"Lesbians are not good with communication" is just a trope and not a real thing, right?

It's real. It's a subset of "humans are not good with communication".

So is this yuri because they're girl hamburgers?

Amusing that she gets her purse stolen just after talking about how vigilant she is from all her martial arts training . . .

They are two of the most powerful wizards in the realm. There is exactly zero chance they will end up destitute, they can write their own freaking ticket. So the answer seems a bit thin to me.

Also, I don't see the connection. They've made a commitment to each other, yes? They're going to be together through thick and thin, yes? If they somehow manage to end up in a life of poverty, it will be a life of poverty together, yes? So, why on earth would you deliberately choose to make it a life of poverty WITHOUT sexy times? Nope, really don't get the logic.

The premise to this is pretty weak but I like idol/kpop yuri so I'm seated

It is weak, and yet there's something oddly realistic about that. I have the impression that in the idol business they do a lot of absurd things for really stupid fan-management reasons.

damn kase's a lightweight

Well, by real people standards, sure. But it's well established that manga characters, being two dimensional, can take very little booze . . . some are capable of going down from a single boozy chocolate; there's even recorded cases of drunk literally from the smell of booze.

Well, y'know, if you're going to be in a creepy relationship with a demoness, "bait" is certainly a better position to be in than "food". Especially since this seems pretty clearly bait that gets re-used, so like, much more "my favourite shiny lure" and much less "some worm that a fish is about to eat".

last edited at Sep 8, 2024 2:59AM

So, all in all, my position on the story so far:
--Rather young woman getting into a twisted BDSM-oriented relationship with an older cabaret girl . . . I'm OK with this.
--The normal way actresses and their managers interact in Japanese show business . . . Creepy AF.

This chapter seemed less coherent than most of the others.

An impressive feat, really.

We need more gremlin MCs like this one. She's such a pain in the ass but also entertaining.

I would have to disagree sadly, MC is probably the worst part of this god forsaken series

Sadly for you that is just an subjective opinion

Well la de da. Nobody ever gets to say anything on one of these forums ever again, then.

That girl is terrifying. Is she flirting really hard, or just an airhead?

I'm kind of worried about the princess. She stood up for our empress, and then the dowager empress took her back, and she's about to be in for a very hard time for the crime of thinking for herself. I think the empress may also be thinking about that, though, partly because she's a good kid and partly because that line about the events not being about her might be about the princess. (They might not too, they might be saying that the point was to contain the power of the emperor)

How I would love this chapter-end bit to go, but it won't:
Him (cheerfully): "Go on a date with me!"
Her (cheerfully): "No!"

Went back and looked at this when it turned up as a "featured" on the main page. After quite a few years, reading it I still kind of remembered it. It's nice.

Well, finally started reading this. So far, it seems to be (ridiculously) cute girls doing cute things. Frequently shifting to smoking hot scantily clad girls doing cute things. I have no objection, and I do like the very cheery vibe.

Edit a few days later: Caught up now, and this is really growing on me. Very heartfelt, some really gorgeous art that conveys tons of emotion, and some surprising character depth. Some individual images are just iconic--like, that pic of badass tiny drama senpai in the hard hat, or practically any picture of Akebi-san with her angelic smile. Also, that bit where she's a little girl calling dad to warn about mum being in trouble--such a brave little girl! Sniff! I also like that, unusually in yuri, the dad is actually pretty cool. Yup, looking forward to how it continues.

last edited at Aug 21, 2024 6:13PM

Cute. I absolutely could not live like that. For one thing, my essential "things that I love" include my several thousand books, which leaves me already not very minimalist.

Re: the final line of the chapter.
OH, YES THEY CAN!

So lovely. I had to go back and re-read the last few chapters to get the whole situation in one blast.

So, the girl who likes meat kind of has a resemblance to a sweet dessert. And the girl who loves dessert has a definite "meaty" feel to her. No wonder it's pretty clear they want to eat each other.

Stupid. She’s tough so she’s not a girl but she loves sweets so she actually is a girl. This is the logic of the deranged and neurotic. I love food and cooking as much as anyone but personally I’ve had enough dessert. When the manga girls are eating headcheese and offal, I’ll be interested. Conservative censorship, otaku fordism, and gacha mindsets have created a vacuum of creative intrigue. The artists with an appreciation for the eroticism of liberated young women railing lines and having affairs no longer find an outlet in manga. We desperately need our delinquents back. 90% of new releases are the fantasy of people who both fear and shun the DoorDash courier and all the world they cannot see from their gaming chair. And oh, she’s a violent gang leader who secretly eats pastries all day and mostly just accosts street artists minding their own business? She’s a cop.

it's just a romcom pal chill

I get where they're coming from though. I really am not a fan of these one-note premises. Just way too shallow. Maison Ikkoku was a romcom and from 40 years ago. Why can't we have a yuri romcom like that? This is just air and nothing.

Have you WATCHED Maison Ikkoku again recently? I was fond of it, but everyone was pretty much one-note. And most of the episodes were filler. And there was a ton of "Take step forward, forget it ever happened by next time". It was fresh because all the stuff it was doing hadn't been done to death yet, and it was good because the characters' single features were good ones. It had good features, but in general I think we often remember old stuff as better than it really was. I mean, I remember when Strawberry Shake Sweet was about as good as yuri usually got. And thinking back dispassionately, it was kind of fun but quite frustrating and really made pretty much no sense at all. (Girl Friends is still awesome though)

last edited at Aug 10, 2024 11:41PM

This would probably seem like a pretty good chapter if I could remember who all the characters were. As it stands, all I could really tell was, she wasn't talking about music.

Genre changed halfway from introspective to drama to comedy

So . . . slice of life, then.

Do not think of this as a psychological story. Do not ask what personal motivations drive these characters. This is a sociological story, just one anecdote in a country full of ruthless and vengeful selfishness. (...)

tfw you read for the gorgeous art but then are hit with a mini-piece about the cultural impacts of revolutions in China

Wouldn't pay too much attention to that mini-piece; it's kind of from the jingoistic American school of history.

BTW, I googled the exchange rate, and apparently the amount that she stole is equivalent to about US$14,000. So she didn't exactly get rich off of this.

Excuse my nitpicking, that just happens what I based my entire personality around:

First of all, we need to account in inflation. Assuming the story takes place in the futuristic year of 2006 (based on her mother leaving in 1984) ¥117'600 would equal about ¥176'428, which is more like 24 grand. Additionally, roughly approximating living costs via the BigMac index, these have a 50~100% higher relative spending power. So whilst it might not seem much, it's a rather realistic estimate for what a single-income lower-middle class household can build in savings over 3 to 6 years.

It's what now? How the hell is a single-income lower-middle-class household supposed to save up that kind of dough in 6 years?! (Or, really, any dough at all) I guess things are different in China from North America?
(that said, the details of what the amount, um, amounts to are appreciated)

last edited at Aug 1, 2024 12:17PM

An excellent way to quit smoking. (Even if it was also the reason one of them started.)

Also, I just have to say, when Fukumura came back and sat down on the same side of the table and convinced her to sleep over instead of going home, all my brain was thinking was "Why don't you just miss the last train?".

Oh, great! Now I'm binge re-reading that.

As to this, I'm not big on smoking in my yuri, but I'll make an exception for a quitting-smoking yuri. Plus it's cute.