, then totally get mad about it, but all this? Really?

And like, you talk a lot about people seeing things in black and white, and drawing up arbitrary cultural battle lines, and that all sounds very nice. Meanwhile, you've completely muddled up the person who hadn't heard about full-time crossdressers with the person who made the reference to free speech, as if they're completely interchangeable because they were nominally on the same side. And you've decided that I'm one of those people who doesn't understand the meaning of genuine representation and just treats it as a game for social points because I've somehow accused you of not wanting trans stories to exist? Because apparently that happened? I can't find you particularly persuasive when it comes to identifying black-and-white thinking, is all I'm saying.

I can see you're clearly very passionate about defending the ability of people who like to crossdress all day every day to see themselves represented in manga, and I get that it really fucking sucks for cis crossdressers to be told that they're actually trans even if they don't know it themselves, but is all this really necessary? If you genuinely think it is, then fuck it, I'll leave you to it, I'm done with this argument either way, but maybe just take a breath for a second?

Yes, marginalizing an entire group of people, like say crossdressers, and saying that stories about them should not exist

...There is so much manga about crossdressing gay dudes. So much. Not all of it is good, or even respectful, but there's unquestionably an abundance of it. I can think of maybe a handful of manga that even have trans characters in them, let alone being a major part of the story. I know you clearly spent a long time on your post, but it really comes off as so much empty bluster when you're acting like people wishing for something other than the thousandth "I swear I'm not gay but he looks really good in a skirt" story is secretly an attempt trying to erase the concept of crossdressing.

Huh, people haven't encountered "stan" before? I guess that makes sense, you don't really see it used outside of pop music fans. I only know about it because a lot of the people I follow on twitter are really into Beyonce, and that's the kind of person who talks about stanning musicians and pop idols. It's a pretty apt comparison.

sigh another "I'm just a cross-dressing guy, totally not trans" story. I've never really heard of a man staying in drag in their public life just because its a fun hobby they enjoy. It's just not something that really happens. Sure there are people who like to do the whole drag queen and drag king thing as a hobby, but the only time someone's gonna go through the effort to present like that throughout their daily life is if they're trans. I don't get why writers (of already gay material) need to bend backwards to portray this trope instead of just writing the story as it would occur in real life, which would be with a trans character.

Yeah, like... I'm still into yaoi with crossdressing, because characters that fuck with gender like that are great, but this whole trope of "I dress like a girl at all times, I take pride in how good I look as a girl, and I get really fulfilled and happy when people see me as a girl, but I'm still totes a guy in the end" really just feels like trans het romance for cowards, sometimes. Like, I'm sure you can find real life guys who would be like that, it just feels a bit... stale, I guess? It's kind of frustrating that these stories always seem to come with the subtext of "it's all funny and cute if it's just crossdressing, but if they actually sincerely think of themselves as a girl, then it's not fun anymore".

last edited at Dec 6, 2018 7:15PM

idk how big the age gap is and im slightly concerned

There's the age gap, and also the species gap if the size of her neck on the cover is anything to go by. The fact that it's a romance between a starry-eyed waif and a mysterious giraffe witch makes it extra taboo.

Sincerely though, I'm totally into it.

My take: Nagi takes a liking to Tamaki because she's tall and cool and hot, and realises that Tamaki's friend, Yuu, also feels the same way. Nagi becomes friendly rivals with Yuu, and comes to realise that not only is she cute, she's also funny, dedicated, hardworking, and also a little bit lonely. She meets Tamaki alone, and almost immediately becomes disillusioned, because it turns out that her hot tall butch is also a hot tall player, and she's not as into it as she thought she would be.

She's disappointed, but more than that, she's worried about Yuu, who's invested a hell of a lot more into chasing after Tamaki than Nagi ever did. Yuu knows, though, and doesn't care. She'll work harder to keep Tamaki's attention, if she has to. When Yuu finally runs into Tamaki kissing Yuu, she doesn't care about having "lost" Tamaki, at this point: she just needs to know if this is what Yuu wants, because she's come to care about (and maybe even love) Yuu in a personal way, far outweighing her fleeting, superficial crush on Tamaki. Yuu's smile tells her that this is everything she's ever wanted, and Nagi, who only wants Yuu to be happy, can do nothing but beg Tamaki not to fuck it up.

last edited at Nov 27, 2018 9:25PM

There are so many things in this chapter I wanted to see animated. Just remove the subtext tag already, everyone is gay.

At this point, everyone being gay is text, but the specific romantic tensions between characters is subtext. Or it would be, except 90% of the romantic subtext involves Eiko, and Eiko X Everyone is already canon, so it's all text! No subtext at all! Just Eiko!

At first I wondered if the whole "cat cafe to appeal to guys, maid cafe to appeal to girls" thing was a mistaken translation or something, but then I thought about it a bit more, and yeah, that checks out. Surefire recipe for success, is what that is.

I guess it says something that she tried all sorts of weird substitutes, and started to become a spacey useless vegetable after a while, but apparently never thought about, like, finding another girl to grope? I guess that might mean something? Sorta?

last edited at Oct 26, 2018 6:52PM

To be honest, I found the gag a bit dull, but Harumi's bra on the chapter 1 splash page was rendered in such loving and immaculate detail, that I spent the rest of the chapter thinking about it and mostly skimmed over all the dialogue and groping. Like, wow. It's like if Kaoru Mori drew a manga about lingerie, or something.

...Actually, I would totally read a Kaoru Mori manga about lingerie, come to think of it...

"who the fuck hits someone with a ashtray"

Yeah, it’s supposed to be: “...with an ashtray.”

Gotta switch to “an” if the next word starts with “a”, I think. I believe it can’t be generalized for words starting with any vowel, like, “a one-time offer” but then when referring to another subject like “an officer”, it’s hit or miss. So, I think the hard rule is using “an” if the next word starts with the letter “A”. Any English majors out there to corroborate with this? (Joke: And I don’t mean officers in the British military)

More than a hard and fast grammatical rule, it's probably more practical to think of it in terms of how the words sound. If the following word sounds as if it starts with a vowel when you say it, then use "an". If it doesn't, use "a". Like in your example, "one" starts with a vowel when written, so it looks like it should use "an" on paper, but it's pronounced "won", so it uses "a". On the other hand, words like "honour" and "honest" both use "an", despite starting with consonants, because the H is silent. "Herb" is a funny one, because the British tend to pronounce the H, while Americans usually don't, so both "a herb" and "an herb" can be correct depending on dialect and accent.

There probably is a proper, more concrete rule out there, but as a general rule of thumb, I think you're usually safe to go by the pronounced sound over the written letter.

I'm kinda into the fact that Yuu hasn't made some terrible misunderstanding about how Touko reacted. She really has been rejected, and Touko really does think that she's not special anymore. It's not a situation where the problem is already solved, and the two leads just have to talk to each other to realise it - the problem is the same core conflict that the entire story has revolved around up to this point, and we're just waiting to see if Touko has grown enough as a person and gathered enough personal experiences and perspective that she can allow herself to change.

last edited at Sep 30, 2018 7:08AM

Oh my god I came back to look at this a second time and only just noticed the lipstick marks

lmao Marina tweeting about sister yuri. Looking forward to the next splatfest, older sister yuri vs younger sister yuri

I read that line where Fumiko Fumi's like "You're just like characters from one of my manga" and I thought "lmao, I guess, a little bit"

And then I proceeded to read the rest of the afterword, and I couldn't think of anything except "Oh no, these people are just like characters from a Fumiko Fumi manga." The fact that they apparently ended up breaking up anyway, shortly after the book was released, is... Still depressing, even if I could kinda see it coming. Especially when you take into account that all that happened in less than a year.

Hiroko's bartender friend was right, lmao, she's just a sucker for the clingy earnest disaster types. At least now she found one that was weirdly obsessed with her, and not some other girl.

The thing I like about this is that, even though I figured out the twist the instant Chihiro said she was visiting a grave, the story didn't lose anything for it. Because the author was careful not to cheat to make the reveal more surprising, they were also careful to write a story that worked both ways, so that knowing the true situation informs and enriches the second read-through, rather than detracting from it.

Wait, lmao, am I reading this wrong, or did Rei just reveal that she first asked out her now-long term boyfriend because they were having so much casual sex with each other that not being a couple was getting awkward? Like, the conversation was about initial confessions, she "wanted to take the ambiguity out of the relationship", and she's not going to talk about how they "were doing it without being official"? She's not just talking about being particularly cosy buddies, is she?

Hahaha, I also thought having both "netorare" and "cheating" tags were superfluous, but thinking about it, both are accurate in this case, they just don't apply to the same relationship. That was surprisingly fun, despite what I expected from the tags.

It was definitely short, but I kind of think the brevity makes it more palatable to most audiences. You could certainly get a lot more meat out of the concept by elaborating on the characters, their relationships, and the feelings involved, but that would make it a much heavier story, and a bit too sour for a lot of people to easily enjoy. Stripping it right down to the essential three hit combo of setup-twist-payoff means that you don't have enough time to get emotionally invested, so it's not a downer when things go awry. As it is, it's more like an amusing and slightly spicy joke.

last edited at Jun 29, 2018 5:55PM

I'd kinda like to see an edit of this manga that removes Touma entirely, in a Garfield-without-Garfield sorta way. So that everyone's always talking about this mysterious Touma-kun, and when they talk to her, it's as if she's just offscreen, and they're being helplessly seduced by her dialogue that's deliberately left blank. I wonder if that would actually be an improvement? Just completely elevate Touma to the level of myth, so that we don't get distracted by how uninteresting and unseductive the actual Touma is. She's already such a blank character that it probably wouldn't make a difference if we saw her or not. So why not just leave it up to the imagination?

It's kind of wild that I'm this happy about a trans/nonbinary character being included in a story that isn't all about them being trans or nonbinary? They're not played for laughs, nobody makes a big show of finding them creepy, they get a solid romantic angle of their own that's treated as sincerely bittersweet and not tragic or laughable, and even the fact that it's the terrified-of-guys Hotchi that has her own quiet unrequited crush on them is subtly affirming. It's just! Great! I love it!