Funnily enough, I remember watching a documentary about witch myths where they legitimately suggested this very same thing as a possible explanation for where the flying on broomsticks idea came from.

well, that was a waste of time

Honestly, I agree, but my expectations fell so low when I saw who the author was, I actually ended up feeling pleasantly surprised that the story and characters were only mildly unlikable, and even had some aspects to them I kind of enjoyed. It sounds like an insult (and I guess it basically is) but at this point, if I can come out of a Kodama Naoko story feeling ambivalent and unimpressed, I'll happily count it as a win.

last edited at Apr 18, 2017 7:13PM

pg 3, "He's in charge of too many idols for just one man, is the issue" wording would be better as "that is the issue"?

Not really? "[Statement], is the issue" is a pretty common, if informal, sentence structure. I guess it's just a colloquialism you're unfamiliar with?

...

Meh, I still think that they should go for the turkey srynge

I mean, you were close

I can only conclude that You is "something else" and we don't know what they identify as, but it's common in that world.

Interesting that you think it's perfectly logical to assume that the setting is one where intersex people are commonplace and unremarkable, but you think it's a weird and baseless reach to suggest that the setting is just like the real world and that one faceless woman happened to be particularly accepting of trans people. Like, you might even be completely right, and the author really was picturing a world with a third futanari gender, or whatever - I just always find it fascinating to see what strikes people as unacceptably unrealistic, and what they'll just accept as part of the story.

And if transgender people in Dynasty want to find stories to relate to, I'm sure there's more than enough here already.

lol

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 9:50AM

Arguments about tagging aside, I definitely like this world where tipsy women are randomly flirting with cute girls on the street and the only objection raised is "she looks a bit young, doesn't she?" The fact that she apparently has a dick being less noteworthy than her killer abs is also A++

"I'll never forgive you, but I will release you from this" is a really great line, because it's magnanimous, self-serving, and rueful all at once. First and foremost Shino's saving herself, both from the immediate attack and the threat of revived trauma that she had only just begun to escape. She's also saving her former bully, and not just from Hana's blackmail. She can't forgive the bullying, but Shino still offers her a measure of closure over any unresolved guilt she might have been feeling, and shows that she understands it was ultimately Hana's fault. She's offering the bully a chance to move on with her life and put all this behind her once and for all.

Looking back on it after finishing the story, there's also a sense that when Shino says that she'll release the bully from "this", she doesn't just mean the blackmail; "this" is the entire grimy, tangled abyss that Hana dragged all of them down into with her. Shino can't free herself from Hana, but she can free someone else, and by doing so she can perhaps vicariously experience a glimpse of the freedom and mercy that will ultimately escape her.

...I already decided to stop talking about the "politics" (sure is funny how and why that word gets used) of the manga, since it was just causing more trouble than it was worth. But I have to say, after repeatedly being told I was reading too deeply into things, and that I was forcing my own weird interpretations onto the story, and that there was obviously no way the author was even thinking about anything remotely like that... Having the protagonist spend chapter three saying basically all the things I wanted to say, and having exactly the same somewhat creeped out reaction to those conclusions that I did? That felt preeeeeetty vindicating.

I'm still not feeling particularly smug, since the fact that seemingly nobody was able to understand what I wanted to say probably means that I fucked up saying it. But it's nice to know that I wasn't just imagining things, at least.

Honestly, this whole arc was so rushed that you can read pretty much whatever you want into Amane's personality, at this point. I honestly don't think there's enough of her to say anything concrete.

Also, as stable and equal a triangle they're in right now, does Amane still consider herself as being open to new relationships? If so, would the other two be fine with that? I can see Ryou being okay, since she was more accepting than anyone of Amane's ideas and personality, but Nina struggled a lot more, and I sort of feel like she was only able to accept Amane being with Ryou because she also wanted to be with Ryou and Amane. It's kind of a unique circumstance for her. Unless Amane has changed her mind after learning how much Nina has been hurting, and now wants to be exclusive to Nina and Ryou. But that sort of contradicts her philosophy of love as being free and multifaceted. I guess it's fine for her to change, but I feel increasingly unsatisfied not knowing one way or the other.

Yeah, these three are definitely going to need some follow up chapters.

I can basically understand why the primary focus of the arc was about how the three of them could be in a relationship at all, since that's probably the part most people would have the hardest time swallowing. It's just unfortunate that it came at the expense of fully establishing why any two of them have feelings for each other at all.

Nina and Amane were an established fact and perhaps didn't need building up, but they didn't really get a chance to showcase that supposedly long-standing relationship outside of equally long-standing inner conflict. I think they actually get one scene where they're happy and together, and even that culminates in Nina angsting quietly about Ryou.

Ryou apparently falls for Amane after a few pages of Amane being generically friendly while Ryou was injured, and she confesses pretty much immediately (at which point Amane doesn't even seem particularly interested in Ryou, as much as she just seems to like the idea of free love) but after that, most of their scenes together are either talking about polyamory or about Nina.

Nina and Ryou get the most screen time, but most of it is spent with Nina resenting Ryou. They have a prior relationship online, but they didn't seem to have much chemistry with each other beyond friends and fellow cat lovers, despite the joke page where Ryou's friend says it sounds like she's been hitting on "Shin'ya". They fight a bit, Ryou finds out that she's Shin'ya, Nina continues to be flustered and hostile while Ryou is positive, understanding, and inadvertently flirts a bit, and then suddenly Nina kisses Ryou, with Nina then realising that she's falling for her. They have some time offscreen, I guess, and by the time we get back to her, Nina's already talking about how much she needs and loves Ryou. Their relationship basically reverses completely in the space of maybe three scenes.

The way it all adds up, I'm just left feeling "eh" about the whole thing. I appreciate the effort to write a polyamorous relationship in a positive way, and trying to develop all three sides of their relationship in three chapters was definitely ambitious, but it didn't quite work out for me as a story.

The protagonist is so silly and adorable.
Is the protagonist in sun/moon more expressive than in the previous gens?
Or are all these doujins just wishful thinking?

Honestly, she's so unexpressive that it's kind of bizarre. She has one single smiling expression that never ever changes, no matter how desperate or touching or joyful the situation, and it started to look almost creepy and empty the more I saw of it. It's been speculated that she's actually a ditto mimicking a human, and the theory is fairly convincing based on her creepy smiling face alone.

You can kind of piece together the cheery, energetic, life-loving character that's usually portrayed in doujins by looking at how other characters react to her, because everyone else responds to her like she's the doujin character, and nobody seems to notice that she's actually a creepy smiling doll monster, so... She's implied to be silly and adorable, but you kinda have to imagine it for yourself.

It's funny, all it took was the first page of the girl putting on her make-up, and I immediately thought "This art looks cute enough, but it's giving me a really bad feeling". It's only then that I looked up and saw that it was by Kodama Naoko. It doesn't even look that much like her usual art - almost like it's a much earlier work, maybe? - but it was still enough to make me suspicious. Now that's notoriety, lol.

Story itself is fine, I guess. Nothing really happened.I can see where the yuri would go, but I don't think it's actually there yet?

Am I the only one that thinks Netsuzou Trap isn't NTR? I get it's in the name, but all I've gotten from it is 2 girls in love who cheat on their boyfriends with each other. Doesn't give off an NTR feel to me.

NTR is finding enjoyment or satisfaction from cheating on someone. Hotaru finds enjoyment from cheating on her boyfriend & having Yuma cheat on her boyfriend. That's why it's NTR.

I'd say it's a bit more complicated than that, but the whole concept has been so devalued that it gets thrown at regular-ass love triangles, so trying to pin down a "real" meaning for NTR is almost entirely meaningless, at this point. Netsuzou Trap involves more than two people in a relationship in a way that intentionally feels dirty, which makes it close enough for dumb wordplay/a marketing gimmick, if not enough for an actual "NTR" tag anywhere it would matter.

I sort of appreciate the fact that Mimika didn't jump straight for "lovers" status just because they confessed to each other. Shows that she still has some awareness of her situation, and doesn't think that their feelings being "mutual" (inasmuch as they can have mutual feelings) means that anything and everything is fine. "Friends who are in love with each other" seems like an okay place for them to be, right now? Not sure if Yuzumori will see it that way, since they don't seem to have talked about it yet.

About Yuzumori's realisation: it could be a reaffirmation, in the "I fell in love with you all over again" sense, or it could be her understanding more fully what it means to like someone, in the "So I feel this way because I love you" sense. Somebody also mentioned that it might be the difference between the Japanese words for "like", which signifies milder romantic interest, and "love", which is much more serious and long-term. So it doesn't necessarily mean that she wasn't sure about her feelings when she confessed, just that she's realised that her feelings are much deeper than she thought.

I went in expecting it to go in a "beauty salon + sex service" direction, so it seemed a bit unprofessional when she started peeping and masturbating by herself. But then it turned out that it wasn't part of the service at all and she was just using her business to prey on women, so...

She said she'd put something in the tea to "make her more sensitive", but it must've been some pretty strong stuff if the poor girl was so out of it that she couldn't tell the difference between fingers and boobs. No wonder she thought it was a dream afterwards.

Maybe I'm just morbid, but the size and shape of those scars and the fact that they've lasted at least 2 years suggests to me that they are cigarette burn marks (ie. a group of people held her down, ripped her shirt off, and put out lit cigarettes on her breasts). Even that was "all" they did, I think you could make a case that it constitutes sexual abuse.

That's what I was thinking, as well. Even if there's no reason to think it ever rose to the level of rape, the fact of her scars means that the nature of the violence against her was very likely sexualised. The chest isn't exactly a quick and accessible place to burn someone. They had to be pretty deliberate about it.

I'd be inclined to think that her wearing spats has more to do with her trying to defend herself from common harassment, than covering up scars - she keeps her shoes with her so they don't get damaged, she wears spats so that it's not as embarrassing if they flip up her skirt, etc. - but I don't have any strong reasons to think so, other than nothing being mentioned when Saki was definitely in a position to notice.

Haha, would you call that an engagement knife? It's definitely a bit twisted, but "please die with me, but before that, let's live long and happy lives together" isn't the worst proposal I've ever heard. Incredibly glad this got a sequel.

last edited at Mar 6, 2017 11:30AM

I think it's marked as a sequel because it follows on from Heart Gifts? But only in the sense that Shiro and Kuro make an introductory cameo, I guess? It confused me, too.

So, wait, how did any of that happen? Okay, schemer girl saw the photo of them kissing and sent it to herself, got that part. That seems like something that would leave behind really obvious evidence if she sent it via the chat client, email, or anything else that's quick, but idk, maybe she bluetoothed it, who knows. But she also wrote an accurate and detailed article about their lives, too? Maybe they talked at length about their dates and home life through chat and email, but that still takes time to read through. Did she also send herself all of their chat logs as well? When?

The way it's presented, she starts arguing with the other idols almost immediately after being left with the phone, but even if a couple of minutes passed in that one frame, that still seems like barely enough time for her to do all the things she must have done, on top of having to do it in a way that leaves no traces or having to erase her footprints afterwards. And then she has the whole article written and posted seemingly by the next day? It all just seems like a bit of a stretch, not to mention how heavily reliant the entire plan is on Misaki being bizarrely casual with her dangerous personal information (after just getting into a scandal about it!) and incredibly distrustful of Nagisa and nobody else.

I'm definitely biased against bad endings, so maybe I'm being unfair and overly critical, but even judged on its own merits, I can't help but think this story is still just too sloppy? It's just not satisfying in any sense. It said it was the author's "brilliant one-shot debut", which... I guess is at least half true. It's definitely a debut. Not sure I'd describe it as "brilliant", though. In any sense of the word.

last edited at Mar 4, 2017 7:05PM

You know, what's that "super-gross and incestuous" joke that's mentioned in Editor's Note 1? I haven't watched Kashimashi yet, but I wasn't aware that it had any incest.. or incest jokes as it were. Anyone know what the original joke was?

If I had to guess, it was probably him going "Aw yeah, yuri, niiiiiiice, hit that thang :)" or similar, over his own daughter.

Edit: Oh, actual translation, that's handy. Certainly seems more subtle than my guess? Not sure I would've caught any weirdness from what it sounds like, at least.

last edited at Mar 4, 2017 1:50AM

I was 100% expecting a Jojo reference or joke or something based on the title, and was really confused when it never came.

So while it's fun and enjoyable for me to ponder these things, I also know that I'm spinning my wheels for no reason other than my own amusement. I think you're probably doing the same thing with your analysis of Vampire Slacker Dude. He seems to exist as (A) a catalyst for the main plot; and (B) a source of cheap comedy. I would be very surprised indeed to discover that the author put much more thought than that into him.

Well, yes. I do agree. I don't think the author did it intentionally. At worst, I think the author may have been a bit careless. And I certainly have written a frankly excessive amount about this. But I didn't get the creepy feeling by analysing it, I got the creepy feeling by reading it for the first time with no expectations and reacting to it naturally. The analysing came afterwards, when I wanted to know exactly what I found off-putting about it, and whether it really was just an irrational fear of yuri dudes, which is apparently an awful scourge of yuri comments sections everywhere. So even if I'm told not to think about it so much, that only gets me as far as being unable to identify why I felt uncomfortable, if I should expect more of whatever it is from the story in the future, or if the problem is actually me and some weird hangup that I need to get over by myself.

Even then, that process took me all of ten minutes to think about. It was never that deep. The weird and complicated and excessive part came from repeatedly trying to explain my thoughts to others, because I felt unable to get my reasoning across. Saying it in general terms didn't work, so I said it in more specific terms, and when saying it in more specific terms didn't work, I gave a point-by-point explanation of what I thought and why I thought it, and when I gave a point-by-point explanation of what I thought and why I thought it, I was told I'd analysed it too much. So fuck me, really. I should've quit when I was only slightly behind.

As Sigmund Freud (allegedly) said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

And sometimes a vampire has been a metaphor for sexual politics ever since it was first put to paper and this actual manga used its second chapter to explicitly connect its own form of vampirism to sexual desire and pleasure, as if it was a central theme of the manga. But I guess that's looking at it too deep.

I had the same thoughts at first, but I agree with the argument that Rin was probably just meant to be the catalyst for the plot. He may have been aroused, but Yuunagi's reaction to him sucking her blood wasn't even shown. That would be a pretty big thing to skip if she was meant to be attracted to him eventually.

I'm not even worried about this turning het or setting up romantic tension between Irie and Slacker Vampire, and I don't expect that something bad is going to happen later in the story because of it. I just feel a bit creeped out knowing that (A) he's attracted to her, (B) he's already acted on that attraction by attacking her once, (C) he doesn't think much of attacking people if he wants it enough and can make them forget about it later, and (D) he's still going to live with her in her house for no reason at all.

Even if the author wants us to think of him as a harmless weirdo, and is trying to help us think of him as a harmless weirdo by making Irie treat him like a harmless weirdo, it would have been utterly trivial to set up the story so that he actually is a harmless weirdo, instead of making him do something that is by definition not harmless and then just using him as a harmless weirdo gag character anyway. If none of this is supposed to mean anything, then it was a bizarre and counterproductive choice to include it. It's a weird distraction that has no reason to exist, and it would have been incredibly easy for the author to arrive at this exact same scenario in a way that is simultaneously less creepy and less contrived. But they didn't. That's my problem.

Wooooow, Mai was trash. You make out with a middle school girl, get married and leave her without a word, and then come back after a few years and start acting jealous and pissy when you hear she had a boyfriend? That goes beyond flaky and mercurial, that's just the definition of a garbage human. Is there another chapter? It would be too much and too little to end it here. Either let Ecchan move on, or show her giving up on fighting her! One extreme or the other! Don't just say "I don't know"! That's too ambivalent. At least have some confrontation between them that Mai can be insincere and apathetic about! This isn't even satisfying my misery!

Someone had to turn Irie into a bloodsucking fiend of the night. If it'd been a girl vampire, it would've complicated the yuri romantic picture. Hence: Comic Relief Dude Vampire.

I'm... Not sure that follows? If other people are right that the series isn't especially hard on the romance, and is just cute girls being gay as heck, then having a character who's a mentor in vampirism and yuri alike seems like it would've been fine? Would it have been that bad to flirt with her, as well?

Even then, I don't feel like I'm really complaining about the vampire dude being part of the story. I'm not even necessarily complaining about the story being set up in such a way that he only bit her because he was thirsty (in every sense of the word) and is heavily implied to have gotten off on what was pretty literally assault and quite metaphorically sexual.

I'm mainly confused about why the author made all these deliberate, intentional, and entirely optional decisions about the story and the very first thing that happened in it, if they were just going to say "Actually, forget about that, it's not important at all, let's get to the lesbian vampire schoolgirl thirsting after her buddies already".

I mean, maybe I wouldn't have been as bothered if the slacker vampire was a lady, and I am just being kneejerk oversensitive about having dudes in my yuri or whatever, but whether it's a guy slacker or a girl slacker, I still feel like being expected to forget about the entire inciting incident of the story is really weird, regardless of what it is or how important it's supposed to be in the long run?

If it wasn't important at all, wouldn't it be simpler to use some other goofier or more neutral reason for her vampirism, like if she had just always been a vampire unknowingly and had only awakened to it recently, or that she'd gotten into an accident and turning her was the only way to save her life? With either of those, it's even easier to have an excuse for the exact same slacker vampire dude to hang around, like if he's some distant vampire relative who's been told to show her the ropes, or that she feels indebted to him for saving her life and is giving him a place to stay in return. As it is, you run the risk of weirdos like me thinking it's kind of creepy for the guy who attacked her to just be living in her house for no reason and getting unnecessarily hung up on it.

I don't know. I've been having this problem with a few cute fun comedies overcomplicating their cute fun scenarios and making everything less cute and less fun and more creepy as a result, so maybe I have to accept that it's just a genre thing that I don't have a taste for.