OK, all caught up. Things I think, which are mostly what I thought from the beginning:

• There's all these interactions where Nozomi is like, "Haha, this would be sort of romantic if we weren't both girls!" Like Nozomi seems just cluelessly straight, she never entertains the idea of f/f romance even being a real possibility.d
• Whenever Nozomi busts out one of those heteronormative assumptions Shino gets awkward as fuuuck. Like Shino never actually thinks of herself as gay (she never thinks about herself in a romantic context period), but the way she gets flustered at stuff that doesn't even ping for Nozomi is tellingly consistent.
• There's probably no real chance of romance between the two of them, and honestly with how codependent the two of them already are it would be super unhealthy if they did. They're really better off as family.
• Basketball kouhai has a pretty obvious crush on Shino, and Shino was definitely checking her out in their first meeting. There's a ton of room in the story for their relationship to develop. OTOH they've only talked in like, 3 chapters out of almost 50 soooo that may be a bit slow to develop...
• But yeah, basketball girl seems like the ideal endgame. A lot of Shino's attraction to Nozomi feels less like she's specifically in love with her, and more that, well, she's still a horny teenager living in an apartment with a big tittie 24 year old. Give Shino a healthier outlet for her romantic feelings and she'd be better off.

I think the big challenge to this is that, well A) damn this manga is a super slow burn and doesn't feel like it has any intention to move towards solid resolutions, and B) there's an unhealthy element to the girls' relationship, where they just stew together in their grief day after day. It's comforting to them, but it also makes it hard to move out of the grief stage, and they're kind of mutually enforcing a feeling of guilt if they think about moving on in their lives. Until they start dealing with that, neither of them is gonna be dating anyone.

last edited at Oct 22, 2018 10:51PM

As I read more chapters I'm still reading Shino as very much gay. I still don't think it's really a romance, and honestly the two of them having a romance would probably be pretty unhealthy, they more need to be a family. But Shino still reads as such a baby gay. It's never something that's up to the level of like full-on coded subtext, but it's also a pretty consistent theme with her.

• Her playing that gal-game from her male otaku friend
• Also just how easy she gets along with her male friends and the total lack of any sexual tension with them
• That rather Freudian, "Ahh, I want a wife!" line, which Nozomi corrected to "You mean a husband."
• How she totally seemed like she was checking out the basketball kouhai, and was uncomfortable at her sexiness.
• Her whole, "lol fuck no I don't want to wear a yukata" attitude, where she only gives in because Nozomi is looking all sexy begging her to
• More awkwardness when Nozomi is like, "We should go on a date!!" and then later Shiho's massive awkward embarrassment that she fell asleep with Nozomi holding hands.
• Shino knows about that cute female idol that her brother liked, whereas Nozomi's only heard of her.
• Her feelings of jealousy when Nozomi's with a guy at the festival, which is definitely partly about her brother, but also not 100% because of that.
• And then, like, that whole bathing together thing, come on.

Like Nozomi doesn't come across as very gay to me, except maybe a degree of romantic friendship. Her flirty lines feel much more like just kind of standard flirty Asian female friendship stuff. But Shino has all these moments where like, at the very least if you read her as gay they certainly never do anything to challenge that reading. Way more than trying to find any textual support of her being straight.

Basically I'm happy with them just being family, but I'm definitely hoping that basketball kouhai shows up again.

edit: chapter 31 and hello basketball kouhai!

last edited at Oct 22, 2018 10:50PM

I just started reading through this, and I'm only on chapter 16 so far so maybe things will change, but right now I'm definitely getting huge gay vibes from the main girl. Like I don't really think it's intended to ever actually turn into a romance - unlike some other authors Kuzushiro seems to understand that there are other healthy relationships besides just romance. But it does read like Shino has a bit of a crush/attraction to Nozomi, like she gets way more embarrassed and flustered by touching and intimacy around Nozomi than she's ever shown around any of her dude friends. And a lot of times that embarrassment is tied directly to panels pointing out Nozomi's physical assets, and Shino's reaction to the sexyness. Also the chapter where it introduced the basketball kouhai was written a lot like it was introducing a romantic interest, it totally seemed like Shino was checking her out.

Anyway since this is a well written series it's not like every moment of awkwardness is about sexual tension, they're both well rounded characters with different aspects to their personality. But that's how I'm reading it so far, not meant to be a romance per se, but also still pretty gay.

last edited at Oct 21, 2018 9:48AM

The art is really nice, kind of seems like a waste that the artist is drawing... this...

I dunno, maybe it'll go somewhere?

Nya-chan posted:

I actually looked up "Salamander" by Asuji Ibuse and it's a really depressing story. It's a parabola about depression and loneliness actually.

The frog is trapped by the Salamander and is slowly dying.

It's about their acceptance of their fate: being trapped and dying.

... I don't think this manga is going to follow that route, after all... She wouldn't mind being a frog.

"I don't mind you trapping and slowly starving me" is a thing friends say

it's skinship, guys

Nettaigyo with the unexpected hard swerve into S&M

One of the things that's really charmed me about this series is how present the parents are. Like Koyuki's parents already seem like they have a way better idea of what's going on with their daughter's [subtext] than Koyuki herself does. It's not an idea that yuri normally ever tackles, that parents would actually support the relationship. But like dad's been pretty much shipping them from the start, and mom kinda seems like she's realized something this chapter, too.

Like it's just taking an already cute, fluffy story and making it that much sweeter.

So are chapter 14 raws out anywhere yet?

OK so, I don't know why I'm even doing this considering pretty much everyone already agrees that this series is gay as fuck, but screw it, I'm going through each chapter and pointing out how fucking absolutely on purpose all the gay stuff is. I'm gonna call senpai by her surname Honami because both of them having K names just inevitably makes me fuck up.

Chapter 1 --
The whole story opens with girls meets girl. The whole "moving to a new town" thing comes later, but the story really wants you to know this is about these two girls from page 1.

Also she's opening with "Do you like Salamanders?" which as will come up later, isn't really how she normally deals with the public. She's starting with an icebreaker, trying to start a conversation with this random girl. Konatsu, meanwhile, is all like, "A pretty girl is talking to me!!!" It's not quite as gay as Kumiko from Euphonium's, "Crap, a pretty girl!", but still, she seems pretty amazed. There's just so much immediate romantic tension here, with Honami inviting her to come back and Konatsu looking all nervous and intrigued by the invitation (and not because she's super into aquariums!).

Page 16, and hey, it's our first mention of the summer festival already! Specifically, a boy asked Honami out to the festival and got turned down. Konatsu thinks that Honami's pretty popular. The teacher yells at Konatsu to not just stare out into space on her first day, but we already saw on the previous page what she's really staring at - Honami outside in PE.

Their whole second meeting is pretty romantic, too. It's also sorta interesting that they immediately go to first names, which is relatively intimate, especially when one is older. It feels like part of this manga's reversal of Class-S tropes - Konatsu meets this impossibly cool, pretty senpai... And instead of having that very Class-S kouhai-senpai relationship, instead they go straight to an equal relationship, and she realizes that Honami's actually a pretty big dork. The author's purposefully referencing, and then subverting, some of those standard romantic friendship / gay subtext tropes.

What's really interesting is on page 35. Her dad messages her asking if she's made any new friends, and Konatsu's like, "Should I tell him the truth?" Next panel is her thinking of Honami's face, third panel is Konatsu blushing. She tells her dad that she made one friend, and then is like, "I'm not lying..." before wondering if it would be OK for her to visit Honami tomorrow, and trying to think of an excuse to do so, and feeling all embarrassed about it.

So like, does any of that sequence really make a lick of sense if all she's thinking about is how she wants to be friends? It really doesn't. The "I'm not lying" is pretty obviously meant to be followed by, "But I'm not telling the whole truth about her, either." And it's not because she's feeling a bit lonely, because as the not-a-lizard tells her in a couple pages, if she's lonely she could just go try to hang out with her classmates. But she's not hanging out with her classmates, she's in the library researching Salamanders, trying to figure out a name to submit, all so she'll have an excuse to go back to visit Honami. She asks herself, "Why am I so hung up on this?"

When she finally goes to the aquarium club itself, she sees two boys inside. Boys are useful props in yuri, because when they say that they like a girl there's no doubt about how they mean it. And in this case the boys are very useful props indeed. "If you like Honami, just join the club already. There aren't any other members, so you'd have her all to yourself." Again, the author's setting a boy's romantic feelings for Honami right next to Konatsu's (as yet unrevealed, technically) feelings for Honami. If the author wanted this to just be a story about Girl's Friendship she could've had it be a couple of girls talking about how cool senpai is, but nope, it's boys talking about liking a girl and Konatsu relating to that. If she wanted romantic friendship she could've just made this a girl's school, or at least done that thing where boys never really show up on screen. Yes it's subtext, more or less, but this ain't an accident, the author is doing this on purpose.

Meanwhile Honami is totally wondering about Konatsu, before resolving "I'll just do my club duties before thinking about anything weird." Honami feels like her thoughts about Konatsu are weird, not normal.

Notice the lack of honorifics when Konatsu is naming the salamander after Honami's first name, Koyuki. First name, no honorifics is a very intimate form of address, and she's going, "It's lonely without you, Koyuki!!" No wonder Honami freaks out with the second-hand kiss. The whole scene is them sort of teasing intimacy - not quite no-honorifics, not exactly a real kiss but thinking of one... This sort of experimental pushing of boundaries shows up regularly in later chapters, in a way that is not at all about gals being pals, but is very much like having a first girlfriend.

Heh, that was a lot longer than I had planned for only one chapter. But like, jesus christ it's so gay! I see a lot of folks in the comments acting like something is either gay, or "just" subtext, and like... Yeah, the manga never quiiiite outright tells you what it's doing, but that doesn't mean it isn't still gay as fuck. It's just subtly written.

Also the dads super seem like they're picking up on what's going on. They both get that amused parental expression, and drop subtle lines about how they're supportive of their "friendship."

OMG, I think I just started shipping the two dads . . .

The dads get together

The girls just stay as friends

Dynasty explodes

Boy I really like what's out of this so far! I think I need to reread all the chapters again before I make a longer post about this, but even though nobody's outright said, "I'm gay and I wanna fuck this girl" it sure feels a lot more about being gay than like any other subtext type of series that I've seen. Like nothing's been said outright, but it feels like the author is super clear on yes, these girls are obviously gay for each other, it's just that the girls themselves are still confused.

And it's funny cuz it's taking some of the oldest class-s tropes in the book, "cool senpai who's good at everything plz notice me!!!" but then undercutting most of it. Senpai isn't actually that cool, and also they're in a mixed-gender school. Even that boy was like, "Hey if you have a crush on her just join her club!", and if the girls wanted to go flirting with boys, well, they're right there, and there's other girls doing exactly that.

Also the dads super seem like they're picking up on what's going on. They both get that amused parental expression, and drop subtle lines about how they're supportive of their "friendship."

I don't know who said this quote but I think this sums up perfectly about Korean society. " Being a Korean idol means you have to face the majority society who thinks “we like you being gay with your band mates but we despise the idea of you being an actual gay person.” Also, Moonbuyl's new song Love and Hate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLaZyyquAxI This song seems to be about Solar.

Yeah there's this really perverse social pressure thing going on with them. They're a-ok to publicly flirt and grab each other's ass up on stage, because then it's just fanservice between two hot chicks, nothing gay there! But then you see them in interviews or behind-the-scenes stuff and they're just a couple of dorky kids who seem really conflicted about staying closeted and afraid to admit there's anything between them at all. The songs written by Moonbyul or Solar always seem like they kind of reflect that fear as well, dealing with ideas like self-loathing and not being able to admit their feelings. It's never explicitly gay, there's always a layer of deniability there, but I don't think it's a surprise that a ton of gay Koreans seem to have picked up on it. Like there's a video out there somewhere of fans coming out of a Mamamoo solo concert and it is super noticeable how many of them are M/M or F/F couples walking out.

Like, if they were more relaxed about playing up the sexy lesbians thing offstage, I would actually believe them less. Instead you get all these moments of them happily flirting and then suddenly they look at the camera and pull back, like they're afraid they were getting too real. I just feel bad for them, just like that old Jodie Foster interview it's sort of funny but it's also really sad.

Finally someone understands how gay of a ship moonsun is. So thank you SadDoctor. I have literally seen all their videos twice and analysed their body language and I can say that Moonbuyl is 100% gay for solar. This doesn’t seem like their typical Korean Idol Ships where it’s for marketing purpose. I am convinced that Moonbyl is at least bisexual or just straight up gay but that would never happen in Korea. No star in Korea would risk their career and come out of the closet.

Yeah just because they act flirty on stage doesn't really mean anything, lots of kpop stars (even male pop stars) will toss out some same-sex fanservice on stage. But the way they act together when they're off-stage totally reminds me of like some American closeted celebrities in the '90s, where they're always going on couples vacations with their female "friend" and you wonder in hindsight how it was ever a secret to anyone. And Solar is like, the world's least convincing heterosexual, on We Got Married it was downright cringeworthy how uncomfortable she was. Pretty much any time the two of them get questions about romance or what kind of boys they like or any of that it's always just hooorribly awkward, it makes me feel bad for them.

With the on-stage fanservice you'd think they'd have a mostly male fanbase, but there's been some disparaging comments about how the Mamamoo fanbase is, to paraphrase, basically a bunch of dykes. Which I think is pretty awesome, their fans know what's up even if the girls can't publicly admit it.

last edited at Jul 1, 2017 7:53PM

I was thinking more like "Fake and gay" but that works too.

There is nothing fake about the MoonSun as a ship. There was a poll with 1000 gay Korean people and MoonSun ship was voted number 1. If they announced they got married no one would be surprised. Cough cough ~ except maybe some Koreans that hate homosexuality.

They have their own ship twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23moonsun

You know it’s real when you have a ship twitter. They are definition of realationship goals.

Holy cow, yeah, these two are gay as fuck.

I've seen weddings with less spark than these two have every time they're in a room together.

(I seriously spent like all day today watching videos of those two, they are adorable together)

Even now, I'd strongly say that season 1 was definitely not bait. Kumiko wasn't just flirty with Reina, she was hella gay all the time - she even gets roped back into band because she can't say no to a pretty girl. And so much of the themes of season 1 overlap with Kumiko becoming OK with not fitting in to the group - both as a musician who's ambitious, and as a gay girl surrounded by straight kids. And anytime there's a shot checking out the bodies of Reina or Kumiko, the editing specifically puts it in context of one of the girls looking - and being attracted to - the other one. The only reason Shuuichi exists in season 1 is to demonstrate Kumiko's interest in Reina, he keeps trying to lowkey ask her out, and Kumiko keeps turning him down and then doing those things with Reina instead. Like, I don't give a crap what's in the novels, season 1 is super gay.

In season 2 it's obvious the studio decided to go in a different direction after episode 201 (iirc they had some staff changes), and after that, yeah, it's straight girls with yuri baiting. Among other changes, the sense of physical awareness and attraction that was constant in season 1 between K & R disappears in season 2. I didn't much like season 2. But that still doesn't take away from what was in season 1, which works pretty darn well as its own self-contained story.

I don't really see the sexism in Michael's position. You could argue he's being somewhat selfish, but so is everyone else in this situation. He wants to have a child who will consider him its father and that's a perfectly understandable desire for him to have. In fact it's the exact same desire that the protagonists have. And here's his partner agreeing to help create a child, but a child who will never call him father.

Imagine if a gay couple approached the protagonists with a similar offer: have their child and be somewhat involved as aunts. Disregarding the difference in what their help would entail (pregnancy being more intensive than sperm donation), would you be angry at them for turning their friends down? Would you be angry with their desire to be mothers instead of aunts?

Especially when the couple wants your boyfriend to be the kid's "uncle." Like maybe if all they wanted was sperm it would be one thing, but they're asking him to be a part of their kid's life, that's really not very cool for the boyfriend who wants to be a father himself - and yet for that the potential sperm donor says he's not ready.

Like, there's no simple and clean logical solution to that, but I can totally understand why the BF wouldn't be OK with it.

The way the series starts off by just kinda throwing you smack into the middle of a bunch of characters is kinda amateurish, it takes like a whole chapter just to figure out who the main characters are. And a lot of the panel layouts are kinda muddled, it can make conversations and actions hard to follow.

But the character designs seem really charming and varied, I'm digging the delinquent vibe, and the chapters seem to be steadily improving, so interested to see where this one goes.

It's interesting how Wei Wei and Dr. Whatshisface are both not only in the closet, they're apparently using each other as mutual beards. The younger generation Ding Yi, on the other hand, is way more like "fuck staying in the closet, we shouldn't be ashamed of anything." That's theoretically what Wei Wei wants, just not really with Ding Yi. Or maybe yes with Ding Yi, but she's not overcome with self-hatred to admit it unless she's really pushed.

I'd be more intrigued if the main character did ANY work at all to get this relationship started.

Straight or queer, I hate stories that are, "I moped about a girl and then she threw herself at me."

That dialogue just didn't feel like something any human being would say.

I like the idea well enough, but it was trying too hard by half.

I'm Watching "Yaoi! on ice" tomorrow. It look's like fun. Also it'll be my first Yaoi anime.

It's great, but it's really not yaoi. It's just gay.

Tsuki ga Kirei is completely het, but it's a really charming coming of age middle school romance. Most middle school / high school romances present a fantasy of hyper-competent, independent, sexual teenagers, which of course teenagers enjoy viewing themselves as. Tsuki ga Kirei is way more of a realistic show - the kids are totally into each other but are also nervous as hell around each other and don't know what to say, their parents are around and engaged in their kids' lives, which of course to a couple of middle schoolers is just the most embarrassing thing possible. 3 episodes in and so far it's been really adorable.

I really appreciate the actually adult behavior of these characters.

Main girl is like, "Yeah, I dunno what's going on, but right now I'm focused on my career so I'm going to delay making a decision."

And then the big deadline is past, so she's just like fuck it, wanna go out sometime?

Even the delay of romance is made because of an understandable reason, instead of just perpetual cold feet or stupid misunderstandings.

Everyone's talking about all these relationship probs that she's about to break off, but did anyone pay attention to Doc getting excepted for somethin abroad??

Yeah she has had her sabbatical abroad approved, but she didn't seem to happy about it which makes me think she applied for it before meeting Ding. A sabbatical is a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from two months to a year in case you didn't know.

It actually gets brought up that she applied back in Ch9 when Ding Yi gets to meet Wei Wei's friends. Going abroad has been a long time dream of Wei Wei's though, she wanted to do the same thing earlier in her life by running away with Dr. Liu.

I wonder if that's the closest to a happy end that we'll get here, Wei Wei and Ding Yi moving to Boston together?

I mean, plainly Wei Wei wants to get out of the country to somewhere that she can come out of the closet, but fleeing to a foreign country with your secret underage lover is generally not a story that works out well :)

That scene with her tying her shoelaces felt downright uncomfortable. Wei Wei isn't a bad person, and she isn't some sort of sexual predator or anything. But dis girl is toooo yooooung for her, and she knows it. This isn't a love affair, it's Wei Wei having an early midlife crisis and shacking up with someone that she doesn't really have any true connection with. She's not in love, she's reliving past love.

For that matter it's not even clear that the girl is actually in love with her either, it seems like she's at least partly seeking an escape from her home, although we don't know why yet.

Like, this story is about a relationship between two people, but so far I don't think it's really correct to call it a romance. We're not really supposed to be cheering on this relationship, even though we can root for both of the characters the story keeps pointing out all the ways in which this is totally not a healthy relationship.

Chapter 16 (eng)

This actually feels a bit like a turning point in the story. This is the first time anyone's actually busted out the "L" word. Until now both of the girls have been operating under the core assumption that of course they're straight. It's why our protagonist didn't view the stuff she was doing with her friend as cheating, because you can't cheat with another girl.

Someone actually introducing the idea that the reason she had a boyfriend was to hide who she really was - a lesbian - is a subtle but massive change to her world view.