The art is delightful, but what a strange way to play this story. So far it's like Rei is Elmer Fudd and Ami is Bugs Bunny, constantly yanking the rug out from under Rei to reveal an aching chasm beneath. Rei winds up to receive love, and gets hit in the face with a mallet or has her feelings blown up with dynamite every time.

The youth of the characters is handled very strangely, as well. They look extremely young, but they act increasingly sophisticated. And when they get dressed up to do out, they sort of present as adults. I think by the end of this third chapter it seems clear enough that Ami isn't some quirky girl who doesn't understand her feelings, but she is rather a straight-up sociopath. She tells Rei point-blank she prioritizes her own well-being above everyone else's, and tells Rei she enjoys tormenting her, because she enjoys seeing all the emotions Rei produces flit over her face as a result. She describes feeling not much of anything for Rei, and every time Rei decides it's better to give up (at least once in each chapter so far, unless I'm mistaken), Ami starts splitting hairs over how she words things, does whatever she thinks she needs to do, whatever little doling out of "affection" will keep Rei coming back for more.

I appreciate the earnestness of Rei a lot, and that, combined with the art, has kept me reading so far––that, and knowing it's not very long. But gosh, the emotional cruelty is not what I'm ever here for. It reminds me quite a bit of The Feelings We All Must Endure––which I gradually came around to appreciating quite a lot? So maybe I'll come around on this one, too. The author isn't making it hard to hate Ami, though.

Even though I really loathed Fukami when the author raised her from the background into this awful centerpiece villain role, now I feel frustrated thinking, what use will the author have for her in the future? Is she going to get written out now that Kase has shut down her harebrained scheme? It seems pretty likely. And yet there was so much buildup of Fukami, for so long before this––only to really make nothing of it. In the end, the race added nothing to the story but fake drama. Because it had no more serious tie to Kase and Yamada living together than just this up-or-down, yes-or-no, win-the-race-and-find-out sort of denouement, it offered no possibility of a serious test of or change to the couple's relationship. I would have much preferred if the conflict had forced Kase to reach out to other members of her track team, for instance, and find some sort of allies to help her reach a solution with Fukami that didn't call for the race. If the result was that Kase was forced to trust her teammates more, reveal to at least one or two of them why she wanted to leave the dorm in the first place––and then they got Fukami to relent––then I would have been cool with Fukami wanting the race anyway, just to see who would have won. That would have been a great moment for Kase to clean her clock--better than what we got, even though after months of being frustrated with Fukami's aggravating dense obstinance, it was still gratifying to watch her get beat so decisively as to show that there was no chance of her ever winning. I just wanted the author to make something productive out of some of this, some character advancement or change of situation...and I don't think we really got any. I agree that Kase and Yamada's relationship seems to have taken a step back in terms of communication, but I also think that was basically by accident, and not what the author intended. So I feel that probably the damage to their relationship, like Fukami, will be ignored, relegated to the background, and ultimately dismissed.

Huh. I like the art a lot. But that is bad form on the drummer's part to try and step on the lead instruments like that. I used to know a drummer who would speed up and get louder on purpose when he wanted to end a gig early. Pretty obnoxious.

I found myself wishing there was a supporting character or a subplot somewhere here, or just anything to distract just a little from the relentless forward drive of the story. The pacing and repetition made this chapter seem just a little joyless when we weren't being treated to cool panels of drumming. The double-page spread following the first page was breathtakingly cool, but then we get almost the same material repeated on the third page. We get double-duty on flashbacks to the main character with her dad in a recording studio. The guitar pick gets produced with almost no hesitation, ultimately, even though main girl had pledged not to reveal it in front of others. Stakes for why she's trying so hard to fit in? Not established. And I found the drummer girl's freakout at the end, well...just not funny? I think it was the timing, the sense that it just wasn't set up with much suspense, and that it didn't land with the subversion of expectation the artist wanted to convey.

Still, it sets up a decently contentious relationship (yet not one of any casual realism––the characters feel set up just to go off on one another in the crudest ways possible), and it offers some very animated drawing, so I'm hoping there's space and time for the writing to improve, and I'm looking forward to seeing what's next. Still love that first double-page spread.

The art feels a little threadbare in this new chapter. The beach chapters seemed like a major leap forward in how this series looked, but maybe some exhaustion is setting in, leaving us with a chapter that is one single scene, with Kase and Fukami's bedroom backdrop hardly there, and with a very unimaginative treatment of the back-and-forth of the scenario. But Kase does finally start to steer out of this disaster of a plot.

But here the writer gives us this absolutely bizarre twist, and it turns out that Fukami hasn't really known what her feelings for Kase were really about until now. So Fukami has been stomping around like a jealous, possessive creep, throwing temper-tantrums about the roommate she's hardly spoken to "abandoning" her, and she herself believes that this level of vitriol is basically over...friendship? Track-team camaraderie? What is it Fukami thinks is happening here? Why has she been so manipulative and cruel when she doesn't really understand the nature of her attachment to Kase––why go as far as she has? This seems so strange, and if this is what the author planned, then Fukami really comes across as a painfully awkward person. This last chapter does suggest that Fukami has done something like this before, but if Fukami's cold-to-hot relationship with Kase was meant to be a part of the story, then I think the repetitive behavior should have been foregrounded in the story somehow. Or perhaps Fukami's sort of borderline tendencies could have been pre-established. Here it feels like an afterthought, a course correction to backfill Fukami's character development. There was plenty of time over the course of the very gradual introduction of Fukami into the book to give us something more of her character. And if this is some sort of conclusive arc to the series, then one would hope Fukami would arrive with a little more purpose early on. So little is established about her initially; she just makes side-eye at Kase and then at Yamada. In that space, Fukami's "I'm the worst roommate ever" drama had time to play out. We could maybe have seen that her standoffish attitude initially came from being too clingy with another roommate in the past––maybe Fukami is just too dense to realize that her clinginess is in both cases about romantic attraction? Then the character starts to be just a little interesting. Then if we had known that was how Fukami behaved, and that she wasn't really in exceptional control over her actions, she would have been potentially a little more sympathetic, and Kase's reliance on being clueless, hunky and carefree would have been tested by this storyline. Kase would have had to develop some emotional maturity.

In this chapter, Kase's weird stab at emotional maturity seems to come wholecloth, entirely out of nowhere. We see her using her power to "think deeply," but the resultant brainstorm really seems beyond Kase's level of emotional understanding. I guess I'm saying that it doesn't feel at all earned by the story. If this is what the series has been building towards, then Kase's emotional development ought to be more hard-won and gratifying to us than it seems to be so far. Like, reallly, the outcome of this race shouldn't be the climax of this series––or this storyline, if that's all it is. If the climax of the storyline is that Kase sees the need to develop greater maturity, that would be really good. So far, it seems like that's happened virtually between the panels of this chapter (Kase is clueless in the beginning of the chapter, and suddenly wise and supportive by the end, and the shift comes with the immediate pop of a car engine backfiring), and we're still building towards this horrible race. I have personally never cared how fast Kase can run.

One of my favorite storylines of any yuri manga is the one in Milk Morinaga's Girlfriends after Mari has all but confessed to Akko, pinning her down and kissing her, after Akko has told her that if she were a guy, she'd fall for Mari in a second. Suddenly the story––which had been centered upon Mari up until that point––shifts focus to Akko, and we go through a really sure-footed, clear arc of understanding, in which Akko tries to make sense of what Mari was trying to say to her, works it out, tries to gauge whether Mari was serious (hard, because Mari keeps dissembling to her and taking back the gesture any way she can), thinks about how she herself feels about Mari, decides to make a move, tries to make her move, and finally makes it. It's a lot of story, but the increasing melancholy the story had been steering into is leavened and renewed by the shift to Akko's perspective, and the needs of the new protagonist. And the grand purpose of this shift in perspective in the midst of Girlfriends is to transform Akko into the motivated romantic foil Mari wants and needs. A similar shift doesn't happen to Kase, exactly––for some reason, we see the whole encounter in this chapter through interloper Fukami's eyes. And I don't really see the grand purpose of it. I'm not sure what we get by Fukami seeing Kase and Yamada's relationship for what it is; certainly Fukami is not there yet, but that seems to be what this is building up to. But...why? What does Fukami bring to the table?

Yet again, the Fukami we see is underdeveloped for the task of witness she is being expected to perform. Not only does she not understand Kase and Yamada's relationship, she doesn't seem to understand relationships, period. If the purpose of this arc is for someone on the outside––not a friend of Kase and Yamada's, but someone more risky––to discover Kase and Yamada's relationship, I don't know why Fukami would be the best choice. She's not prepared for this; there is no supplemental storyline to Fukami, which would be augmented by witnessing proof of the central couple's love (a la the younger character who works in the cafe in Takemiya Jin's Fragments of Love). Fukami doesn't have another possible love interest for herself. She has nowhere constructive to go with this storyline yet. If Fukami had a girl who was interested in her––maybe a fan of her for her running, or something like that––and the girl's interest in her was something Fukami didn't understand, well then her unanalyzed clinginess to her roommate Kase would carry a little more heft as a storyline. Perhaps then, by understanding what Kase and Yamada have together, she could then recognize the way this other girl feels about her. Perhaps a little cliched, but without some balancing factor, without some richness in Fukami's own life, without another purpose for Fukami being here besides just being an inarticulate spoiler of the main couple's happiness...well, without any of that, Fukami's role in the story is just not very meaningful or satisfying. And that's where we're at; with a character who had no foregrounding of purpose, taking a storyline to a conclusion that is, so far, bound to be unsatisfactory. It's not the best-written storyline in this series, is I guess what I'm saying. And just like in Whispering You a Love Song, it's going on so darn long.

last edited at May 23, 2023 6:20AM

The author is a woman.

Ah, yes, that explains the beard stubble on the author's avatar.

I mean you can be sarcastic all you want but Hiromi-sensei is a woman.

[citation needed]

I can find no actual source confirming this.

Erica Friedman's book, "By Your Side: The First 100 Years of Yuri Anime and Manga," repeatedly references Takashima being a woman. In a chapter about the Kase-San series Friedman describes meeting her.

. . .

Here's another series being invaded by a simply awful character, a sociopath who sucks the oxygen from the room. Fukami's style here is beyond declasse––it's at least subconsciously malicious, because Fukami knows Kase is dating someone, and she's a) never brought it up with Kase, and b) she won't let that little detail get in the way of her own confession, and its obvious attendant expectation of reciprocation. Fukami holes up inside her own, silent world, stewing about Kase, but never even trying to imagine Kase might have reasons for doing what she's doing. Her self-centered-ness goes way beyond any frustration I have with Kase's cluelessness. Fukami is actually almost completely insensitive to Kase's needs being independent of her own. It's almost as if Fukami believes they're already in a kind of a romantic relationship, in all but name––which is the main way, I think, to explain her irrational anger at Kase moving out. It's not "sadness" at Kase moving out––Fukami acts like a spurned lover, one with some sort of claim on Kase. This is as frustrating a character as Shiho in Whispering You a Love Song, but at least in this case, Kase and Yamada remain the characters the story is articulated around (and Fukami doesn't seem quite so out-of-step with the other characters in her comic as Shiho does to me).

Still, it'd be nice if the stakes of this confrontation for Kase were outlined a little clearer. It seems like this could have been a story in which Kase might opt to out herself to her teammates, in order to potentially win their sympathy for her situation––even though the risk would be alienation from this social unit (the track team)––a social unit which seems more suffocatingly restrictive by the chapter. This would enable her to win allies on the team that could help pry Fukami's miserable, gripping fingers off Kase's arm long enough that Kase could move out, without this dunderheaded race coming to fruition. This wouldn't have been a very happy storyline, as it would be awful to force Kase to make such a choice in this way––but a major thread for a while now has been how the track team's private huddle hamstrings Kase's attempts to be with Yamada (the whole summer break storyline keeps underlining this, and the way Kase's refusal to reveal her lover to her peers makes so many situations a problem for her), so that the theme could have been the socially restrictive aspect of that little microcosm, and Kase might have had to struggle against it a bit. It could even be a storyline in which the resolution wasn't entirely happy, or satisfying––maybe not everyone on the squad is willing to acknowledge the way Kase wants to live her life. But I feel like those are pretty realistic stakes for such a conflict. In Yamada's case, I feel like her challenges in the conflict are all relatively clear. But for Kase, it's hard to know how much of the conflict Kase even perceives. I suppose this could be the way the storyline resolves even yet, but if that's so, then the jealousy angle is a severe detour, and a road we've already been down a couple of times with these characters. As it is, the repetitiveness and the slowness of this plot to advance are both grating...as is the Fukami of it all.

last edited at Apr 4, 2023 4:20AM

Gads, reading the full translation, the note sounds more final than not about the series. I feel like the author is in a way paying for the pace they set up for the story. The slow-boil development of the series may have killed their own momentum. It sounds like they want to try a series that delivers more romance, maybe a little quicker. I'd agree the side characters seemed to overwhelm the central story idea. They are all really neat characters, though. It's just a shame. The series was always good value, and it came out regularly. Is it my imagination, or are there fewer series like that right now than there have been in the past?

Wow. I didn't know about the hiatus until today. This has been the most involving yuri manga still being released for a while now, so I feel a bit like Utsugi at the end of this last chapter.

I'm happy the artist indicates in her notice she's working on other yuri stories, at least, but...things felt like they were actually moving forward a bit in this comic, recently. The main couple seemed to be moving in some direction, getting a little more sympatico. I was really keen to discover what the mystery was about Utsugi that seemed to captivate the nurse in that one chapter. Now we probably won't know. But there is the feeling also, which I guess I can't really deny, that some of these potential progressions in the story of this one were not quite coming off, but that the conclusion of the progression in the story seemed to be mostly a return to the status quo. Maybe the author's approach to the book, centering the comedy as she did, made it difficult to figure out how to advance the characters' stories and relationships?

Anyway, it bums me out.

I wonder what options really exist for the resolution of this storyline? I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how I'd even want it to end.

I don't want Mizuguchi to get together with Shiho; Aki has been earnest and noble throughout this whole ordeal. Shiho has been, at the very least, passive-aggressive in a way that is really hard to deal with. If I dig really deep, the only thing I want for Shiho is for there to be an unsecured trapdoor on the performance stage, which she falls through, to her death. Hopefully my lengthy previous post will convince people I don't have it in for Shiho for irrational reasons, but I can't deny that for me, Shiho has been steering this manga towards a cliff for a good two years now, and I just want her gone.

In my previous post, a few pages ago, I talked about the way Shiho isn't balanced with another character in the story. I suggested Yori should be the equivalent character to square off against Shiho: someone who feels...who feels some sort of feeling just as strongly as Shiho feels all these feels. Even if Aki is the one who is meant to be Shiho's opposite, then Shiho still overpowers her and throws off the balance of the series. The problem is that everyone else in this series besides Shiho is reasonable, practical, and generally upbeat––and Shiho probably has a borderline personality. I know some people here have compared Shiho to standard, garden-variety real teenagers, but I think that, in order to understand the source of annoyance and distress for longtime readers in Shiho's takeover of the book, you have to look a little closer at Shiho's deviances from the standard, the tone in which she couches her "acting out"––which is different than it is even for real teens. For instance, a teen might tell another teen they aren't friends anymore...and then a few days later they'll have reconciled, and they'll be relieved to have their friend back, in most cases. That's fairly normal behavior. Cutting an ostensibly friendly, encouraging and unthreatening person out of your life––and doing it with a weird, conceited smile on your face--and then really meaning it, as Shiho does--is a different kettle of fish. Why does Shiho's promise to have nothing to do with Mizuguchi anymore feel like she really means it? She does mean it, and that makes her response much stranger than that of the average person. Most people will cut someone else out of their life entirely only if that person's behavior is really toxic. Shiho has no cause here. Liking someone and not even being rebuffed, but just being friendzoned––and not even on purpose––shouldn't earn that person excommunication. Shiho seems so pleased with herself over this. It's not unthinkable to have a person like this in your story, or in real life. My father is this kind of guy, who would just cut off his friendships for good, at a moment's notice. He's one of the weirdest, and sometimes one of the most frightening people I know. He's like...who's he like, what character that's so familiar to me? Oh, he's like Shiho. They're both creeps.

Not that it should matter to readers whether Shiho is a specimen that can be found in real life, observable in the wild, or not. The problem is that, when you try and envision where this storyline might wrap up, what ending would feel satisfactory? I wouldn't want to condemn Mizuguchi to a relationship with a vengeful, over-the-top meanie like Shiho. What if Yori plays the best sooooong in the woooooorld (or I'll steal your soul!), and Shiho loses the battle of the bands? I don't think Shiho, as she's been presented to us, can take that. Plus, it doesn't solve the romantic subplot between Shiho and Mizuguchi. Yori has been nearly absent from this entire storyline––a huge deficiency in the writing of this story, so far as I'm concerned--as I outlined in my last post. If Yori produces this great song, just what is it supposed to do? Does Yori's idea of love, as expressed in the song, overwhelm Shiho's uncomfortable, proud obstreperousness? Does she apologize to Mizuguchi? And if she does that, does that make up for two years of this painfully decompressed storyline, seeing Shiho humbled, slightly?

And then, what if Shiho wins the battle of the bands, but maybe Yori's song mellows her a little bit, so that she doesn't want to cut every tie with Mizuguchi? Is that a satisfying ending to the arc? I'd much prefer that our heroes emerge with something worth lifting their spirits a little, like maybe they at least feel good about how they played, they're excited for the future, etc. That could temper the annoyance I'd feel if Yori and Mizuguchi lost the battle of the bands to the arrogant, self-centered Shiho.

But here's the thing; Takeshima Eku has not written this story with that level of nuance. Everything we've seen since Shiho has appeared goes to the idea that Mizuguchi's band, SS Girls, is not good enough––that there's a platonic ideal of what these bands should sound like, and that Shiho's hypercompetitive drive to succeed, coupled with her band's dedication (and the motivation they share about this dead friend, super-yuck) has them placed a lot closer to that ideal than Mizuguchi's band. By giving Shiho most of the page time in this arc, and by couching most of the drama in Shiho telling Himari how things are all the time, like she's schooling Himari in the ways of high school rock bands, the author is underlining the primacy of Shiho's view of the case (and giving us little to balance that with––SS Girls don't appear frequently enough in this arc to balance the overwhelming nature of Shiho's point of view, which sloughs all over the storyline). By staging the whole conflict around a battle of the bands that takes more than a year of publication time to get off the ground, the author is underlining for us how important the competition is, and how important the idea of winning it is. There are countless lines of dialogue, all of which go unchallenged, where Shiho or someone else articulates that this competition is decided around a question of skill and competence––and Shiho frequently characterizes Yori as "wrong" for the SS Girls, and not "serious enough" to equal up to Shiho's own crazy ideal for this competition. Almost nothing we've seen so far disabuses us of the idea that the competition is important to resolve––but really, there's nothing important about it. The wager over it––as many people here have pointed out––has been altered and amended, and ended up a moot point in this last chapter, seemingly by accident (it doesn't seem like Eku intended to give away the secret when she first set up this storyline). Shiho claims to be "over" Mizuguchi, so that's allegedly off the table as a conclusion to the battle––and I can't really imagine the two of them mending fences and dating by the time this arc is hopefully over (though perhaps this so far two-year-long arc will never end, giving the two a long runway in which for Mizuguchi to fall in love with the awful girl who left her band in the lurch and who has been negging her for seemingly no reason ever since). Let's say Shiho wasn't really "over" Mizuguchi. Does that relationship have an immediate future? This relationship has been at Defcon 1 for quite a while now. How would the author pivot and make this relationship meaningful or worth pursuing (at least, in Mizuguchi's case) in the next few chapters that follow the battle of the bands? I don't really see it happening––at least, not plausibly so.

So I guess that's where I'm at with this; stuck, unable to envision an ending to this story arc that would satisfy my modest goals. I've liked this series all along––Eku's art is exciting to look at, and early on the story seemed to be pretty in-control of its' tone––though that era has gone the way of the dodo. I still like the characters––the characters we met in the first arc, at least. In theory I like a story arc where the SS Girls do battle with another band; in theory I like an arc where Mizuguchi finds love (instead of just harassment and frustration); In theory I even like a character with some strong, negative motivations, that could contrast with other characters' in the story. But Shiho's motivations are never modulated by other perspectives. Her band members back her up no matter what (despicable), and Himari has so far made very little headway, I'd say, in helping Shiho solve her personal problems––all she's really done is get Shiho to admit she has them. Then Himari helped Shiho set up Mizuguchi for this "I used to love you" surprise maneuver––really uncool of Himari, I think, not to warn Mizuguchi what Shiho was up to. I don't know. Maybe it didn't even occur to Himari what Shiho was planning. Either way, Himari hasn't done much, and her talking with Shiho has only made Shiho more upset with the way things have ended up. Yori never talks to Shiho––here's someone with a 180-degree different perspective, but we don't get them facing off with one another (2 years of reading have passed waiting for it, though). And the battle of the bands is still potentially a chapter or two or even three off. At the moment, I'm clinging to the art, and the characters from the initial arc, as insurance that the book can still go somewhere rewarding. But I want to get something from this arc for the characters I'm actually invested in, like Himari, Yori, and Mizuguchi. If two years of this all culminates in meaningful character growth mostly just for Shiho, it honestly feels like I'm reading a different manga than I started out with––and then I might quite seriously consider not reading any further.

As for Shiho's reveal of her feelings for Mizuguchi? I was dismayed that was the cliffhanger in this last chapter. Didn't she basically already reveal all of this to Himari a couple of chapters ago? It all felt supremely redundant from a reader's perspective. Trouble is, I don't think Eku had a way of getting around showing the admission of love a second time, since Mizuguchi is the one who needs to hear it. So there's another thing: if the climax of this arc boils down to Shiho and Mizuguchi, instead of Shiho and Yori––well, we haven't had much of Yori to balance out Shiho's angst, but really, we haven't had much of Mizuguchi, either! Mostly we've been seeing Shiho and Himari––and that relationship doesn't seem to be going much further than it has. I suppose another question could be, what do we want Himari to get out of all this? What does she learn about meddling in people's old love non-stories? Does she get to play cupid for these two? Does that mean anything for her character?

The biggest problem I can see here is that, as a writer, Takeshima Eku has bitten off a lot more than she can chew. There are so many characters here, and the big problem is that, as one gets developed, the others get abandoned. She doesn't use the characters as natural foils for one another––even though she has the material to do it. Instead, we get this preposterously didactic story, laboriously unpacking Shiho's every motivation, until her angst and her anger overwhelm the previously fairly light-hearted tone of the story, and no other character has anything meaningful to add. It's not that a serious or morbid character couldn't be interjected into this mix; its that their story threatens now to be the main story, and they're going through that story almost alone. Yori and Himari's journey was one where we watched both of them grow into a relationship together. Here I don't see anyone growing or changing at all. Normally we'd expect at least Shiho to have an arc of some kind here. But if no one else has one, then there's not a lot to follow here. No one else matches Shiho's intensity, or brings her level of hysteria down a notch. No one else is finding an equivalent meaning in the events transpiring to contrast with Shiho's nihilism. And I find that when the balancing of characters is off this much, what I'm reading is just really bad writing. How do you walk your character back from the cliff? I don't see any evidence that the author has any idea how to do it.

I know people say she has a crush on Kase, but in order to maintain that crush she's ignoring the fact that she knows Kase has a significant other, and she confronts Kase only with petulance, aggression, and bullying.

Fukami knows Kase has a significant other?? When did she find out???

Chapter 7, although Fukami currently assumes it's a guy.

This is why I think the blame for this amongst the fictional characters has to land mostly on Fukami's shoulders. Knowing this, she doesn't care, and demands this race like a sociopath. Doesn't matter Kase has a special friend, Fukami wants this thing––she only feels Kase's being unfair because Kase isn't giving her exactly what she––Fukami––wants. She's been entirely quiet and non-communicative the entire time she's roomed with Kase (and Kase, while not around sometimes, always makes time to talk with Fukami), and now she blows up and throws a tantrum she frankly has no business throwing in the first place.

Kase, meanwhile, goes out of her way to accommodate Fukami's feelings––and Fukami's response is bitter, as if Kase's done something to wrong her. But this wrong never occurred in the first place. Fukami is totally out of line here. I've heard that in Japanese argumentative traditions the point will often go to the person who expresses the most convincing passion for the subject (not that it's unheard of in the west as a way to win an argument, but apparently the method we prefer to employ in the west––of arranging and directly deploying our best argumentative points––has very little purchase there). Presumably this means that more people are moved by that person's feeling for what they are saying at the time. I suppose this could be what is happening when Fukami faces down Kase. Still, Fukami is entirely in the wrong. And no wonder Kase and Yama react the way they do. Fukami makes it literally impossible for Kase to find any alternative solution to the problem––she has one way she wants this to be resolved; she wants to beat Kase-san––and in doing so, take over her life, I guess. This is such a gross character. She's been a jerk for ages, but in this end game she is really despicable.

In fairness vis a vis my previous post, I suppose none of the members of the team do much for Fukami, either. Both girls are left out to dry here. Fukami has literally no one to talk to. On the other hand, she also chooses not to talk to anyone about anything she's feeling. So I still have no sympathy for her. She has a wretched attitude, in which she seeks to bully others for her own, self-manufactured unhappiness. The annoying thing is, I kind of want a bully's end for her storyline, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. I don't want to feel any extra sympathy for this character––she's blown through all the guardrails for me, and is not just a creep. But I'm sure there will be an understanding at the end of this, where Fukami learns something important––something she really could have learned by thinking about things and talking them out with other people, instead of just internalizing––but that understanding will be supposed to ennoble her in the readers' minds. Not appreciated.

This story unearthed traumatic memories from my own previous relationships. I kept looking at Glasses and seeing myself 10 years ago, 20 years ago. It's played for laughs in the story, but Glasses is internalizing an unhealthy level of self censorship and associated tension. She's unwittingly trained herself to cater tirelessly to her girlfriend's notably lazy and confusing attempts at communication, with a sort of masochism which Glasses herself seems unaware that she's placing on herself. Even if Mayumayu didn't torment Glasses and threaten her constantly--like a grotesque creep--Glasses' own self-abnegation has clearly damaged her psyche, and made her a nervous wreck. Glasses probably already operates with a higher degree of tension than is healthy, but she needs a more supportive partner, who doesn't weigh down celebrations and gift exchanges with catastrophic threats.

You can say that both partners here have agreed to this relationship, so no one should split them asunder, but Glasses is clearly traumatized here, and holding on for dear life. The relationship has been a long one, and Glasses indicates that this has been the status quo the whole time. I think of it a bit like the traumatized soldiers who come to feel more at home on the battlefield than off it; regardless of what the soldier thinks they want, it isn't a healthy attitude for them, and they generally need help to get rid of this subliminal programming––it's a defense mechanism kicking into gear to help them survive their trauma. It isn't who they are at a baseline level; it's the adrenaline doing the talking. Well, it's the adrenaline talking with Glasses, too. She's made it this far, and it makes her feel like she's achieved something, and she subliminally feels closer to Mayumayu as a result. It probably only rarely occurs to her how much the relationship is stressing her out--but it's very clear in the comic, and it's what makes the comic such an uncomfortable read. And even though the knife Mayumayu brandishes could be read as metaphorical, just what is it standing in for? Let's not forget, Glasses is so worried about not guessing the correct cake to eat, she is definitely––not merely metaphorically––doing self-harm, and buying herself extra time with her emotionally unstable girlfriend in order to hopefully get the answer to the question. Nonetheless, punching herself in the face is clearly standing in for some torment Glasses thinks her girlfriend would want her to suffer for not getting the riddle right so far. It's a pretty good indication that Glasses at least perceives Mayumayu's angry responses to her as coming with a measure of deliberate hurt attached. You might say all that indicates is Glasses' perception of the stakes of this game, but we see a lot of evidence that Mayumayu is playing along with it, and it certainly seems like the way the game is played in the story is the usual way the game is played between these two––with Glasses the put-upon one, expected to perform to prove herself worthy, and Mayumayu as the judge of Glasses' performance, and the one who doles out punishments and rewards.

To my mind, Glasses would do better with a more even-keeled girlfriend, who treated her like a partner in their relationship, rather than treating her as someone continually auditioning to be treated like a human being. And I think Mayumayu needs to be alone––at least for a while. She needs to learn to judge which of her expectations of people are reasonable, and she needs to learn how to handle disappointments with responses more appropriate to the nature of disappointment in question. Based on my own experience, I'm probably more naturally biased towards Glasses, but I have to admit that Glasses' own unacknowledged masochism has probably led her into this situation. However, that is, I think, a trait which might most often dissipate without the expectation by her partner to be constantly performing this masochism, as a demonstration of devotion.

Anyways, in spite of the pretty drawings, the story of this one really harshed my vibe. I guess it's a little funny, but it bothered me much more than it entertained.

last edited at Jan 5, 2023 9:34AM

Fukami has been a really frustrating character, a passive-aggressive personality that mutates in this chapter into someone with a more intense borderline personality disorder. I know people say she has a crush on Kase, but in order to maintain that crush she's ignoring the fact that she knows Kase has a significant other, and she confronts Kase only with petulance, aggression, and bullying. And then the rest of the team jump in and add ridiculous peer pressure to the mix.

Also kind of amazing none of Kase's friends on her team try to see things from Kase's point of view at any point. I suppose you could say Kase hasn't been communicative enough with them to earn their trust? But Kase is generally friendly to all of them, and Fukami is moody, selectively withdrawn, and always putting the burden of maintaining a relationship with her on them. Yet, all of them take Fukami's side, and don't seem to care why Kase might be leaving. In story-logic, Kase could defuse this situation by telling them all the truth about why she's moving out, but that would be such a painful way to force Kase into coming out to her teammates. So Yamada takes the hit, instead. Grim.

I guess there was need of a little drama in the series at this point, but this is kind of a lot. The beach episodes had more than enough drama for me at this point. I would have been happy enough to see them having trouble adapting to life together in some intimate ways––a little like what is done in My Cute Little Kitten. Unless the author can make something funny and sensitive and revelatory out of this footrace that's being set up now, I feel I'm being set up for disappointment.

Seems really promising. I'll be looking out for the next installment of this one.

It’s been a fairly recent development that authors have been intentionally creating ace (or aroace) characters at all. What was much more common were lead characters reacting against comphet by claiming “they don’t understand love at all,” feeling abnormal, etc., then discovering that they had feelings about a same-sex partner, i.e., discovering their own lesbianism, with kissing/physical intimacy as the standard yuri-genre narrative endgame.

Yuri has been a romance genre, full stop, and authors are still in the process of exploring how to incorporate non-romantic and/or non-sexual emotional connections into a romance genre and discovering how audiences react to such characters.

So, sure, some readers have reacted negatively to the mere presence of ace characters, but it’s much more common that stories with ace characters have confused readers about what kind of stories they are going to turn out to be.

I think Crescent Moon and Doughnuts is kind of a breakthrough in showing an OTP ending up in a deep and mutually satisfying emotional connection without one or both characters having a “lesbian conversion experience.” (I mean, there have been such stories before, but this one seems like it uses the yuri story template for ace characters as if it’s just a standard genre variant.)

This makes a lot of sense to me, and I really appreciate the context you've presented for the series. As a reader for whom the melodramatic romance aspects of yuri are enormous, convulsive, and deeply involving reasons for reading, I have to admit that I kept thinking the series was going to be just an incredibly slow burn towards realizing sexualized romantic feelings––and in that context, I read the characters protests against having sexualized romantic feelings as something that was bound to change over the course of the story (I also thought we'd have chapters of the series coming out for years to come before we got there). As I was reading this final chapter, it dawned on me what was happening ("wait...is this series...ending???), and I was...fairly surprised. In respect of what you said, through, it makes sense that, with the resolution of the sister arc, the confrontation with the mother resolved as well, and the conveyance of feelings of love and value between the two of them, the story was ready to be wrapped up. The important emotional barriers to the two of them having a more intimate, if not a more sexual relationship, are essentially cleared away, so...cool. I think with the eventual existence of more stories like this, I'll come to understand better how this kind of romance might work in a literary context––and I think I get enough out of the story on its own terms to understand it, and to appreciate the characters for who they are rather than who I assumed them to be. I can't really lie and say I don't miss the melodrama inherent in most yuri––but then, After Hours also knocked me upside the head with its ending. I suppose I'm guilty of expecting more sensually-expressive romance in yuri––but, more to the point, I really want it, and hope to see it even in series that aren't ultimately going in that direction, like this, or A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow, or The Two Sides of Seiyuu Radio (though in the case of those later two, my hunch is that they change direction at one point or another, behind the scenes––whereas I don't think that's what happens in Crescent Moon & Doughnuts). I'll re-read this series when it gets fully published in English, maybe pick up some of the cues I sort of remapped in my head and see them for what they are. It's new territory for me. But thank you for everyone here in the comments who has helped make the meaning of the story more clear.

When I teach character development to my comics students, I emphasize treating characters as either contrasting opposites or as characters that harmonize and boost one another's signals. This might seem a superficial way to handle characters, except that most of the character development we see in fiction is based on the way we compare/contrast characters with one another. Yuri authors do this absolutely all the time; they have usually these two girls; contrasting them at first gives us their character dynamics, and the different ways they look at the world––so that the two girls become really clearly differentiated. Slowly, the yuri writer generally tries to bring the characters together, filing off the edges of their contrasts, shoring up the things they have in common, until the characters are harmonizing on a similar wavelength. But a pretty simple way to track character development through fiction is to look for how the author pairs characters, either contrasting or complementing one another, and looking for how the author uses those contrasts especially to tell us all about the characters.

The contrasting figure for Shiho in this story is, for most intents and purposes, Yori. Shiho is intensely committed to her goals, driven until they're painful and un-fun and a general drag on her life. Yori is so removed from most forms of commitment, it's been hard for the Sunny Spot members to get her to be in the band, even though she clearly doesn't have anything better to do. And plot-wise, Yori is very clearly Shiho's doppelganger; she fills in Shiho's place in the band, and she occupies the space in Mizuguchi's heart that Shiho wants. Shiho plays her music to be perfect, to win. Yori plays to express herself, even if she sucks. Shiho is committed in exactly the ways Yori isn't, but Yori is able to succeed with her more laid-back attitude, in a way that confounds Shiho.

Well, sort of. The problem is that this contrast between the two characters isn't very well-balanced. Yori has no intensity to match Shiho's, and she's getting no time on the page to express any alternative to Shiho's humorless misery and anger. At first, the author seemed to be using Himari as a wedge between the two contrasting figures, with the more time Himari was spending with Shiho bringing out Yori's jealousy. But that sort of competition between the characters has been largely dispelled, with Yori just kind of agreeing to ditch her angst and focus on songwriting, and with Shiho revealing that she isn't really interested in Himari romantically, but in Mizuguchi instead. Meanwhile, Yori and Shiho remain poised as opposites, as rivals––one of them will lead their band in the piece that "defeats" the other band at the concert. But the stakes in this game are so unequal, it's no wonder the focus of this for most of us readers is on what a wretch Shiho is behaving.

Thing is, if Yori had a stronger role in this story arc, I don't think most of us complaining about Shiho bringing things down. If her frustrated romantic passions were a more balanced contrast against Yori's own maybe more upbeat passions, it would make for more rewarding drama. But Shiho's story is so overweighted compared to Yori's own, it's getting ludicrous. Shiho needs to win the competition because her competitor/friend died, and her band came together to honor the dead friend/rival (I guess...all that seems like so long ago I'm not sure I have it all straight in my head); she's raging against this intense, unrequited love, vacillating between hating and loving Mizuguchi, letting that hate overflow onto Yori, who isn't even a willing participant in this triangle, venting it to Yori's girlfriend...What is Yori doing that makes a balance with this? She's writing her own song. She and her girlfriend are getting along. Things seem good. I think there needed to be a clearer contrast drawn between Shiho and Yori––one that kept Yori relevant to the story. The best way to have done that would have been to dial back Shiho's angst, because while we've seen Yori lovelorn, we haven't seen her act too neurotic, and Yori has nothing to match this. The second-best thing would have been to give Yori more skin in the game, more angst to come closer to matching Shiho's––either contriving something in the plot that creates problems for Yori and Himari's relationship (I could see that messing Yori up emotionally, making her more of a direct competitor with Shiho in terms of emotions and in terms of space on the page), or introducing some buried anxiety of Yori's that comes to the surface when Shiho's role in the plot develops. Then Yori has something large to overcome, some overwhelming insecurity, in parallel with the voluminous baggage Shiho has to surmount. This would make Yori more of the rival to Shiho which the author insists that she is, but which the author barely, barely backs up with anything.

Alternatively, make the Shiho/Mizuguchi story the side story that develops while Himari and Yori do their own thing––the way Anemone in Heat handles the secondary romance, or instance. As it is, the story here feels incredibly imbalanced, weighted towards this side-character, Shiho, because the main characters have not much of anything to counter her intensity and the way she commands attention. None of the rest of the cast is as intense as Shiho; none of them are in so much pain. So Shiho draws readers––and apparently the writer as well––away from the rest of the story; another way of saying it is that she sucks all the oxygen out of the room. How can all this angst get resolved by a battle of the bands, anyway? Do you think the author has set that up as a plausible solution to the Shiho dilemma? I don't think so. If you ask me, this character has gone out of the author's control, and is taking the whole venture towards at least a tonal derailment.

Donuts Under a Crescent Moon had a love triangle recently, which balanced the characters' attributes and contrasts far, far better than this. What balancing these characters better against one another does is maintain the consistency of the tone of the book, maintain the throughline of the book's themes, and keep the book feeling like the book you thought you were reading––which is usually a great benefit. There are some readers who can put up with the convulsions of an author letting a supporting character take over, but I think the firm majority of readers find it hard to take. It feels like a betrayal of the narrative I've been following; a betrayal with no clear benefit to us as we read it. The expression of that, in this case, can be summed up in general with some expression like "I hate Shiho," or "Shiho is just a drag." I think that when we say things like this, what most of us are expressing is the way in which Shiho seems to have hijacked the story we were reading, changing the tone and the narrative stakes in ways the rest of the comic isn't prepared to deliver on.

When I say Shiho's a drag, this is what I'm talking about. This girl who is ready to cut her friendships out like a tumor is driving the story into such a different mode than the story has been running in up until now. When Mizuguchi made her confession, and tried to get Himari to give up leading Yori on if she wasn't serious about her, things seemed serious, but nothing disrupted the sense of the book's identity. We felt how Mizuguchi contrasted Himari as a literary doppelganger; both of them were into Yori, but Mizuguchi came at it from a more mature, measured point of view, while Himari was all impulse and overwhelming enthusiasm. The conflict motivated Himari to change, and the result was that the main characters in the story advanced in plausible directions. Is that happening now with Shiho and Yori? I don't get that sense. The battle of the bands seems to be building to an unforetold apocalypse, the end of friendship (not a great friendship, anyway; being friends with the volatile Shiho seems like you're volunteering for a world of hurt). Anyway, that's where I come out on this. I don't see what the main characters can do to win back any audience attention from the Shiho show, which promises more fireworks than I came prepared to see. So that's my complaint about Shiho, hopefully made a little clearer.

last edited at Nov 27, 2022 10:31AM

I'm surprised this one hasn't been licensed in the U.S. by now––I mean, it's been going for a while without one, even though it seems like a shoe-in. But I thought for sure Can't Defy the Lonely Girl would have had an English-language release as well, and it hasn't got one. I feel like between Vampeerz, Catch These Hands, and Run Away With Me, Girl getting published in English, and these more cute, straight-down-the-middle titles not getting published, I can't predict what'll be translated and what won't.

The most effective element of the chapter for me was the transition when Himari moves from hanging out with Loreley, with their vibe of crushingly dour intensity, to hanging out with Sunny Spot. The gloom just lifted magically, and I felt, probably more than any other time in the series, how good the vibe of Sunny Spot was––in music, and in attitude, too. Of course, that only worked because of chapter after chapter of drudgery, us and Himari spending endless time with Shiho, lost in her BS. I don't really care whether Shiho's attitude is realistic, or whether her story has thematic resonance or not––it seems so to me, but it no more makes me want to read her material than if her role was implausible and meaningless––it's just that the tone of this storyline just brings the larger story of the book down. I can't remember the last time I was looking forward to reading a chapter of this; I'm mostly sticking with it to get past this storyline. I do hope there is something beyond this arc. I would like to read something with a little bit higher spirits. Hopefully Sunny Spot does great at the concert. I'm sure Shiho won't leave the story in disgrace if that's the case, but I can dream, can't I?

I do plan to re-read this from the top. It really seemed as if it came crashing down to a finish quite abruptly, like a vase of orchids suddenly tumbling off a shelf. I wonder if I'll feel the same way reading it again, or if I'll find more clarity and purpose in the plot extending only to this point. The first few chapters were particularly remarkable to me, and I think the manga as a whole is a huge advance on Flowerchild's previous manga, Hungry for You: Endo Yasuko Stalks the Night. I did not find the confrontation with Yoru to be anything much like a conclusion––and I read here somewhere that health or fatigue was a factor in ending the series where it ended? I hope Flowerchild's okay. I think she's a pretty unique writer of very eccentric––or at least, very personal––yuri stories. And the art is notably cool and distinctive, also. Really keen to see what I make of this on a re-read.

And ditto on recommending Milk Morinaga's "Girlfriends." One of the greats. Personally, I like Whispered Words a whole lot, too. Those are both series that really endeared me to the genre.

last edited at May 27, 2022 5:59AM

I really hope it doesn't end up being a harem of ogres all drinking and hanging out at Naori's place. I'd rather have this new ogre be a genuine antagonist than be a superficial antagonist who becomes pacified right away. I get intense "Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid" vibes off this, so far.

Something that confused me was when Naori's friend Settsu was talking about financial aid. Settsu says, "they make scholarships sound nice and all, but in the end, it's still a loan." I guess maybe scholarships is a word standing in for financial aid in general? Going to college in California, scholarships were what we referred to as financial aid we didn't have to repay, and loans were denoted separately. Looking it up pretty superficially, it looks like scholarships of the kind I'm familiar with are part of financial aid in Japanese universities, but I wondered if anyone knew if there was a nuance I was missing here?

I agree with Ulcius; it would have been nice to see people's reaction to the movie. But it does seem like the whole series is arranged throughout so that it is always cutting away before we get closure on anything––and it seems like the author took that to the far extreme in the end, where we know, just as the girls both seem to know, that the confession is coming, but we aren't going to get to see it. As for the movie, it's very consistent that we don't get to see it being shown, or see people's reactions, or feel any sense of accomplishment when it's finished––that would be that emotional catharsis the author is so committed to keeping off-screen the entire time. But I think there was a chance to do something a little better here, where the emotional catharsis that comes with seeing the movie is actual a kind of overflowing of Hajime's emotions––if seeing Kei as the object of love on-screen might just provoke her to admit her own feelings to herself. It would violate the Ozu-like restraint of this story, but I think that I, like a lot of people here, wanted that catharsis somewhere. I wish we saw just a little more of the shooting of the movie, as well. It's not like they're doing something normal and wholly cliched, like having a sleepover or walking to the convenience store. I would have liked to see more of the details of what it was they were doing while they filmed the movie. That's the part of the anime Waiting in Summer that made it all work for me; in that anime the filming was comic, but here it might have just been more serious and interesting. Instead, they're always wrapping for the day, or talking on the phone after filming is over. But all in all the story was very beautiful and it had a nice feeling to it. The more I think about it, a confession would have been a little too on-the-nose for the series. It is nice to see their feelings reciprocated as the story draws to a close.

So glad to see this manga has returned! Thank you so much to the translators––an extra hard job, no doubt.

These last few chapters have become very interesting to me. The story development seems to have kicked into a higher gear! I'm enjoying the feeling that the story could go in some different direction––the story seems full of possibility at this juncture. So I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.

I was glad to see the author choose this direction for the narrative development. The hints in previous chapters of Kurokawa idolizing Fujishiro from afar are paying off here, and the manga doesn't skimp or cheat on Kurokawa's severe inner conflict. It was a good choice to have her appear in her nerd uniform to reject Fujishiro––for Kurokawa it represents an attempt at regression, which is essentially what she's wishing for at the end of the chapter. I really feel for Fujishiro. She has such simple, straightforward desires, and she's in this situation that means she will have to really step outside of her normal self to get what she wants this time. I feel a lot of extra sympathy because she didn't even realize she really wanted Kurokawa's love until things had already become very tough. I was pretty glad to see the melodrama reach hysterical levels once again––been missing that since the second volume, mostly. Interesting too that Fujishiro's former friends Miki and whoever see the confession––potentially an interesting dynamic there, since this changes and potentially resolves their own storyline––hopefully in favor of a sea change, there? Sympathy for Fujishiro? Or at least they can maybe make peace with her decision to choose Kurokawa over them? When you think about it, this manga has been full of blistering rejection from the get-go. And Nanaki's been at the center of it all, and she's been the one doing most of it. So I think a storyline that demands some understanding and growth from her makes sense. I hope she can work things out, somehow.

I get having trouble following every development over the course of years. A Tropical Fish Yearns for Snow has me baffled right now, because I just don't remember what happened a chapter ago. For some reason I don't feel that about this manga? I think I'm just better attuned to the aesthetic of Useless Princess––the high-octane confrontations and overheated melodrama is my kind of jam, I guess. I mean, I supposed I don't remember both of Fujishiro's former friends' names, cut me some slack; I remember lots of what they've done in the manga. My impression is that this title is fairly successful, isn't it? It's getting U.S. distribution while it's still coming out, and that seems to usually be reserved for the higher-selling titles, no?

last edited at Mar 7, 2021 8:09AM

Real talk though, this has been broken since before the midpoint, and I suspect the editor didn't like the yuri under/overtones so that's when the depression arc started. Ever since the manga weirdly split off from their fun on the island, it's been incredibly weird. This is blessedly going to end now. The depression arc threw me for such a huge loop. It still doesn't make any sense to me and one would likely have to go back to read and reread it to get it.

These were such good characters but I don't understand what the central conflict of this entire story was? One girl was lonely? While the other stopped talking to her all of a sudden because?

It's cool that people want to read in this ambiguous masterclass in undertone drama, guess I missed it. I don't really care for most of the replies on here, I just had to vent about how poorly this turned out after starting out so amazing. I hate that they pulled out the yuri roots and left nothing but two girls who kind of know/talk to each other sometimes when they're not busy.

This is much the same way I feel about it as well. There did seem to be a large tonal shift somewhere in the middle of the story, and then after that I found the plot and character development very hard to track. I kept having to step back 2 or 3 chapters every time a new one came out, to get caught up on what tentative threads of story I was supposed to be watching evolve from chapter to chapter. The salamander and frog imagery was frustrating to have to keep tracking in that way, and I don't feel like it delivered a very meaningful metaphor in the end. I don't personally care if the story turns out Yuri or not. But I found it increasingly hard to suss out what Koyuki's problems were, or what I was supposed to be making of all her dizzy staring into space. There is a point in there, I think, where the subtlety of the story stopped being impressive and started becoming tiresome. At the end now I find it really grating. In the middle of the story somewhere––probably around the arc the previous poster is talking about––the narrative stopped having any forward momentum, and the manga became mostly characters staring at each other with embarrassed looks on their faces, hoping for minute reactions from other characters, and reading an absurd amount of meaning into those faint acknowledgements. Honestly? It just got boring, and harder to appreciate as the author struggled to keep the story precious and delicate, and paced at the same ploddingly "realistic" cadence. I'm still reading for the characters, and essentially trying to pay off my initial investment in the series, but I feel like the series has run very long now on not much steam left. And I think the relationship between the two lead characters has very little of its' early vigor remaining. I guess that's life, or something. But I would have liked for the later part of the story to have more interest in it, and for it to be clearer in its' plotting and easier to follow. Just a little didacticism would have gone a long way. When the author started committing precious page time to Koyuki's brother, I really started feeling the drag of this thing. It's definitely a book that felt, for me, at least, sharper earlier on, funnier and more lively, and then increasingly listless as it progressed. One thing I have to say I grew to hate was the repetitive chapter headings. Holy cow, was that a clear marker of a plodding pace, and the kind of listless sleepwalking the story did late in the game.

And while I really do not mind one way or another whether it's a yuri story, it certainly seemed to be leading towards one early on, and I'm inclined to believe the idea in the quoted post that there was the beginning of a yuri story, and it got removed, or it just never quite materialized. I realize the author and made these statements about always wanting to do it this way, or that way, but authors make those kind of statements all the time, papering over their own uncertainty––or sometimes outright failure to bring about what they intend––and making it seem like this is what they planned from the beginning. I'm no more inclined to believe an author's statement of intent than I am a reader's theory on how things went. Author's statements these days are pure public relations exercises lots of the time, and it sounds to me just as likely that the author had to assuage some frustrated fans. Unless the author stated before starting the series that it was never going to be yuri. But I didn't think that was what was said. Well, whatever. In the end I just didn't get much from the storytelling aesthetics of the second half of the narrative. I feel like the pace of Hana ni Arashi has accelerated to a brisker clip than this story did, and I don't see any noble point in keeping things so turgid and low-key in the later part of the story. And like another couple of commenters on here, I just don't find myself of the same mind as the readers who have found so much continued quality in the story. I don't want to say that it "wasn't for me," because the first half of the story was very much my bag. Maybe next chapter will wrap it all up in a way that retroactively changes everything for me. But I doubt that.

Seems like the people who read Run Away With Me, Girl all the way through are willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt here, for the most part. I for one was very moved by that previous story. And so far, I'm moved by this one, too. I think that, as in the previous story, the author is playing with the ambiguity of the situation. The art, especially around Kyouko's scenes, is self-consciously more glamorous and even kind of lurid, reflecting the way these languid scenes live in Kanda's imagination. The sense of trespass in the story is so clearly part of the point––what brought it on? Obviously, Kyouko looks at Kanda through a haze of tobacco and memories of her sister––when she kisses Kanda, she has just compared her to her sister. "You look just like Nacchan when you're upset," she says, and a tear is running down her face––at that point, Kyouko is clearly confusing the two sisters in her mind. Immediately after the kiss, she rebukes herself and shoves Kanda away. She's obviously lost in memories of her former lover, Kanda's elder sister, and I think it's clear that, even if Kyouko isn't in a complete depression following her breakup, she's still very melancholy, and mired in her frustrated feelings. And after kissing Kanda, she does her damndest to make sure Kanda doesn't misinterpret what Kyouko obviously views as an overstep. I think that in a work of fiction, we ought to be able to judge characters differently than we do in real life––because in fiction we can actually discern a character's true motivations with a lot more clarity than we can in reality; Kyouko isn't "grooming" Kanda for anything. She's indulging Kanda, who is using Kyouko as a special window into an adult world Kanda is fascinated by, but also afraid of. And Kyouko is using Kanda to send her former lover a passive-aggressive sort of revenge (I remember an ex-girlfriend meeting up with me after our breakup, handing me a box containing every gift I'd ever given her in the several years we were together, and leaving before I could gather my wits and say anything in response; Kyouko's "returning" of Kanda's sister's gifts reminds me of that encounter, and my reaction to my own situation mirrored Kanda's elder sister's flabbergasted reaction, as well). Sure, the relationship starts to drift a little farther than that premise, but I don't see it as being either Kyouko's or Kanda's fault, exactly. They are both opportunists, gently prodding at their distorted personal connection, each hoping for things quite different from what the other wants or expects.

I know that one might look at that scenario and say, well, Kyouko's an adult; she's responsible for the tone of her encounters with Kanda. Even if Kanda is recklessly provoking her, she's the adult in the room and she needs to make the adult decision. Does she, though? These characters aren't real. Why do we enjoy bank robberies in fiction, cheering on daring and clever robbers, but a messy relationship, where two people are maybe breaking some law in pursuit of working out their overwhelming feelings must needs be judged instead by the same moralism we might apply to a real-life scenario? I might suggest that fiction in part exists to evince this kind of friction, and even to make this very sort of trespass; to thrill at characters who step out of the bounds of polite, cool, and legal society. And maybe fiction is at its most evocative when it can create the heady sense of a situation familiar to you––even if you have never experienced it yourself. The afternoon where Kouko and Kanda sat together in these moody swirls of smoke, each lost in their own private world, wherein Kyouko crossed that space, and lost her head for a minute and made a large transgression––it seemed more real than real to me. It was a moment in the story that seemed taken from real life, in its drift and its messiness and its misplaced passions. The confusion of feelings, the conflation of identities; the mood in the air. I had the feeling that this event might be an unforgettable afternoon for both Kanda and Kyouko; one which they might think of often, even if they never spoke of it again. That at least should be the reason to tell a story; not whether or not you think the main character deserves to be in jail.

I actually bought this volume without really knowing what it was; I wanted to support Battan, and it looked like Run Away With Me, Girl wouldn't get a tankoubon (at least, I can't find one––wasn't it initially published digitally?). When I flip ahead in the book, it looks like the later chapters delve more deeply into the relationship between Kyouko and Kanda's sister. It looks like Kanda talks to Kyouko again––in what context, I have no idea––but I get the impression that the relationship between Kyouko and the sister turns out to be the lion's share of this story, and that Kanda has a somewhat different arc. Not that I think that will entice anyone back to the story, but, as I think most of us who finished Run Away With me, Girl know, the author can really tell a pretty worthwhile story. Plus, the art is great.

I thought the spread with Fujishiro's kiss was some very nice art. This whole chapter looks pretty lovely.

It would make me happy if the next chapter is about Izumi and Iroha at a cafe. A breakaway from the intense action of the story for those supporting characters to lay out some of their own theories about what might happen next, and maybe exchange some feelings of their own. That would be fun. I think the story will probably lunge ahead––the Izumi chapters definitely didn't get distracted from the melodrama, but they delivered quite a lot, and if the series gives Kurokawa a chance to respond to Fujishiro right away next chapter, hopefully it'll be as rewarding as that, somehow. If I were advising my students how to proceed from this point, I'd recommend cutting away to another vantage point, where you could comment on the action while the reader builds it up in their minds. But so far the storytelling is very earnest and straightforward in its bent, so....