Arghhhhhghhfghanddhfk

Best representation of my current feelings in this thread.

It's clear the main focus and story was supposed to be about Uta's love toward Kaoru. Hence even the official english title focuses only on that. Sadly that is not the manga we got.

As far as I know, this hasn't been picked up for western publication, so there -isn't- an official english title. The "Secret Crush On My Sister" we see in various places is a subtitle.

Also yes I already pointed out that the "My Unrequited Love" can apply to all characters in the story in one of my previous posts, but considering even original title talks rather about reaching the string, most likely string of fate, as in "even if this love is not fated to be", it's clearly supposed to be about Uta's feeling for Kaoru. I suppose you can still stretch it that Kaoru's feelings for Reiichi also didn't reach/wasn't fated etc. so make what you want out of it.

I think the title is definitely mainly referring to Uta, but it also feels like an underlying subtext through most of the characters. At least right now, almost nobody is really getting back the love they're putting in. Risako, Reiichi, Kaoru, Uta, even the side characters. Almost nobody is really where they want to be.

Also I still think the story cheaped out with the whole cheating husband.. literally the most generic and weak plot point in any unrequited romance series. but at least the Happy!End seems more likely

I'm also still annoyed at this. I thought I will get a story about trying to forget about your love/learning to deal with it. Instead we are clearly building for yuri ending with some contrived bs. Which I hate (I can't believe this manga made me write it). The whole point of the cheating was to set up that things are not well between Kaoru and Reiichi so we won't feel bad when she and Uta will end up together. I'm telling you, it will end up with Reiichi telling Uta is better for Kaoru and he supports them and they should live together (solving the mom problem), while he will leave to live with Ritsuko.

Risako. (Not being snarky, just pointing that out, I messed it up myself awhile back)

But how is that contrived? a little less than a quarter of men admit to having cheated on their wives. That's one in four!

Surely a girl falling in love with her sister-in-law in the first place is way more contrived than a guy cheating with his ex girlfriend. It's not like that plot point came out of nowhere, either. The first chapter is dropping hints of cheating, with him forgetting their first wedding anniversary (first! FIRST! Even the most absent-minded Newlywed should know better than to screw up that one!) and having a "business trip". (Note to anybody in a relationship, forgetting major events and taking lots of vaguely defined "business trips" is a fair call for suspicion.) It was played off as a quirk of his absentmindedness, but in retrospect it seems obvious that this is where it was going.

I doubt it'll be as neat and tidy as you make it out to be, either, but we'll see.

I just feel like they're wearing ultra baggy clothes.

I do think there's been a noticeable change in the art after Volume 1.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/my_unrequited_love_ch01#18

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/my_unrequited_love_ch07#2

. . . Sorry, you know I respect you, B, but I'm just not seeing it. They're just different clothes. The art between those two pages is indistinguishable to me. At best, maybe the linework has gotten a bit heavier, but styles change over time.

Yes, partly it's the difference in clothes, but overall the shapes have been simplified and the details are less refined. (I also agree that the body proportions, for Kaoru and Reiichi especially, have become sporadically elongated and variable.) The increasingly baggy wardrobes seem to serve as labor-saving devices for the artist.

Eh, I don't agree. As has been pointed out, we've moved from fall to winter. It's February, everybody's dressing warmer, Uta's in the winter school uniform (she started in the short sleeve uniform) and all in all the shift in wardrobe actually feels more like attention to detail to me.

None of this particularly bothers me--the art is generally serviceable, and from time to time gets closer to the way it was at the start. But I agree there has been a change.

I suspect you guys are letting your frustration with the story progression color your perception of the art. I don't agree that there's bee much change in the quality of the art, at least not any more than you typically see from most artists. (Everybody has good and bad days)

I'm not crying your crying

Am I the only one who likes Kaoru x Uta? lol

Nah, I think they'd be sweet and cute together, and Kaoru deserves somebody that actually loves her. Reiichi should seriously just ask for a divorce and go back to Risako.

So I just went though the first 15 chapters and I gotta mention something: Why does character's upper body mass keeps doubling in height? Now that I noticed once (And in a serious scene no less) I'm now just keeping a eye out for it.

I'd need examples to tell what you're seeing, but the art in this series is pretty solid and consistent? Kaoru has a tendency to wear long sweaters, so I suspect you're miscontruing where their waist actually is under the clothes.

I won't rule out a "yuri ending" for Uta and Kaoru. Or at least, an open ending where it's an option.

Because the author has been sowing small hints here and there with the brother, that imply he knows things.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but honestly, a bland ending where Uta gets over Kaoru and they live happily ever after (with or without the brother and mother) would be boring.

I think a happy ending for Uta and Kaoru is very possible. I've suspected from the start that Kaoru views Reiichi and Uta as emotionally interchangable, even though she isn't conscious of it, and Reiichi has feelings for Risako that he seems unwilling or unable to give up on. This issue in particular seems to further the idea that Kaoru's feelings for Uta are more complicated than just "little sister whose feelings I don't want to hurt"

I feel like it could easily go either way, and it just depends on the details of how things shake out.

If nothing else, the love that "just won't reach" finally did. That's the title conflict resolved, at least for Uta, so it'll be interesting to see where things go from here.

last edited at Feb 24, 2019 1:32PM

Credit where it’s due—I’ve been critical of the pacing and structuring of events in this story, but this sequence felt pretty natural and straightforward. (When the pages are read in order, that is.)

If the next chapter immediately cuts to the Three Yuri Stooges or something, though, I’m going to be pissed. Lol

(I know it’s an ancient reference, but I suddenly realized that those three actually match up to the Stooges pretty well.)

(opens mouth)

(pause)

(close mouth)

...

...Dammit.

last edited at Feb 24, 2019 11:09AM

Why is still Kaoru talking about: "I want u to live with US" ?! Dude this Guy cheated on her and she is still wearing the Ring. Is she dumb or did i miss something?!

She's in denial. Her personal life is, honestly a clusterfuck, and it's not that weird that she'd want to run away and pretend all the bad stuff isn't there.

As long as she can rationalize away what she's seen, she can avoid dealing with it. She just pushed over the first domino, though, so I imagine things are going to pick up the pace from here on.

That aside, Daaaaaamn, I did not expect Uta to straight up break out the moves like that. That was pretty bold!

I don't understand a crap but if that means that she's gonna back with her old crush then I will get mad by that, it's stupid, it seems this far that the her friend like her

You didn't read "I meet my sister on a dating site?"

Ohh right...I'm still don't understand

That manga is about Daidou and her relationship with her sister, which is set after this and this is how she gets to the point she's at at the beginning of that story.

Oh, and for the record, I don't pretend to be an expert in literary criticism. If I seem confident (or even arrogant) that's probably an artifact of my personality, but I know enough to know that actual experts don't talk about literature as if there's one answer to how to analyze a work.

Heavensrun posted:

On the topic of "professional vs fan translations". We got first volume released here and they made a blatant mistranslation, which changes context quite a bit. And of course there is no option to release fixed version. The advantage of digital translations you can always update.

What is the mistranslation, out of curiosity?

Chapter 3, page 28
Our translation:
"Why did she say that is enough?"
"She is"
"such a liar."
Actual line:
"So why did I tell her I don't mind?"
"... This really is."
"unfair of her."

It implies Yuu saw through Touko's facade as soon as chapter 3.

I know it doesn't really seem like much, but it isn't even like translator tried to convey the same meaning by using different words or thought that it would sound more natural. It is blatantly just changing what character said to something else, because they thought it sounded better or whatever reason for it was. And even if Yuu did see through Touko already back then, that is not what original text said. Sure I'm more for faithful translations in general, but I understand that sometimes you have to change some stuff and what or how you need to change is very subjective and hard. This on the other hand is just a very simple sentence that was changed for no other reason that "I felt like it." And stuff like that make me lose trust in translation and get paranoid how many other little changes like that that are there.

Interesting. I don't have the raws, so this is speculation based on what I know about Japanese, but I suspect they just got the subject association mixed up on the first sentence ("why did I say that", as opposed to "why did she say that"). which gives a different implied meaning to the accusation of unfairness. In the former, Touko's being unfair because she cornered Yuu in a lie, in the latter, Touko is being unfair because she -is- lying, so "You liar" is a fair translation in that context. The first mistake begets the second. TLDR: It's probably an honest mistake. The Seven Seas English translation is pretty close to the one on the website here, so I'm guessing this is some other release. is it also in English?

Btw. Whenever I find stuff like that, it reminds me of guys like you, who overanalyze every single line and craft meanings and theories from them, while all this time they could be mistranslated or rewritten (and some translations here actually have this issue).

When I find stuff like that, it reminds me of sloppy readers who misunderstand what they're reading because they aren't paying attention to the details. ;p

But seriously, my goal is just to understand the work and see if I can figure out where it's going to go in the future. Sometimes I read too much into a line. (Or panel structure. Anybody remember when I thought Yuu had kissed Touko before the play??) But so what? Sometimes when you're solving a maze you run into a dead end. Being wrong isn't bad. Refusing to admit when you're wrong is when it's a problem.

Since I'm already writing, on topic on symbolize and whatnot. I personally prefer to avoid deriving meanings etc. from symbols and outside influences, unless author is blatantly referring to them and/or clearly builds a connection. I'm much more in favor of theming and building own icons and symbols, than just blatantly borrows them from other sources. And sure, they can use existing symbols, but they should still properly integrate them into the story instead of just expecting people to know them already and draw the connection. And yea, sure, stuff can have deeper meaning, the way scene is set etc. can also be meaningful, but sometimes you need to know when to stop and see that boat is just there so they can have some privacy. Or because Nakatani got tired of drawing backgrounds.

I mean, I think Blastaar already nailed my thoughts on this pretty well? Symbols can be used deliberately or subconciously, they can mean different things, and sometimes they're just set dressing that happens to line up in a neat way. Tons of this is entirely subjective. Even in your own sentence up there, you say "unless it's blatant" but what's blatant to one person is obtuse to another, and even if two people agree that a symbol is blatant, they might disagree on what it means.

They're in a boat, but they're not really going anywhere. That could be a metaphor for their relationship, but the boat also serves a story purpose in that it helps isolate them from their surroundings. It gives them privacy in public, but also, they didn't choose to do this themselves, so they're also forced to sit together and talk out their feelings. It's the "Trapped in a small space" trope. It's also possible Nakatani just went on a research trip to the place the kids were going to to, saw some boats, and was like "Ooh, I wanna draw some characters in a boat. That's kind of romantic!" Two people going out on a rowboat together in a park is also a pretty common date activity. It could be that any one of these things was a primary motivating factor, or that none of them are. It's often the case in writing a carefully crafted story that some combination of motivations go into any particular decision. The fact of the matter is, tho, that the author -did- choose to put them in a boat together.

Not that I think you were that serious with that line, but It's unlikely -just- because Nakatani got tired of drawing backgrounds, because if you don't want to draw a background, you just...don't? Like, there's tons of techniques for filling background space with tones, or framing panels so that there just isn't room for background details. Or you just ask an assistant to do it. But I doubt Nakatani-sensei gets lazy about those sort of things, given how much meticulous detail she puts into things.

But even if the author got lazy, or had writer's block and faced a deadline crunch or whatever other reason just used the boat as a shortcut to save on labor, The fact that it works anyway is still worth examining. Why doesn't it feel like the author was being lazy? Why does it feel like a deliberate choice?

I've definitely read manga where the backgrounds go away and it just feels like the author didn't take the time, but I've also read manga where the backgrounds go away and it definitely feels like a deliberate choice. So even if something isn't intended, the fact that it works is still worth examining.

I guess our school system just totally burned me for any interpretations etc. of literature/poetry, using general symbols and meanings, because all I was ever taught was that there is no room for interpretation. Author always means it only 1 way and any other interpretation is wrong. Even if author themselves disagree with what our teachers think the interpretation of their work is. Also you need to follow the right steps in interpreting their works. After all there is only 1 proper way to arrive at the conclusions you will arrive, because there is no other conclusions to arrive at other than the right ones.

I want to throttle your entire school faculty. That is absolutely awful and wrongheaded. Any actual breakdown of real literary criticism will immediately point out that there are many subjectively valued schools of thought on how valuable it is to, say, interpret the world according to the creator's direct commentary (worldbuilding by edict, author canon), interpret the work without the context of the creator (death of the author), interpret the work as an expression of the author's self (auteur theory), interpret the work as a subject of the culture that produced it (pop culture theory) and any of a dozen others, all can be given different weights as lenses to look at a work, and many literary critics think you can only get a full picture of a work by looking at all of them, sometimes including perspectives that are contradictory by nature. The idea that there's -one- way to do it -right- is...(shake head) STUNNINGLY arrogant.

last edited at Feb 10, 2019 7:17PM

Make it happen in season 2 showrunners!

I won't comment on whether the leaf actually represents love or not since that one isn't as obvious so the meaning is more speculative. However, I do want to point out that the use of autumn as the backdrop to emphasize the theme of change is most likely intentional on Nakatani's part. Even back in ch 34, this page specifically, the connection is established. What Touko said in the original Japanese is "I like autumn, wouldn't it be nice if we could remain in this kind of season forever?" It very much parallels her wish for their relationship to not change as she later expressed here. But we know how that went. Their relationship changes for good after Yuu's confession & now, here we are in ch 38, still contemplating about changes in autumn.

Yeah, I didn't even get into intra-textual pattern formations (a lot of us have been calling them "callbacks" at various points).

There's also the "shots of legs and feet on the way to and from big confrontation scenes" thing--we should have known as soon as we saw Touko wearing trainers (like Yuu in Chapter 34) and Sayaka with clunkier shoes (penny loafers, I think) that Touko was going to (figuratively) run away. lol

One of my favorite things is the stone path across the river where Yuu commits to the relationship with Touko, and later where she gives her confession. because of the construction of the path, it both provides a connection between them and separates them. It limits how close they can get to each other without risk, but it also provides a way for them to approach each other. In the confession scene, Yuu is forced to throw Touko literally off balance in order to get close enough to initiate a kiss. It both acts as a symbol and restricts the blocking of the scene in ways that compliment the relationship.

Once the the whole thing's finished, oh, the walls of text we shall have!

But then...where will we go after that?

(for the paranoid among you, no, that does not mean I'm contemplating suicide. ;p )

I don't really think Touko is a lesbian or Yuu is bisexual. Sayaka for sure is a lesbian and she herself has stated this. But Touko and Yuu are pretty much the same, both fell in love with each other for other reasons than mainly "because she is a girl and I like girls" (unlike Sayaka). Nakatani even said that one of the reasons boys exist in yagakimi is to show girls who fall in love with other girls because they like girls (Sayaka and Miyako) and girls whose love interest simply happened to be a girl (Touko & Yuu). Boys are present yet the leads choose other girls and don't show attraction to guys (Yuu may have wanted to, but failed to). Touko didn't fall in love with Yuu at first sight or showed that kind of interest before Yuu said the magic words "I can't fall in love with anyone" and she hasn't shown attraction to other women either. Yuu fell in love with Touko after all the time they spent knowing each other.
It's easier to label the other characters in this manga (Sayaka and Miyako are lesbians, Maki is asexual aro, Koyomi, Akari and Doujima are straight, Riko is bi) but I don't see the point on labelling the main characters. If people really insist on labelling them, I would say pansexual, but still, I'd much rather just say that they fell in love for who the other is, and their gender was irrelevant in that process (which doesn't mean they aren't sexually attracted to each other, because they clearly are, but that's a part that came with love). Could they have fallen for each other had the other (or both) been male instead? Probably. Just like Riko wasn't into girls but chose Miyako because she fell in love with the person she is.

I don't see how anyone can say Yuu is bi. We don't have enough information to label Touko or Yuu at all They are each the other's first loves. As you mention, Sayaka explicitly says she is lesbian "I can only fall in love with girls" but with Yuu and Touko they only have each other. Touko is okay with the idea of being with Sayaka, so that's also a data point, and she was pretty sure that she wasn't turning down ms "cute letter" over gender, but those don't confirm exclusive interest in same sex relationships, they just show she isn't averse to them.

I like this, but when you think about it, an otherwise normal 36 year old woman having this kind of reaction to a 12 year old girl's advances is very odd.

The premise works because it's not super apparent how old a character is with the standard moe art style, so it's easy to suspend your disbelief.

You have to keep in mind that the 12 year old is the daughter of the girl the 36 year old has been pining for for 20 years, and she looks just like her.

Kusanagi-Sensei isn't reacting to the 12 year old, she's reacting to the feelings she's harboring for her mom. She also honestly doesn't react all that much compared to a lot of series, and thus far has been pretty responsible about fending off the girl's advances.

Honestly hoping she ends up hitting it off with the other teacher.

Just... the interpretation of the leaves, "dying away or rotten as Sayaka's love" is eye-rolling for me. It's their autumn trip, so there are falling leaves. That's it.

Nothing wrong in trying to wring out everything you can out of a manga you love, but sometimes it's really far fetched.

At the same time, Autumn is often deliberately chosen as the setting for turning points in stories because it's an easy shorthand for change and withering of the old. They're maybe focusing too much on the details, but that doesn't mean the observation is completely wrong.

I mean, people -do- frequently include blue things in scenes to reflect sad feelings. ;p

Yeah... I still don't like Touko. Let them all figure out they're gay and date other people outside of this triangle. I don't want Touko and Yuu to end up together because of how unhealthy their relationship is but that's my opinion.

They are teenagers. Teeeeeenaaaagerrrrs.

Seriously, I know I can be an asshole sometimes, but come ON. They're CHILDREN. They are allowed to not get it perfect right away.

I get so indescribably frustrated when people come into a story about kids learning "how do I work relationship" and going "WHAT THE FUCK WHY AREN'T THEY INSTANTLY PERFECT AT THIS".

Literally the entire point of the story is them learning -how- to have a healthy relationship, and that frequently begins by starting in a less healthy space, especially when one of the pair has a significant childhood trauma to deal with.

Your plan was perfect, Sayaka—but you forgot about the ducks.

One glimpse of nuzzling lesbian ducks, and the whole thing comes crashing down.

You gave it your best shot. You might have pulled it off, too, if it weren’t for those darned ducks.

https://imgur.com/gallery/C98siJ7

last edited at Feb 4, 2019 2:56PM

Just wanted to say that I agree with all of this. I understand all the love for Sayaka, but at this point a sudden pivot to a new girlfriend just to supply reader-feels would be basically disrespectful to the character and the care with which she has been developed in the story. The very thing that has made Sayaka so appealing to the audience stands in the way of any quick-feels-fix with a new partner. I’d say that best case is that eventually we get a hint or two that she may be looking in a new direction.

I’ve also been saying for a long time that Yuu, adorable and grounded as she is, still seems a bit underdeveloped as a character compared to Touko (and now Sayaka, to a certain extent), and there’s a good bit of room to explore her past and future character development.

This has got to get released on this website. The forum is starting to look like a redacted CIA conspiracy document.

I think Sayaka's spinoff novels are the most likely place for her to get a new girlfriend. In the original manga, unless it carries on for a lot longer past Yuu and Touko repairing their relationship, I also agree it would seem uncharacteristic to jump her straight into a relationship with someone else. I think we'll probably get a hint, like you mention.

Since we didn't see the content of Touko's text, I feel like we're going to see it when Yuu does, either at the beginning or the end of the next chapter.

last edited at Jan 31, 2019 4:25PM

On the topic of "professional vs fan translations". We got first volume released here and they made a blatant mistranslation, which changes context quite a bit. And of course there is no option to release fixed version. The advantage of digital translations you can always update.

What is the mistranslation, out of curiosity?

Guess Japan also did not like the fact that the girls started to kiss and swap with other girls

Or the author is just ready to move on, We have zero information on why it's ending.

So first impressions:

Oh geez, this is pretty much what I expected but I feel so bad for Sayaka. I know that feels, kid. Desperately trying to hold it together around your crush, trying to metabolize the rejection and move forward without nuking the friendship. It's so hard and she's dealing with it admirably.

I feel sad for her that she feels like she was too slow. Touko basically fell for Yuu almost as instantly as she fell for Touko, so honestly, nothing she did differently could have changed any of that. I don't know if it would make it better or worse for her to know that It was out of her hands. I hate seeing her kick herself for something that she couldn't have changed anyway.

It would take 3 chapters to resolve Yuu and Touko's current conflict but, there's also other things to resolve like them coming out as a couple or what happens to the other characters.

I agree there other things to be resolved.

The question is whether Nakatani feels that those things are important to the core story or not. Just because you care about knowing a particular thing (Like if or how they come out as a couple and how their parents may react to it) doesn't necessarily mean that it's an important part of the author's goals for the story. Nakatani-sensei went out of her way to show that Yuu's sister supports them, but that could be a setup for resolving the family drama, or in a sense it could -be- the resolution: Showing that Yuu's relationship with her sister is safe, and that she always has an ally in the family adds a sense of security that might not be there if all we'd ever seen was her dad talking smack about the possibility.

Also aaagh that link to the raws is nothing but broken images for me! (graspy clawing motions) Neeeeeed...Yagakimiiiiii...
(sobs)