Whatever you decide to do, Kirin-kun, thanks for your work on this series. I really enjoy the nuances of the story’s characterizations, and the central mystery really does lend itself to reader discussion beyond the usual, “I like/hate [character]” or “Here’s what I think is going to happen next.”

So thanks again.

→①The first thing Erika did when Aya came back was separating Aya and Koto.

At that point Koto has pretty much BSOD’ed at Aya’s return, and Erika takes over the practical matter of where Aya is going to stay for the night (Erika’s father is evidently some kind of local big shot, so the authorities are willing to release Aya to that family).

①Koto's situation is not appropriate dealing with Aya.

②For some reasons, Erika doesn't want them to have a proper talk now.

These two statements can be true at same time.

Right, but we have evidence for one (we’re told that Erika’s situation is better for dealing with Aya’s circumstances at that particular moment), while the other is just speculation that Erika has an underlying motive rather than (or in addition to) the stated one.

Erika somehow found out that they were dating

She was the one who was peeking at them when the two had their first kiss.

You’re right. I just missed that one. That explains why she doesn’t tell either of them how she knew—she doesn’t want to admit that she was eavesdropping.

The story in general has focused our attention so much more on the emotional consequences of the current-day situation than on the mechanics of what happened to Aya in the past that it was easy (for me) to miss some of the nuances of those flashbacks. But it’s hard to believe that an event on the crucial day that Erika remembers but Aya has forgotten isn’t going to be important somewhere down the line.

EDIT: No apologies needed about your English. We’re both trying to think through some pretty subtle and complicated narrative possibilities.

last edited at Jun 13, 2024 1:19PM

This whole “Aya ping-ponging back and forth in time” theory is an enormous stretch given the evidence we have in the text

Could you elaborate, what was the "evidence we have in the text"?

I’m sorry, I should have said the absence of evidence in the text.

The ping-pong thing is just to fill in the gap of Aya's memory where she doesn't recall any conversation, because I honestly can't come up with anything else, lol. I mean, I still believe the Aya who had a conversation with Erika in the Tanabata day is the future Aya, but where the future Aya go after that, I couldn't come up with anything good, going back to the future is just a vague idea. But there must be a better reason for Aya not remembering her conversation with Erika than just forgetting it and conveniently remembering it when the author sees fit.

That back-and-forth-in-time explanation is theoretically possible, in the sense that it hasn’t yet been ruled out by anything in the text so far, but the simpler explanation still is that Aya’s memory of that day has been wiped (for some yet to be explained reason, maybe as part of the larger unexplained process of her disappearance). There’s also no reason to assume that Aya necessarily will ever remember it, or that if she does it will be done arbitrarily for the author’s convenience.

→②chapter 11, asked Koto "Did something happen between you and Aya at the Tanabata Festival"

That’s perfectly explicable in the context of that flashback as an attempt to figure out what’s up with Aya when she first was absent from school; they only realize that Aya has actually disappeared after Koto finds Aya’s grandfather unconscious on the floor.

Re-reading this makes me wonder, did the conversation between Aya and Erika happen before or after the Tanabata festival? If after, which is more plausible to me, then in young Erika's view, things would have happened in this order:

1. Aya and Koto dating in Tanabata festival.
2. Something happened between Aya and Koto during the festival.
3. Because of (2), Aya met Erika and told her something really weird.
4. Aya disappeared.

All that (again, at this point, pending some further revelation) involves a great deal of direct contradiction of what we know from the text.

• Koto says she never saw Aya at the festival.

• Aya says she doesn’t recall the entire day of the festival.

• Erika says she talked to Aya the day of the festival, but makes no mention of the festival itself, nor does she tell anyone that she saw Aya during or after the festival.

If we postulate that any of the characters are lying, keeping things hidden, or have selective memory lapses, any number of outlandish things could have happened among the three of them. But all we know for sure is that something weird did happen around the time of the Tanabata festival—Aya disappeared.

One open question perhaps related to your theory is: “How did Erika know that Koto and Aya were dating before Aya told her after her return?”

Immediately after the “Aya can’t remember” scene Aya announces that back then she and Koto had started dating, and Erika says, “I already knew.” But when Erika later meets Koto, Koto is surprised that Erika knew the two were dating, which Erika explains by saying that Aya told her. So Koto obviously never told Erika, and, assuming Erika wasn’t lying to Aya, Erika somehow found out that they were dating. But Erika seeing the two of them together at the festival implies either that Koto also has a memory lapse, or that there’s an alternate timeline where they were all at the festival that Koto and Aya don’t remember but Erika does.

I’m basically in the “wait and see what we’re eventually told” camp, but I did notice these odd discrepancies on re-reading the entire series.

I hold the exact same theory as you.

This whole “Aya ping-ponging back and forth in time” theory is an enormous stretch given the evidence we have in the text, but this part (which we do see) is really a stretch:

→①The first thing Erika did when Aya came back was separating Aya and Koto.

At that point Koto has pretty much BSOD’ed at Aya’s return, and Erika takes over the practical matter of where Aya is going to stay for the night (Erika’s father is evidently some kind of local big shot, so the authorities are willing to release Aya to that family). And since Koto very willingly distances herself from Aya for the next couple of days, it’s hard to see Erika’s actions in getting Aya a place to have a bath and go to sleep as part of some secret plan to get Aya alone or to keep the other two apart—Koto stays away from Aya on her own.

→②chapter 11, asked Koto "Did something happen between you and Aya at the Tanabata Festival"

That’s perfectly explicable in the context of that flashback as an attempt to figure out what’s up with Aya when she first was absent from school; they only realize that Aya has actually disappeared after Koto finds Aya’s grandfather unconscious on the floor.

So two questions:

1) When grown-up Erika and Koto are walking near the school after the middle-school reunion, Erika starts to say something: “Koto, you know . . .” But she’s interrupted by the sound of Aya’s bell as she first reappears after seven years.

Is this likely to be something significant that we’re going to come back to, or is it just part of the setup to the sudden big reveal?

2) The first night when Aya is staying with Erika, Erika asks her about what happened to her on the day of the Tanabata festival, “after our conversation.” But Aya not only doesn’t recall the conversation, she doesn’t recall anything from that day at all.

We’ve never returned to that, right? So at this point we have no idea what that conversation was about, and Aya must have a memory gap of the time immediately prior to her actual disappearance.

(Then there’s the other oddity of the sequence at the end of Chapter 4 where Koto is with the sleeping Aya on the train seeming to imagine Aya asking for them to be together as a scene she’s literally reading off a script.)

This is just my periodic reminder that back in school Aya had the upper hand over both of the other two: to Erika she was the rival (on multiple levels) who she could never beat, and to Koto she was the longed-for love object.

Obviously, on her return at first she was disoriented and dependent on others. But her framing and body language is increasingly becoming closer to what it was back in the day.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/how_to_break_a_triangle_ch12#23

Yeah, it's the sorta plot development that honestly just feels too convenient, contrived and frankly predictable.

Well, the plot development was “predictable” because the purpose of the previous chapter was to set it up.

Three chapters ago no one was saying, “I’ll bet pretty soon a clip of Koga playing music in the park will go viral.”

Isn't the title more about her own beginnings? Do we think she's going viral from this? I didn't really get that from the chapter, though I see where everyone else is coming from.

What is the point of having a through-the-lens shot of a video of Mitsuki playing taken by a stranger if not for the video to be posted somewhere?

There are many reasons for a shot like that. For one, it could be part of the setting. It's natural for "street" performers to be recorded like this and Sumiko might have wanted to represent that real world excitement and atmosphere, while also creating an interesting panel composition.

Again, I wouldn't be surprised if this did lead to a viral hit. That would work too and I'm not against the idea. She also mentioned "wanting to be up there too, etc." which would compliment the idea. It just didn't cross my mind when reading the chapter.

So here are both of us, not being surprised.

Thinking back on this series, I do feel like it got worse after a certain point, or at least less appealing to me, and that's around when the student council was introduced as villains. The story shifted from Satsuki vs fate or nature or happenstance, a human fighting ephemeral and unknowledgeable forces, to a human fighting her student council president and his wack self-justifying ideas. He's just far less interesting than Satsuki trying to combat Final Destination. Far lower stakes and far less potential in him. Even other human antagonists would have been better, he's not just a worse antagonist than Death he's a worse antagonist than Miho's yandere kohai. And I kinda got the impression the author also regretted making him the principle antagonist given how things shook out, but they couldn't take it back and having to deal with him painted the last quarter or so of this manga with a feeling of frustration and disconnection. I'd imagine much of what happened had to be figured out with the editor, going back and forth to try to find some path to some satisfying ending, rather than this being the natural artistic conclusion. The final notes are actually decently satisfying, I like Komachi just as much as I like Akira, but our path to it felt like a rough draft forced to stand in as the final draft due to the nature of the medium and serialization.

I’d sign on to pretty much all of this—not a terrible series by any means, but one that did seem to lose its way after a fairly strong start.

I won't say Satou did nothing wrong, but Asahi did everything wrong.

Well, technically the murders were not what most people think of as right . . .

I don't understand why people always comment on the "her eyelashes are so long" line. Well, I do, because it is literally in every yuri manga out there... but there is a reason it is. Who doesn't like beautiful eyelashes?

Again, it’s not that people noticing eyelashes in real life is weird or anything. Quite the contrary—that’s obviously the purpose of things like mascara and false eyelashes.

But in the context of yuri manga, though, the trope is often an early flag that the character is embarking on the yuri route, so of course it has more narrative significance than a character thinking “She has pretty hair” or “I like her dress,” especially since it almost always entails a sudden physical closeness.

Oh shit—“Her eyelashes are so long.” That’s it—game over. The Yuri Express is now barreling down the track, brakes gone and the throttle wide open.

I don't know what it is about Japanese lesbians and eyelashes, but this line shows up in every story at some point.

Hardly unique to Japanese lesbians. This is an extremely common observation in English language lesbian fiction and also just real life

Well, in yuri manga my impression is that it seems to function less as a general “lesbian observation” and more specifically as a “gateway to lesbian realization” trope—when a character first responds to the physical presence/beauty of another woman (sometimes paired with “her skin is so soft/white/pretty,” etc.).

In any case, I always like this particular yuri situation: when the MCs are totally gone on each other but one or both of them don’t quite know it yet.

(have we ever even seen either of the two MC's sets of parents?)

Through the power of having just re-read the entire thing (and having seen this question come up in the comments) I can tell you that, yes, we have met Yui's mom way back in chapter 13 of the original series, although even then we're never actually shown her full face - even when it's not cut off by panel or page edges, it's conveniently turned away just enough.

Thanks! I had a vague feeling that might be the case, but the only thing I could actually remember was that Yamada sometimes would report to someone else, something like “My Mom said” or “she was mad,” etc.

Absolutely... point by point. All of these elements were literally implemented in the last pages of "Tea-cup and Kase-san."

It's as if it were the author himself who ordered Kase to run.

I was referring to many people who in other forums (way toxic than this one xD) put absolutely all the blame on Kase. I have even read that she is the worst girlfriend in GL manga LOL when she is just dense. Those people in particular don't care about Japanese social behavior, and if we add that to the fact that you have to wait 2 months for each chapter it makes it even more frustrating.

I swear, this forum is an absolute oasis

Anyway, I'm happy with the end of these. Fukami accepting and being a good loser, Yamada happier than ever in her first choice apartment with Kase and next to her best friend, and Kase apologizing and reflecting and with the small punishment of living wall to wall with Mikawacchi lol
The chapter "Moving with Kase-san pt.2" is one of the best of the two series.

Ah, I see--I only read this forum, so I have no clue what people elsewhere were saying. (And Kase took her share of crap here, too.)

I actually wouldn't have minded (at least not totally) if the author had done the work needed to set up that arc (or something like it) so that it made sense.

For instance, we've never really been given much of a look at what day-to-day college life is like for either Kase or Yamada--Kase practices running and Yamada plants flowers like they've always done, and that's about it. It seems almost irrelevant to wonder if they have actual classes or how they're doing with their grades.

But this has never been a world-building series (have we ever even seen either of the two MC's sets of parents?) as opposed to the depiction of lovey-dovey shenanigans between Yamada and Kase, so when the story suddenly imposed a bunch of unmotivated social expectations on Kase, the whole thing just seemed weird.

last edited at May 29, 2024 3:33PM

And re-reading the arc... I have the sensation that most people had been so hard on Kase, even unfair.

She was coerced and forced with everything that is important for a Japanese:

-Personal debt with Fukami, fore leaving her the room task and find out her leaving from third parties ("on" and "ogi")
-Social pressure for her classmates ("sekentei") and Keep the group harmony ("wa"), colleagues whom she has to continue seeing every day and working with them. They aren't flatmates that you leave and never see again.
-And a direct order for a senpai, who didn't even ask, just said "it's decided". A relationship what implies respect and obedience, Disobeying her is not only not contemplated by you, but you also discredit her position of authority compared to the rest.

Making her literally impossible to refuse. That's why Yamada didn't get angry about the race, she did when Kase told her that it was Fukami's idea.

And despite this, it is implied that she was also going to leave the dorms eitherways:
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/yamada_to_kase_san_ch32#10

She prefers to leave on good terms, but here she is clearly preparing to face a direct conflict, something terribly violent in Japan.

I'm pretty sure that the japanese readers understood this arc way different than mostly of us.

I think this is at least a partial misreading of the overall reaction to this arc. Experienced manga readers are quite familiar with the Japanese cultural emphasis on group harmony, on subordination to senpai, etc.

The problem was that those elements were insufficiently justified in the text by the author in developing this specific situation. As I have said again and again, this was not Kase’s misstep but the author’s.

There was no previous indication in the story that there was an any problem with or resistance to Kase leaving the dorms—in fact it was quite explicit that students were allowed to live off-campus after their first year.

Except for Fukami, there was very little previous specific development of Kase’s relationships with her teammates or what their expectations of Kase were. And Fukami’s demand that Kase stay also seemed to come from nowhere. Although readers were aware that Fukami had feelings for Kase, on the surface she was markedly reserved and distant with Kase, not someone who was in any position to make her roommate continue to live on campus.

Most egregiously to me was that the “order from a senpai” business was a blatant violation of the previous character of Inoue, who from the beginning of the series has been developed as Kase’s ally and a consistent wingwoman who approved of and facilitated Kase’s relationship with Yamada.

So the fact that Japanese cultural values made it “literally impossible to refuse” the race did not grow organically from the way the storyworld had previously been developed but was obviously a function of the author loading the dice to get to the desired plot points.

(The further fact that Kase was never going to lose that race in a million years made the whole thing even more pointless.)

last edited at May 29, 2024 11:16AM

Ah, the details you forgot during the months of waiting for new chapters that you notice when re-reading the series again... In the end, it looks like the entire (mostly ill-received) race business was set up by the author for the sole purpose of forcing Yui to wait until an apartment opened up in the very first place she liked.

Great catch. And in true Yamada fashion, she likes an imaginary version of Mikawacchi’s apartment.

But reality is great for her as well.

For Mikawacchi, not so much.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/yamada_to_kase_san_ch36#14

Ah, the details you forgot during the months of waiting for new chapters that you notice when re-reading the series again... In the end, it looks like the entire (mostly ill-received) race business was set up by the author for the sole purpose of forcing Yui to wait until an apartment opened up in the very first place she liked.

Great catch. And in true Yamada fashion, she likes an imaginary version of Mikawacchi’s apartment.

Isn't the title more about her own beginnings? Do we think she's going viral from this? I didn't really get that from the chapter, though I see where everyone else is coming from.

What is the point of having a through-the-lens shot of a video of Mitsuki playing taken by a stranger if not for the video to be posted somewhere?

Am I a bad person for being disappointed that there was no butt-sniffing?

When Beniko said "awful person", I wanted to know the reasons she said so.

Whenever I'm reading romance manga, I always need to keep reminding myself that the whole "going against societal and familial expectations to pursue your own desires" thing reads much differently and much more powerfully in Japanese culture than in the US (and elsewhere). Of course, that's always been a common theme of romance stories worldwide, but the whole "individual vs. society" issue was especially relevant in Taisho-era Japan.

In this case, Beniko already starts out feeling guilty and responsible for the two girls who committed suicide, and she thinks of herself as an "awful person" because of her desire to (from society's point of view) completely ruin the life prospects of this innocent girl and cut her off from her remaining family.

All that being said, your post motivated me to re-read this whole series and reminded me that it may be my top "inject this stuff directly into my veins" yuri series of all time. I could watch these two flirt and cuddle forever.

I miss Nagori Yu. One-shots, fragments of series, whatever--I'd take it.

[singsong voice]: Somebody’s going viiiral!

Oh shit—“Her eyelashes are so long.” That’s it—game over. The Yuri Express is now barreling down the track, brakes gone and the throttle wide open.

Well, the husband does like it that Ema seems so happy and expressive, so maybe . . .

I tend to stay out of the manga-prediction business, but for some reason this time I can’t help wondering what role Doi Mizuho is going to play. [EDIT: ^ I see I am not alone in this.]

We’ve already got Fukami and “My name is Aikawa, dammit!” (yes, I had to look it up again too) if the goal is to play “Pair the Lesbian Spares.”

Maybe she’s just going to be an addition to Kase’s Harem of Sporty Tsunderes (that glare from the new blondie suggests that a “Kase-san is a Love Goddess” epiphany is somewhere in her future). And it’s not as if the author is reluctant to repeat themes and plot points.

last edited at May 23, 2024 8:30AM

Again, I'm legit baffled at how you guys keep seeing Mei as cold, uncaring, and pushing Yuzu away, leaving her to do everything for their relationship when just in this chapter we had Mei openly address Yuzu's concerns and telling her everything about the Akamine business.

This is a complete misstatement of the literal events of the chapter:

• "we had Mei openly address Yuzu's concerns": Mei actually just says she would prefer that Yuzu didn't feel the way she does, and then she gives Yuzu permission to talk to Arata.

• "telling her everything about the Akamine business": Yuzu is the one who stumbles on the truth about the Akamine plan. Mei simply confirming something that she could no longer hide is hardly "telling [Yuzu] everything."

This is the same Mei, who, when Yuzu pushed her down on the bed and kissed her because she was worried about Mei's connection to Arata, slapped the shit out of her.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/citrus_september_27th#6

That's also the chapter in which Mei warns Yuzu that her insecurities could potentially cause problems for Mei's plans, and which ends with a classic "opponents back-to-back" panel where Mei says, "I must do everything in my power to see these plans to fruition."

(If this were a slightly different kind of manga, that would be the villain saying, "And if anyone, even Yuzu, gets in my way, I will crush them.")

We also had her going out of her way to find Yuzu a present in previous chapters.

Wow, what an amazing sign of devotion between people in a relationship.

luinthoron posted:

Goddammit, guys, jumped the gun and ruined it all...

Yeah, a confession is not a party, is something very delicate between TWO people

That’s why I prefer to see this as a bunch of tropes crashing around—if we were to judge this by the ethics of everyday life, the whole gang is behaving inexcusably badly.

Not sure if you're being facetious but that's a little overblown towards the other side imo. Like, yea, it is a very insensitive faux pas she's right to be angry about. But it's also not like the gang's out here kicking puppies or anything, def not on the level of "inexcusably bad".

There is some room between "kind of a shitty thing to do" and "oh my god they might as well be a murderer" xD

Now you're being overblown--there are plenty of social-etiquette things that fall into the category of "you just don't do that--full stop" that fall short of kicking puppies or being a murderer.

It's not " kind of a shitty thing to do"--it's something you should not do. And "Oh, we were so excited--we really wanted to see it!" is not a valid excuse.