"All those rabid fans hurling abuse at Chika online? They are in the wrong! But only because Chika is innocent. If Chika had been actually guilty (i.e. the victim of sexual abuse), then her fans would have the right to be angry at her!"

In chapter 13 Yasumi jokingly compared Kagazaki being affectionate to an abusive boyfriend's lovebombing, And in #14 both Chika and Yasumi jokingly remind each other that sexual misconduct can happen between two women. Which is why it's weird that during the scandal neither of them noted even privately that if a 16-year-old girl were to get any job position in exchange for sexual favors, that would make her the victim of sexual exploitation. Not the perpetrator of any wrongdoing.

Maybe this is just a silly and sleazy light novel that I should not take too seriously. But this doesn't feel right in a story that tries to create drama from an underage voice actress getting roped into a sex scandal. A story created in a post-metoo world, where even real voice actresses have spoken out about e.g. being pressured to give male directors or other stakeholders creepy favors like private bath sessions. Is it really too much to ask that a story like this gives the bare minimum amount of pushback to slutshaming, especially when it affects a girl in high school?

I would have let it go without comment, but I had to say something after the girls made jokes about the topic. It's weird to reference intimate partner violence and corporate HR speak only for jokes, but offer no criticism on the base assumptions of Chika being accused with "sleeping her way to the top", and to not acknowledge that she would be the victim in that situation. The creators want to milk "the dark side of the industry" for drama, but they can't even acknowledge the power dynamic between a boss and employee, or adult and teenager.

I'm not saying the whole series is bad or anything, in fact it's because I otherwise enjoy it that I'm frustrated because of this.

last edited at Apr 19, 2024 7:44PM

Still pretty normal so far, even if this girl has recognized the other from the moment they met. It is kind of strange that nobody has been given a name yet.

The Romance and NSFW tags on this site are used to indicate a clear romance plot and sexual context, respectively. The former was not applied here, and the latter only to the first chapter. This was a silly horror comedy from the start, and most people correctly suspected that a sex scene between the human girl and the doll she's obsessed with was unlikely to happen.

I also don't think a short series like this is worth getting so upset about. It took most of us about 3 hours to read in total, and it was scanlated to completion over the course of just 3 months. Assuming you have actually read it, and aren't just complaining for the sake of complaining.

You are also free to request changing the Yuri tag to Subtext, or just removing it, if you really believe that's more correct. That was always allowed.

This is not even tagged as yuri but it's very cute. As expected from a master of yuri, God bless

In the immortal words of the author of Otherside Picnic: "This too is yuri". The author clearly just trusts your intelligence too much to tell you outright.

(Also because sexuality would probably push Akari well over the line in how bearable her creepiness is due to, y'know, how basically nobody consents to the things she does with them.)

I get why some would say this is "not yuri" in the sense that there is no romance plot, but the story still fits the broader definition of the genre, in that it focuses on very intimate/intense relationships between women. Akari may call her obsessive behavior an expression of friendship, but only a fool would take that at face value. She is creepy, but in a pretty gay way. Yoshino is a whole fruit cake too, let's be real.

It's not exactly wrong to call it "subtext", but it's still a horror comedy about a group of girls who are probably not straight (and their non-human ghost friends). It succeeded in those terms, so I don't see the lack of a romantic conclusion as a problem here.

plus, something about the rough style of the manga brought back nostalgia of early indie mangas that I read from long ago

The drawings are not super detailed, but there is an elegance to them, and they suited these characters really well!

last edited at Apr 13, 2024 5:04PM

Mona joined the social dance club because of her grandma, but she was interested in dancing with a girl, not out of ambition but just for fun. Then she quickly noticed Shion with her massive crush on Kiki, and was like "she's perfect". Sure, this is a yuri manga, but all of that happened before she started catching feelings for Shion. So I wonder if she knows that a straight girl would be unlikely to end up in a situation like this.

While she didn't exactly confess outright, Mona let her feelings slip quite a bit here ("you haven't looked at me at all", "I have always seen you"). Shion has always been a bit of a mess, but she has never looked smaller than this time. The fact that she has kept wallowing in her guilt for so long, and that she appears to be so alienated from everyone else, makes me worried that some deeper issue might be in the background. What could be so awful in her life that she would prefer to dissolve herself in an unrequited love, surrendering all control to her friend, and later sinking into a pool of her own guilt?

Well, maybe the alienation and guilt is just because of internalized lesbophobia, and her parents just work out of town instead of being actively neglectful or abusive.

The idea of "closure" these series propose has always been selfish to me but maybe that's my hangup.

I think that was precisely what Mona was getting at.
Her whole point is that being selfish and doing selfish things is just something people do. That being in love with someone (and thus projecting their feelings onto them) is inherently selfish to some extent.

She also never says that it doing so isn't wrong, or that she shouldn't feel bad at all, which i feel is important. Just that nobody is a saint and Shion shouldn't wallow in self-hatred like she's the worst person ever just bc she's, y'know, acting like people do.

The impression I got was that Mona now wants Shion to vent her frustrations, how she felt and how she still feels to Haruma and to do so for closure. So they would be continuing that selfish act, rather than avoiding it. That's what my response was focused on.

That kind of thing is unnecessary to me and serves mostly to make the venter feel better at the expense of someone they claim to care for, yet many series treat the act like a good thing. I'd rather (and still hope) that she continues talking with Mona (who is trying her best to show her worth to Shion), comes to terms with her feelings together, and then meets Haruma after she's overcome her issues. She doesn't need to trauma dump on Haruma, for "closure."

Bottling up your emotions and never giving them an outlet is unhealthy and can trap you in those feelings. Taking up emotional space is not some odious thing you inflict on other people. Is there a form and pattern of venting that can be toxic? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that accepting someone’s offer to emotionally support you is inherently bad.

Yeah. I think fixating on Mona's exact phrasing is a mistake here. She is not giving Shion therapeutic advice, but releasing her own frustrations that she has been pushing down until now. I'm sure Shion takeaway is just that she should clear things up with Kiki, not that she has been using the wrong girl as an emotional dumping ground.

I don't think the story is purely using closure as a framework here. This friendship is not guaranteed to be fixed by a confession, far from it, but it can't be repaired if Shion continues to hide this part of her from Kiki. The guilt would continue to eat away at her, and Kiki would also continue to worry and possibly blame herself. If Shion can confess, it will be the opening -rather than closing- of a door, letting fresh air into the room.

last edited at Apr 12, 2024 7:24PM

Yuri is generally written from an abstracted point of view where the audience is not necessarily intended to involve themselves personally in the media at all. Even wall-kun otaku are getting too personal with it.

What do you mean "abstracted point of view"? Of course 1st person POV visuals don't make sense in a manga format! The narration is still happening in first person, so please don't tell me you can't determine which character is the POV here.

I hate this kind of attitude where people try to make yuri out to be more exotic than it really is. Female characters are not suddenly more "abstract" or "removed" just because they're gay! Lesbians and all sorts of women create and read yuri all the time, and this might be shocking to hear, but they sometimes relate it to their own experiences. If you refuse to empathize with a character just because she loves women, that's your choice. But it doesn't mean the character, story or the whole genre was designed to be alien, unrelatable or impersonal.

A massive staple of romance for straight women is the passive "good girl" lead and the aggressive "bad boy" love interest, and nobody pretends to not know who the reader is supposed to identify with. But supposed "yuri enjoyers" encounter the exact same dynamic, just with two women, and seem to become illiterate on the spot. They see a sentence like "lately she's been kissing me every time we met" in the narration box, and argue it is not the good girl protagonist talking, but some kind of mysterious, disembodied voice of unknown origin. Like we're observing the mating dance of some strange animals, narrated by David Attenborough.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 11:11PM

Shou's useless-lesbianess reached peak levels this chapter

Hey, she's been good.

"That's fine. I don't want you to ever stop liking me."

"Kiss me, now, before you change your mind."

Yes, I legit don't know how anyone can call Shou "useless". Considering the walls she had to build around her heart to protect herself, she has been making a lot of progress since befriending Umi. She didn't fumble any opportunity here; even if she were ready to get physical with Umi, doing it in private would be better than in a room with other girls sleeping.

Maki witnesses how the men at the mixer treat Mei: asking creepy and invasive questions, trying to get her drunk, showing a total lack of respect for her as a human being. It seems like she realizes that something isn't right, and though she doesn't confront them directly, she diverts their attention to herself, possibly saving Mei from trouble.

And yet, a few days later she calls the men "bastards" not for being massive creeps... But because she failed to hook any of them. She is even excited at the possibility that one of them might be texting her, and doesn't even seem to know what Mei is thanking her for. Which draws into question whether she indeed realized what was going on at the time, or if she was just jealous of Mei getting more attention.

I'm only making note of this because the oneshot presents it without comment and just kind of leaves it on the table. Maybe there is no other point to it than Maki being an airhead and in denial, but even then she lacks awareness on a level where it's more concerning than funny. And maybe there is something unpleasant about a yuri work using men's misogynistic behavior as a setup without confronting it at all. I have seen the trope of woman A saves woman B from trouble at a mixer, but when foul play is involved there's usually at least some gesturing at the wrongness of it, but the protagonist in this one seems entirely oblivious to it.

Yes yes, it's not that deep, I'm ruining the wholesome gyaru yuri with my yapping, etc. Feel free to throw any stray rocks at me

I feel like she only just realized what "I love you" means lol

I re-read some of the chapters because I was wondering about this too. Shou was aware that Umi wanted to love her physically, since Umi mentioned it soon after the confession (ch. 8). At the time Shou knew for sure that she liked Umi, just wasn't certain about the specifics. Though she has caught herself a few times noticing Umi's body since then (e.g. in ch. 11). So I think what she realized here is that if they hadn't been interrupted, she would have wanted Shou to keep going. That the lust she's suddenly become so conscious of is the same thing Umi has been feeling for her this whole time.

last edited at Apr 8, 2024 2:26PM

Obviously, I'm aware of the "handholding is so lewd haha" meme, but it kind of annoys me here because this instance does not feel like the innocent type of handholding. The gyaru starts with a hand massage, then switches to the lover's grip while flirting and escalates to a confession. All that while facing her, with the top two buttons of her blouse open. She knows exactly what she's doing.

if Asa Mitaka got a girlfriend

toki pona looks so cute I can't even be mad

Honestly, the most unrealistic thing in this series is the fact that Aki felt in love with Yori instead of Shiho. I wonder what kind of thought process went through her head to make that happen.

Well, Aki instantly fell in love with Yori's singing, but I think Aki's dynamic was also a bit different with Shiho from the start. Yori has a shy and awkward side, but isn't particularly troubled, so Aki could idolize her for her voice with not much getting in the way of this infatuation.

On the other hand Shiho carried deeper vulnerabilities, and didn't hide them very well, so Aki was compelled to take her under her wing, instead of idolizing her. The vibe I get is that Aki used to regard Shiho akin to a little sister she wanted to take care of, and only started seeing her in a different light when Shiho confessed to her, post-fallout.

Though Aki already has a real little sister, of course I don't mean that she saw Shiho as a literal blood relative. Rather that the feelings she has held for Shiho have an oddly gentle and warm foundation, which we could just call platonic, but feel kind of intense for the relatively short time they were close friends. (Compare the old school Yuri trope of sisterly relationships between senpai and kouhai, aka Class S culture.)

Some people seem to want to pathologize the way Aki is so quick to suggest taking the plunge with dating, calling it a desperate attempt at keeping Shiho close. But notice how Aki is not very isolated, and has a number of friends looking out for her. If Aki is desperate, then it's because she regrets letting her go back then, and doesn't want to repeat that mistake. Isn't there more than just desperation here? Rather than just keeping Shiho around as a friend, Aki seems to almost yearn for Shiho's presence. Even after their fallout, she never truly hated Shiho, and never stopped missing her.

I'm not saying that Aki has always been in love with Shiho, but she has always held deep feelings of some kind. Though her thoughts in these latest chapters have been left mostly unstated, it's pretty clear to me that by now an attraction has mixed into those feelings. Just look at her face when she was going in for a kiss. None of those thoughts are in the Bible.

I guess this was a long winded way of saying that some things needed to change to enable Aki to see her on again of again bestie in a different light.

last edited at Mar 30, 2024 3:34PM

Why do so many manga have the "Let's have some fun and play with..." character that drags everything to hell.

I despise those tropes. I've dropped several otherwise interesting manga & anime because of sh**-stirrers.

I really see this vitriol for Toki as unfair, because all she has done is acknowledge the elephant in the room. Sure, her intentions are selfish, etc. etc. But is she wrong for pointing out the implications of the sisterhood contract, when that relationship is what forms the basis of this yuri manga? A relationship which, may I remind you, involves an age gap and surrogate sisterhood. So let's not pretend as if Toki is sullying a wholesome and fluffy little romance with her evil manipulative presence.

I honestly found the sequence where she insinuates that Meguru actually wants to "have fun" with Kasane properly unnerving, combined with Meguru's mortified reaction. She couldn't possibly have been in such deep denial, right? But she really was, which is just such a juicy source of angst.

And now, Chapter 14 reveals that her relationship with Hiromi was in fact pretty unusual itself, with even the contract itself being Hiromi's idea. The story seems to be taking the age gap more seriously as a barrier, dashing any remaining hopes that Meguru is a devious OL hunter mastermind just playing the long game to get a hot older girlfriend, and showing her to be quite a few shades more naive than the younger party in age gap romance tends to be, which I think shakes up the premise a little bit. Meguru is not even close to being ready to "upgrade" from "sisterhood", and now we get to wonder if there's really a way for that to happen in a way that doesn't feel skeevy, whether soon or years from now.

Of course, I could be wrong, and maybe Hijiki will sprint to an ending within a single volume. But now that it's clear there's a bit more gas in the tank than I assumed, I'm really curious where she could take the story from here.

last edited at Mar 29, 2024 8:52PM

I love how Akari's little entourage keeps growing. Like they're all still ambivalent about her, but they accept her strange ways more and more. Which is also a little scary, but that's part of the fun

Yeah I don't expect most of the audience is taking this too seriously. It's pretty outlandish already and that's funny. Plus we're in on the joke--they both clearly like each other, Wakaba clearly is in a bit of denial and doesn't have to be doing these things but wants to for her own reasons (that we can probably imagine).

Yes, the games and "business deals" of this type (also seen in the likes of Arioto, and Buying My Classmate Once A Week) are supposed to give the main character permission to do something she already wants to do. "Wow, I can't believe I lost the punishment game again. Nothing bad would happen to me if I refused to play along with her rules, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm too stubborn/proud/honorable to back down."

The intended purpose is not to obfuscate desire or lesbianism, as the relationship basically always ends up growing past the confines of the game or "business deal". It might be helpful to think of it as an even more unserious case of the "stuck together" trope in the romance genre, filling the same role as e.g. arranged marriages and "fake dating" situations.

last edited at Mar 22, 2024 4:15PM

Don't get your hopes up, people. If I understand correctly the author's twitter, it's going to end next chapter.

At this point, they're probably retiring as a mangaka.

If you mean this tweet, I think it was probably a misspelling? They do say 最終話, but in their very next tweet they say 最新話 instead, and that's also what the official account uses. I guess we'll find out for sure when the next chapter releases, though.

It's worth noting that Yuri Navi is a news agent that provides updates on new yuri releases and special offers. They don't officially represent any publisher.

I would enjoy this more if it were overtly a comedy and took itself less seriously. It would basically be a different manga, but I would love it if they made the competition over small things extra ridiculous, and made them clearly into each other while still mutually failing to realize that their competition is increasingly just an excuse to be gay. You could make Komaki deadpan and Wakaba tsukkomi.

Is that not what's going on anyways, more or less? When Komaki kissed Wakaba in this chapter, it wasn't even part of the "punishment" (that will be Wakaba's first date), she just felt like it. She is clearly into Wakaba, she just expresses it in strange ways. And Komaki mixing her own soda out of pure spite is plain absurd on its face. The fact that Wakaba tries to make sense of it, instead of laughing at her, just goes to show that Wakaba is also a weirdo who puts Komaki on a pedestal.

I think a comic can be funny without constant lampshading of how wacky and goofy everything is. What limits the humor here is things like the somewhat stiff facial expressions, not that there is nobody pointing out what we're supposed to laugh at.

last edited at Mar 22, 2024 11:56AM

I understand the attitude, but there's only so much hell you can raise exclusively by kissing people to turn them into girls...

I don't know about that. To you it might not seem like a big deal, but conservatives could whip up a pretty crazy moral panic about this. Mashiro might just get lots of volunteers, but she might also be targeted by a harassment and stalking campaign. The actual limitation is that the effect expires pretty quickly, the impacted individuals can't pass on the curse through kissing (as far as we know...), and that Mashiro is a person, not a kissing machine. She would most likely get burned out before the impact of this phenomenon could become national/global.

last edited at Mar 22, 2024 11:22AM

Suuna just gazing at Ruka with a gentle smile on her face...

For me it would be an instant turnoff if the person I were being intimate with suggested that I would prefer to swap bodily fluids with one of my male family members. More sobering than a cold shower. This girl just keeps going and doesn't even challenge it internally. What did Arai Sumiko mean by this?

My gut reaction is that if I read a "yuri" comic only 7 pages long, I should not be left wondering if one of the two characters who appear in total actually has a thing for her own brother. But there's something impressive about the unpleasantness, for such a short comic, and with such high quality drawings. I guess implications can sometimes be more disturbing than just showing the thing itself.

"And she's so distrusting that she doesn't trust anyone" Next you're gonna tell me people die when they're killed

IMO lots of people do lots of impressive things for crappy motivations. Half of the best music in the world was created by guys who wanted to impress girls. Well, and a few guys who wanted to impress guys. But I mean, not even any specific person, just "I'll look cool and attractive people will come flocking". And that includes classical.

If that factoid has any truth in it, it's because women have been marginalized in the music industry, and the creative work of women in music has been looked down upon (who gets to decide what "the best music in world" is?). And a lot (if not most) of these men who supposedly wanted to "impress girls" really just wanted to gain other men's respect with how good they were at getting women.

Either way, it's kind of wild to compare a high school girl being motivated by her crush on an older woman to any of that, because she's the only person who got hurt in the process. Meanwhile there is a direct line between the creators of "the best music in the world" doing it to get women, and the same men preying on their female peers in the industry and fans at live shows. (The line is misogyny.) These motivations are "crappy" in completely different ways.

Yes, sometimes people accomplish great things for superficial reasons, but there are ways to make that point without regurgitating this "boys will be boys" shit.

last edited at Feb 27, 2024 11:27AM

There's nothing funny about Takamine seeing phantom images of Sakura. That is a symptom of wife withdrawal, and it's very serious