Sure, I never said it was a binary choice. But this isn't even "intellectually engaging." People debating the mechanics of the world doesn't mean it's complex or good; even shitty sci-fi can be a jumping off point for worldbuilding discussion and comparison. On the contrary, it's the fact that OJ only gave this the barest bones of setup that leaves it open to so much questioning - had he bothered to provide more details people wouldn't have to ask.

Saying stuff like "Semelparous is not a simple derivative work but a truly post-modernist one that deliberately invokes existing texts to create a new meaning" and "combining a deep critical and analytical understanding of complex source material and a completely irreverent indulgence" about a T&A manga is just frankly hilarious to me. I mean, what has he done so far?

1. Set up a derivative framework where there's a featureless extranormal battle space for fighting generic monsters with literal physical walls dividing it somehow from our space and actual doorways leading into it.

2. Showed a lot of bloody fights where girls with massive tits kill stuff.

3. Provided not one but BOTH of them with the "dead loved one" motivation and "preternaturally talented" characteristic.

Again, I'm not saying it doesn't have entertainment value but waxing about its "truly postmodern" qualities is ridiculous to me. But as you say, just my opinion.

Well, I hope the original mangaka doesn’t get pissed over using their intellectual property, but I hear such plagiarism is welcome as a sort of free advertising for the original IP over in Japan.

I’d like to see such mature content for MC in canon; however, it would detract from the author’s intent of showing how their relationship improves over time.

You've been around long enough to post 771 times and you don't know about how massive (and accepted) the doujinshi subculture is? headscratch

^ lol. This is like, the fanciest, most roundabout way to say "Ogino Jun rips other stuff off and adds T&A."

Seriously, this isn't that deep. There's nothing complex or layered going on here. That's not a criticism, BTW - for every trend in art or culture there are innovators and imitators, and imitation of itself is not a failure. OJ isn't some savant artiste creating a masterpiece out of a broad swath of inspiration. He's a good mangaka who can spot a trend and who likes to draw tits. Appreciate it for what it is, there's no need to pretend this is high art.

Well, that escalated quickly... then took a couple of pivots in different directions. Not complaining at all, I would happily read more about their adventures. I was just half expecting some epic trolling - "Chapter 4738 - Skirt .7mm below the Knee," "Chapter 4739 - Skirt .6mm Below the Knee..."

Wouldn't it be possible for a bastioner to kill themselves?

I was asking myself the same thing.

It should be exceedingly rare that you would end up killing yourself, or even someone you know - I mean, assuming the "astral pairs" are roughly limited to the geography of the major cities they work in that's still millions of people in each zone. And although they haven't clarified the percentage of people without a pair, that should lower it even further (even though they seem to be leaning pretty hard on the "1 kill there = 1 kill here every time" angst.) That said, in manga There Are No Coincidences (tm).

That's already way more analysis than this deserves, though. Gamma was way better as a story, even if this has more explicit yuri at the start. And, I've been nothing but on the record as liking big boobs but these aren't even well-drawn big boobs. They completely defy all physical logic. Plus, ok, I can maybe accept that one character is freakishly slim and stacked, but like... every one? And no one notices that a bunch of middle school girls all look like Hitomi Tanaka clones?

TBH I don't feel like Ogino Jun really has his heart in this story. I think he did the old "this + that" sales pitch to an editor (It's Attack on Titan, but with yuri!) without much beyond the hook, and is really just making the barest framework of story needed to draw some busty girls from fetishy angles. (Seriously, do you know any women who at all moments of the day are standing so that you can see their ass and tits at the same time?) And hey, not everything needs to be a masterpiece. It's a little too trashy for me as a serious story - it would be better if it was just an H-manga honestly.

Short and to the point, both chapters. Like an emergency capsule of yuri, "Break in case of emergency." :p

I was also among those confused about the "who did what and where to whom" here. It's not entirely clear, either due to the translation or the original I don't know. P.11 is indeed where it gets funky.

The first panel only uses pronouns, so my best guess is that it's a carryover from the previous page and "she" refers to Misa, and she is speculating that Misa is the one sleeping with the director. I think she's implying that people know the director is having an affair with someone in the office, and somehow the speculation is that it's Maya. (I'm not sure she's directly accusing Misa of spreading the rumor or why Misa would attract the attention of spreading a rumor about something she herself was doing).

It's also a little abrupt because the middle panel is the first time we hear any indication that the director was (also?) interested in Shino-san, who he obviously wasn't having the affair with. It seems out of place.

P.12 adds a new layer of confusion - why is Shino thanking Maya for helping her out and allowing her to leave early? The first part was all about Maya (possibly intentionally) flubbing up to manipulate peoples' attention, and ultimately Shino saying she would help Maya.

P.16 it's clearly said that the rumor is about Shino and the director, whereas P.9 it's clearly said that the rumor is about Maya and the director. I have a feeling 9 is mistranslated - it just doesn't make sense for someone to sort of bashfully confront a woman about a rumor of her sleeping with the boss. It makes more sense if he's talking to her about Shino. Back on p.16, I'm not sure on the context of the "Regarding my feelings about Maya" bubble - confusing again.

P.24 makes it seem like Misa is also not the one involved in the affair or the rumor, in which case it's seemingly just an unfounded rumor? But in that case it's unclear who started it and why, or why the director would know about a rumor that is damaging the company (per p. 18) and not do anything about it.

Aaaanyway, it all fits together better if, again, p. 9 is mistranslated. But either way I do enjoy Sal Jiang's stuff a lot and hope to see a lot more from her!

last edited at Apr 12, 2020 1:01AM

Dunno how they came to that translation for the name.

Probably the translator got too clever with the wordsmithing, or got too hung up in trying to convey the "ka na" ending on the original. Or maybe they didn't like/thought it was too long to go with something like, "Do you think we should go out?" "It might be good if we dated, right?" etc. I suppose it's also possible that the original author or publisher made this English title themselves and wanted it used even if it doesn't read well to native speakers (that's happened with other titles and translation flubs).

I'm gonna be the contrarian and say I hope tmfly sticks with this ending. It's a very unusual one in the world of manga, especially romance manga, where everyone gets married to the first person who asks them out or a childhood crush and if you don't there's something wrong with you. Honestly this is way more true to life - most people have a-few-to-many relationships that don't work out in one dimension or another before they find the person or situation that suits them long term. (And even then, how many of those actually make it to the 'till-death-do-us-part stage? And why is that the only acceptable barometer for a "successful" relationship?)

I think it's pretty mature and refreshing to show two women who clearly have great physical chemistry but don't have a great personality match, who learn and grow through dating each other and break up mutually better off and knowing it's for the best. (And, bonus, breaking up on good terms means the door is there for the occasional NSA hookup!) I get the instinct to root for the happily-ever-after ending for characters you like, but there are other possible good endings too.

last edited at Mar 31, 2020 12:18AM

VE was way more NSFW on the early chapters but Kishi tone it down at some point. Also the Yaoi part of the BL manga club of VE is way NSFW than that.

Yeah, I should clarify "drawing males vs. drawing females." A few bare breasts here and there for the latter, vs. kinky sex and erect cocks for the former.

Curious about two things:

1. Why is Kishi-sensei willing to draw more NSFW here than OnT? Is this a BL vs. yuri "norms" thing? We know he can draw explicit yuri vis-a-vis "Maka-Maka"... Whatever the reason, a little bit of a bummer for yuri fans, but BL fans should be excited.

2. Why is this not censored? Did the translation team redraw the wang or is there a loophole in the censorship laws? Gotten so used to censored manga that it jumps out at this point (no pun intended).

I'll say again that among fans of this fetish it's called "size contrast," not "height gap." But at least it's here finally.

last edited at Mar 26, 2020 2:01AM

Sal has at least three full-length original doujin out now, if any translators are looking for a project.

I wish I liked Homura Subaru's art style more, because the content is very much in my strike zone. I just don't find his characters appealing, they are way too loli for me. :/

She straight up said that it disappeared off the face of the earth. この世からなくなった. Akiho was desperate to come up with some excuse, and Nakano is so accommodating that she blindly accepts this obvious lie, because she was raised proper.

Ahaha. Well, never underestimate the ability of a manga protagonist to be stupefyingly oblivious I guess!

p. 104 - "The last train ceased to exist." Is that really what she said, or is it an expression that means more like "the last train was cancelled?" Because while the former is I guess funny, it's not the kind of thing you would say that would be taken at face value (at the very least saying a joking lie like that suddenly would reveal her interest.)

If Lizard and Not Lizard are ever tagged together, do they neutralize each other, or is it like a crossing the streams "We're totally fucked" thing?

Nothing about the actual doujin, I just felt like saying how hilarious I found it that one of the old hyper-specific tags actually was able to be reused. (Let's go "M Night Shyamalan!")

This is one of my favorite doujin! Tousen has done a whole bunch of other Rozen Maiden doujin but they're all futa as far as I know. If there were more panels devoted to the breast expansion, and more of the human girl drinking the milk, it would be 10/10 for me. Maybe someday, Tousen!?

How is using "yurifag" homophobic though...x-fag usually means shitty fan. The comedy was pretty bad nevertheless.

That's more of a 4chan thing and definitely isn't something that is on most of the internet, so it is completely reasonable for people to get angry at it.

I question what the original text said on this one. Given the source it smacks of "translation liberties" intended to get a laugh out of /u/ and not in the spirit of the original. Either way this isn't very good as a whole, but I feel like you can put that particular crappy word choice squarely on the translator.

There's a continuity error! Nozomi starts with a necklace which disappears for all but one other panel! And the title was completely wrong! Nico became concious of her right before the game!

I'm shocked! Shocked! This is an outrage! I demand a refund!

I mean, what are we to believe - that this is some sort of a-a magic xylophone or something?

Like someone said earlier... it's porn. It doesnt have to have deep character motivations and logic. There are ways to critically analyze porn, yeah, but usually one of them is not "the emotional dynamics of this relationship aren't consistent." If you don't want to see some R-rated lesbian sex with a loose framework about cohabiting co-workers, probably not the series for you.

Oh, man, this author. I thought I recognized the gangly characters and emotions dialed up to 11 in every conversation. I'll at least give them credit for writing real stories with lesbian characters rather than the usual cookie-cutter yuri junk.

There were definitely too many twists here, though, for such a short work. Should have saved a couple for another day and filled out the original premise better.

But the real reason I commented is to say, what is going on with Rei's eyes in ch. 2 p. 6? It looks like the artist drew drew each eye in a different style to test them and then never went back to fix it. She looks extra nuts

So awesome that this exists! That said,

1. Where can we buy it?

2. I also wish it had been during/after their college years. The end was a bit unfulfilling as-is - we never got to see Akko at all, never got to see them come out to friends or family, never got to see the life they were working toward together. If this one-shot does well maybe she'll pick up those threads too?!

This is absolutely ridiculous and astoundingly terrible.

... Of course, I'll read it. ;_;