Bringing uninvited friends along to someone's house... kinda shitty to do. I'm glad it went okay, but like, idk why we're complaining about Ayane of all people here, this chapter she was perfectly fine and told Sana anything she thought she might want to know.

Dad is stupid af

Sure, but the point is that she doesn't even consider it.
When all you worry about is dating someone of the opposite sex and you chicken out every time at the last moment and the last few days all you can think of is someone of the same sex and still the word "gay" doesn't come to mind?? Twenty years ago, that would have been odd. Today it is, let's say, difficult. So I really expect the "big reveal" next episode. If not, still a good manga, but a bit silly.
I'm not complaining though, I don't necessarily need realism in my Yuri.

Yeah actually, a ton of people aren't well-educated enough on issues, or queer people aren't normalized enough for them to realize. Hell, it doesn't even mean someone's gay necessarily, there can be a smattering of other reasons you don't want to date other people of the opposite sex. And in this particular case, it seems like she's much more worried about all the ways she feels disconnected and unable to fit in, to worry about just a specific one of those yet. Sure, I imagine at some point she'll start thinking about what her feelings are for her senpai and why she's so uninterested in the men she keeps trying to make herself date - but right now, she's focused on more baseline things than that.

I said the attraction to Satou is explicit; the general nature of her sexuality is what's implicit, even though every note of a coming out story is being hit. This is a story about a woman realizing she's gay where the concept of "gay" never comes up. It's like the author wants us to totally understand what these "holes" are (internalized homophobia and unhappiness about forcing herself into hetero normalcy) but wants to be coy about it or not explicitly bring it up for some other reason. This appears to be fairly common in yuri manga.

I think that's just incongruent with the story the author wants to tell. It's a story about accepting herself, and acknowledging her sexuality is undeniably part of that, but it's also a love story. I think the author wanted to show Hinako, the girl who (thinks she) can't fall in love, completely falling head over heels for someone without even realizing it. Introducing concepts like comphet and general sexual attraction would result in the "girl who (thinks she) can't fall in love" aspect disappearing. Which would be fine - but I don't think it's a flaw of the author that she decided not to take this route.

In real life, I think a lot of times these issues about her sexuality are solved by spending some time reading about it, or talking with an online friend, or something similarly mundane. But that wouldn't make for as great a story, at least in my eyes.

But Hinako being gay is central to all of that. She's like, "Oh no I'm not normal and I'm not happy being like most women and I can't fall in love!" and, like... literally all of that is because she's gay. Sure, she could plausibly have self-esteem stuff built up all around that, but the gayness is the root cause.

It's like if I wrote a story where a man is sexually abused as a child, and as a result, when grown-up, he is scared of intimacy. And then I never explicitly bring up the abuse (instead just suggesting it) and justify it by saying, "Oh, this isn't about abuse, it's about fear of intimacy." Except, like, it's not... it's about fear of intimacy from a history of abuse, which is different from other kinds. Or, I write about a kid who doesn't fit in because she's deaf, and no one in the story ever says the word "deaf." Even if it's not the focus of the story, we all know it's relevant; it's weird not to acknowledge it somehow.

What concerns me is, like, making the gayness subtextual instead of something talked about directly has some practical benefit for this story being sold or to readers embracing it. Like, "you can tell your yuri story, but only as long as none of that gay stuff is part of the deal: for all readers know, this coworker is just a weird exception to her straightness."

I think Hinako's neurodivergence (I read it as autism, being autistic, mixed with some anxiety and depression, some other people might read it as just depression, or as something else, there's many valid readings) is much more central to the ways she feels isolated from the people around her and the ways she has trouble connecting with them. Maybe that's not how you read it, but my point is reading it as her being disconnected from everyone around her, dissatisfied with her life in general, and having trouble handling the everyday tasks that everyone else supposedly can as due to being gay is not the only valid interpretation. It's certainly a factor, but I don't think it's the main one.

For a second I thought that the story might end here with an ambiguous hook up. I glad it didn't. I just hope it isn't heading for some bullshit het ending like Uno's friendship with Satou gives Uno the confidence to date men properly. At this point I don't think so, but it wouldn't be the first time a yuri story had a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot het ending.

Usui Shito does have 5 other yuri manga on here, with varying levels of explicitness.

I'm just just saying I'd rather it end here, like this this, than it go a bunch more chapters Then have it turn out that Uno and Satou's friendship was just the catalyst to bring Satou out of her shell, and give Uno self respect, so she can finally fall in love. If I read 12+ chapters just to have the take away to be Uno hooking up with Sakagami-kun, and Satou befriending the other office ladies, it would feel like a real stab in the back.

Right, and I was saying I thought that was very unlikely due to the lesbian aspects of the previous works on here by the mangaka, and the emotional bonds already developed here. I also very much do not want that to happen.

best new release of 2020, calling it right now

I could see it. It's already shaped up spectacularly. I think it started in 2019 tho?

For a second I thought that the story might end here with an ambiguous hook up. I glad it didn't. I just hope it isn't heading for some bullshit het ending like Uno's friendship with Satou gives Uno the confidence to date men properly. At this point I don't think so, but it wouldn't be the first time a yuri story had a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot het ending.

Usui Shito does have 5 other yuri manga on here, with varying levels of explicitness.

That is unfortunately very common on this site, ppl getting angry because you actually dared to comment on the story rather than a generic "this was great".

I mean, I do feel both ways about it, sometimes people have really inane and stupid bullshit for comments - I just didn't think that was what had happened here. Also you know, I'm biased because comments I disagree with sound stupid but my own don't, obviously.

Yeah I enjoy her being part of the story personally. I like having more personalities to bounce things off, and it does seem like they're still getting the right tones and interactions between Hino and Koguma.

I would have much preferred a fade out time skip than see them doing it.

yeah same

I like this so much but people giving an overly psychological analysis just ruined it.

Don't read the comments then?? I'm talking about a manga that I'm enjoying and how it rings true to my experiences of neurodivergence, it's not a fucking psychological analysis, whatever you mean by that. Like... what's the point of coming into the comments to complain that on-topic comments about the story are bad?? If you don't like reading what people think about the story, it's entirely optional.

Polyamory with Hino Koguma and Omichi.

That's what I'm hoping for, it'd be nice. They all have a good rapport and interactions with eachother already, it'd be cute if it built up to that (over a long time, obviously). Like, Hino and Omichi don't even need to be in a relationship with eachother, it doesn't need to be all of them dating both others to be polyamory.

I’m not understanding your question: who is it that doesn’t talk about her being gay? The characters in the story?

I mean the author not making it explicit and something to explore, however it's brought in. Like, her attraction to Satou is synecdoche for her overall attraction to women, and the latter is just left tacit.

I’m going to try one more time, because I flat out do not understand what you’re saying here.

As far as we can tell, this is the first time Hinako has allowed herself to feel an attraction outside of a rigidly defined “normality” (her oppressive mom supplies more than enough explanation for why). How is the author not making her attraction to Satou explicit?

Put another way, what would what you’re looking for look like in the context of this story and these characters?

It could go a million different ways. It can be an internal monologue, in dialogue, in her noticing a magazine cover. There's lots of ways a story element can be made explicit.

Also, like, "this story" and "these characters" only are the way they are because the author chose to make them that way. There's no reason another character couldn't exist who comments on it, or there isn't a gay celebrity scandal on TV or whatever.

I said the attraction to Satou is explicit; the general nature of her sexuality is what's implicit, even though every note of a coming out story is being hit. This is a story about a woman realizing she's gay where the concept of "gay" never comes up. It's like the author wants us to totally understand what these "holes" are (internalized homophobia and unhappiness about forcing herself into hetero normalcy) but wants to be coy about it or not explicitly bring it up for some other reason. This appears to be fairly common in yuri manga.

She's not working on that aspect of figuring out what she wants out of life right now, frankly. She's figuring out how to sort out other things first. Who's to say she won't figure that out later? You're complaining she's not panicking about her sexuality within the first 5 chapters of a long-form manga about coming into yourself and figuring out how you fit into the world, it's almost certainly gonna come. There's plenty of stories about freaking out about your sexuality, this doesn't need to be one yet. It barely even needs to be yuri, it's a story about sorting things out and being accepted.

What is a sweet omelette flavored with?

Woah, where the tags at!? Not that I should be reading this in public, but...

Not there yet, I suggested NSFW. Also would have preferred to know it was so I could skip out.

Oh my godddddd this is so good. This is definitely one of my favorite mangas, that's it. The way it explores neurodivergence and the feeling of isolation and the way that just plodding along trying to fit in can make you feel... and the way that someone accepting you and caring about you can transform things... and just... ughhhhh I love thisssss.

I preferred it as a cute story going against what you'd assume you'd get from a succubus story, idc about it really now that there was fucking, meh.

Wait that's a kinda polyamory-y development. Ohoho.

Yeah as a fan of Urban Fantasy (which is almost-always also het romance) it's in basically every story with a female main character (and a good amount with a male main character) - you have the main love interest as someone who is super powerful and well-known, and all he wants is the MC.

God do you know how bad I'd love some good lesbian Urban Fantasy. That'd make my fucking year.

Oh but lately she's been badly hit by the cliché trope of "Casanova no girl has ever resisted falls madly in love with the one girl who rejects their advances!" Nobody's perfect...

I wonder where that one trope comes from? The idea that if you want to win the heart of an irresistible womanizer who has all the girls in the world at his/her feet, the right way is playing hard to get. Imho it doesn't seem to make sense... but maybe it's just I don't get it.

It's a power fantasy. The idea of being so desirable that someone that everyone desires desires you, and you alone, and that you aren't succumbing to them. It's even more common in het romance, especially like western het romance, the idea of someone who is super powerful, or super desirable, or whatever being hopeless about the main character.

Seems like the consensus on this isn't too positive, but I freaking love it. Nakatani Sensei's art style is so expressive, I feel like everything that goes unsaid from the short length is made up for in the expressions, I feel like I can really see the pain after her injury, in both of them, and the repentance for her wishes, and the love growing in their eyes. Idk, I thought this one was beautiful.

Well, from someone that does Het NSFW primarily, that's a pretty fun venture into yuri, cute image.

I thought about it for a moment, I think Amagakure Gido might be one of my favorite yuri authors of all time, I feel like just about everything she's put out has been really really good. Admittedly, that's just the anthology I'll Send Her Home on the Last Train and a single oneshot, but every story from the anthology just hit perfectly right.

I also feel similarly about Usui Shio, where the body of work isn't as prolific as some authors, but every single one of the works seems to be pretty good, but not quite as memorable as those off I'll Send Her Home on the Last Train. Crescent Moon and Donuts though is fucking spectacular so far and looks to be only getting better. That's the two I'd shout out right now, for being incredibly consistent and SFW.

Hm... this is getting pretty adorable. They're moving away from what it looked like the initial concept was gonna be, pretty hard, but I'm kinda okay with that, it was something you'd have to lean into very hard to make it work I felt like, and they weren't. So yeah, pretty happy with this update, it's looking good. Also, yeah, Ito's a hedgehog, I can see it.

Catch me just rereading this again and crying tonight. God this is so good already.