Apparently the mangaka has come out and said that there is no gay.

Which breaks my heart, because that takes this series from "two introverted loners find love and discover themselves" to "two autistic fuckheads struggle with basic human communication."

This level of pining and drama and anxiety just doesn't make sense to me without a romantic element. I couldn't get enough of this series when the first vol was being released, but now I'm pretty close to dropping it...

The author has not said there's no gay, she said she doesn't consider it yuri.

But 'yuri' doesn't have to mean 'gay stuff, it's frequently used more to refer to just the romance genre of fluffy cute girls crushing on each other stuff. It can still be hella gay but not be yuri.

I feel like some of you need a course in linguistics. If you pay careful attention to what the author says, it makes perfect sense that she's using the concept of rejection of categorization in languages in order to describe a concept which can include anything ranging from an event to an identity and so on. Yuri in Japanese is an umbrella term that has come to be applied to anything that involved girl-on-girl action, so in a certain sense it's a term that's constantly being thrown around even if a certain work isnt even about yuri. It has lost its meaning. And it makes perfect sense for the author to reject the trend of putting labels on absolutely everything and instead chooses to be revolutionary and allowing herself and her readers to give it their own interpretation.

It does not mean they will not end up romantically together. It simply means that the author is rejecting.labels. at no point in that post does the author say that there is and will never be any romance between the two main girls.

This should just get stapled to the top of every page

Y’all need to stop judging the story by things that happen outside of the story.

Really like that character art too. Do we know if that's Non? Or some of the actual animation staff?

Still weird how coy they're being about what studio/director/etc are actually making the damn thing

I'll keep you all posted on the future of this project now that we enter the license era.

If you're wondering whether you want to continue - considering we don't even get Volume 1 till next June, I would certainly still be very happy to read anything you put out!

I wonder if Shimamura broke what's-her-face's heart, or if it was the other way around...

So....anyone wanna try and unpack that thing with the feet?

I assume that's the phrase GreyMoon was talking about earlier, lol

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER !

Or is it an old challenger

Yeah, it's pretty clear at this point that Shimamura's not so much clueless as she is afraid of her relationship with Adachi changing into something she has to invest more of herself in, or maybe she's afraid of it hurting too much if she gets close to Adachi and then they get separated somehow, IMO.

https://twitter.com/kusunoki_AMW/status/1161143681581117441?s=20

More confirmation that Yachiro is indeed still around. Looks like she'll actually get some page-time this month.

Yeah. I like what they've set up with Shimamura a whole lot, I just hope we start getting some more concrete development on her end soon-ish. I feel like the story's approaching the point where it'll have gotten as much as it can out of Adachi being the only one who's at all conscious of what these feelings are.

Speaking of: Good lord Adachi. She's legit going to explode at some point.

I really can't wait to read the other side of this! I'm guessing the "full mark thighs" are what keep peeking out of the cheongsam.

Ohhhh I hadn't thought of that

Yeah I'm really curious to get Shimamura's perspective on what's happening here. She's clearly not fully comfortable with what's going on, but also not so uncomfortable as to actively stop it, but what are the details....

What she thought: "I love you"

What she said: "Let's be best friends."

We've all seen that one before.

Keep fighting, Adachi...

Shimamura is actually a real shorty, isn't she?

I'm not sure if she's a real shorty or just "not tall". Adachi is supposed to have a pretty noticeable height difference compared to Shimamura, It's been mentioned several times in several chapters, right from the beginning. Hino is supposed to be super short and smol, and Nagafuji is supposed to be pretty tall too, though I'm not sure how she compares to Adachi in height.

I don't know how closely it matches the intent, but my mental image has always been:

Nagafuji - Big'N'Tall
Adachi - Bit Taller Than Average
Shimamura - Bit Shorter Than Average
Hino - Tiny Yappy Gremlin Child

It feels like a chapter that flows much better when it's just one chapter (and a relatively short one at that) in a 5-7 chapter LN that you buy all at once rather than reading one chapter per week or two like we have to here, in all fairness.

Mm, this one was a little insubstantial, tbqh. Glad next chapter's the actual date.

Give. Adachi. A. Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuug.

last edited at Jul 14, 2019 11:42PM

https://twitter.com/93choco/status/1147664823741665280

thinking emoji

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.

Yeah, I definitely agree. Shimamura having hangups -even minor ones- that make it hard for her to get into a serious relationship and that the story examines in some detail would be a way way way more interesting story than if she were just another Incredibly Dense Romance Lead.

Konatsu longs to be worthy of Koyuki’s grace...

Anyway, seconding the praise for the art. The harsh shading in some of Konatsu’s lonely panels is really breathtaking, and there’s some fantastic facial work throughout. Some of Hagino’s best work.

last edited at Jun 28, 2019 3:59PM

Like, we can argue about whether her feelings are specifically romantic in nature or not yet all day, but for my money it's basically impossible to deny that Shimamura cares for Adachi in a way she doesn't - and takes a certain amount of effort not to - care for anyone else we've seen so far. The distinction between romantic and platonic affection is vague and kinda arbitrary anyway.

it really isn't actually one sided but Shimamura is going through it at a much slower pace.

It is one-sided. There is no hints that Shimamura feels anything remotely romantic for Adanchi at this point. I'm sure that will change. But right now it's 200% one-sided.

I disagree, there's been many times through the LN and this chapter as well where it shows that Shima not only cares for Adachi more than she lets on, but also small moments and lines where it shows she may feel something else just friendship ,only to backtrack on her own mind, get into denial mode and do many mental hoops just to make the situation seem like nothing special or something "else", if there really's wan't anything at all there wouldn't be any need for half the thoughts she goes through when something with Adachi happens

Remember when she went into that sauna with a dumbass plan to try and get Adachi's mom to treat Adachi better? Remember how even she was like "oh god what am I doing this isn't like me oh man"? lol

Well, she feel relieved that Adachi didn't yearn for her especially but just another person, probably she will have feel akward to say yes if Adachi was asking only for her.

That ties into what I was saying, tho. Shimamura cares about Adachi and wants to be there for her, but she's afraid of having to actually invest in Adachi in a way that constrains her own aimless, easygoing lifestyle. If Adachi wants to spend Christmas with "somebody" then that's easy for Shimamura because she can just decide to do it out of the goodness of her heart and not think anything more of it and it can be a one-off thing if she wants it to be. If Adachi wants to spend Christmas with Shimamura specifically, suddenly Shimamura has to start worrying about whether she has any more lasting obligations or commitments to Adachi - that's what I think she's afraid of.

last edited at Jun 27, 2019 5:54PM

^ It really doesn't look like denial to me. Yuu from Bloom Into You was in denial; you could tell because her thoughts and her actions where somewhat at odds. Shimamura seems more like she's just not interested.

But Shimamura's thoughts and actions are at odds. If she wasn't at all interested in Adachi then there wouldn't be much stopping her from simply hanging out with her less and allowing that distance between them to quietly widen like she's spent a bunch of time thinking about with other people. It's not like Adachi's pursuing her that actively - look how hard it was for her to work up the courage just to ask her out. But Shimamura doesn't cut Adachi off at all. Adachi's too important to her. But she's scared of letting things escalate because she's afraid of having this turn into a relationship that actively asks things over, that she can't just engage with lazily and on her own terms and walk away from or forget about like she's allowed herself to do with everything else. So Shimamura cares about Adachi too much to simply rebuff her advances, but is too afraid of what might happen if things escalate to engage with that idea directly, so we get these long sequences of her inner narration of why This Thing We're Doing Is Totally Normal, Definitely Isn't That Other Thing It Kind Of Looks Like so that she can make it into something that's safe for both herself and Adachi.

...Or something. I think. Still early. We'll see how I feel in another chapter or two.

last edited at Jun 27, 2019 5:40PM

Shimamura seems less like she’s clueless/doesn’t reciprocate and more like she’s scared/in denial IMO

last edited at Jun 27, 2019 11:46AM

Adachi needs a kiss, Shimamura is scared of being needed for kissing, Hino and Nagafuji are scared of being more than kissing friends. Please help these children.

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.

Normally I'd prefer as little narration as possible, but unfortunately in my experience the mainstream audience does not understand sapphic romance unless it's as blatant as a confession or a kiss (and sometimes even that's not enough). But it's pretty rare for light novel adaptations to omit the narration, so I'm not too worried about this aspect.

The annoying light novel protagonist is a cliché onto its own, so if anything what I'd worry about is will they be able to strike that balance of "just enough" narration.

It's really going to need a talented director. If they don't nail the tone, or if our heroines aren't good at expressing themselves just through animation, or if they make the decisions regarding what to cut or modify or play up or just leave alone in the adaptation, I could see it turning out pretty badly.

Of course, if they do all of that then I could see it turning out really good, too.