PS Fuuko is still perfect just in general. Morally unblemished, a flawless lover, a truly honest heart, and a very sympathetic story. She's easily worth more than every other character in this manga combined.

I mean, no one talks about how Nanase had promised Yuni she'd get them matching rings, which Yuni was looking forward to, and promised to be a better girlfriend. When Yuni sees the package, she's excited and thinks "this is it!".

Then it turns out it was a gift for ANOTHER girl. She spontaneously bought an accessory for her best friend instead, buying nothing for Yuni and she has to be REMINDED about her promise.

And when Yuni comes over to confront her, Nanase looks at the departing Yuki instead of looking at her girlfriend.

Nanase gives to Yuki all the attention and care she should be giving to her girlfriend and she doesn't even notice it. And then she's upset when her girlfriend gets jealous.

And I'm not even sure Yuki is that innocent with her "Thanks for this!" while running away.

And at last, I have to remind you that the author said in an afterword that Yuni encapsulates what she pictures when she thinks "women are a pain in the ass". So the fact that Yuni is high-maintenance and a pain is on PURPOSE.

So yeah, every girl in this manga is shitty in their own way and it's written like that to anger the readers and keep them hooked.

Don't act like surprised Pikachus.

Seriously it's hilarious that people claim Nanase is a good girlfriend or even "almost perfect" when Yuni keeps making very clearly stated requests and Nanase keeps fulfilling those requests... to Yuki instead. Honestly the only thing really unbelievable/hard to accept is why Yuni wants to stay with Nanase at all given Nanase has been checked out and seemingly uninterested outside of "this is mine so nobody else can have it" right from the start of the manga. Nanase's got that "I don't want to donate my old clothes because then someone else would have my stuff" mentality about a girlfriend she absolutely does not seem to care about otherwise, and I don't really know why Yuni puts up with it when she's got Fuuko. My only guess is that Yuni doesn't want to be single and has a "too good to be true" anxiety about Fuuko, since her only romantic experience is how Nanase treats her. That and/or she's punishing herself for cheating by staying with a bad partner and denying herself a good one.

last edited at Nov 22, 2024 9:03AM

This chapter was sooo good. I love Sorawo at first selectively remembering the conversation from the hot spring with her dialog box covering her face and selectively missing the most important thing she said, only for her to go back a couple pages later and realize "oh shit yeah I told her I love her didn't I. It's my fault she's acting different now". And then to go even further and realize the problem is entirely with her reactions to Toriko, not Toriko's treatment of her. Love to see that growth and reflection!!

This manga is great. I particularly love it when gay guys play supporting roles for lesbians and vice versa, I wish we had a tag for it. The hints that the uncle was gay were pretty good, my favorite was the flashback to when he took Sumika to work and his coworker goes "she's so cute, is she your daughter?" And he replies "... Is that a serious question?" And they go "guess not, haha!"

Also both main characters were very well realized by the author and it really took me by surprise to read this thread and see all the vitriol for Ito. Gay romance dramas have psychological elements like these more often than not and yet somehow this one was different for people? Idgi.

The author has kept this arc going for quite a while without the tension break of actually learning what the problem is that's causing this negative reaction/tantrum. I have my guesses, presumably something related to all the bother she made for her adoptive parents and feeling very guilty and not wanting them to go through that with another brat? But Xiaoyang really doesn't seem that bad, whatever trouble he causes can't be worse than what Xiaoen is doing with her tantrums and enbyphobia. It's obviously a very irrational position she's in. Definitely appreciate Xingyuan countering her trying to say some vile shit she probably doesn't mean just to hurt Xiaoyang and chase him away.

last edited at Nov 20, 2024 6:27AM

Yeah soap has been a thing for a while, it's pretty visibly obvious that oily things don't rinse off like normal dirt and so you need something to deal with that. It's use in personal hygiene like routinely washing hands is what's fairly new.

Wait, where was the hand washing?

Last page, second paragraph

It's normally the French stereotyped as serious about bread so this is indeed a fascinating conversation lol

I've never had a red bean bun but I'd imagine they don't taste like flavorless sawdust lol

It seems pretty clear to me. We don't have all the answers yet obviously but that's because we're not supposed to, since it's still unfolding. That's not a skill issue on behalf of the author, she's regularly putting up grade A material.

Speaking of germ theory, I was surprised to see the reference to hand washing in the chapter, since as far as I'm aware that's also centuries into the future. They might rinse their hands to remove obvious dirt but using soap is far off as far as I know. Typically proper handwashing is credited as a 19th century invention, and looking it up just now I learned that at least in America it wasn't until the 1980s that it started to get promoted to the general public as important, rather than primarily being for doctors and such. Which is rather dismaying lol. I guess this helps explain why as recently as the 2000s I've heard American men insist they don't need to use soap after peeing.

Anyway that sure was a hell of a lot of bread Rachel made all by herself. Could 3-4 cartloads of bread be feasibly made in one day by one person using these intense practices? Should we assume she's got some apprentices of her own just off camera, maybe?

I'm not sure why a lot of people are saying it's too late, while the fortune cookie tells otherwise. It's clearly a hint that Joe will do something about that situation.

It's Kanna's fortune, not Joe's, and the person Kanna wants to be is not the person Joe expects her to be without saying anything.

Maybe she even has a man there (seeing that flashback panel where she's talking with a man with glasses who looks at her gently).

I went back to look and lol that tiny sliver of a person is not clearly masculine (assuming any not feminine character to be a man is really funny in the context of this manga in particular lol) and their facial expression is also just kind of neutral, I'd read it as an "I'm listening" kind of face. Given the context of the other glimpses around it I'd first assume these are images of Kanna at her fun and fulfilling job as "stylist" that she has in America. It appears to involve painting stuff on a ladder, yelling to photographers, and being listened to by some person.
Edit: I just noticed Kanna has a heart tattoo on her shoulder in the panel of her painting, that's cute. Maybe it's a heart for "styling" :P

last edited at Nov 17, 2024 2:41PM

I know what dysphoria feels like, and don't assume I don't. My life vastly improved when I addressed my dysphoria, but it didn't mean I disconnected entirely from my AGAB.

Okay, but you are not Hodaka lol. They're looking pretty thoroughly disconnected already.

I still disagree with you, especially because I think whatever's going on with the curse is going to be addressed in some fashion and make Hodaka's choices more complex as to what he wants to be. Also, what you wrote screams "binary trans experience", so if you're not enby yourself I want you to think long and hard why you decided that another person in the trans umbrella had to have a lecture on dysphoria.

My gender is none of your business lmao. I didn't lecture you about anything, I laid out my reasoning for why I read the character the way I do, which required drawing connections between various aspects of dysphoria with the character's emotions.
I don't know what you mean in particular by "binary trans experience" (if such a thing exists outside of your assumptions I've never seen it nor heard anyone personally testify to it, the very existence of trans people is a violation of gender boundaries, that's why the radfems struggled so badly with the concept of trans people), but it's certainly not what I described as my impression of the character, let alone "screamed" it. What kind of 'binary gender' uses they/them pronouns?

Since page 9-10 were left untranslated... It seems like next chapter there will be a tournament? Natori says she will grant the winner any wish, and Diana says if she wins Lapis has to give Natalie-san to her. Is that right more or less?

Almost certainly a joke preview that doesn't actually reflect the contents of the manga. A lot of manga recently have done these, they're fun little what-ifs that make for good gags.

She had her own ambitions. I don't see why she should have given up on them.

To note, their break up was a mutual agreement. There's no real bad blood between them. But it's obviously a bitter memory for her, because he somewhat led her on to finally chicken out. She loved him and thought they would build something together, but life didn't let them.

I wouldn't say it's Joe's fault either, because he had to take care of Mitsuki (for yet unexplained reasons). That's just life.

But in the present time, Kanna came back temporarily and Joe kind of took her for granted, conveniently forgetting that she had to go back eventually and had a life over there, that he's not part of.

Maybe she even has a man there (seeing that flashback panel where she's talking with a man with glasses who looks at her gently).

So, as she says, it's too late. She needs to leave, because the longer she stays, the more they look away from reality, the more painful it becomes.

i also don't think she should have given up on them, but my problem with this situation is that Kanna never had a talk with Joe and Mitsuki about what she came back for and why, and i agree Joe has done that because just likw Mitsuki he just goes along with things, which is his problem in this mess. At the same time though its impossible for Joe to know exactly what Kanna wants when she doesn't say anything.

This also why i think the advice she gave to Aya was somewhat bad, as moving on rather than clinging to nothing is good advice, but doing so without actually knowing what the other person wants just going off what you think they want isn't.

Kanna followed her own advice, she gave up on Joe. She just feels attached to Mitsuki, presumably for the same reasons Joe does. Kanna and Mitsuki are clearly very close and talk a lot more than we see, given Mitsuki learning fluent English from her, so they probably HAVE talked and mostly understand each other. Joe's just kind of there with Mitsuki as a package deal since he's her guardian. I don't think Kanna really wants anything from Joe and thus doesn't have anything to say to him to establish expectations.

Tbh i don't even know what Kanna was expecting, like she chose to come back here knowing Joe would still have Mitsuki to look after which is why they split in the first place and then i guess she thought she could get him to go with her? despite that things haven't changed for Joes circumstance. Like either way someone would have to leave their home in order to get together and its not like she said any of this to Joe and has only said something when she is planning to leave anyway.

I do believe its possible that they do get back together, whether that will be because of Joe deciding to go to America which he would probably only do if Mitsuki decided to leave with him or Kanna staying in japan which she clearly doesn't want to do.

Kanna just comes to visit sometimes, she moved to America when Mitsuki was really young but when Joe first sees her again he says "it's been five, six years?". Her arc starts with chapter 43 if you wanna reread her introduction, since that's relevant now. This arc also reveals that Mitsuki can speak fluent English with her, which implies that Mitsuki and Kanna have been connected and talking this whole time even as Kanna's in America, and Kanna tells Aya that she's here to lure Mitsuki to come to America with her. The relationship between Kanna and Mitsuki has been a solid thing as part of Mitsuki's life for most of it, not just this current visit, and the problem Kanna's having is with being tempted to stay close to her more than anything.
Rereading her introduction has actually got me convinced that Kanna and Joe HAVEN'T hooked back up: she's not here for him and she's not hanging around the shop for him. She's here for Mitsuki and spending time with her. Kanna calls herself "something like an aunt" but clearly her attachment is even stronger than that, she really seems to look at Mitsuki as a daughter, and now she wants custody lol.

Edit: also since this arc has a lot to do with the people in parental roles for Mitsuki I'm excepting the truth about her bio family to come out soon. They were clearly still in the picture when Kanna left, which is why Kanna and Joe would have been leaving her behind, but they're pretty clearly out of the picture by now.

last edited at Nov 17, 2024 7:09AM

she is the one whom left

She's also the one who came back. I never got the impression Joe had any expectations that she'd this or that; that's clearly something she wanted to do and is doing on her own iniative.

... so honestly don't get what this drama is even about. It's "too late"? Does she have terminal cancer? ^^ If not, what's the problem ...

It's too late because she's already got a new life with be ties somewhere else that she'd have to give up, a life Joe is implicitly asking her to give up without even knowing about it. It's significant that she said "I'm going home" rather than "I'm going back to America" or something like that. She's got a home there to go back to.

... Anyway presumably she'll be packing that home up and coming back soon enough because like damn Kanna have you turned on the news lately? You don't want to be in America if you can at all help it right now.

This manga really is peak lesbian yaoi, and I love it so much for being that. This is absolutely going to end with Misa and Io killing people and fleeing the country together.
Also dang but the art is so good

I enjoy the manga but damn, Komaki is one of the most useless lesbians I've ever come across while Wakaba (although I can at least understand why sorta) is really living up to that dense protag mantle. I mean, Wakaba, is it really such a complicated mystery about what she loves when her barely disguised hints are literally kissing you in the face? Someone help these girls, lol

Komaki expresses physical attraction to Wakaba, but not romantic attraction. Given the occasional comments about Wakaba's "child-like" body, that physical attraction probably doesn't feel great or reflect all that positively on Komaki. Wakaba presumably just thinks Komaki objectifies her without actually liking her.

I know what dysphoria feels like, and don't assume I don't. My life vastly improved when I addressed my dysphoria, but it didn't mean I disconnected entirely from my AGAB.

Okay, but you are not Hodaka lol. They're looking pretty thoroughly disconnected already.

Wait is transgender tag applicable here? Wouldn't they have been comfortable in their new bodies if they were originally trans?

They're very obviously trans. Their current bodies were assigned a gender when that body was born and that gender is incorrect for them. Did you forget AGAB is about bodies rather than doctors somehow reading the souls of babies lol. A person is not intrinsically cis or trans on a spiritual level, it's about their relationship to their bodies and how society perceives them.

last edited at Nov 16, 2024 6:05AM

There's been multiple recent manga published in mainstream sources like Ayakashi Triangle and Zenbu Kimi no Sei that deliberately subverted their cishet potential to be brazenly queer instead. All the details align with Hodaka being genderqueer, they've even told Chihaya "I get to be a girl and I get to be with you, two birds with one stone!" to reassure her they're fine with the curse. As far as I'm concerned we should already be avoiding he/him pronouns based on the text in front of us without even reading into meta things like the aquarium date, and it would be very foolish to assume "oh he'll just end up a guy in the end".

ps: if you haven't read it, Zenbu Kimi no Sei is complete on Mangadex and is very similar to this except they're BOTH constantly switching and it's more comedic focused. If you like this manga you'll probably like that one :)

I doubt he'll end up as "just a guy" in the end, but I still think it's pre-emptive to avoid using he/him when the text has also made it obvious he's still uncomfortable with being transformed into a woman and that there's more to work on there in how he views it. And I definitely read the reassurance there as him jumping to trying to make her feel better despite how he feels uncomfortable.

Like, even if he ends up being 100% a trans woman, this is still something thrust upon him that he's trying to figure out, and we don't know how the cards will fall, especially because I'm almost certain the source of the curse will be addressed. I feel like he might end up bigender in the end, feeling both equally a man and a woman.

Also, as someone who is a nonbinary butch, I'm kinda annoyed at a common presumption that entering an enby space always means detachment from your AGAB. I still identify as a woman and use she/her even tho I'm absolutely also nb. Hodaka's gender identity being more complex than "just a guy" doesn't mean being a guy won't be an important component of the end result.

Hodaka is completely dissociated from their AGAB though, did you miss the whole "have I ever really liked or enjoyed anything before now" angle? They don't seem to have any ties to it whatsoever except the inertia from being raised that way and the expectation that their girlfriend presumably wants a boyfriend. Currently there's confusion between "is this new ability to enjoy literally anything caused by grenderbending or is it caused by being in love" but it's not exactly normal to not even like food and then suddenly you get a first girlfriend and it tastes good now lol. Dysphoria is one of the few things in life for those who have it that makes every single aspect of life worse, including raw physical sensations. There's others like severe depression but severe depression is not normally cured so quickly, whereas if you genderbend your average egg they'd start feeling like life is wonderful pretty much instantly lol

It amuses me how confused about 2.5d everyone was in this thread and how the right answer was posted once but ignored (it's stage plays and other productions with a live audience using actors portraying anime or game characters)

Komaki is pretty much entirely the problem. Wakaba isn't really that dense or in denial, she pretty openly cares about Komaki, she's just frustrated to do so because it sucks being in love with a bitch who hates you. I can barely comprehend why Komaki thinks Wakaba hates her and her consent is impossible to get, Wakaba's pretty consistently caring towards her, going along with what she wants and trying to take care of her and not really ever starting hostilities, only really responding negatively when Komaki tells her she hates her and like wow how bizarre why would someone dislike being told they're hated. The way Komaki's actions refuse to acknowledge new stimuli and adjust kinda reminds me of a ghost or an AI lol

last edited at Nov 16, 2024 5:07AM