Now, perhaps I am still being unclear, since you've made it clear to me you're mostly concerned with the semantic issues of people saying that the series "is not yuri" or so on.

There's understandable confusion over the term. Mostly since "yuri" itself is a conglomeration of thematic components that include all of explicit lesbianism, subtext, and merely close relationships between women. Which is why is "yuribait" is still accurate as a term, because yuri has subgengres, and those can be misleadingly advertised over one another using the catchall "yuri" or portions of its larger thematic components! Hence it is baiting one type of "yuri" for another. So when people are claiming that the show "baited yuri", even if it seems incoherent, what they're really saying is that the authors had baited readers for one subgenre of yuri only to supplant it with another. And in that sense they're actually quite accurate!

But you've said as much yourself, from what I can tell.

Still, far from just being a general issue with how media is advertised at large, the tendency of yuri to play out in this way is actually very unique to its nature, as its history is at least partly born out of the Class S social practice particular to Japan. And the new developments we've had, if nothing else, make it much easier to bait people in this way since there becomes a very real chance of it being one or the other type: explicit lesbian relationship, vague in-the-air situationship, subtext, etc so on. (It's also important to note that the term "yuri" was also particularly associated with explicit lesbianism, in its earliest usages, from what I can tell!)

While it's true that its Class-S aspects sell well, and there's demonstrably some kind of subgroup of people who consistently pay for such things, and ostensibly some large portion of that is well-aware they're just going to milk it ad infinitum, it's ultimately what I would consider largely a distraction to the real issues that people are trying to get at when they (somewhat misguidedly) say it's "not yuri".

This is, of course, part and parcel of the historical trajectory I have hammered out in earlier points: it is a defining component of the tendencies of yuri as a genre in Japan. Separating out this tendency, for analysis, actually in fact weakens the analysis. So we must always center: Where did this tendency and practice originally come from? For a series to lean into a romantic direction and then swerve abruptly? And the historically-accurate answer is, of course, the consistent oppression and belittlement of sapphic relationships in Japan.

Perhaps in some ways you could describe this as an extension to the historical practice where lesbian depictions could be "allowed" in the mainstream by hiding them within Class S stories (though with no real hopes of going beyond vague implications). You could go so far as to consider "yuri" and "lesbian" as something almost mutually exclusive, with yuri at most teetering on the edge of a "real" relationship between the characters. There are many such examples of this, with authors who were closeted lesbians using a Class S storyline as a way to publicly express themselves.

In Goodbye, Lara, the audience was clearly baited into thinking that it would be an explicit sapphic relationship, because it had made the most narrative sense given how the story played out, and how it was advertised! And yet that's not the subgenre of yuri they were provided. Even with the oppressive conditions specific to the Class S social behavior now ostensibly removed, this pattern still continues to hold! You even gave a more extreme example of this with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. But rather than paint Mercury as a meaningful distinct instance, I would argue this and Goodbye, Lara are actually cut of the same cloth. They just come about it from different directions!

Much of the issues talked about here become significantly less confusing if you just specify "lesbian relationship" instead of yuri, which is what I had done so for my first post. This is true. But the critique is not any less valid even if somebody is using the thematic catchall of yuri to talk about it!

Because in a sense, when people are saying that it "didn't actually end up being yuri", or something along those lines, they're also making an actual statement about what they think yuri should be: which is something with a much more explicit tie to its lesbian roots. A far cry from both the historical and contemporary situation, where the will-they-won't-they is milked forever, or the story otherwise fizzles out with many questions left unanswered, or it abruptly swerves out of the realm of a romantic entanglement, or other such patterns are commonplace.

Rather than view it as inaccuracy, I think it's more pertinent to see it as a competing cultural trend fighting to redefine what "yuri" means as a term.

And, instead of painting this in a neutral light, I think given the historical trajectory of how lesbians have been treated in media, internationally, and in Japan, that they're right. I actually think yuri as a genre should be redefined to be more explicitly tied to lesbianism rather than continuing to perpetuate its past habits.

At the very least, if the authors wanted a Class S type story, they should advertise it as such! Anything else, in my mind, is either intentionally disingenuous, or grossly and self-beneficially negligent. Because it is quite trivial to understand that people will "misinterpret" the intentions regardless. And as a result, enrich the producer of the media. How convenient, for them!

In this way, I find the tendency to focus on the semantics of that "well Goodbye, Lara still fits under yuri" to be, at best, missing the point. You are certainly right that it fits the historical application of the genre. But as I asked before (and I hope my intention is clearer now), whatever is the point of the distinction? Of that perspective?

At the end of the day, the basic results of the circumstance, the treatment of lesbian relationships, remains the same. Subsequently I find it to be unproductive for analysis. The people saying it's "not yuri" are not actually trying to claim that it doesn't come from the root definitions of the term. Hardly! They actively and openly despise its relation to the Class S history!

And with the context of the story as it was told, and the history of how these relationships are treated, who can blame them?

last edited at Sep 23, 2026 7:30PM

@appstore

No? I reply like normal, maybe I use words that have a more harsh reading for a native english speaker

It's probably more of an issue with the format. Tone, unable to be physically heard, becomes contextual and the constant arguments (beyond this back and forth) in this thread have created conditions that imply certain tones, irrespective of what you meant.

Which is to say it's not your fault :)

I now I sound stupid with this but I do not understand what you mean by this, and I am being genuine.

You don't sound stupid! And I meant pretty much along the lines of what you described, just reformulated.

For instance, I was labeling this:

I only used creators but I also mean fans, fans are also creators, yuri was born from doujinshi too, it’s a constant feedback.

As an extension of market economics. There's a supply/demand relationship here. Though obviously it extends outside the range of commerce, it could hardly be argued that the economic factor isn't important when we're considering the budgets animation studios need to work on for a series!

As for persistent cultural formations:

[...] Yuri is a genre with conventions, Sayonara Lala fits perfectly into them.
[...] But If I had to say something, I am saying “Some people started really liking this because it was something they only could find there”
That was what I was aiming for mostly, if you like tsunderes and they are only on harem, you will watch them and will become a fan of harem

This is not outside what I was getting at. It's a bit confusing, but "culture" as a term is very encompassing. From wikipedia:

Culture (/ˈkʌltʃər/ KUL-chər or /ˈkʊltʃər/ KUUL-chər) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these groups.[1] Culture often originates from or is attributed to a specific region or location.

So, essentially, persistent patterns of human social behavior and thought, often originating from or attributed to a particular locale. Which decidedly includes what you've described.

In short, when I said this:

This is more evidence we're not on the same page here. I'm not sure why you feel the need explain how market economics and persistent cultural formations can reinforce stereotypes and tropes.

I was quite literally paraphrasing what you were describing, just with $3 words, which was admittedly unnecessary, my bad.

I never said explicity is oppresive, that’s all.

Ah, well the quotes around the word "oppressive" were clearly a poor choice on my point. I wasn't being very clear about why I emphasized that, was I? It didn't actually have to do with whether or not you said that, but instead I was anticipating an implied counterargument.

What I mean by that is that people (and certainly I thought your message implied this) have a tendency to dismiss indirect forms of oppression. I was over-eagerly trying to get ahead of that kind of argument, and was trying to reaffirm my loyalty to the functional results of a pattern of behavior over its particular appearance or content. This isn't something you disagree with necessarily, though, so it just ended up strawmanning you... I apologize.

Rather my point was moreso that...

My only point is that Yuri is a genre with conventions, Sayonara Lala fits perfectly into them.
Your point is to question the genre conventions (for what I got, sorry If I am wrong) which was not part of my argument

In a sense! Here let me summarize my thoughts:

.1. The series, irrespective of its yuri categorization, poorly handled the sapphic relationship in a way that was narratively unsatisfying and places it within a historical tendency to treat sapphic relations poorly, in this way. Especially and particularly in the history of Japan, this happens. Which makes it disapointingly predictable (despite many fans hoping otherwise).

Notice how I never used the term "Yuri" within my original critique! No instead I used "lesbian". I had meant to be specific. So why, you may ask, did I respond to your post that used the term "yuri"?

.2. The term/category Yuri (as something I kind of hinted at only indirectly or implied offhandedly!) has been coopted; that is, it's been applied in a utilitarian manner for precisely its vagueness.

This was, historically, both born out of good and ill due to the particular treatment of both sapphic and close girls' relationships (see point about all-girls' schools and the video essay I originally linked). Good, in the sense it allowed people to explore homoerotic concepts without being suppressed. Ill, in the sense it allowed producers to dangle a carrot in front of lesbian populations without having to take the reputation hit for committing to the relationship's consistent and blatant thematic throughlines.

Its wide-reaching tendencies includes the behavior I was getting at in my original critique. Heck, it's chock full of it! "Yuri" as a catch-all, becomes something that's useful to observe in the context of how sapphic relationships have and continue to be treated. So yes in a sense my point was "to question the genre conventions" as you said, but that's not entirely it either.

Rather the main portion of my critique was about the framing or approach to this topic you chose to begin with!

.3. The framing of approaching this from a more shallow, self-perpetuating social circumstances perspective (that fans want this, that authors like to make this, etc.) is itself, without even neccesarily intending to be, dismissive of this very strong causal basis for how lesbian couples in media are treated in Japan and around the world. As such I'm not a fan of it.

In other words, rather than merely having a different framing, I am outright rejecting and criticizing a framing that intentionally or unintentionally ignores or minimizes the historical and cultural mistreatment of lesbian couples that serve as context for how this show ended. Or, the fact that there's a perspective attempting to limit or not look at this factor is itself something I have a critical view of!

If someone had their knees smashed inwards earlier in life, would you ignore that fact when they later fall down the stairs? Of course not. But it seems when it comes to the analysis of stories, there's a tendency among people to equivocate "perspectives" as having identical utility. But this is not so! Just like the initial conditions of a interaction of bodies in physics, social context informs why and how a story is made the way it is.

So why, then, ignore authorial intent? Why, because it's rather unknowable, of course. And at times disingenuous. Larger sociocultural factors are a much more concrete thing to study, a much more productive thing to draw conclusions from!

It may now be obvious, then, why I spent so long deconstructing authorial intent. In short my framing is that of how the entire industry of both yuri and lesbian media representation in Japan came to be. And as such the mistreatment and poor characterization, doomed narrative throughlines, are treated as inescapable components of how the current tradition came to be and how it continues to act. Because today's present is a product of yesterday's past. The historical trajactory of Yuri, the movement of its history, came from a place of deep repression and abuse. It has not yet thrown off its shackles and every now and again continues to infuriatingly pantomime and mimick its past in shallow ways!

This yields to the conclusion that there is an imperative for authors to treat this story qualitatively differently, as to finally move away from this pattern of behavior! That is my point :)

It is a rather sprawling thing, admittedly!

last edited at Sep 23, 2026 9:20PM

@appstore You've seemingly taken my comments quite personally. Amittedly I was using your comment as a runway to a more general critique at the framing rather than any specific thing about you. However, some of your counterargumsnts are strange. I'll go down the list:

I never said anything about authorial intent being important [...] I am saying these authors know and still choose to write like this because they like it [...]

That is, bluntly, precisely what I'd lump in with authorial intent; you might disagree with this, but that's really not the point I was getting at. The consideration of the author's frame of mind or intentions whatsoever was something I was trying to push back against because I considered it in unproductive to what most-everyone (and certainly the historical context) was fuming about.

That is I'm literally pushing back against that very framing itself, even, of the discussion of why "this type of yuri exists". This is admittedly an unusual position to take so it's understandable you conflated this with something specifically orientated to you.

I also find most of the general discussion about the broader, vaguer Yuri genre to be at least halfways a consistent apolgia rather than any kind of real stance. But that's another discussion.

[T]this ambiguity become a “trope”, said trope is precisely what some fans of the genre like, and so they keep being popular among fans [...]

This is more evidence we're not on the same page here. I'm not sure why you feel the need explain how market economics and persistent cultural formations can reinforce stereotypes and tropes.

Did I really appear to be under the impression I couldn't grasp what you meant by this? Interesting.

I am not viewing it out of context, as I think we are viewing it in different ways. Tsundere characters are a must in harem because people like that archetype, this is the perspective I am approaching this. [...]

Again I am literally arguing, very explicitly, against undertaking this perspective. More on this a little later.

I did not said this, and nothing in my comment even suggest that. So I don’t understand why use this as response to my argument.

I am a little confused, myself. Let's go back go the portion you said originally:

that’s why imo is less about censorship or oppression (not that this doesn’t matter but I think Gundam Mercury was it’s own special cade) and more an active and conscious decision of the creators

There is no other (reasonable) way to read this than you putting forth an emphasis on the author context as the primary causal part over wider notions of oppression and censorship. Those are your direct words. If you meant something else then you did not do the greatest at articulating that :/

My point, in that context then, is that rather than view it is a dichotomy, the author's actions should be considered a subcategory of oppression, on the cultural front. if you have no issue with that, great! We're more on the same page than I thought!

I am not fighting either, but a big portion of your response to me are thing I never said or implied

Yes and no. Yes in the way that I was rather intentionally getting at larger tendencies of more people in the wider context. No, in the way I was literally responding to your precise wording, as indicated above.

I, me, is not putting any moral judgement on this, I don’t have a positive or negative opinion on the matter, as I said, it exist.

I actually think we should. Like I am genuinely putting forth the claim that this has an ethical imperative to change.

And of course, to get it at out of the way, I do not hate vagueness or such as a narrative. No, if my original post has any merit my criticisms are highly specific to a trend of behavior consistently displayed in these story archetypes that is unusual, historically backwards, and narratively unsatisfying

And it's really, actually, precisely your intentional framing on a kind of "view from nowhere", where we merely describe things as a natural consequence of their priors, that I have a deepseated ethical and phillosophical bone to pick with.

Exactly! Is not that explicit yuri doesn’t exist nowadays, as you said multiple examples, that is why the ones that avoid it do it intentionally, that’s why imo is less about censorship or oppression (not that this doesn’t matter but I think Gundam Mercury was it’s own special cade) and more an active and conscious decision of the creators. Because both types of yuri series are popular.

Honestly I'm not sure what the point of the distinction is here. TBH this really goes back to why I spent so much time dismantling the idea that we should gaf about authorial intent. It's the results and the historical implication of the results that we should pay attention to. The fact that it's an "active and conscious decision" of the creators is basically immaterial to me. It might as well be, even if it's not. Either way I do actually think they hold a responsbillity to conduct these stories in a manner that doesn't add to existing pile of bs. Whether they "knowingly" did so or not!

At the end of the day the way this story went falls in line with the historical treatment of same-sex relationships in Japan quite handidly. There's a long history of this, in fact. Especially much from how same-sex relationships were treated in girls-only schools (they were basically treated as "training wheels" for "real" relationships by the girls' parents right up until western pseudo-scientific hompphobia became popular and then it was considered diseased!)

To view it out of this context, as I said as much earlier, is to essentially bang your head into a wall until you get amnesia.

And is this not another form of oppression? Why does it have to be an "explicitly" oppressive thing? Back during some of the USA's more racist years, and still today, black characters are so often treated in a particular manner harking back to a long line of racist handling of their being.

I'm not trying to attack you, to be clear! Rather I'd like us all to have, perhaps, higher standards for what is considered "non-oppressive" or mere "authorial choice". Knowing what I do, I can hardly begin to let this story slide as such.

last edited at Sep 23, 2026 12:15PM

It's not like being ambiguous and/or doomed is some unbreakable law of Japanese culture.

I can't tell if this is directed at me or not, but to clarify that's not at all what I'm suggesting (my comments about the "law of doomed yuri" were mostly tongue & cheek anyhow).

To be clear what I'm referring to is explicitly and particularly the consistent proliferation of this strange story archetype displayed in Goodbye, Lara and countless others.

I am making absolutely no claim that Japan is incapable of producing genuine lesbian media. Rather I'm saying Japan's culture has been and still today consistently does it dirty and I don't expect this to stop until some serious shifts happen.

@AknownymousInput Made a new account just to drop a paragraph of facts and dipped haha :D

God knows I'm going to end up doing it again. The law of doomed yuri will remain in Japan probably up until the point they have a social revolution and completely revamp their cultural context. Or something.

I don't know. I'm very cynical. Sometimes it feels as if there's a secret cabal of people conspiring to yurbait people over yonder. (In reality of course it's a very non-secret cultural circumstance with many decades of history in the making. But bleh. I like imagining there's evil people who can croak and then circumstances will magically get better without a long protracted effort of many thankless "nobodies" who make up the real history of the world.)

Social revolution, or at least until the heavy sexualization of women in the country starts to change. When you look around, there’s this constant expectation for women to be attractive, sexualized, and held to a much higher standard than men, whether it’s real women or even fictional anime characters. I honestly wonder if that broader cultural attitude toward women is part of why “doomed yuri” feels so common and acceptable there. Like, women can be portrayed as deeply intimate with each other, emotionally dependent on each other, and even obviously in love, but there still seems to be this reluctance to let that relationship actually become something permanent and openly romantic. It’s almost like the intimacy is acceptable as long as it doesn’t fully cross that final line into an explicit, lasting relationship.

The commodification of women, the patriarchal distribution of resources, and the gendered (and invisible) nature of reproductive labor are some toxic shit and socioeconomically entrench the oppression of women nationally & internationally. Such things must be dug out root and stem, for the liberation of women everywhere.

Absolutely the largest factor, for sure. You can easily see it poison the well of "non-doomed" yuri wherein the characters are made into shallow reflections of stereotypical gender roles and objects of sex appeal.

@AknownymousInput Made a new account just to drop a paragraph of facts and dipped haha :D

God knows I'm going to end up doing it again. The law of doomed yuri will remain in Japan probably up until the point they have a social revolution and completely revamp their cultural context. Or something.

I don't know. I'm very cynical. Sometimes it feels as if there's a secret cabal of people conspiring to yurbait people over yonder. (In reality of course it's a very non-secret cultural circumstance with many decades of history in the making. But bleh. I like imagining there's evil people who can croak and then circumstances will magically get better without a long protracted effort of many thankless "nobodies" who make up the real history of the world.)

You all have written a shit ton on this, I've seen borderline novella-length articles as well in various places on social media. I could too, in the usual fashion I've seen, but I'm tired. I'm really, really god awfully tired of the whole sthick where we pretend to have amnesia about the very long history of how lesbian relationships are treated in media and how that informs the contemporary circumstances and how we ought to gauge them. And especially in Japan, where its historical and material conditions have led to a particular handling of lesbian stories in the line of what we see here.

A good primer on this (which also discusses Japanese-specific history!), is this video essay "The yuri was always doomed": https://youtube.com/watch?v=ciY9IM8a-GU .

Instead, I am going to write a long post in the way that I feel like. I am going to ignore a lot of what others consider necessary evidence to establish because I categorically refuse to entertain this nonsense, honestly.

I, also, frankly do not care to entertain the whole "well maybe the authors meant XYZ" or it was "supposed to be this way". I am much more interested in the:

A. Actual story as it appears to the audience and;
B. The historical and material circumstances giving rise and influence to the story's formation.

(A bit of a non sequitur) We use the word "chair" for chairs in English not because of any special reason, any hidden ultimate truth, but for the material conditions we grow up within. A "chair" is a "chair" because of its psychosocially-instilled form and function which we learn to label. This grows outwards of a long chain of human behavior and cultural norms that proceeds from generation to generation, society to society. Often even coming forth from the wide upheavals the many, many invasions of imperialist design have wrought upon us collectively. Studies have even shown that there's been a massive decrease in language proliferation due to the hegemony set up by these empires conquering large swaths of human civilization. So on.

In that sense I am not of the mind to speculate on authorial intent. It's much more productive to analyze the story's design from the looming influences in the room. It's often conflated that the mind forms very originally and from there comes the social context and behavior of a person. This is backwards: the social context is where the mind actually grows into being.

Your circumstances initiate the ongoing dialogue between your mind and your social context. People have autonomy, but they do not choose the circumstances they originate in, and those have much influence.

Hence, with that out of the way, this story ended like shit:

\1. Mari's character development was criminally underbaked:

Mari was given many trials: her mom's passing, her consistent grief as symbolized by her cross necklace, her own dismissal to how she (evidently) cared about Lara (going so far as to get visibly jealous), how her long-time friend "Gon-Chan" (Grace) died suddenly, how her inability to sufficiently aid Lara effected her emotionally, how Lara then decides to leave her (if temporarily, even if technically not-so-far). Not to mention literally being killed and revived by her crush. None of these are solved satisfyingly, or perhaps more objectively, it was done so unconvincingly. She is fifteen (?) years old. If she were a real life person I would expected debilitating trauma that she would need intensive therapy for. This is some fucked up shit. Even trying to be lenient about it, many are left with the impression that she was royally screwed over, consistently by each subsequent story beat. This is hard to argue against without sounding deranged.

\2. The thematic trajectory takes a fucking U-Turn at the end

This is really not hard to establish. Many here and elsewhere have argued to the contrary, that there were many hints of this theme of "independence" portion being key. I agree, somewhat. What I do not agree with is the implications that are poorly demonstrated from this facet. The simple truth of the matter is that it was borderline beat into our heads that choosing Mari as a love interest was a choice barred from Lara! The show, perhaps without intention, followed a thematic throughline of some pretty extreme comphet behavior. Lara ignored her own feelings over, and over, and over, and over. Meanwhile, an alternative was pantomimed in front of audience in a distinct Mari-shaped manner over, and over, and over.

There were hardly any hints of the outcome that the small 6-month timeskip section grew to be. While again, several have argued that the LaraMari Chekhov's gun was indeed fired in the form of a couple small clips and statements by the characters (which seems like an absurd point to make with how much more explicitly, and with more screen time, the conclusion of the relationship between Lara and Luca came to be), it is much more accurate to say it misfired and the bullet had stayed in the barrel.

It is really hard to unsee, that, from the trajectory the story was taking, Lara choosing Mari could have only been considered as a step towards independence. That her love was her own and not a duty and/or a destiny. "Live for love, not for laws," correct?

Let's say this is a cage too, that she had to free herself from. Sure. I am only certain (wow I am not being sarcastic at all /s) that a groundswell of genuine emotional attachment to another person is a cage. We must free ourselves for the certainty of steel yada yada. Kill your earthly attachments and reach enlightenment within my weird individualist fetishism where we pretend, for a moment, that the atomic family is a holy ordained construct that humans must approach or they end in disaster. This could not possibly be a bullshit culturally imposed ideal. What do you mean MY human psychology is usually reliant on long-lasting relations with other people? I should go throw myself into a low-income apartment with absolutely zero lifelines! How smart and satisfying to my personal development. How very rational.

(What Lara really should have done, in the extreme of this aburdist logic, is have ran off from the beginning perhaps, or let Mari die and revived her 20 years in the future after growing up to become a surgeon with a very sizable 401k and have gone through 13 different husbands to make absolutely sure she was totally and completely gay. And not that fake bisexual shit that they teach you in The Gay School that is state-mandated.)

I am intentionally straw-manning to beat you over the head with my point. To be blunt: kids have relationships. Sometimes, no, often, poorly. This is ok. It is ok for them to go into a relationship neither of them are "ready" for, since that is precisely how people do get ready: making mistakes. This is what kids do, they get in over their heads, they fuck up a basic interpersonal situation, they feel like shit and like the world ended, and then the world moves on. They grow, they learn, and next time they try they know a bit better about how to treat each other.

Yes, of course, it is possible to be unhealthily codependent, or so on. And it's certainly possible to take some time to work on yourself instead of throwing your weight in the ring immediately. But none of that alleged potentiality locks off Lara and Mari from each other prima facie. What an absurd, almost borderline snobbish perspective to take, in the light of the story we were presented, that Lara was somehow knowably unready for love. Her last real attempt isn't exactly a fair strike. That prince literally tried to kill her.

But who's argument am I fighting against here? A culmination of claims, perhaps. Maybe I'm fighting ghosts. But my conclusion remains the same: There would be no real narrative issue with it have culminating in an explicitly dictated relationship; on the contrary it would have only made the most narrative sense on the trajectory we were on.

Frankly the whole "time away" thing would have made more natural sense after a messy breakup from bullshit miscommunication. The standard death of young love of pretty much any fashion. And, wherein, for the purposes of this narrative it could have been left on an upbeat note that they'd reunite after "finding themselves" or some relevant fluff. I would have respected that much more. One has to wonder why the option doesn't seem to ever be on the table...

\3. They slaughter Lara's characterization

As well as independently observable, it has been stated everywhere her demeanor becomes "cold" the timeskip segment; that she is stand-offish, unresponsive, so on. She acts completely unlike herself. Beyond what many have said, I find it personally insulting that this seems to be design to paint her as changed; "grown up" even. Like, personally insulting. Emotions are treated as a childish, vapid thing in many cultural contexts we find ourselves in. What a shallow lie we get shoved down our throats on the regular. Do I even have to deign to disprove it? You surely understand, by now, how nonsensical that is. Surely, we've learnt this.

Another point: Part of Lara's charm as a character, and what made her ostensibly "Lara" in the eyes of the audience as they watch her move from experience to experience, is the genuineness of her emotional response. The sheer honesty and fullness and awe with which she interacted with in the environment.

So while we can speculate about authorial intent in making her appear "grown up", well, you already know how I feel about that. Also, A: That's bullshit and a terrible message to send. B: You just threw out the baby with the bath water.

In this way, we say "goodbye" to Lara twice in the same ending. Once, to Lara as we knew her, and again to her hollow shell as she gets on the train. What a waste. There was hardly, also, any characterization to refill what "Lara" became. She was left with nothing after they ripped out her soul.

\4. Subtlety was neither used much, nor of much strength

As a last point in the ghost-fighting match I have clearly taken on, I'd like to fight against the culmination of impressions that a lot of the narrative design can be rationalized under the banner of an intentional "subtlety". That it need not be, in-your-face.

There's a number of problems with this. It may or may not have to do with Lara's history and grievances with love being demonstrated with a giant man-eating fish-monster-dagger thing that literally eats peoples' souls. And that we had an entire in-house explanation of it thrown at us from Grace's subplot. It may also have to do with the fact that Lara herself is anything but subtle in any way whatsoever. She is criminally unable to be subtle. Lara "I Would Die for Cake" McSubtle?

Except, I suppose, when leaving Mari. Or when discussing her love towards Mari. Hm.

And, of course, my philosophical stance on authorial intent: Bluntly it's just incorrigible with the story as presented. But I suppose I must give them the benefit of the doubt when it uniquely seems to be applied to the centerpiece relationship of the story. Which just happens to be of the lesbian kind. In Japan. Hmmmmmmm...

IN CONCLUSION:

To re-include, finally, the surrounding social and cultural context. This is not a new direction this media category has taken. Lesbian media has always been treated in this strange standoffish, inability to be explicit, kind of way. Especially and particularly in Japan. The flailing, fledgling and doomed romance of young girls, as so demanded.

Sure enough you could take a butcher knife and mercilessly remove this context, tear out the organs and taxidermy the body, and call it something entirely different: that stories should be allowed to be this way, that this is just another facet of human experience, yada yada.

Perhaps you are right in the fiefdom of your mind. In a lobotomized scope of literature, the ending was at worst kinda mid. Indeed.

In the known history and experience of lesbian media, on the other hand, it was murder on soil soaked red with that of thousands before. I can't see it as anything but. I refuse to be charitable.

Now, if only everyone could stop trying so hard to hide the bodies, that would be great.

last edited at Sep 23, 2026 1:32AM