Hehe, yeah i know it's a weird comparison. What i'm trying to say is the plot is at first seem really promising, but the as the story goes, you expect to have some turning points or exciting climax moments but then all of the problems get solved too easily, too smooth that the situations are anti-climax.
I don't expect the story to be too dramatic or even angs, but at least the author could have make the characters grown by really put their minds on the problems and try their best to solve the it, instead of letting their LUCK solve everything -_-

now I'm concerned that the actual dogfight is meant to be the exciting part that we want in this analogy ^^;;

Anyway (and to be clear this is not in response to the quoted comment but to others), I think the backlash in the comments here where people are like "i hate this and it should be tagged as a bad story that no one would ever read" is hyperbolic at best and acephobic at worst. I realize that some people do want an aggressively curated reading selection according to a very stock set of tropes, and I don't mean to imply that a particular reading style is better than others, but I don't think it's useful to weaponize that desire against a much less conventional story about a much less conventional group. Whether or not this desire is veiled in one's complaints about the tagging system, it smacks at least of closed-mindedness: if you're this wildly opposed to seeing stories about ace characters in meaningful but nonromantic relationships, I think it might be a good idea to ask yourself why. This certainly isn't a romance story, but saying that the characters' relationship "went nowhere" or was a "bad ending" seems to imply that the only place for a fulfilling relationship to go, or the only way for an ending to be "good," is to have a stock alloromantic finale. Applying that standard to a story about two ace characters, one of whom was clearly aromantic from the jump, is worrying to me. (Whoever said this should be tagged as nonbinary because the relationship "went nowhere" managed to sneak NBphobia in there along with the acephobia somehow, which is impressive given that all the characters in this are cis.)

As far as what I think of the manga itself, I think the narrative did a great job of establishing how the main two settled down in the end, and I'm quite satisfied with where their relationship ended up. However, I think the side characters in general could have used a lot more resolution. Rio especially, of course, but really all of Mayoi's college friends could have used some tying up, and seeing /how/ those relationships tied up would have told us a lot more about Mayoi as a character besides adding emotional resolution to the story of a prominent, likeable character it's clear everyone was invested in. I also agree in principle if not in choice of analogy with the comment quoted above in that things do tend to work out too quickly and cleanly throughout. Interesting conflicts are posed, but the story sometimes glides past them without addressing the potential messiness, which makes the story lose some of the punch it could have had. I'm not sure about the arc around Yuriko's burns, either--it seemed to imply early on that Yuriko's reservations about sex and romance stemmed from self-consciousness about the burns (which may have helped mislead our alloromantic readerbase), when in reality the burns were entirely beside the point and served as more as a visual metaphor I'm not sure we needed. They could have served as a conflict unto themselves, but see the above point about the conflicts in this story working out too easily. There was never really any question as to whether Mayoi would care about the burns, and there isn't even a beat where Yuriko pulls away or something over a misunderstanding around them, so while I don't dislike their inclusion, I'm not sure what they added.

Still, though, I see similar messiness, flaws, etc. in yuri stories (and het stories, for that matter) all the time. It doesn't make this story exceptionally flawed, it makes it... averagely flawed. Normally flawed. No classic, maybe not even something to reread down the line, but not terrible by any stretch. The characters are all likeable and convincing, certainly, and I think I'll remember them months or years down the line, so the story clearly got something right along with all it got wrong (besides, if the characters weren't convincing, I don't think people would be invested enough to blow up at the ending). Personally, I'm glad I read it on the whole, though I don't think I'll recommend it to friends, or at least not without caveats.

re:yuri, I do think this is an interesting edge case as to whether yuri is defined as "stories about women loving women" or "romance stories with female leads," because this is clearly the former but not the latter. I do not join the chorus demanding that the tag be removed. I think the author sets forth an elegant case for the story being construed broadly as yuri, and it's certainly a queer, female-centric story about homoromantic (as well as other) relationships and how they do or don't shake out under complex circumstances. Besides, under the strict definition, something like So, Do You Want to Go Out, Or? wouldn't be yuri either, and yet I don't see people complaining about that nearly as broadly or loudly.

last edited at Apr 30, 2022 7:08AM

Yeah, I'd quite prefer if we stayed away from using such checkered and offensive language as "uncivilized." There are many less extreme, more specific ways of expressing oneself.

People who are stupid won't stop being stupid unless you tell them they are being stupid. Japanese people have been uncivilized for the entirety of human history, and they won't fix their broken society unless someone tells them what they are doing wrong. The only ones who can are those from better countries, because brainwashed Japanese people have proven they can't do it themselves.

i mean you're not wrong that sexism is bad but you don't have to be racist about saying it :///

hoo boy, how did this turn into a discourse pit? now I have to do a bunch of discourse before I comment

@discourse: While Badis's argument sounds good on the surface, I'm troubled by the assumption that a character dating a guy, especially a young character like this, automatically makes them bisexual. It overlooks the pressures of compulsory heterosexuality. While none of my friends have had this experience, I've seen people saying they didn't know they were gay until several straight relationships of theirs had already stalled. Since society assumes everyone is straight, it can take people a while to piece their sexuality together if they aren't. Using this story as an example, Rie may have a boyfriend, but she's daydreaming about kissing her female best friend instead. Paradoxical as it may sound, the fact that she's in a relationship with a boy says very little about her actual sexuality—people don't always date people they're attracted to, after all. There's not enough information to say whether she's bi or straight or whatever.

I say this not so much for Badis's sake. Badis is clearly arguing in bad faith, given how they've imported their pet peeve into an unrelated story and how bluntly they've dismissed the reams of counterexamples people have already provided. But for others who are arguing the same point in good faith, that would be part of my response. (There's also the fact that bisexuality is a wide spectrum, often ranging in practice from one to five on the Kinsey scale, and drawing a hard distinction between being bi or gay/lesbian at Kinsey 5 is quite difficult, but that's probably straying afield of the actual criticism in play).

@story: The page four twist really made this story. It was pretty cute before, but discovering that most of the story is Rie rehearsing confessing to Yuki in her head is weapons-grade adorable. Seeing more of these characters would be delightful. (I also think this five-page comic did a remarkable job fitting a satisfying three-act story arc into a small space in a way a lot of tiny comics don't.)

@harmony102 mood xmx;

I think tgirls falling in love with guys is the least interesting trope ever. It caters to homophobes who can't believe you can fall in love with the same sex, so "if this person is a girl, then it's normal she falls in love with a boy".

The intent behind het tgirls stories, in my opinion, is to normalize the nail that sticks out by making it fit into a standard pattern.

I don't mean het tgirls are something that doesn't exist or is bad, on the contrary, I totally support them. Just that using them in stories is usually lazy writing, because the author took the easy path.

but like
and you even pointed this out
there ARE real het trans women???
like, a lot of them????
and like, since they exist, surely they deserve representation same as anyone else?
am I missing something here?????

I really don't think the trans community has some crazy conspiracy to throw LGB folks under the bus. (And I REALLY don't think this author, who is writing a female main character who is in love with a trans woman, is in on said crazy conspiracy.) It seems much more likely that people are just writing stories about... people, with experiences that real people have. It doesn't have to be some kind of oppression math.

And as far as taking "the easy path" goes, I think it's pretty clear that Akira's orientation here is generating conflict for the main character. From a craft perspective, that's the important thing: making the main character deal with as many obstacles as possible. So I don't think this is an easy way out for the author at all. I'm actually quite curious how our author intends to resolve the situation they've set up.

Btw, thanks to Sylke for the list of manga there. I do feel compelled to point out that a trans woman and a trans man together are definitely in a heterosexual relationship, but for real I now have a reading list :VVV

last edited at Mar 16, 2019 10:09AM

I am grateful for your post but I was merely making a stand point based on not that of perception and sociological ideals but more on the statement that human biology is that of male and female

But this isn't even biologically accurate, it's an oversimplification of human sexual variation for the sake of convenient adherence to existing societal norms not a scientific fact.

It is biologically accutate, what are you even talking about. There is the xx and the xy, male and female, and thats it.

That's just straight up not true. Your high school bio education is not comprehensive.

it is true though, ignoring that fact is like ignoring the whole struggle of trans people.

uh. no. it. it isn't. it's not ignoring the struggle of trans people to point out that intersex people exist. i don't. see how we've made this leap.

I mean, aeginidae just posted it:

@Darkover
Just gonna say it's way more complicated than that and these aren't even particularly edge cases https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm

Anyway, here's me trying to crawl out of the pit of discourse that erupts in the comments for every manga with a trans character in it: I like this manga because the characters are cute and likeable, the art is expressive, and most of the comedic beats land. I'm really curious to see where it'll go, especially with the dynamic set up in chapter four. (also the kitten on ch4 page 1 is amazing.)

A very abridged version of A Kiss and a White Lily. (Or Comprehensive Tovarisch, if you prefer.)

D'aw. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed this little adventure in miscommunication. They can't all have happy endings. I seem to have a much higher tolerance for this sort of thing than a lot of folks, though; I unabashedly liked Nanashi no Asterism :v

(plus nothing rules out a future boy x masc(?) relationship for them anyway. not hard to imagine that sequel if you want it)