Hmmm I think mentor or sensei would be more appropriate ... Well I'm sure Spirit thinks that shy is a cute puppy at this point

I also don't think that Spirits sees Shy as her peer, despite Shy's best efforts to prove her wrong and Spirits' apparent acknowledgement of her new strength (the handshake). Therefore, I don't think any good will come out of it if they got together at this point in the story. Maybe later, when Shy goes through fifteen shonen power-ups and saves the world single-handedly? Rn, Iko is still the best match for Teru IMO, because they are both about the same age, and I am still waiting on Iko getting some superpowers of her own.

PS: Does a handshake count as holding hands?

0/10 not enough Automobilindustrie

The pacing went ZOOM

so was the car i guess

You monster.

Anyhow, I feel that Canno was almost successful at conveying grief over the death of a loved one, but the short length prevented it from having a major impact. A longer format, like in Haru and Midori, is much better suited for this kind of story.

The one-shot itself is a okayish standalone story, I guess.

Far more interesting is this thread and how the story appears to have been precision-engineered to lay bare all of the deep-seated hypocrisies of yuri fans, such as that Cheating is okay (or at least a cause for severe cognitive dissonance, as in some comments above) when a woman cheats with another woman on a man with whom she is in a committed relationship. Note also the lack of typical bi-phobic comments that usually follow the Bisexual Cheating combo. I find all of this fascinating and appreciate Naoko Kodama's repeated provocations to reflect on our own media consumption patterns. :-)

Spirits's not dead.
I feel so relieved.

I am shocked, shocked to find her basically unharmed!

Called it: Pepesha was back in the fight before it was even over. :-)

last edited at Nov 14, 2019 3:25PM

Also nicknames are a thing. That one certainly sounds like such.

To me, "Pepesha Andreanof" sounds more like an attempt at a proper-sounding full Russian name than a nickname, just like Stardust's (who is an actual artist in-story) civil identity of "David Jones" and Shy's "Teru Momijiyama" (which, as far as I can tell, is a relatively normal Japanese name). All I am saying, it seems more like a lack of research on common Russian names and naming conventions on the writer's part (especially compared to their knowledge of Japanese and English names), than any particular artistic choice.

But again, I will take a heroic, awkwardly-named Russian character in a manga over a perfectly researched, villainous one any day. :-)

PS: Pepesha's surname seems to be a cognate of "Andrey" (Russian for Andrew), but the proper spelling would be something along the lines of "Andreyeva" (the spelling of most Russian surnames is gendered, with the endings "-ov", "-ev", and "-of(f)" indicating masculine forms, while female forms typically end with "-ova" or "-eva", with some particularities).

last edited at Nov 12, 2019 11:52AM

EDIT: Also, as a Russian speaker, I've been wanting to remark on a) how nonsensical the names like "Pepesha" and "Tsiveta".

The mangaka is either an FPS player or a history nerd. Pepesha is a nickname for PPSh-41 submachine gun.

Nice catch. I don't think, however, that any normal parent would name their daughter after a gun, even in Russia. :D (And "Pepesha" does seem to be her birth name, since her superhero name is "Spirits"...)

I'm not making any assumptions just because it's superheroes, I got burned bad last time I did that reading Gamma (a damn fine read either way, don't get me wrong).

Gamma has a completely different tone and mood IMO -- it's more idealistic than Shy in some aspects and much less so in others. Of course, we don't know how Shy will play out, but the way I am reading it rn is that it's the "if we stick to our morals to the very end, things will turn out alright in the end" kind of idealism, whereas Gamma was more like "the needs of the many..." from the very beginning.

last edited at Nov 11, 2019 2:49AM

b) how refreshing Pepesha's positive representation of Russians is in this manga. I don't mind being cast as the bad guys, but being always typecast as them is tiresome.

She's still presented as a drunkard...

As if the only thing Russians drink is 80% ABV Vodka.

Giving characters of certain nationality a stereotypical flaw (after all, alcoholism IS a massive problem in Russia, and has been historically) is a lesser sin in my book than unquestioningly typecasting them as villains. A good-hearted mentor figure is still sympathetic, even with an obvious character flaw. Besides, national stereotypes are not limited to Russia in this manga, given how the UK is being represented by a pessimistic, cynical jerk. :-)

last edited at Nov 8, 2019 12:00PM

You people don't read much Superhero comics, do you? Fearing for Pepesha's life rn is like crying "Oh no, Superman has a piece of kryptonite lodged in his side! Will he survive that?!" Major superheroes never die to monsters-of-the-week that are not specifically designed to kill them, and this ice girl is written as a challenge to Shy, which is why they temporarily removed the OP superhero out of the equation to give her a fair fight. -__-

Calling it right now: Pepesha will be back in action either after this fight, or even before it's over.

EDIT: Also, as a Russian speaker, I've been wanting to remark on a) how nonsensical the names like "Pepesha" and "Tsiveta" are and b) how refreshing Pepesha's positive representation of Russians is in this manga. I don't mind being cast as the bad guys, but being always typecast as them is tiresome.

last edited at Nov 8, 2019 2:28AM

"We will protect the revolution" what kind of Marxist superhero show is that?

Of course an anime about magical girls fighting for a civil revolution is a vehicle for staple capitalist practice.

Turning Marxist ideas into a three decades-long cash cow is certainly one way of doing a permanent revolution... right up there with mass producing those Che Guevara T-shirts. :D

"Liking something has nothing to do with being a boy or a girl."

Well, there's no way I'm not going to read into that given the site we're on.

IMO it's a deliberate subtext-slash-foreshadowing by the author, and you can't convince me otherwise. ^^

last edited at Oct 26, 2019 5:27AM

Do you wanna know how I got these scars?

All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest catgirl alive to lunacy.

Yes! Act out more yuri scenes! Then drop the acting part and just do more yuri!

"goggles on"

Yuri? In a manga about cool old men? Heresy!

So much hand-holding in this chapter. So lewd. -///-

there's something very unique about the mood behind this one, it's comfortable and interesting

I think it's because Yuicchi and Naitou are essentially an emotionally secure adult couple transplanted into the Standard Japanese School Setting.

... so that was basically a love confession.

With tsundere levels OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND [crushes scouter]

It was like completing the Rivalry Romance in Dragon Age II: "I hate you so much, I need you to stay with me forever."

last edited at Jul 6, 2019 2:46AM

Maekawa's hug from behind was the most adorable thing ever. When you're tired and sad, all you really want is just to hug a person you like and to stay like that for a while. Too bad Shimizu's limited private life didn't teach her that simple method of "being there" for the other person...

I didn't expect the power of friendship trope to crop up in this series. :D

Shiina's mom is someone I really can relate. Programming is both fun and totally stressful.

The PCSD (post-crunch stress disorder) is real with Shiina's mom, I can relate to that, too. nod

I am pretty sure you misunderstood this. The "remaining lifespan" in question is that of the man who was killed. DD is making up for the life she took with her client's lifespan. What she implied there is that that bastard didn't have much longer to live anyway, because he was a bad man who had an unsafe lifestyle.

Ah, that makes so much more sense, thank you. :-)

So this is what I understand so far:
- Detective Death is a demon from hell.
- Her sidekick is an artificial humanoid, a "wax doll" manufactured by demons. She isn't considered a "real person" by the demons.
- DD and Wax Doll somehow fell in love and began a torrid love affair.
- They were found out and all hell broke loose (pun intended).
- They ran together and now they live on Earth, and DD works as a hitman for hire: she kills "bad people" in exchange for a part of the lifeforce of her customers.
- She needs the lifeforce to keep Wax Doll alive. Well, "animated" may be a better word.

Did I got everything right?

Just as an addendum: Their first client was a girl whose best friend/secret beloved died because of a guy whose fatal car collision was shown on the first page. However, when DD extracted a life span from her that would be the equivalent of what her friend had remaining, it turned out that it wasn't very much, presumably because she would have died soon, anyway, and DD's comment here suggests that it was because of the guy, too?

What complicates the understanding for me is the uncertainty of the relationship between the client's friend and the guy -- I am currently leaning towards an abusive father figure, but abusive boyfriend is also possible. It's weird because, apparently, the "remaining life span" is counted from the point of her actual death because of that guy to the point of her projected death, which would have also occurred because of him. Thoughts?

Kozue-senpai OP, plz nerf.

Now that's a strong story opening, if I've ever read one.

Forgive me if I am ignorant about it but what does the tag "lizard" mean?

Only that the Photography Sempai has a pet lizard: https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/luminousblue_ch01#19
Though, seeing how it hasn't appeared in the second chapter at all, it remains to be seen whether this tag belongs on the entire series or just the first chapter.

I watched the original anime back when it aired (...2006? God, I'm old), but I didn't know any of the manga have actually been translated...

"Moegon"!? What the hell is that name!? It is some kind of generic drug? xD

I think Moegon is what a Moeblob evolves to at level 42.

last edited at Apr 27, 2019 5:04AM

Amazing art, so warm and fuzzy. ^_^

Also, their color schemes strongly remind me of Saber and Tohsaka from Fate/stay night. The ol' blue-and-white vs. red-and-black contrasts...