So after rereading and thinking, I agree that "jealousy" is not quite the right word. What bothers Kurumi is that Ruriko seems much closer to Rio than she is to Kurumi despite only knowing her for a month; she lets herself banter/be annoyed with Rio while she always maintains a polite distance with Kurumi (recall this has caused issues in their relationship before). It's very notable too that Ruriko calls Rio "Rio," no honorific, while she still uses "-san" with Kurumi even though she's known her for far longer.

Combine this with the fact that Ruriko never mentioned Rio to her before now, and I think what Kurumi is feeling is the crushing realization that she isn't nearly as close with Ruriko as she thought she was.

To add to this and to what Koveras has posted above, I believe that her awakening, not yet conscious romantic feelings towards Ruriko also play a role here in that she not only wants to be close to Ruriko, but wants to be THE CLOSEST to her, an aspiration that Rio just completely shatters. I really hope this will lead to some more introspection about the nature of their relationship in the next chapters with Kurumi realising that she wants more (though I doubt she'll figure out that she wants something romantic immediately)

SHE SAID THE THING

I think some people misunderstand the reason for Kurumi's jealousy, she's not just jealous because Rio is there with them (although she does seem to regret inviting her to sit down) but because Rio evidently knows a side of Ruriko that she has little to no access to. Ruriko speaks informal with her even though she still calls her own wife "Kurumi-san", she has obviously discussed romance with Rio too, which Ruriko and Kurumi haven't (for obvious reasons, as Ruriko is 100% seriously into Kurumi), etc. So I'd say its less that Kurumi believes Rio is going to snatch away her wife, but rather that she's shocked how a seeming stranger can have so much more intimate knowledge of her wife than she does

Elsa you glutton.

Tbf, Elsa's thought process is usually "Yvonne does literally anything" -> "OMG, I need to marry her"

Rio pretty clearly hinted that Ruriko has been constantly pining for Kurumi, which she might have picked up if she wasn't so busy being jealous of Rio for being close to Ruriko

Gosh, this manga is seriously too cute, I just want to squeal every time I read it.

I'm also fine with Ayame and Shou, there's plenty of lovely Yuri pairings in this and it's not like their age difference or anything is much different than Miss Sunflower and Matsuri.
But can we talk about accidental womanizer Fuuko please? That girl might say all those chocolates are from teammates and friends, but considering how oblivious she was to the obviously smitten senpai, a fair few of them might actually be having crushes on her too :D

Just want to say that what ultimately pushes Nanao to make the reservation is the idea that she might get to have sex with Asumi, naughty girl.

Paradoxically though, doesn't this development actually reduce the likelihood of Nanao and Asumi actually hooking up in the story?

Love this series, but that ending came with some serious whiplash. Like, we're still in the middle of the problems with Lin Luxi's mom and then boom, it's over.

Anyway, all up for part two where Comrade Lin Luxi rises steadily through the ranks of the Communist Party on her way to dominate the central committee and rule over the country with an iron fist.

Also am a little disappointed at the credits page, I wish it would have been more serious. 5/7

Ah yes, the only type of gay conversion therapy I can support

Another lovely chapter, love the outfits as well, Jing Xiu in workout clothes is so hot.

I love this manga, the storytelling is on point. Let's see Saki talk about her "ulterior motives" in the next chapter and being all surprised Pikachu when Kanon turns out gay for her as well (I haven't actually looked at the raws, so this is just how I picture things going)

Miyako definitely meant "like" in a romantic way, I think it's actually really well done how you have her visibly stopping, considering for a second, then realising that she actually "likes" Suga and immediately vocalising that thought. It all fits very well with her character and is a prime example of showing without telling imo.

Suga however probably genuinely means her reply in a friendly way for the various reasons others have stated. It's also interesting to see Miyako's reaction to that, where she interprets the reply and looks maybe a teeny bit disappointed (?) but immediately recovers and seems to to resolve that this is a good enough start.

Also:

Hatomori x Ruri

I didn't know that I wanted this but GOD do I want this to happen now

I love how Minami goes from completely desperate and hopeless to 100% determined and optimistic in less than 2 seconds. Repeatedly.

last edited at Jun 30, 2022 12:25PM

Regarding the reference, I would be even broader and say she's talking about her drawing in general, as she starts the entire point talking about the "manga I'm drawing" which could be specific to this manga, but she specifically did not say this manga, so I read it as a general statement

She used a "teiru' grammatical form, which is about something ongoing.

I was the one side in that argument stating that she said, in her interview, that she didn't consider the story she's currently writing as yuri (ie, romance between girls), but as "female close relationship" or something. Ie, Gal Pals. Or subtext.

Afk was arguing that she implied "so far", I was arguing that she's talking about the whole story in general.

The truth remains to be seen.

Fair enough, I can see that point. But afaik "te iru" can also be something ongoing in a broader sense, i.e. not referring to this specific manga but rather to the continued activity of drawing manga. Doesn't invalidate your reading though and I can certainly see what you mean, reading the interview again, the later comments in that paragraph seem to indeed point to her talking about this story in particular.

@wlftchtr82: The problem with using machine translations, though, is that they tend to be imprecise as hell when it comes to Japanese. In the Discord discussion the following translations were put forth by experienced translators in the scanlating community (one of whom is the scanlator working on this series):

"I wouldn't call this manga yuri (ie, romance between girls), but more affection between girls"

"I don't know if the manga I'm drawing now would be what people call [yuri]. It's more of a story of friendship between two girls."

The main point of discussion was not the yuri remark itself, but whether Agu meant it to refer to this whole story in general, or just to the parts already written (meaning that she might possibly add the yuri label in the future). To me personally it seemed more plausible that she was talking about the story as a whole, but the two translators who were discussing it differed in opinion on this particular point; one arguing that it was a general remark while the other presented the view that she was talking only about the content published so far.

It is quite ambiguous, I would disagree with the translation as "friendship between girls" because the Japanese word used (愛情) is inherently ambiguous and is usually translated as affection, which can be platonic, but which can definitely also be romantic.
Regarding the reference, I would be even broader and say she's talking about her drawing in general, as she starts the entire point talking about the "manga I'm drawing" which could be specific to this manga, but she specifically did not say this manga, so I read it as a general statement

On a different note, having read the novel now I am looking forward to the next translated Manhua chapters even more, the artist does a great job capturing the characters subtle emotions and I'm really curious how some scenes in the later story are going to be visualised

Just started reading the novel and wow, it's 144 chapters and the manhua does go even slower so this series will probably be finished sometime in 2040

The novel is really good though, even with the machine translation making everything after chapter 18 nigh unreadable. Hopefully the manual translation will continue. Makes me seriously want to learn Chinese to tap into the seeming wealth in quality yuri stories coming from there though

I started looking into learning chinese and it seems that just learning to read is doable after a couple of years, speaking fluently seems waaaaay harder, like the complete opposite of Japanese (it being the same as speaking normal Spanish IMHO).

Between this, the villainess story and my newfound fondness of cultivation stories, learning does look like a good investment. If anyone has some suggestions about resources I would be grateful.

I get ya, learning Chinese for reading seems like 90% just learning vocabulary. Still quite difficult though if my year of studying Chinese at uni tells me anything. But yeah, there seems to be a lot of good stuff, I just finished the web novel for this and even with the absolutely terrible machine translation it was still amazingly good, can't imagine how good it would be in its original language.

So maybe learning Chinese would indeed be a good investment for future Yuri prospects :D

Smol teacher is confused

I do wonder though if now, having seen significantly more of "him", Aya will start to realise some of the physical similarities between record store guy and Mitsuki as well

While I agree that it's kinda unfortunate for the drama to be over without being resolved, I can totally 100% understand it from a character perspective. Elsa was already willing to look beyond what happened and just wanted to stick with Yvonne from the beginning, Yvonne meanwhile had taken all her strength to push Elsa away in order to protect her, but was left completely and utterly miserable that way. With Elsa coming back to her she's then in such a vulnerable and distraught emotional state that she could not possible resist just going back to status quo, even if she rationally knows that the underlying issue isn't resolved and will cause more pain down the line.

Also really agree with what Koveras wrote a couple of comments above, that's a great analysis of the entire Villainess System problem and how it is basically impossible for Yvonne to resolve. Perhaps doubly so, because she really wants to protect Elsa (and thus herself) from harm, but by pushing her away she causes significant emotional harm too, so she's caught in a sort of paradox until Elsa eventually resolves the situation through her heroine powers

Tongtong's mom has a very tough job ahead of her... It is actually not at all uncommon for gays and lesbians in China to move to a different city, live as openly gay there but never have their parents know or acknowledge it because homophobia and the expectation to marry heterosexually is so deep-rooted that, combined with the Confucian obligation to honour your parents, a life of lies is the only viable option. Quite sad, really. (and yes, this exists in other countries as well, just pointed out China specifically because it's quite common and this story is set there)

Just started reading the novel and wow, it's 144 chapters and the manhua does go even slower so this series will probably be finished sometime in 2040

The novel is really good though, even with the machine translation making everything after chapter 18 nigh unreadable. Hopefully the manual translation will continue. Makes me seriously want to learn Chinese to tap into the seeming wealth in quality yuri stories coming from there though

Who's Zhao Yan?

She's Lin Luxi's lesbian friend who appeared as a side character throughout the series. Though this might be the first time we actually got her name I think

last edited at Jun 14, 2022 5:34PM

Zhao Yan with the Sigma grindset (and still sad)

Also, she imagines Lin Luxi suffering under Tongtong's boot on page 3, but little does she know that that Luxi would like nothing more than that and probably get very turned on in the process

last edited at Jun 14, 2022 10:20AM

I was curious and suspicious to get invested into a series just for it to end without yuri so I checked the raws (so obviously major spoilers ahead but I kinda needed this info and maybe somebody else needs it for their enjoyment as well)

As Pulsar said, it is a bit open ended but You confesses and Misa doesn't reject her but just says that she's seen her as a friend for so long that she needs time to see if she can think of her in a different way and it sorta looks like they'll get together, though max level is a kiss on the cheek