I usually don't like Yuri comedy very much, but this story makes me laugh so hard. It's just fantastic for that aspect.

last edited at Oct 19, 2022 5:00PM

Time to add Chihomi -> Sango to the giant love polygon that is this series.

I'm never sure how pronoun usage works in translation, but I did notice the translation made sure that Yurika never used pronouns when talking about Reika while Chihomi kept mentioning boyfriends. Not that she couldn't be bi, of course, but the contrast made me think that her jealousy might not be romantic.

In Chinese/Korean/Japanese, it is extremely easy to talk about people without using their gender. It's one of the factors that makes accurate translation very difficult, especially for machines. If you have a paragraph where people are almost always defined using pronouns and you want to translate that to English, you have to have a good grasp of all surrounding story context to get the right gendered pronouns in the translation.

So. I get jealous and depressed when I see this girl talking to someone who might conceivably represent a potential romantic interest. She makes my heart pound and makes me get all blushy. I love being around her. I can't stop thinking about her. But I worry that I can't give her this "love" thing that I just don't experience!

. . . um . . . Should I tell her or will you?

Yeah, Asahi is getting too caught up on words. I like how Fuuka calls her out on it near the end of the chapter. Asahi's afraid because she thinks what she experiences isn't what other people experience and doesn't know how to determine whether or not that is true. As an autistic person, I understand that a lot. It's something I've spent a lot of time thinking about.

The conclusion I came to is something like this: ultimately, words are what we make them, and one person can never know if their sensation or feeling is exactly equivalent to another person's. You define yourself and your feelings as best as you can at the time, and if those definitions have to change for you as your understanding evolves or as your feelings themselves change, then so be it. That's a risk you take, not just in love but in life itself.

last edited at Oct 11, 2022 6:37PM

This is good so far. Looks like a relatively typical K drama setup, but the art is gorgeous and the translation is good.

K drama? This is manhua from China, unless I'm horribly mistaken.

Huh, my mistake. That's surprising. I've read tons of manhua and manhwa at this point, and I'm usually able to tell them apart. The initial premise is so stereotypically Korean ("hot new leader in my office work environment is secretly into me") I just assumed this had to be a manhwa. Though, I guess Straight Girl Trap is a manhua example of the premise (with multiple discussions on sexuality, a rarity in any Asian story).

On a second read, the art has way more of a manhua feel to it, especially the hair. Reminds me of Romance of the Stars or Goddess of Jealousy (but without the stylized comedic parts).

last edited at Oct 10, 2022 11:36PM

@Gellydog: that was fantastic. I had tears in my eyes by the end I was laughing so hard.

This is good so far. Looks like a relatively typical K drama setup, but the art is gorgeous and the translation is good.

Its been a long while since i last read, but when was Hinako and Fuuka a thing?

ya I am really confused by Hinako saying she loves Fuuka i really don't remember anything like that being in the story.

Love come in diferents way/form
The "love" she felt for fuuka is not a romantic one, more like a friendship/family one to me

Even with that, it's still bizarre. They've met exactly twice before this. Hinako is a person who hates using the word "love", and yet she thinks "I love them both" here.

Maybe it is reflective of her newfound ability to use love-related terminology more, but even that is strange. Maybe we'll get more about her weird use of terms in future chapters, idk. (Or I wonder if the official translation will differ here.)

Anyway, at the beginning of the series it seems like Hinako is aromantic and asexual. Now, it seems like Hinako may be romantically into Asahi while Asahi is romantically and sexually into Hinako. But it still isn't completely clear; Hinako might be sexually into Asahi too. I suspect the last few chapters will clarify that.

On the subject of trainwrecks, tragedies, and supposed "garbage" endings - I usually try to avoid tragedies. Personal preference. This one has been so good and so consistently compelling, even knowing how it will most probably end and not being ready for it, I'm still here for the ride. I'm not going to lie, huge part of me hopes for the ass-pull of the century, and judging by the writing in the series so far, I actually believe that given enough time the author could make something that would be more compelling than gathering all of the dragon balls, but even if it doesn't, nothing takes away from how good of a story it is, plain and simple.

In any case, this chapter had a bit of fluff in it, but then hit with the sucker punch near the end, holy crap. I was tempted to joke about Kaori now shipping her sister with Shizuku and the series ends with them being together somehow, but I don't have it in me to do anything more than this lame attempt. Goddamnit.

yeah it certainly is a mark of a good tragedy that you sit there knowing that it won't end well but you still can't help but care for the characters and want for them to gain a good ending even when you know it won't happen.

Yeah, I keep telling myself: "Maybe she just needs better medical care and gets moved to a foreign hospital, and that's why it was their 'last summer' together!"

Farm director? So she basically runs this place, huh. Didn't expect that

Yeah no kidding. Seems like there was another picture on the same row of the poster, but her section had 'corporate responsibilities' listed.

I really liked the comments here.

I wish Yuri Love Slave was on Dynasty just so I could read the comments for that. That one is really off the wall.

I think this manga reminds me of that one because this one has a large "this is a self-insert fantasy for lonely lesbians" feeling, and Yuri Love Slave is the ultimate self-insert fantasy.

last edited at Sep 10, 2022 10:23PM

The "Let's put the tits and ass away..." line had me in stitches. That was gold!

anyone else getting serious psychological horror vibes coming off chapters 18 and 19? like... you felt that right??

Yeah, a little, but my recent reading has consisted of: Saviour, Kill Me Now, I'm More Dangerous Than You, and Fatal Possession.

Basically, not everything is a ridiculously fucked up manhua plot.

I mean whether or not she is neurodivergent, she's living with her parents at 27, deeply weird, fairly lazy, and never dated, which is so ridiculously relatable for me, lol!

Anyone got a good theory on why she suddenly retreated after retrieving the cake? Basically, what is the "what a shame" x 3 about?

It almost seemed related to the use of the word "lass".

last edited at Sep 5, 2022 7:16AM

Man, I'm not looking forward to the seemingly inevitable conclusion of this where Kashiwagi eventually realizes that she won't be able to fit into this poly relationship and thus has ruined everything she had for ultimately nothing

Well there's two potential paths:
1. Kashiwai lowers her expectations and accepts (at least for now) to be one of Tsuzuki's lovers.
2. Kashiwai realizes she can't be in a monogamous relationship with Tsuzuki and is heartbroken. However, she reset her way out of a marriage she seemingly wasn't very attached to and now knows she likes women, so she has a lot better options for future relationships.

Or I guess the third path: messily oscillating between those two options, causing unhappiness and hurt for all.

This manga shows off the thought process for "the MC is triggered by a bad topic, has to switch mental gears, adopt a fake smile, and soldier on through the conversation while trying to find an exit" better than anything I've ever seen, even in novels. It is so relatable for me. Being trans, there's several topics that would I never want to think about, nevermind talk about, but sometimes conversations go there anyway, and the kind of mental agony of it is something you rarely see expressed in fiction, especially this well.

I trust Awa-kun. I mean to him Kahiwai is in love with a woman who’s getting married. And is planning her wedding. Assumedly he doesn’t know about the polyamory or that the feelings are returned so he just sees his coworker in a difficult and probably heartbreaking position. I mean it’s none of his business but still, I can see that there’s (probably) care there.

Also sheesh I know Kashiwai is new to this but I hope she’s not gonna get mad that she’s not suddenly Tsuzukis no.1 priority

I think this chapter made it pretty obvious (at least to me) that Kashiwai wants monogamy (upset over ring, unwillingness to work around Tsuzuki's existing partners, etc). She's just a monogamous person who was in a "this is the best thing I've got" relationship, and Tsuzuki entering the picture was a shocking lesbian/bisexual revelation that she wants all to herself. Kashiwai calling off her own wedding was a result of her interest in monogamy.

last edited at Sep 3, 2022 8:50AM

I really liked this one. Nice one-shot with a good bit of angst and then a positive resolution.

I really love how this manga tackles so many different issues with a more realistic lens than most fiction.

I chipped in some to help support the author as well.

last edited at Aug 22, 2022 3:48PM

I would be willing to accept a straight-but-friends ending, but them dating would be 100x better.

So few good manga for us the Bi !!!

There's a lot of manhwa and manhua with bisexual characters, even ones that aren't in villain roles. Love triangles are a common theme with bisexual protagonists, though, but it isn't like lesbians don't have their own tropes in fiction (lesbians often get pulled out of relationships they have forced themselves to accept, as an example).

One manhwa with a bisexual protagonist that I enjoy is The Third Party. It is stereotypically Korean (i.e. expect corporate espionage, betrayals, etc - all the staples of K dramas), but I don't mind that. It is a refreshing change of pace from the dozenth high school manga.

On that note, I think there's a few reasons that bisexuality is rare in manga:
1. Because manga tends to feature teenagers more often than not, who are extremely unsure of their sexuality to begin with.
2. Eastern fiction in general tries to avoid labeling sexuality.
3. You often just don't have enough information to determine a character's sexuality. These types of stories are about just tiny snippets of our characters' lives focused around a relationship or two. We only get the information the author wants us to have (which as point 2 addresses is rarely sexuality).

As an example of that, let's look at say... Akko, from the classic manga Girl Friends. She is probably bi or pan, as she shows interest in men before showing interest in Mari. However, she never uses those terms, so how we do know that she wasn't just presenting heteronormative behaviors and is actually a lesbian? We don't. In fact, the word 'gay' comes up once in the entire 34 chapters (and is the only LGBTQ+ label that does), when Mari stutters and says she isn't gay (ironic considering from what we know of her character, she is).

On an unrelated note, this manga is fairly similar to another manga about a backpacker who came home every once in a while to her 'friend' who had feelings for her. I forget the name of that one. It was a originally a 1-shot but it got a couple follow-ups, and the entire set of them was published in an anthology.

Edit: https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/the-conditions-of-paradise/

last edited at Aug 18, 2022 2:54PM

can someone please tell me, is manhwa always so long in all the ways?? loooooong plot development is a thing or something?

No genre has absolutes enough to say 'always', but, yes, usually the plot and especially the romance is very long and drawn out.

Baili Jin Among Mortals is a good example of an exception, where the main couple gets together pretty quickly (only like 40 chapters).

The most frustrating thing about manhwa is how the authors often censor any kissing between same-sex characters out of fear that it could become an issue.

last edited at Aug 3, 2022 7:50AM

I really like this story because it reminds me so much more of what life is actually like for a closeted teen lesbian.

Having an MC that is sure of their own sexuality as a teenager but isn't open about it is very unusual in manga.

I also like that the little sister can sense that something is slightly different than normal about Saki's interest in Kanon but doesn't have enough life experience to make the "is a lesbian and is in love with her" guess.

I don't know why but this series gives me such weird feeling of anxiety while reading, does anyone else feel like that?

I think for me it really is how un even the Saki and Kanon dynamic feels. Saki seems so afraid or self conscious of her feelings, and is trying desperately to not show them while also just trying to be genuine with kanon. It feels like she’s walking on eggshells in most scenes, or that she’s always anxious

Idk how much of this is just my personal read, but it just feels like Saki is stressed constantly, or on the edge of having a nervous breakdown. It might be my feelings toward the artwork, Saki just always lookin stressed out to me at the end of some of these chapters lol

No, I also get this impression. She's constantly tense or acting restrained. This is what Rinne is picking up on as being unusual. I think it's a combination of:
A. wanting to put her best foot forward for a girl she's interested in
B. restraining herself from showing her true feelings
C. trying to be respectful of Kanon and her hearing problems
D. wanting to be a good friend

Obviously some of those desires are conflicting.

last edited at Aug 3, 2022 7:21AM

Kaori tightens her grip on her phone when Shizuku mentions a book coming out next month...

Kaori doesn't think she'll be alive then, does she?

This is also why she sets up Shizuku to meet her little sister.

last edited at Aug 3, 2022 1:58AM

The author couldn't possibly spell out the ending any harder, given that each chapter that worldbuilds has a different part of the foreshadowing that leads to a somewhat obvious conclusion.

That said, it really doesn't bother me. I'm looking forward to it. So I guess they did it well.

I like it, a lot. So I’m sensitive, I’m sorry, but I don’t like angst. I seem to be in the minority. Also, I still like it. Maybe I’m confused.

Angst sucks, and it makes you feel bad. However, it increases the positive emotions generated at the resolution of it by a strong amount.

I guess you could say angst is like a simulant.

There are some people who prefer the pure fluff stories, which are just about kissy couples with lots of handholding and no domestic conflict... but I've found my emotional state to be particularly susceptible to angst. Stories with some low points make the high points feel that much higher.