Am I the only person who actually like nanashi no asterism ( ;-;)

No, if I had to place it on a scale of liking or hating it, I would say I liked it. Once it was all said and done, I would have loved to see it play out a bit differently though. All in all, I love Kobayashi's works. She's got my interests down pretty well.

She took her from the street, which means she didn't actually kidnap her (kidnap, verb: abduct (someone) and hold them captive. Satou is doing no such thing).
The reason she doesn't tell the authorities are because they would take Shio back to her mother (who left her out there in the first place). Then she doesn't go further because she's scared of what might happen to Shio. These are minor reasons, mostly she's doing them for personal reasons, but they are still there.
I'm not saying she's a good person, but if you just write her off as crazy without considering any of the other details that the series presents, you're not going to get the entirety of the series.
Also, if Shio told her that she wanted to see her mum and/or brother again, Satou would let her do it (after Shio begs hard enough), because she wants Shio to be happy.

Most of that is irrelevant. You're not allowed to just take a kid, willing or not, into your house and house them there for an indeterminate amount of time. Especially someone under 5 years old, and this goes for a minor of any age in Japan. Young children are especially susceptible here. They do not have the mental capacity to decide what is right for them. You will get charged with kidnapping regardless of the opinions of the child. This is especially murky in Satou's case because of the nature of Shio's mental state. She's a child in a precarious situation and some "good Samaritan" takes her in and showers her with the "love" she desires. It's all kinds of messed up.

The reason she doesn't tell the authorities has nothing to do with her being reunited with the mother being a bad thing -- it's because she doesn't want to give her up. Shio is her "soul mate' and nothing is going to stand in the way of them being together. I mean she's pretty open about this fact numerous times. That's basically what this whole story is about. She murdered people to stay together.

You say she'd let her see her parents and brother again (whom I can only assume Shio has actually forgotten at this point due to the trauma of her past) but I have my doubts. Considering the lengths she's going to throw her brother and others off the scent, down to outright murder. I do not believe Satou would be able to cope with letting her go.

Honestly, my heart breaks for Satou. She finally finds something she can care about and has effectively fallen off the deep end in an attempt to keep it hers. It doesn't really detract from the seriously depraved path she is treading in this futile effort.

last edited at Nov 13, 2018 4:34PM

1. As an amusing side note, I experienced the water splash event in my first year of high school. Complete with the self righteous attitude the perpetrator loved showing off. As they walked away I caught up and dumped my drink bottle on them. I then asked how it felt being so graphically denigrated. The look on their face was priceless. Nobody in my year group tried that stunt for the rest of high school ^_^ .

The childhood friend actually kind of makes me excited to see what happens next. Are they actually gonna tackle transphobic talking points? I hope so, manga rarely deal with things like transphobia.

Hate to be the killjoy but this is exactly how it's going to go: Tetsu is going to back off because he doesn't want to make things hard for Mogu. Both are going to take this distance hard and childhood bitch is going to try to reason Mogu into the person she thinks he needs to be still oblivious to what Mogu really wants. This is only going to make shit harder for Mogu and then she'll probably take the hint and "allow" the two to get together.

I mean while I'd love for this story to dig deeper, I don't think the author is doing quite the deep dive here. I'd say it's going down a rather formulaic path at this point.

I'm still shocked at the people somehow blaming Shouko for Satou murdering her. You people are fucking insane. If we ever meet in person, remind me to run the fuck away, or preemptively call the police.

Satou warned her, therefore it was her own fault. We all know what happens to the curious cat ...

Try running that by the police. "Officer, I told her to stop asking about the child I kidnapped, but she just didn't listen, so I was forced to kill her. It was a clear case of self-defense." Fucking psychos, the lot of you.

She didn't kidnap her though.

Yes, she did. Just because Shio isn't fighting to get away or even necessarily wants to get away, Shio is still like 4 years old. She doesn't understand what is going on. In fact Satou is very insistent on Shio staying indoors for a variety of reasons, chief among them is jealousy not wanting to share Shio with the world.

For all intents and purposes, Satou is a kidnapper.

It kind of amuses me how much people are looking for a way to justify Satou's actions. Really, none of it is justifiable. She's messed up, she has a bad upbringing and it really messed up her mind. I'd say she was always just a sociopath but it's actually pretty clear she's starting to have strong emotions about what she's doing. That's the end of it. Everything she is doing does not "make sense'. She's crazy, and it's sad. I just hope this little story doesn't end with Shio dying.

last edited at Nov 13, 2018 10:54AM

It's a terrible day for rain.

What do you mean? It's not raining.

"Approaching them all equally" doesn't literally mean following some sort of textbook of acceptable mannerisms to each of them like some robot. She means as a family, she intends to not place any one girl on a pedestal above the other. Turning one of the personalities into her lover would be a grave violation of that wish to remain a family, and whether Ichigo likes the answer or not, it's not her decision alone. Sensei has the right to refuse to have such a relationship.

Regardless, given the circumstances around the "incident", we don't even know how she would react if Ichigo was the one genuinely terrified of the lighting. She's willing to take bathes with Ichigo still, even letting her sleep together despite literally almost raping the woman, so she's clearly not completely neglecting skinship in general with her. Ichigo literally took a moment of genuine concern given towards Hajime and jumped to conclusions about the intention behind it. Her jealousy was running wild, so it hardly matters what started the ball rolling at this point, she seems like she was destined to fall no matter how innocuous the cause.

last edited at Oct 25, 2018 6:40AM

What a failure as a parent. Her bias toward Hajime became obvious and Ichigo didn't take it well.

There wasn't really any bias though. She thought Hajime was terrified by the lightning and was trying to console her
like any parent would console her child. On the flipside, Ichigo's attempts at skinship are always much more ornately romantic in nature and thus she has her guard up more. In fact, it just goes to show how much love and respect she has towards this girl of many faces. She openly distinguishes each of them as their own individual entity and as a result has distinct differences in how she feels she can interact with each one as a result.

And she could always throw in the cruelest twist of the Friend-Love knife: "If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have been able to open my heart to accept senpai's (and later, senpai's sister's) love! Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear friend!"

This is where my money goes, sadly...

Chitose will develop amnesia and assume a new identity that will fall in love with Ayaka nbd

If this story goes anywhere near amnesia I am so out no matter how cute I think it is overall.

I feel like people are just using other manga/anime plots to form their theories about the girl

Well of course. Tropes exist for a reason.

There's no way this is anything but a twin filling in for her deceased sister.

The twin isn't actively pretending to be the sister, but this girl just showed up and she didn't know how else to handle it with everyone around. Then while she's perhaps trying to move forward, this girl goes and proclaims she loves her and that sets her off, like "If you really loved her you wouldn't mistake someone else for her."

She probably has a diary or something her sister left behind showing how much this girl means to her (or perhaps she just already knows and was just jealous in the moment) which makes her backpedal a bit at the brutal way she reacted to her. She kind of became a conduit for her sister still being alive, or some craziness.

I want to think this is a chance for the childhood friend to still get somewhere but in all likelihood this twin is going to fall for her and after some shaky "I'm not who you think I am", it's going to become mutual.

My only hope is the childhood friend doesn't end up alone :\

last edited at Oct 12, 2018 10:25PM

If Asahi doesn't meet Shio and stop this ridiculousness before it's too late I'm really going to be bummed out. Satou needs serious help and "marrying"/potentially dying with a preschooler ain't it. Given how messed up some characters have ended up, I'm going to assume this is going to reach the worst possible outcome by the end.

Honestly, up until she offed her friend for being too nosy, I was hoping Satou could find redemption somewhere. Proper redemption, not relying on small child to make her life feel sweet. But we're well past that point... Shio isn't helping matters either. She's the real victim here. She's got abandonment issues and has totally eaten up Satou's crazy version of what love is.

last edited at Sep 22, 2018 7:56PM

Assuming time travel is legit I am seriously tempted to believe that Pure is her half sister from that other family.

$10 bucks says after the breakup once this was released, she went back to the old sugar daddy.

Vampires feeding on each other and thus not needing blood from another source feels like cheating the system.

Right? Suspension of disbelief goes so far, but breaking conservation of energy is pretty jarring. Two vampires are a perpetual motion machine.

It's only one step away from them just biting themselves whenever they're peckish and getting by that way.

Well, we're talking about vampires here. Who knows maybe they have some ridiculous photosynthesis abilities. They're clearly getting energy from something.

Or it's just a typically convenient manga way to make two characters rely on each other both literally and emotionally.

last edited at Sep 9, 2018 10:49PM

okay, insert random cheating into story...

Eh, it's only cheating if it's against their rules, and we don't know what their rules are. Their relationship is pretty vague and Tae seems to have hangups about taking it seriously because it's not "normal".

I agree for the most part but, and this could be a translation issue (can't find the raws myself to check), but she did at least point out that she basically considered the two of them dating at one point... Doesn't really seem like a friends with benefits situation if she's connecting the dots like that. It might be that she really isn't serious in any sense of the word about the relationship, and Jimiko doesn't even seem upset about what happened beyond freaking out in a "funny" way that it did so I'm guessing she's not going to be particularly jealous about it, maybe now it's her turn. shrugs Who knows.

Still, it felt pretty vanilla and now they're going a different angle so sadly this one is down a few pegs for me. I really wanted to watch the two of them develop.

last edited at Sep 9, 2018 7:21PM

Oh my god, I'm so glad I found this again! I loved this story when I first came across it and completely lost track of it when Batoto died. Forgot the name and everything.

Not even worried about this new girl, but I know exactly what's going to happen, what with the mention a number of chapters ago of sensei's past love being snatched away in pretty much the exact same circumstances. Hopefully the drama won't last too long though and they can all be friends, I like the fluffy feel of this series more than my desire from drama.

last edited at Sep 2, 2018 2:14PM

Jeez, I longed for the sibling relationship in chapter 25... I had a little sister and we were pretty well sewn at the hip despite our several year age gap, but it's nothing like what we could have gotten if we were both sisters. There's just some gaps a brother and sister can't close in on.