"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.

OK, all caught up. Things I think, which are mostly what I thought from the beginning:

• There's all these interactions where Nozomi is like, "Haha, this would be sort of romantic if we weren't both girls!" Like Nozomi seems just cluelessly straight, she never entertains the idea of f/f romance even being a real possibility.d
• Whenever Nozomi busts out one of those heteronormative assumptions Shino gets awkward as fuuuck. Like Shino never actually thinks of herself as gay (she never thinks about herself in a romantic context period), but the way she gets flustered at stuff that doesn't even ping for Nozomi is tellingly consistent.
• There's probably no real chance of romance between the two of them, and honestly with how codependent the two of them already are it would be super unhealthy if they did. They're really better off as family.
• Basketball kouhai has a pretty obvious crush on Shino, and Shino was definitely checking her out in their first meeting. There's a ton of room in the story for their relationship to develop. OTOH they've only talked in like, 3 chapters out of almost 50 soooo that may be a bit slow to develop...
• But yeah, basketball girl seems like the ideal endgame. A lot of Shino's attraction to Nozomi feels less like she's specifically in love with her, and more that, well, she's still a horny teenager living in an apartment with a big tittie 24 year old. Give Shino a healthier outlet for her romantic feelings and she'd be better off.

I think the big challenge to this is that, well A) damn this manga is a super slow burn and doesn't feel like it has any intention to move towards solid resolutions, and B) there's an unhealthy element to the girls' relationship, where they just stew together in their grief day after day. It's comforting to them, but it also makes it hard to move out of the grief stage, and they're kind of mutually enforcing a feeling of guilt if they think about moving on in their lives. Until they start dealing with that, neither of them is gonna be dating anyone.

last edited at Oct 22, 2018 10:51PM

As I read more chapters I'm still reading Shino as very much gay. I still don't think it's really a romance, and honestly the two of them having a romance would probably be pretty unhealthy, they more need to be a family. But Shino still reads as such a baby gay. It's never something that's up to the level of like full-on coded subtext, but it's also a pretty consistent theme with her.

• Her playing that gal-game from her male otaku friend
• Also just how easy she gets along with her male friends and the total lack of any sexual tension with them
• That rather Freudian, "Ahh, I want a wife!" line, which Nozomi corrected to "You mean a husband."
• How she totally seemed like she was checking out the basketball kouhai, and was uncomfortable at her sexiness.
• Her whole, "lol fuck no I don't want to wear a yukata" attitude, where she only gives in because Nozomi is looking all sexy begging her to
• More awkwardness when Nozomi is like, "We should go on a date!!" and then later Shiho's massive awkward embarrassment that she fell asleep with Nozomi holding hands.
• Shino knows about that cute female idol that her brother liked, whereas Nozomi's only heard of her.
• Her feelings of jealousy when Nozomi's with a guy at the festival, which is definitely partly about her brother, but also not 100% because of that.
• And then, like, that whole bathing together thing, come on.

Like Nozomi doesn't come across as very gay to me, except maybe a degree of romantic friendship. Her flirty lines feel much more like just kind of standard flirty Asian female friendship stuff. But Shino has all these moments where like, at the very least if you read her as gay they certainly never do anything to challenge that reading. Way more than trying to find any textual support of her being straight.

Basically I'm happy with them just being family, but I'm definitely hoping that basketball kouhai shows up again.

edit: chapter 31 and hello basketball kouhai!

last edited at Oct 22, 2018 10:50PM

I just started reading through this, and I'm only on chapter 16 so far so maybe things will change, but right now I'm definitely getting huge gay vibes from the main girl. Like I don't really think it's intended to ever actually turn into a romance - unlike some other authors Kuzushiro seems to understand that there are other healthy relationships besides just romance. But it does read like Shino has a bit of a crush/attraction to Nozomi, like she gets way more embarrassed and flustered by touching and intimacy around Nozomi than she's ever shown around any of her dude friends. And a lot of times that embarrassment is tied directly to panels pointing out Nozomi's physical assets, and Shino's reaction to the sexyness. Also the chapter where it introduced the basketball kouhai was written a lot like it was introducing a romantic interest, it totally seemed like Shino was checking her out.

Anyway since this is a well written series it's not like every moment of awkwardness is about sexual tension, they're both well rounded characters with different aspects to their personality. But that's how I'm reading it so far, not meant to be a romance per se, but also still pretty gay.

last edited at Oct 21, 2018 9:48AM

The art is really nice, kind of seems like a waste that the artist is drawing... this...

I dunno, maybe it'll go somewhere?

Nya-chan posted:

I actually looked up "Salamander" by Asuji Ibuse and it's a really depressing story. It's a parabola about depression and loneliness actually.

The frog is trapped by the Salamander and is slowly dying.

It's about their acceptance of their fate: being trapped and dying.

... I don't think this manga is going to follow that route, after all... She wouldn't mind being a frog.

"I don't mind you trapping and slowly starving me" is a thing friends say

it's skinship, guys

Nettaigyo with the unexpected hard swerve into S&M

One of the things that's really charmed me about this series is how present the parents are. Like Koyuki's parents already seem like they have a way better idea of what's going on with their daughter's [subtext] than Koyuki herself does. It's not an idea that yuri normally ever tackles, that parents would actually support the relationship. But like dad's been pretty much shipping them from the start, and mom kinda seems like she's realized something this chapter, too.

Like it's just taking an already cute, fluffy story and making it that much sweeter.