Also, always made it a point to not read Mare

Great idea—hang on to that thought.

^ Well, I’ve always liked “both sides” of Itou Hachi (although the extreme predatory onee-san stuff is way down the list for me). But I got hooked on her style starting with the two “Master & Mel” series, which are incredibly fluffy and wholesome and morally iffy and squicky simultaneously, which to me is the essence of itou Hachi.

While I'm doing my second re-read, I just have to ask. Hino's parents passed away, right?

That’s been hinted at, but nothing is known for certain.

To be fair, Itou Hachi didn't start out writing lolicon stuff. It's only later that they discovered new fetish and just zoned in on it hard to the point that's everything they release nowadays. So I could actually imagine someone being familiar with their older works, seeing new title and checking it out of curiosity and then being surprised it's loli stuff.

Is this really true? The “Master & Me” stuff seems to have started in 2015, so as far as I can tell the age-gap/master-servant material is almost as early as anything else the author has published. What are the “older works” that predate 2015? (I mean, I guess if all you know is “Kindred Spirits” the age-gap material might be a surprise, but if I recall correctly even “Sayuri’s Little Sister” is onee-loli.)

it’s true that Itou Hachi’s more recent series seem to be more, um, focused on heavy-duty lolicon.

You know something ain't right when (you start believing that) your pets are judging you.

Your pets are always judging you. But they let a lot of stuff slide.

Whenever I pick this up again I forget that it's kinda gotten more dark and anxious. Whenever I think about it I think of cute fun cat stories, but no it goes into a lot dark headspaces, and it always blindsides me

It feels kind of divided to me. There are a lot of signs that Yuna is a deeply troubled person, seemingly on the verge of a complete breakdown. But that storyline is interspersed among a bunch of silly slice of life stuff, so it constantly feels like it's building up to something that never arrives. I'm sure part of that feeling is just the slow release schedule, and some of the author's other works are also pretty slow paced. I bet reading Girlfriends month to month as it was released was incredibly frustrating.

I’m not so sure that the release schedule is a major issue here. Your idea that “Yuna is a deeply troubled person” seems closer to the mark. Events that should clear up misunderstandings and make Yuna feel better about their relationship seem to have the opposite effect, and her desperate attitude toward Rena’s “working from home” (or not) plan seems both erratic and excessive—Rena’s learning that there’s more to running a business than just setting up the gear at home is very reasonable, but Yuna seems to think that the issue is entirely about her.

Since Morinaga Milk is such a consummate fluff queen, it’s easy to forget that she’s done some pretty dark stuff as well (anyone remember Mare?). She’s never actually mixed the fluff and serious angst in a single series that I can recall, but there’s always the possibility that she’s doing it here.

Oh man, a lolicon plot in an Itou Hachi manga. How could anyone would have predict that ? But i guess the moral police need to come and state the obvious.

Beat me to the punch, Lilliwyt.

Absolutely correct--if you are an animal-ears adult and you should happen to fall in love with a young animal-ears person, be sure to consult the species-specific regulations governing such relationships in your animal-ears culture.

Do NOT assume that the depictions of such relationships in Itou Hachi manga indicate that such relationships are acceptable in your real-life animal-ears culture. By all means.

Now you're just flirting, girls...

Now I think I need to re-read the entire series (which I just did last week) to see if this is the first time Miss Sunflower has ever responded to one of Matsuri’s “You’re so cute/pretty” compliments with a simple “Thank you” rather than ignoring, dismissing, or [dialogue balloon with ?]-ing it.

Gotta respect the mangaka for their Trolling A Game.

It is a truly magnificent tour de force.

We do need to remember that real progress has been made—both Koguma and Hino know how they feel about the other one, and they know that the other one knows.

Now they’re just hesitating, with trembling hearts and quivering limbs, about crossing the final line.

being awkward around your crush? more likely than u think

Oh man, trying to make ordinary conversation (i.e., “small talk”) is pretty much a challenge for me anyway; doing it under stress—like trying to talk to a crush—I can only think of weird and cryptic things to say (almost like the “weird and cryptic” version of Tourette’s).

The jury is still out (and probably always will be) on whether it’s a better strategy to seem weird by not saying anything when you’re expected to talk or to seem weird by saying weird things.

I do not understand why people think that the one being narrated can do no wrong. I think the author makes it rather clear that Kanon was at fault.

Why does somebody always have to be at fault?

Miss Sunflower bickers when Matsuri notices the bags under her eyes when she really wanted her to come by and see her new makeup.

So they’re basically married now.

Rekan1 posted:

I uh still don't get what the sister school system means in most sister school yuris, can someone like explain

At this point, it's a trope. It's so corny that it went full circle and became cool again.

Right, Catholic schools in Japan for rich girls was a thing, evidently with an emphasis on deportment and "good morals" as opposed to specifically religious doctrine. Apparently such schools were popular with Japanese families who aspired for their children to eventually go abroad and with foreign families in Japan.

The "sisters" thing I believe is entirely a fictional trope.

it’s one of the trademarks of “outsider” teens to be into music that their “mainstream” peers who listen to the latest thing are not. One way to do that is to be into cutting-edge, experimental, esoteric bands that no one’s ever heard of, but the easier way is to be into older music, and in teen pop terms, 10 years is an eternity. Hell, 5 years is an eternity.

Find a slightly disreputable, “cool,” slightly older mentor with a great record collection and you’re golden.

last edited at May 5, 2022 11:38PM

Narrator: "Zanka's back! And this time it's magic!"

Imagine confusing "being coerced into having sex while drunk" with "willfully deciding to cheat on your partner." Couldn't be me.

“Coerced” is doing a lot of unjustified work here; we see Liz barely put up token resistance to her ex’s advances. There’s no textual evidence of blackmail or extreme physical force—the ex grabs her and kisses her.

Liz is in a relationship with Maki. She has sex with the ex-girlfriend she’s been pining for. Handwaving that away is basically saying that Liz has no personal agency.

By all means, anyone who has tried the explanation, “I went out with my former girlfriend and we had sex, but we drank and she came on strong, so it’s not cheating,” please tell us how that went over.

If that's the case, then WTF are there so many posts about Rio? It seems like, to the readers, many of whom don't understand the concept of the relationship between Yuriko and Matoi and think Matoi should have gotten together with Rio, someone she NEVER expressed any romantic interest in, Rio was one of the main characters...

Seriously, this is all just [The Other, More Overtly Lesbian One] Syndrome, which you can find in dozens of Dynasty threads. Take it to the bank: if there are two MCs dithering about the nature of their relationship/feelings for each other, and a third party who is an out lesbian (if only out to themselves) appears, a big chunk of the audience will immediately ship that character with one of the MCs, advocate for some other partner to be found for her, or in general adopt the character as their personal cause, no matter how obviously that third party has no chance of being anything but a side character and even may be a negative force in the story.

The classic example is Sayaka in YagaKimi (by no means a negative force, of course), who became so popular with readers that, in a typically brilliant move, the author had the foresight to spin her off into her own LN series, thus clearing the decks for the MCs.

Some readers can no more resist The Other, More Overtly Lesbian One than a piranha can pass up a bloody ribeye steak . . .

I feel like yuri crush is way more appropriate than the tags of age gap, romance, or yuri itself.

I feel like a broken record—here is the Dynasty definition/standard for the use of the “yuri crush” tag:

Soft feelings of amorous interest in another girl, as pure as a lily is white.
A feeling present mostly in young adolescents - often triggered by bear print panties, handsome women, or a case of mistaken identity.

This tag is meant particularly for non-yuri series, and should not be used in any story with a yuri tag, nor as another name for one-sided love.

This has absolutely nothing to do with this series.

I've always hated this attitude of "it's fiction, don't criticize the bad parts".

Way to miss the entire point, which has been spelled out explicitly here before.

What's being criticized is the inevitable spate of "Don't do this in real life!" warnings, as if readers are moral infants who if they see, for example, non-consensual groping of a sleeper, will assume that it must be acceptable real-life behavior because they saw it in a manga somewhere.

If such bloviating were simply people showing off their moral superiority it would just be tedious, but it's also pernicious as a form of criticism because it ignores the specific context of the text in favor of moralizing generalizations.

People who are saying, “This series doesn’t meet my definition of ‘yuri,’” well, whatever—feel free to put forth that definition and make your argument.

People who are saying, “This doesn’t deserve the Yuri tag” are simply mistaken about what that tag means on Dynasty, where it means that, at minimum, the tagged story contains a character who is in love with, or who desires a lesbian relationship with, a female-identified character in the story.

Obviously, Rio is that character in this story, when in chapter 9 she asks Matoi, “Why don’t we start dating instead?”, and then kisses her. Many people have argued that, in addition, the main plot contains enough yuri elements to deserve the tag in itself. That may or may not be so, but such a reading is not necessary for Dynasty tagging purposes.

Moreover, the author’s note at the end says unequivocally that they intend this to be a type of yuri story. Readers are certainly welcome to disagree with the author, but the authorial statement further reinforces the appropriateness of the yuri tag for this series.

Miss Sunflower has only had the single romantic attraction in her life,

Himawari-san wasn't romantically attracted to the OG Himawari. Her brother and Yuu-san were totally into her, but for Himawari-san, the OG Himawari was a motherly figure. This is gonna be covered in volume 12 so I'm not gonna elaborate on it. Don't wanna spoil the whole thing.

OK, point taken—we don’t really know what romantic attraction looks like for our Miss Sunflower. But it’s safe to say that she loved her, and her feelings for Miss Sunflower Light are increasingly being connected in Miss Sunflower Dark’s mind to Matsuri.

True, but one of the repeated motifs about our Miss Sunflower is people saying, "I didn't know she could make that expression." What exactly is making her make that expression in the reaction shot?

True enough. And it's not like I've really disagreed from the start - after all, we started this whole line of discussion with me assuming exactly that.

Granting that we're both right, this is maybe the most important emotional development we've seen in this series--and it's always been Miss Sunflower's move to make.

I mean, Matsuri has had a lot of growing up to do throughout the series, but in terms of her affection for Miss Sunflower she's never wavered one bit.

Miss Sunflower has only had the single romantic attraction in her life, and several people have told her that in fact she had an inaccurate, or at least incomplete, notion of what the first Miss Sunflower was actually like. For her to switch from "I have to become more like Miss Sunflower" to "I have someone with me who is like Miss Sunflower" is a huge deal.

For such a ball of fluff as this series has been it has an amazing amount of depth and subtlety.

Matsuri smiling bright as the sun made my day, and Miss Sunflower's too I'm sure.

I quite honestly expected her to compare Matsuri to the previous Himawari-san at that moment. If not out loud, then at least in her thoughts.

Isn't that basically what she does?

The shot of Miss Sunflower Mk.1 in the first panel of the second tier on p.26 is a matching shot with the top panel of Matsuri on p. 27, and our Miss S.'s reaction shot is her realizing the connection.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/miss_sunflower_ch66#22

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/miss_sunflower_ch66#23

Quite possibly, or I likely would not have immediately made the connection. But it's hard to be absolutely sure without actually seeing her thoughts.

True, but one of the repeated motifs about our Miss Sunflower is people saying, "I didn't know she could make that expression." What exactly is making her make that expression in the reaction shot?

Matsuri smiling bright as the sun made my day, and Miss Sunflower's too I'm sure.

I quite honestly expected her to compare Matsuri to the previous Himawari-san at that moment. If not out loud, then at least in her thoughts.

Isn't that basically what she does?

The shot of Miss Sunflower Mk.1 in the first panel of the second tier on p.26 is a matching shot with the top panel of Matsuri on p. 27, and our Miss S.'s reaction shot is her realizing the connection.

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/miss_sunflower_ch66#22

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/miss_sunflower_ch66#23

Get a room, you two! Head-patting! What's next--hand-holding?