"Since nobody wants to see angst, 'Please Bully Me' will be wholesome all the way through."

I knew I liked this author.

Possessive Hinata is pretty great. It's clear she saw that "play bite" as more of a "marking the territory" move and wasn't about to let anyone move in on her girl.

I getting big "arranged marriage with some asshole ogre" vibes off this exchange. And the danger to our human is that this (probably a) guy won't take kindly to Ibuki getting herself a human girlfri- err, bartender.

If it sounds like I'm dissatisfied, I'm actually not. I think that's what makes me like Nagisa. She might be smart with her books, but she's so dumb in any other way. Am looking forward to how this will play out.

I definitely think it's a nice way of showing how, while SHE may have worked through her issues with that incident, Mashiro has never had a chance to. And, as you say, Mashiro already feels like a burden to everyone; it's natural that no matter what Nagisa says here, she's just going to feel like she ruined her life. It's definitely a Shocking Reveal Creates Rift Between Lovers moment, but it's been set up by the story since the very beginning.

I'm curious how it'll get resolved. It's not as simple as Nagisa convincing Mashiro that's she's well and truly happier now (after all, her younger sisters literally said just that before Mashiro put it together, and we've seen that Nagisa wants to go into medicine so she can better take care of Mashiro), since the problem here isn't how Nagisa feels about Mashiro, but how Mashiro feels about herself. I think it's going to have to involve Mashiro figuring out what she wants to do with her life, or at least how she can define herself as more than just a burden who's dragging other people down.

Nekomancer47 posted:
But I doubt either way it will end with a “happy” yuri couple. Cheaters are never satisfied, after all.

They may end up being both horrible people, but I don't think it's the theme here.

From what I got, the theme is "sometimes, love happens, deal with it".

Man proposes, God disposes.

The author will now tell us how this unravels.

Some characters will suffer, will cry, or will rage, even if they don't deserve it, but such is life.

I also wonder if there could be some commentary on comphet coming, if only obliquely. Neither of the two women seem to be entering their marriages because of genuine passion or love for their partners, it's just sort of..."eh, it's what you do, right?" Even setting aside the cheating. So there's something to be said about how queer women (and queer people in general) are encouraged to "settle" for lives they wouldn't choose for themselves if they knew there were other options.

I'll keep an eye on this, but I'm also not a huge fan of incredibly dramatic stuff even when it's really well done, so we'll see.

Seeing Akebi act all badass and protective is great! I'm definitely feeling like she was on the verge of confessing to Kinome, or at least admitting that she cares about her for herself, as opposed to just being "senpai's younger sister."

I saw a take somewhere that Usui Shio's works are love stories that kind of strip the usual conventions of those relationships out and then build them back up piece-by-piece. You might even call it "love without romance," though that implies that it's not romantic, which I don't think is necessarily true but I'm struggling for a better way of saying it. It's more like...you're removing all the baggage and assumptions from the relationship and then having the characters discover them one a time. "Love BEFORE romance." Which kind of explains the slower pacing, because you're unspooling all these feelings and examining them one at a time. ("I want to help support her! Oh, her family is my family. Why does it make me so happy just to spend time with her!?" It's because of luuuuuurve, you adorable dummies)

EDIT: It also occurs to me as you could see this manga as being about an arranged marriage (where the arranges were the couple themselves), which gives some context to how they have this relationship that hasn't quite built up the intimacy that marriage requires. And then the story is about them building that intimacy.

last edited at Mar 13, 2022 7:42PM

Amusing how she keeps rewriting on the fly the parameters of her goal.

Before, she claimed she wanted Elsa to "get hitched to a male love interest, any one, asap!"

Now, a new addendum states "but only if the guy is totally perfect and I approve of him!"

I definitely think that's meant to be her way of rationalizing her unconscious attraction to Elsa. At first Yvonne wanted her out of her hair, but now that she's falling for Elsa she wants to keep her around...but because she can't admit that to herself, she's setting ridiculous standards for the love interest so that she can reject everyone and keep Elsa to herself. I particularly liked the imagine spot about Elsa clinging to a faceless male suitor...we already know Yvonne enjoys the touching more than she's letting on, so it makes sense that'd be a place where she'd feel jealous of anyone else having a relationship like that with Elsa.

I'm enjoying this story quite a lot! The art is good, and the characters are cute, and there's just enough depth for it to feel meaningful while still being fluffy.

I kinda don't like this whole rebellion thing being caused by some random third party and not, y'know, an organic result of a genuine class conscious taking form.

The manga is more focused and doesn't have a lot of Rei's commentary on the social state of the kingdom, but the light novel, even at this point in the story, makes it pretty clear that it's a popular movement that's driving these events even if some groups are taking advantage of it. This isn't a case of the villain creating unrest so much as taking advantage of social changes that are already happening, though to get into more specifics, obviously, would involve some story spoilers.

I love how Luxi is all ready to sacrifice herself and be miserable, and Tong-Tong just shuts her down and is like, "Girl, I love you, what are you talking about? We're going to fix this."

Also, Tong-Tong's mother is a treasure. Her response to finding out her daughter is a lesbian is immediately feel guilty about any comphet she might have pushed on her, and then unconditionally support her daughter's attempts to get a girlfriend (even if said attempts are hilariously misguided). And her response to talking to Luxi is to be incredibly sweet, warm and welcoming (even telling her to call her "Mom"!) and basically see her as part of the family already. Given how horribly so many families treat their LGBTQ+ kids (including In This Very Manhua), it's so nice to see a parent who is so cool and supportive.

There's a noticeable absence from those montage panels, right? I'm not the only one who's (not) seeing that? Given how much screen time they got recently.

It's hard to get a bead on this series. It's very cute and fluffy, but I'm not sure if we're supposed to take Youzi's belief that her mom is gay seriously, and thus it's about her encouraging her mother to get a girlfriend, or if "the joke" is supposed to just be that Youzi has misunderstood the whole thing. Her mom seems to indicate the latter; she's, at the very least, not in an actual secret relationship with a woman at that point, but whether that's because she really is straight or just to preserve the ambiguity is unclear.

As frustrating as Wanko's behavior here is, I do think it's important to remember that she's always been very jealous and threatened when it comes to her relationship with Sakuma. Especially when it comes to other women; we just had a chapter where she learned about Ataru's crush on Elly and didn't take it well.

So while this is definitely not a good look, I don't think it's transphobia so much as ignorance and insecurity. Hopefully, she'll grow out of it as Kita and their struggle gets more focus.

If you're wondering why there's so much belief in a poly ending for this manga, you might want to re-read chapter 8. That's the one where Mei learns two of her teachers are in a poly relationship, and that the three of them met while students and roommates at Mei's school.

It draws some pretty strong parallels between those three and Mei, Sayo and Rinna. Mei even returns from this meeting and tells them both - at the same time - that she loves them, in addition to smiling when she sees a love arrow going from Rinna to Sayo. She then takes both of their hands and sits on the bed with them (again, all together) and the chapter ends with a photo of the three adults when they were at the same age as the main trio.

I get that fans can get unrealistic ideas stuck in their heads and then get disappointed when they don't pan out, but to say that series never teased a poly ending seems incorrect. It may or may not have been the "original" plan, but it clearly was put on the table as an option.

Ultimately, I think if it was planned, it likely was more a casualty of time than cowardice or meddling. The author likely was told the series was cancelled with only a couple of chapters left to wrap it up, and since Mei's relationship with Sayo had been more explored (so far, at least), it "defaulted" to that ending. Notice how Rinna was just kinda...there at the end. It seems like the author had to rush to figure out a halfway happy ending for her after not having one ready, so they went with the "well, she loves everyone and everyone loves her" thing.

I'm certainly disappointed in how it ended, though I guess it could be worse. And I definitely will indulge in a little headcanon and say that Mei and Sayo got together with Rinna now that they're all adults, because it makes me happy and you can't stop me! :P But I'll mostly just put this one in the "I liked it, but it ended too soon" bin and move on.

I guess the explanation is that Yvonne is SO convinced that Elsa is "destined" to meet one of the male love interests and follow the game's story that she doesn't realize Elsa really, truly is interested in her (Yvonne)? And probably sees Elsa's approaches and interest as her just being the upbeat protagonist.

Regardless of all the other stuff, I am really enjoying the running gag of sensei suggesting something naughty as a joke/tease, and having to quickly backpedal as Ayu jumps at the chance. "Can we!?"

Before I submit the TL of chapter 17.5 to the TSer, I wanted to ask something regarding LGBTQ terminology. is "drag queen" an appropriate translation of オネエ in the context of p2? I'm aware it's a tough word to translate into something inoffensive.

In my opinion, and I believe that of most of the forum, the word is a-ok.
But dem moderators might have a problem with it on account of it not being pc enough. It's difficult these days to keep tag of what's correct and what's not, it's like every day the censors find some new term to condemn.

Being respectful and careful about terminology, especially on a website largely dedicated to media depicting homosexual relationships and with a not insignificant (if not majority, I don't know the demographics) number of LGBTQ+ readers, hardly seems like a stretch to me.

I don't think this is necessarily a spoiler, since it just speaks to motivation, but in the novels at one point Rei does mention that she's afraid of deviating too much from the game's plot, because then she'll lose her ability to predict what's going to happen.

And she's afraid of making things "worse," and then being unable to adapt because she no longer has the right information. So whether you think she should being doing more at this point, she has reasons for why she isn't.

"Goodnight to everyone who isn't Mahiru!
...
and a very special goodnight to everyone else. ;D"

"Plus I'm a degenerate who ships Raiden x Lumine as well as Lumine x Ayaka so my brain is a mess."

Haha, I'm right there with you. My ship is basically, "Who is Lumine talking to at the moment?"