Asuka is starting to become the "lovestruck character who can't get the one they want" in the fandom now, when I bet if she even were to straight out confess in the manga she would be just fine hahaha

In the manga it feels like she's definitely gay for Tomoko, but not sure if Tomoko's actually gay herself / is interested.

Plus now Asuka's finding out about Yuu, Tomoko's BFF, so she might be wondering if Tomoko secretly already has a girlfriend or crush or some other reason why Tomoko's not returning her interest, even if she is gay.

All of which has really less to do with Tomoko's straightness, than the fact that Tomoko holds Asuka up on such a pedestal that it never occurs to her that Asuka might actually be flirting with her. Like anyone else, Tomoko's mind goes right to it, but Asuka is too obviously wonderful to ever be into her / be into girls.

Poor Adachi is simultaneously stuck between "Hahaha we're just friends because it's not like I'm gay!! Romantic friendships are still no homo!" and "Fuuuuck meeee, I have a crush on my straight best friend, I'm such an idiot."

I've said this before, but I really like how the novel takes the like normally super-fluffy, yuri standard girl meets girl friendship/romance, but then makes it feel more realistic and modern by never really pretending that these girls aren't super gay for each other. Like if you just went off the plot summary it would feel pretty standard, but half of these chapters are just the girls' internal monologues working through figuring out they're gay and how they feel about that and each other.

The way I read this chapter, to me it seems Adachi knows she has a crush on Shima. What she had issues with this time is that sometimes she loses sight of the fact that to her knowledge she's just a friend to Shima at this point. Or maybe I read it wrong, I'm not sure. This isn't to say she isn't confused about the whole thing, but I don't think she's in denial about the existence of the crush, at least?

I also find the characters mostly authentic in the way you said, but so far I'm not convinced that there's an intentional theme of queer identity. So far, hasn't the explicit question of queer identity been mostly avoided (as it is pretty standard for yuri)? Though I can recall moments that imply that this is at the back of her mind, such as the repeated "I'm not like that" disclaimers in previous chapters, and wondering why she doesn't feel the same way about her other two friends who are also girls as she does about Shima.

It might come to the forefront later, but it's not like it would stop being "good yuri" even if it never did. There's a lot of yuri that can feel relatable without explicitly dealing with queer identity. (I suspect if this weren't true, there wouldn't be such a huge LGBTQ+ contingent in the readership here.)

I mean Adachi is definitely mostly just focusing on her feelings for Shimamura, but there's also been a few times when she thinks of the implications beyond that too. I'm too lazy to go find the chapter right now, but there's that one scene where she's thinking about how her being Like That would be tough on her parents or whatever, that very Japanese sort of homophobia. There's been a few other lines like that too. And then there was Shimamura's story about what is clearly her first little girl crush back in the day.

It never really dwells on it, but I feel like there's enough there to at least reassure me that the author thinks of them as definitely gay, and not just like, a cute phase or only attracted just to this one special person. Which is enough for me, especially since right now the two of them are still trying to be honest about their feelings for each other, so it's a bit much to expect them to already be looking at like, the bigger picture of what that crush means to their identities.

Poor Adachi is simultaneously stuck between "Hahaha we're just friends because it's not like I'm gay!! Romantic friendships are still no homo!" and "Fuuuuck meeee, I have a crush on my straight best friend, I'm such an idiot."

I've said this before, but I really like how the novel takes the like normally super-fluffy, yuri standard girl meets girl friendship/romance, but then makes it feel more realistic and modern by never really pretending that these girls aren't super gay for each other. Like if you just went off the plot summary it would feel pretty standard, but half of these chapters are just the girls' internal monologues working through figuring out they're gay and how they feel about that and each other.

If only Asuka was direct with Tomoko, she'd say yes in an instant

Poor girl is dropping as many hints as she can, she's sure doing a lot better than any of the other girls.

It's not her fault Tomoko's self esteem is so low that it's just literally never occurred to her that hottie Asuka might be hitting on her.

I guess I just don't like thinking of Shimamura as clueless or uninterested, since that's such an anime/manga cliche that exists only to draw things out longer.

Whereas with this series I feel like the writing is doing a good job of characterizing Shimamura as being in denial, and having reasons for it. She's not just an idiot.

Hm...I want to like it, but this manga always has this "enough playing around, time to find a husband" vibe for me. At least with most pairs.

On the contrary, it plays with the trope I think.

It's like the characters are lying to themselves by talking about boyfriends and husbands, and the readers know it

And anyway, I doubt we will see them grow up into adults.

Or they will become like the girls in Maka-Maka from the same author.

I think the author does a good job of having a mix of relationships.

Some are just friendships
Some of them are definitely just the like class-s intense friendships / preparing for eventual heterosexuality stuff.
Others are more like sexual exploration, but maybe not romantic
And then you got some just full-on gay romance, too.

I think that's an interesting approach to the yuri/class-s "it's a girl's school, so everybody's gay for now" setting.

I don't think it cheapens actual homosexuality, it just recognizes that there's a variety of experiences. Like the class tacitly understands that Ai and Chie's relationship is serious in a way many of the others are not.

Or then there's stuff like chapter 104, where Ayano would plainly be OK with dating Miyoshi for real, but Miyoshi just seems to think of it all as just playing around.

"Seeing her so incredibly delighted once again caused me to grow suspicious. No, stop. I shook those thoughts away."

She's totally doing her best to deny that Adachi might like her, and completely not prepared to deal with what that situation would entail. She's not been terribly overt about any sort of reciprocal stuff, but since Adachi is the one on her mind so much, and she has thoughts about playing with her lips and stuff, to me it's just her comin' round to the whole idea.

Yeah, Shimamura just seems like her denial is a lot stronger than Adachi. And shit, even Adachi is still kind of refusing to admit to herself that she's gay, even as she's asking a girl she likes out on a date. Shimamura's whole narrative is her immediately understanding how Adachi means the date request, getting nerves, and then desperately searching for some explanation for why it'd be no homo for her to accept a date with a girl. But also it never really occurs to her to turn Adachi down.

Like she's obviously nervous about their relationship getting more complicated, and then there's an undercurrent of gay self denial, where she's like struggling to contain her thoughts and contextualize things. She cuts off various too real lines of thought like 3 or 4 times, and she knows that the line about just wanting to go out with anybody on Christmas doesn't hold water, but she latches on to it as a reason why she can say yes without then having to like, redefine herself and her relationship with Adachi.

...Also, big yikes with the whole Mom walking in thing.

I mean it could be platonic. But I just think that the fact that we see Konatsu’s jealousy is a sign that she values Honami more than we may have originally thought.

Based just on the first pages of this thread, I think you underestimate what we may have originally thought. ;)

Oooo true, I was just talking about after Makoto Hagino wrote that tweet about not defining her work as yuri lol.

I mean a lot of times Japanese writers will define yuri as just the cute fluffy stuff, just the genre, not the more broad "yuri = girls loving girls." Which like, clearly with this chapter it's not all that fluffy, there's some real anxiety there.

As far as fans who think that therefore the two girls' relationship isn't meant to be read as romantic by the author, all I can say is, "Ppppffffffffffftt." Of course it is.

Shimamura just kind of casually describing her first ever crush on a girl and she doesn't even realize it.

Or well, she does sorta kinda realize it, or those memories wouldn't have left such an impression on her in the first place - nor would she connect it to Adachi, who otherwise has nothing to do with it - but she's definitely shying away from actually thinking any of it through.

Same with that Christmas date invitation by Adachi, Shimamura really obviously immediately jumps to thinking it's a date request, and is excited/scared about it, and then tries to justify it being No Homo with any other possible explanation. And then Adachi is all happy and Shumamura's just like NO BRAIN, DON'T THINK ABOUT WHY SHE'D BE SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS NO HOMO, NON-DATE ACTIVITY and also gosh look at her lips...

Yeah, I think this is a big chapter for explaining Shimamura's viewpoint. She's just scared.

last edited at Jun 27, 2019 3:43PM

I'm kinda curious how this will be adapted. Like a lot of the charm of this series is that on the surface it's just another ambiguous friendship series, but since we spend our time in their heads, we know how much of their "friendship" is like them struggling with their sexuality and attraction and purposefully trying to like skirt the line and push the limits of that Japanese "lol it's not gay to be sorta romantic with a girl" stuff.

But if they don't adapt that internal monologue, then, well, it's just another shitty subtext show.

No reason to tag this as bisexual yet when we have no idea if teacher is actually bi. Plenty o' lesbians out there who've been married.

This series is interesting, it feels a lot more like a western LGBT ya romance novel, it's got the whole arc of like girl meets girl -> oh shit am I gay -> eventual self acceptance -> they get their gay on. Most yuri series tend to avoid that stuff and just focus on the romance without having it mean anything beyond that singular romance.

I've noticed more and more watamote doujins happening lately?.... Did I miss something happening with the series? Why the sudden uprise in watamote doujins?

The gay subtext has increasingly just been turning into text, and a lot of the new characters are very likable weirdos.

So is there a chapter out this month, or is another new volume break?

Then one of them will suddenly get married. Lol

“I suspect my childhood friend to be my wife”?

“We wear white dresses and kissed in church. We had hot sex during our later vacation. My childhood friend greeted me with nothing but a naked apron when I return from work. Am I her husband or what?”

What is this nettaigyo now?

A cute, heartwarming story.

This is the first time I actually hope for a yuri-free relationship. Like, it's sad enough considering their loss, and you wouldn't want a NTR + aaangst combo, would you?

That said, I imagine Shino has a girlfriend and gets teased everyday. Shino is just so gay it's hard to not notice lol :v

Also I hope the author would figure out a way for Nozomi-san. I mean, she can't possibly stay like that for the rest of her life - at some point Shino would have her own family and not stay by her side anymore.

Thinking about their future makes me kind of gloomy...

Yeah, I'm rooting for Shino and her classmate. I still think Shino's super gay. But Shino + Nozomi would be... Not healthy. Let them have a happy, healthy little family together, while also both having new relationships.

This is like, the most explicit subtext-only series ever.

Like, do they ever say anything more than, "Our daughter has a new friend and is coming out of her shell a bit, that's nice." No, no they do not.

But on the other hand holy shit, it's sooo hard not to read this as Koyuki's parents talking about how yeah, their daughter is totally gay, and they support her but worry for her. And her brother's like, "Don't worry about what people think!" And Koyuki's like, "I want to be confident no matter who I am." Like, is mom really sitting out on a park bench, taking a heavy drag of coffee and staring at the ground while she talks all because her daughter has a -friend- now? Or that everyone is that stressed out over Koyuki getting spotted smiling sometimes? lol, nah.

Kinda weird to say that my two favorite current yuri manga are basically this one and the Stepbrother's Wife one. Which both so far didn't do anything outright gay, and possibly never will.

But I guess occasionally I like some nuanced story-telling ^^;

Heh yeah my favorite 3 yuri series right now are Nettaigyo, Brother's Wife, and Watamote.

I have no idea what's up with the recent lesbian Watemote content but I really, really like it!!

Watamote's always had a good bit of gay subtext with Tomoko, she's been into girls since pretty much chapter 1, she's just kind of in denial / clueless about it.

Now that she's actually got a social life the manga's introduced some other really well developed characters into the mix, and some of them seem like they have some genuine romantic possibility with Tomoko.

• Ucchi AKA Emoji just straight up has a huge crush on Tomoko, but Tomoko never notices her. She's had a whole arc going from obsessing how gross Tomoko is to finally admitting that she likes her.
• Yuri and Tomoko have been slowly growing more intimate, and while there's never really been any hint that Yuri ain't straight, she's also awfully invested in being BFFs with Tomoko. And they're just kind of a cute ship.
• And then just recently Asuka, the most popular girl in class, has been hanging out with Tomoko a fair bit and Tomoko has a blatant, huge crush on her... And shockingly Asuka actually seems to be straight up flirting back? But Tomoko just think she's a mothering personality, and doesn't notice that the only person Asuka spoils is Tomoko.

Anyway, yeah, the series is still limited to subtext, but some of that subtext has gotten a lot bigger and more obvious, and in some places Watamote is just sold as a yuri series now.

Maaan, I am way too invested in this series, lol. Normally I'm fine with waiting for new chapters but these periods where I know the raws are out but the translation hasn't come out yet are torture.

There's a new chapter out now, not up on dynasty yet.

Won't spoil, but boy the subtext is realllllly coming front and center this time

Not quite, afaik ch 15 just came out a few days ago in Japan.

Haven't seen any raws for it around though

As I'm flipping through and rereading a few chapters, I also need to add to my list how literally all of Shino's friends make references to like, her acting like a worried boyfriend, her acting like she has a first girlfriend, how she wouldn't be a proper wife, on and on. They never reference the idea of her having a boyfriend, they always refer to her being in a relationship with a girl.

It's not, like, a BIG thing, and the lines always make sense in context... But it also keeps happening

Structurally the series aren't really similar, but they deal with some similar themes. Teenagers who've grown up too fast because of loss, feelings of grief and survivors guilt, trying to deal with depression with the help of their replacement family, certain uh, semi-incestual feelings which are treated with realistic psychology instead of just some anime fetish thing.

In a lot of ways I think the manga this reminds me the most of is March Comes in Like a Lion.