Yeah, this whole thing of... "My wife asked to sit down and discuss something important, going as far as requesting it specifically in the morning, and then waiting for me to get back from work late so we would have the chance to properly talk. Oh, there's a phone call from my dad. Mm? You want to meet him? Nah, that's fine, you don't need to get to know my parents. Anyway, that's it for today, I'm going to bed now, bye."

Like, dude. What are you doing? Entirely aside from brushing off the idea that your wife would have a reason to meet your goddamn parents, did you just forget that she had something to say? Are you deliberately avoiding her, or does she really register so little in your mind? The strong possibility that he's cheating is almost immaterial at this point, he's such a shitty husband that it's not even worth pretending that the relationship is still functional.

I'm going to call it. He got a call from Risako. If you accept the indications that he's been cheating, then it's obvious Risako has been doing power moves all over the place because she resents that he married Kaoru, so of course she'd call and demand his time off from work with her. He agreed, because he's spineless, came up with a hasty excuse, and now he can't look Kaoru in the eye because he feels guilty about lying to her. (He's probably also aware that the longer they talk the more likely she is to box him into a corner) When he says "My dad is just being selfish" he's actually talking about himself.

How much do you bet that during this trip, they are going to cross path with Rei-kun and his mistress?

I bet my watch that it's not going to happen

I dunno. Reiichi and Uta have a pattern of sharing interests, and if Kaoru lets Uta pick where they go.... (Or if it's someplace Kaoru and Reiichi had always talked about going...)

People are way too hard on this series. I found it to be an exceptionally cute series about five young people in a pretty brutal romantic circumstance. I get why some people feel the ending was rushed, but calling it crap doesn't seem fair to me.. Kotooka had to overcome her past trauma and get over her fear of losing her friendships, Nadeshiko had to decide what she needed to do to be satisfied with herself, Tsukasa had to come to grips with the fact that her feelings are unrequited so she could properly move on, Subaru needed to realize that he can care about and have relationships with people other than Tsukasa, and Asakura needed to recognize that he's attracted to Subaru as well. They all overcame their basic stumbling blocks to moving forward, so the manga ends with the potential of their futures in front of them.

Serenata posted:

and in the other hand Tsukasa was just going through a phase after all

That is the single thing that made this series crap for me.

She wasn't going through a phase, she just had a love that didn't work out, and at the end, she takes the first step towards getting over it.

Just because it's implied that she has a boyfriend down the road doesn't mean her feelings towards Nadeshiko weren't real. Bisexuality is a thing.

The story is impossible in real life, but yes it's not that bad.

I feel like I'll regret asking, but how would it be impossible? It's not like we've seen anything that is excessively outlandish just yet.

What are you talking about? There's two women! In a romantic relationship! They're both girls! Pure fantasy, I tell you! (harumph harumph harumph)

My heart still hurts everytime I think about NnA. It was one of my favorites till been cancelled...

I blame most of the yuri fandom. Lets face it, most of the fandom just want to see girls kissing and banging. People don't care about a solid plot. That's why Citrus is so popular, the plot is boring, but as long as girls are banging every now and then people will read it. But taste is subjective so there is nothing we can do about it. The most popular will survive.

.....there's no banging in Citrus though?

I know, seriously. I see this all the time, and every time I'm like: "But...But they've never had sex. Not once."

Cannibal posted:

Still betting that the sweet potato scene was an extra as well.

Pretty sure it was, in the previous chapter didn't it say "SJ didn't come that day/night" so it wouldn't make sense if she indeed appeared after all

I believe that's just a glitch in the translation. Different languages often have different ways of phrasing things, with nuances that defy a direct translation. In the sweet potato scene, Qiu Tong had Sun Jing's jacket from the previous night, she asked about the "business" that caused Sun Jing's delay, and when she finally gets there, Sun Jing gives Qiu Tong this look that says "I need to make sure I cherish this girl". At the very least, it's definitely meant to be the next time they meet.

So The Christmas and chinese new year specials are fair enough, and the future glimpse and side jump to Tattletale's glasses were funny and cute, but...I am freaking desperate to know what happened with Mo Xiaonan.

What is this a sequel to?

I believe it's sequel to this:
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/mix
(names are the same)

But the way Mix ended, it's actually hard to believe they didn't fug while still in high school

Not really. At the end of Mix, Moe was still hiding her feelings.

Hell hath no fury...

There used to be (back when most men and women wore hats) a superstiition that it was unlucky to put a hat on a bed. There was actually a practical reason for not putting your hat on the bed--it's much more likely that someone will accidentally sit on it than if you put it on a table (or a hatrack).

"Don't put your glasses on your school desk--and certainly don't cover them up with anything" isn't an official saying. But maybe it should be.

Also cases are a thing, Tattletale!

Actually I'm surprised he didn't have a case.

I'd actually forgotten, but he -does-. He took them out so he could look at them. Then he covered them with a napkin, both preventing him from being able to look at them, failing to protect them, and also hiding them from Mr Stack-of-books.

You know something that just occurred to me...The school was getting shut down because declining birth rates caused a big drop in enrollment. So if they save their school by drawing students from elsewhere, doesn't that just mean somebody -else's- school gets shut down later?

School idol-ing is a vicious cycle.

Ohmygod, what if that's why the school in Love Live! Sunshine is being threatened??

You know something that just occurred to me...The school was getting shut down because declining birth rates caused a big drop in enrollment. So if they save their school by drawing students from elsewhere, doesn't that just mean somebody -else's- school gets shut down later?

There used to be (back when most men and women wore hats) a superstiition that it was unlucky to put a hat on a bed. There was actually a practical reason for not putting your hat on the bed--it's much more likely that someone will accidentally sit on it than if you put it on a table (or a hatrack).

"Don't put your glasses on your school desk--and certainly don't cover them up with anything" isn't an official saying. But maybe it should be.

Also cases are a thing, Tattletale!

but we see her stunned afterwards (is putting a hand on her shoulder really that surprising after all the hand?
grabbing we've seen Yuu do?) indicates to me that we're at least meant to wonder if there was a kiss there.

I would say that is a determined look, not a stunned look, but for Yuu to initiate more 'intimate' contact is different from her normal behaviour. If she did initiate a kiss, I image the whole thing would be played very differently.

Page 17, last panel is definitely an expression of surprise. Could she be surprised that Yuu put her hands on her shoulders? Eh, maybe, but Yuu's done plenty of hand grabbing in the past, and this wouldn't be too different from that, so such an expression would seem like an overreaction. I think at the very least, the scene is intentionally ambiguous.

I'm betting something comes out during the play, personally. ;p

I actually don't think we will see the play at this stage, its been a highly practiced thing and only with having some distance in time from the performance will there be an affect. I would not be surprised for there to be flash backs in the next few episodes.

The play has been too built up to just skip it entirely. It's not like I expect them to show us the entire thing, but I'm betting at the very least we're going to get a major scene, and I bet somebody has an epiphany and improvs something in the middle of it. But we'll see soon enough, I suppose.

I always felt people were misreading that and overreacting. I never thought it was about suicide, but just the aimless malaise of someone who doesn't know who they want to be or what they want to do with their life.

This so much, I can't believe there were people speculating that Touko could try to kill herself or even consider doing it. And the whole train thing or those weird moments with Touko in chapter 23, I see them as a symbolism of her mental state and insecurities,not as symbolisms of a possible bad end. If anything, there are some hints (not so subtle now) that things will be fine.

(nods) At the very least, this whole series has set up Yuu as Touko's saving grace, so even if they had decided to go there, Yuu would've saved the day.

Well, I suspect that's a kiss happening in panel 4 of page 17. I don't see why you would cut her face out of the frame like that if you weren't implying that something lip related is going on off-panel, and Touko looks pretty stunned in the last panel.

I don't think they kissed, I think that Nakatani was trying to put emphasis on Yuu's hands in the first panel. It would be also out of character for Yuu to do that, in a moment like that and possibly in front of other people around there.

Yuu has a history of pulling out surprise comforting gestures when her bae is nervous, and she's been getting gradually more proactive recently.

It is ambiguous, but that's the point of a shot like that, to leave you wondering. If the purpose was just to show the hand, you would put Touko's face in panel and show her reacting to the hand, to draw extra emphasis to the gesture. The fact that they don't show us her face during the panel, but we see her stunned afterwards (is putting a hand on her shoulder really that surprising after all the hand-grabbing we've seen Yuu do?) indicates to me that we're at least meant to wonder if there was a kiss there.

and both are content with just loving her. Rivalry implies that both would aim for the same goal, such as Touko's reciprocation

I think it's inevitable that Yuu will deal with the feelings she has been repressing for a long time after the play is over, same with Sayaka.

I'm betting something comes out during the play, personally. ;p

Her hand-wringing when the talk of confession was going on a few chapters ago said a lot about what she wants out of their relationship.

Are you refering to chapter 24? Can't really remember anything like this recently.

I mean the scene with Akari in Chapter 27. When Doujima gets defensive about Akari's confession, ("Telling someone you love them is never wrong!") Yuu looks more more moved by it than Akari does. And I'm pretty confident that on page 19 of that chapter, Yuu's reaction to Akari's heartbreak is as much about her own worries about how Touko will react to her feelings as it is about empathy for her friend's sadness.

I've come to love the interactions between Yui and Saeki. They often offer a lot of interesting insight on what's going on with Nanami from two very different and privileged points of view.
Plus I tend to like it when "rivals" aren't at each other's throars.

I can't really even see them as rivals, personally. They just both love Touko (who is, which bears repeating again and again, stupendously, inhumanly lucky to have not one but two extraordinary women love her this much), and both are content with just loving her. Rivalry implies that both would aim for the same goal, such as Touko's reciprocation, but they really don't have anything to fight over, so it's more of a bond than a rivalry (even though rivalry itself is a form of personal bond, too).

On the topic of the next chapter, I have a strong suspicion that it will jump directly to the aftermath of the play. I don't see any narrative point of writing out a story-with-a-story unless it goes completely off the rails and turns out to be more about the actors than about their (doubly fictional) characters. Skipping the play to only reiterate the key events and to deal with the aftermath would be a nice piece of elliptic storytelling that I am sure Nakatani would be able to write perfectly.

Eeeeh, I'm pretty sure Saeki has been holding out hope that if she stayed by her side, Touko might eventually reciprocate her feelings. She might suspect she's already lost, but I doubt she doesn't have any hopes. And Yuu DEFINITELY wants Touko to keep loving her. Her hand-wringing when the talk of confession was going on a few chapters ago said a lot about what she wants out of their relationship. It isn't an accident that the author worked in a side drama about a tragic confession story right before the play.

Also, the fact that we've seen so much of the plot of the play beforehand implies that it might go off the rails. I'm expecting Yuu to do something beautifully foolish during their pivotal scene.

Saeki is a worthy suitor/rival indeed...

Just no.

I guess my question being was Yuu telling her she isn't alone what she needed to hear at that moment or not.

I think Nanami's slow response was out of her being nervous with no major implications

The father I see as another character in need of healing/redemption from the past

Agreed with the first part, I don't think the issue to him is actually that Nanami is doing the play, but because he doesn't want to remember or think about what happened.

I get the sense that he is actually worried about Nanami following her sister's footsteps. "She didn't need to, though" makes me think he's also worried that she doesn't have an identity of her own.

last edited at Feb 2, 2018 5:21AM

Man I've been checking so many times over the last few days for the new chapter. Now back to waiting another month...

I guess my question being was Yuu telling her she isn't alone what she needed to hear at that moment or not.

Well, I suspect that's a kiss happening in panel 4 of page 17. I don't see why you would cut her face out of the frame like that if you weren't implying that something lip related is going on off-panel, and Touko looks pretty stunned in the last panel.

OK, I don't know who's more nervous--me or the actors. Actually, although this really was a bit of a tease--we didn't really need two "day-of-the-play" buildup chapters--for me this one totally dispelled the impression that . . . that bad thing might happen. You know, with the trains, and the "no destination" and all. That one.

I think we're good on that score.

I always felt people were misreading that and overreacting. I never thought it was about suicide, but just the aimless malaise of someone who doesn't know who they want to be or what they want to do with their life.

Okay, so,

A) PFFT
B) But but Mo what about Mo what happened to my precious babee
C) "It would be wasteful to put them on right away"? It's not like your old glasses have to get worn out. It's a freaking fashion choice. Seize the glasses! Carpe speculum! (wait that means something else)

Can anyone tell me who she actually is? By the way she talked with Ayako in the raw?

Ayako's sister or her sister-in-law, because her name's /Mori/ Akira. The former would honestly make more sense, given how similar they look to each other.

If I'm not wrong, Kisaragi was Ayako's surname before she got married, and the guy's surname was Mori, whiiich means that she'd have to be a blood relative of the guy's. Unless there's been a mistake with the surnames.

Is it possible that they're married? Maybe the reason she feels guilty is because she's been hiding a wife from her daughter, presenting her as an aunt or something.

This makes me feel a little bad for Tsu. I mean, she probably left home to get away from the constant, wall-to-wall incest, and she's all "Man, I'm so glad to have a nice, normal girlfr-(relationship breaks up, girlfriend goes to marry sister) GODDAMMIT!"

oh god that last panel i cant my sides help

Good series with a rushed but mostly satisfying ending. I am still a little confused about Oga being able to see the wings. It might have something to do with caring about the person? Like, obviously Sayuri cares about Mikoto, but maybe since Oga is so kind that she has a general level of sincere caring for other people that she can already see Mikoto's wings from the start. It could have something to do with being a lesbian I guess, but Kusanagi couldn't see Mikoto's wings. So it must be something to do with the relationship to the character.

The other thing I don't get is that Kusanagi saw Sayuri as an angel during their school days. That supports the idea that seeing the wings is down to caring about the character. It kind of creates a new problem, though, because what are the wings caused by? Nobody sees Sayuri as an angel at any other point in the story, so it's not a permanent thing. Was seeing Sayuri as an angel just a kind of metaphorical thing due to falling in love or whatever? Because that seems out of place in a story where Mikoto's wings are real and physical. I basically guessed the ending pretty early on and I always assumed the wings are due to having a proximity to death or being in a borderline state like a coma. But Sayuri having the wings in the past complicates that explanation.

The wings seem to be inconsistent between Sayuri and Mikoto. Mikoto is aware of her wings, while Sayuri appeared to not notice them. That would seem to indicate that Kusanagi imagined seeing Sayuri as an angel due to love. Again, though, why include a detail like that in the story when Mikoto really did appear as an angel? If Sayuri really did have the wings once, then we need a new explanation for the wings. It could be an emotional thing like experiencing despair or depression. I don't know, I'm not having any great ideas.

Sayuri's "wings" and Mikoto's wings aren't the same thing. Mikoto was a literal angel, a disembodied spirit empowered by a god to be able to visit and live with her sister for a year. Her wings were an actual physical part of herself. The wings on Sayuri were symbolic. They were either a trick of the light, through the camera lens, or a figment of Kusanagi's somewhat unhinged imagination, but either way, different thing.

last edited at Jan 21, 2018 5:48PM