Of course this is all moot because Natori will NOT settle for any less than BOTH her girls! They WILL have their happily-ever-after OT3!!!

I agree that Natori wouldn't want to break either of their hearts, although she still kinda is playing dumb about recognizing Diana's feelings so there's a risk Natori will hurt her without realizing it. Be bold, Diana!!

I'm kinda surprised actually, with how they were going, that they actually did talk so relatively directly about romance. I expected them to fully bury it until long after they're adults, so that implicit promise of "look we'll date later after we've made sure we don't cause any parodoxes with this flashback" has interesting implications for their present day 'friendship'. Maybe they've just been on the dl for as long as the kid has know them both lol

Also the relatively casual way it was brought up, with neither reacting like their shared romantic interest is news, possibly implies they had an offscreen fling beforehand.

last edited at Nov 27, 2024 8:46AM

This seems backwards, if he were still a duke he'd have land to worry about keeping in the family and would need to worry about his family's social standing, but they've already lost all that.

like sure still a valid concern if you have plans to claw your way back to power and he's rationalizing to disapprove of the relationship but this feels like we're supposed to take the logic at face value

The point is that if he had money and status, he could protect them by virtue of he said status, since he don't, he can't. It's still linked to him being overprotective of his daugther. He wouldn't mind too much otherwise.

He absolutely would mind otherwise lol. People who talk like this are pretty much always trying to find rational excuses for their own bigoted awkwardness, most typically by pointing at one the exact things he mentions, "other people will hate you and I'm just trying to protect you from their hate by ruining your life"

I liked this chapter a lot. It's bothered me all this time, that Onibi is so lionized by the other manga club members despite her, you know, not drawing very well at all. It feels like a gag off-tone for the comic, Michiru for example is a talented photographer, clearly.
Since neither Honoka nor mask are idiots, it's always been so weird to me why they talk of Onibi's talent and her not actually having that - or that if she is supposed to genuinely have talent, why present it with a weird joke that she draws those yaoi triangle head scribbles.

With this chapter and the genuinely awesome and wise things Onibi had to say and show to Honoka in her hour of need (and who knows to Mask too similarly) you can get a reason why they might not see her drawings as they are but as they dream they are.

There's more to making manga than just art. The manga club particularly admire Onibi's writing and creativity, her ability to create anthropomorphic scenarios between inanimate objects is truly great. Remember her take on the surveyor's tripod? Genius!

last edited at Nov 25, 2024 7:58PM

Feels kinda iffy to post spoilers from the very end of the novels even with the black bars, like y'all are talking about stuff that won't hit this manga for like five years probably.

Also worth keeping in mind that Mitsuki struggling to express herself openly, her fear of conflict and potential rejection, etc. Were some of the very first aspects of her shown and have been consistent problems for her, although they are slowly fading. She's not just a baby gay, she's a traumatized introverted baby gay who clearly had some fucked up family stuff happen to her before the start of the story that we've still yet to learn about.

last edited at Nov 25, 2024 4:03PM

I re-read the whole thing from the start and I can say with certainty thal all four girls in this are bitches in their own way.

• Nanase consistently treats her girlfriend like dirt she has to hide. And then when she learns that she dared pierce the ear of another girl she starts ignoring her, before somehow learning that piercing the ear of a friend is normal. Words and acts have consequences and she's clearly been a bitch. She refuses to really acknowledge her own flaws, even when others put her nose in it. She perfunctorily apologize, but persists in her ways and treats Yuki like her real girlfriend. i can't wait for Nanase to actually physically cheat on Yuni with Yuki (she's already emotionally cheating with her). That'll be the cherry on top. I'll call her "Narcissistic Bitch #1"

• Yuni is a needy, high-maintenance girlfriend who find herself excuses for whatever wrong she does, because she's terrified of being alone. She wants her cake and eat it too. She was frustrated by her relationship with Nanase because it wasn't rewarding at all and she felt lonely. And feeling lonely has been a constant fear and trauma for her, so she hates it. Her venting account was a call for emotional help, which got answered by Fuuko. She got more than what she wished for. Her inability to reject Fuuko, convincing herself it was for the sake of Nanase, shows that she latched onto her because of her fear of abandonment, but also because she lusted after Fuuko. She was the one who initiated sex with Fuuko as a form of "revenge" against Nanase who refused to call her girlfriend "cute", but she was just making up an excuse. She was eyeing Fuuko's curves way before that. Everyone agrees that Yuni is a shitty person, selfish and cowardly. I'll call her "Lying Bitch #2"

• Fuuko is a highly intelligent girl who's been constantly belittled by her family. Betrayed by her parents, her brothers, the next door girl she loved. She has no friends because she doesn't trust anyone anymore. She approaches Yuni because she got hold of her secret account. In the end, what Fuuko wants is to be the one CHOSEN. She hatches a whole plan for Yuni to cheat, get caught and then break up with her girlfriend and ultimately chose her, but this plan failed a first time when Yuni came back to Nanase. I guess she wasn't expecting Nanase to "forgive" (in appearance) the cheating and for Yuni to keep on lying to herself. But in the end, stealing someone's girlfriend, while rewarding for your self-image, is still a shitty thing to do. She obviously looks down on everyone else. I'll call her the "Sociopathic Bitch #3".

• Yuki is, in appearances, the only innocent character in this, but she's actually the source of many of Nanase's troubles with Yuni. From dragging her around in the festival, indirectly kissing with her, constantly hovering around Nanase and meddling in her life, confronting Yuni about the cheating in Osaka, thanking Nanase loudly about the accessory, at every turn Yuki has been "innocently" breaking Nanase's relationship. I think it's been a while since she's been attracted to Nanase, but didn't acknowledge it to herself. In the guise of being the "best friend", she effectively participates in ruining Nanase's love life. I'll call her "Self-righteous Bitch #4".

So in the end, no one here is good, as intended by the author. It's a clusterfuck of relationships between girls with issues. All characters are indefensible in some ways, making bad and dumb decisions.

This train wreck is both ugly and beautiful and if you can't see it, then it's not for you.

I agree with most of this, except I really don't think Fuuko was scheming to that ridiculous degree. She has a feeling like she just flies in instinct and naturally ends up at the most dramatically satisfying choices lol. Less of a grand master plan manipulator, more of a cold reading fake tv psychic kind of manipulator, and that is imo a more fun archetype

last edited at Nov 25, 2024 3:58PM

Uncle and Koga about to bond over girl trouble, and he's probably gonna tell her to not make the same mistakes he did.

Actually that feels really possible. I can easily imagine him saying it unprompted, old guys love giving unsolicited advice whenever they're thinking about their own mistakes lol. We know he already ships Mitsuki and Aya, and he doesn't need to know a thing about any currently happening problems to activate wistfully regretful old man mode. Without even realizing he's doing it Joe might just tell Mitsuki exactly what she needs to hear next chapter.

last edited at Nov 25, 2024 12:54AM

It was a concern of real world western nobility, but Evie's dad is not a member of that group. He's a cartoon nobleman in a western-inspired fantasy setting with lots of other rules about nobility deviating from that history. It's not inevitable that biological heirs are being treated as vitally important here, there's other of other cultures, including the one this book comes from, where adopting an adult man to be your heir if you have no other sons for example was quite normal.
I'm not really concerned with historical accuracy or plausibility here, I just think the magic bio babies are the boring safe choice compared to the potentially ~politically charged~ topic is gay adoption, and since we've seen so much of children in need of adoption so far in this story it feels like a major missed opportunity to me to not actively choose gay adoption as the "solution" to this heir problem.

Yeah I don't think it was ever intended as just "yuri," if anything the relationship between that gender ambiguous little brother and that one guy was the most central relationship and it's the setup the author has gone back to repeatedly lol. And that girl didn't have a het ending, she was bi. I think it's okay for one character out of an ensemble to be bi.
It's hardly a perfect series, and it's not going to give you the romance you want, but if you go into it just thinking of it as something like Our Dreams At Dusk it is very good for what it is. It's just unfortunately frequently falsely advertised as a yuri romance, including by Seven Seas, even though they frequently don't remember to mention the LGBT content in some manga they license (mostly when it's trans and genderqueer stuff)

last edited at Nov 24, 2024 3:06PM

Feels a bit weird to rely on magic breeding for kids after spending all that time with the orphans tbh. I personally would rather them have focused on adoption

To be clear, I think that both of these kids are making mistakes from a very sympathetic, understandable place. Aya thinks she isn't as important to Mitsuki as she really is, and Mitsuki was for a while so focused on music and her stress of getting "outed" as a musician that she kinda stopped having the space to pay attention to the person by her side through all of it. I think Mitsuki assumes on some level that she can reliably know about Aya since their whole relationship was framed around what Mitsuki knew and what Aya didn't for months. She hasn't quite caught up with her needing to pay attention and try since Aya's no longer spilling her heart about "onii-san" the next desk over

last edited at Nov 24, 2024 2:44PM

I have no idea what you're thinking of but that's not Nanashi no Asterism, those characters are like 13 in that series and it's not written by CLAMP so they're not marrying anybody lmao
I've seen that series get hate in a few different threads here and I don't get it. Maybe the official localization, "Nameless Asterism," fixed some issues or something, cuz that's the version I read and really liked it as a story of young kids taking their first steps into queer identities. It's not much of a romance but I don't think it was ever intended to be and it's not how it came across in the official version, it's an ensemble coming of age queer drama instead. Something in the same subgenre as "Our Dreams At Dusk".

last edited at Nov 24, 2024 7:35AM

Yeah Aya unilaterally decided that Mitsuki meeting a record producer was more important than their relationship because "I don't want to get in the way of her music" or something. A choice that is blowing up in her face atm. Ironically a disaster that could be better for her than having her choice stand, since this gives Mitsuki an opportunity to tell her off for it before it's too late.

Probably worth keeping in mind the author drew Aya and Mitsuki at prom as one of the extras for the series quite a while back.

https://dynasty-scans.com/images/28041?tag_id=21856

last edited at Nov 24, 2024 7:26AM

That reaction from Mitsuki kinda sounds to me like she was hoping for, or at least open to, an invitation to prom from Aya. She might even think this means Aya got a different date...

You have a massive overestimation of high schoolers' emotional intelligence lol. There's plenty of grown adults who cheat on their partners and/or get cheated on, and yet choose to continue living in misery over the scary uncertainly of being single.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to show side familiar antics in a visual medium. Novel, Relaire mentioned when useful. And much later left behind, IIRC.

Not exactly, iirc? Relaire is permanently assigned to guard certain new characters and is with Rae whenever they are.

pretty serious in here huh.

yea uh--i think nanase shouldve cut this off a while ago since she doesn't understand how to properly have a girlfriend (partner + responsibility balance, and communication issues), and frankly, i dont even think she would object to the notion of wanting to break up if yuni proposed it; i think shes uninvolved and down on herself enough to accept it as for the best.

and yuni shouldve cut this off a while ago herself since she understands nanase cant give her what she wants + shes found someone else whos responding in the way she desires, and since shes cheating with that person, i mean..she should just break up and go with the more suitable partner. and naturally, she has communication issues as well.

theyre in high school, and i think (?) these are their first relationships; the issues i mentioned are also a consequence of this.

i really think its that simple....yea. >.>

I agree with this that those choices would be the best choices. My best guess for why Yuni doesn't make that choice is guilt and self punishment, but I don't really have any strong idea about why on earth Nanase wants this relationship besides her weird competitive streak

So I have this theory that Chiyo doesn't want to be resurrected or has given up on it. Hence why she doesn't seem to care who she puts with who and spends her karma on expensive things like drones. She seems to genuinely enjoy the cupid life.

She genuinely seems to like being a cupid, and good for her if so. Considering the era she's from as a human based on the first glimpse we have of her, can't imagine her life was better in any way back then compared to now

Relaire is pretty much always there in the LN up to this point, she's just not particularly important. The author certainly doesn't stop every couple of sentences to describe her current appearance, that's a benefit we get from the manga lol

Fuuko has been much more willing to dream big compared to her at the start being willing to be just a side fling for the girl she liked. She wants love, not just the leftover scraps of someone else's affection. This indicates that Yuni has been genuinely a pretty good influence on her, for improving her self esteem and hopelessness at least. Fuuko's history does not leave much room for a positive self image but she's getting there.

Damn a whole lot of bad stuff is happening this chapter, the parents are really bullying the kids hard and it sure doesn't seem like there's anything they can do except maybe run away from home together.

The sleeping bags, the shared bathing proposals, Toriko smiling happily when Sorawo stubbornly refuses to bring anyone else besides the two of them to the Otherside, etc. Toriko knows pretty much exactly where Sorawo is at thanks to that bath conversation (and stuff like Sorawo trying and only partially succeeding at not looking at Toriko's body), and knows she needs little pushes and reminders to keep moving forward lol. Toriko's basically the very best kind of partner someone like Sorawo could hope for thanks to her ability to read Sorawo's expressions and intentions, and her earnest desire for healthy love between the two of them, and it's so satisfying seeing that dynamic at play.

last edited at Nov 23, 2024 2:32AM

Fuuko should get whatever she wants and what she wants is Yuni, not Yuki. She isn't dumb and mixing up their names like Nanase :P

I've had a great time ignoring this manga since the day it dropped here (because of the dogshit that is Nanashi no Asterism), but it's always really funny to see people fight over it in the comments every chapter.

What? This isn't written by the author of Nanashi no Asterism, and this series couldn't be farther from that one of it tried lol.

last edited at Nov 22, 2024 11:53AM