No. More likely she has tachycardia caused by anxiety and dehydration.

Edit: It should be noted that Aya had gone from walking outside in February cold, to entering a very warm subway car. The sudden shift in temperature caused her blood vessels to undilate, creating a normal drop in blood pressure. Her heart had to increase its beat rate, and because of her stress levels and irregular diet, it went beyond a normal rate.

I dunno. I live somewhere where it gets to -35C, even -40C is not unheard of, every winter, and I've never heard of such a thing. And I go outside for a walk every freaking day.

You'd be surprised, shifts in temperature really do have large effects. Heart attacks are more common in winter, because the cold will raise blood pressure which can be harder on the heart and also loosen plaques that can cause blockages.

Anxiety is the main problem here. I know this from personal experience having had a couple of panic attacks in my student days with an accompanying accelerated heart rate. These happened after days of little sleep and irregular eating/limited fluid intake. Aya is pushing herself to physical exhaustion and her heart is in a borderline state. The sudden transition from a cold to hot environment simply pushed her over the edge.

This kind of anxiety related condition is very common in students. During the February exam periods, hospital ERs in Japan are probably full of students suffering from anxiety attacks, stress related conditions like hypoglycemia and anemia, and accidental overdoses from stimulants or other substances that people overindulged to stay awake etc..... In any case despite her embarrassment, Aya would have found plenty of company in the ER waiting area. The ER procedure for her is pretty straightforward: she would given an EKG by hospital staff as a precaution, and upon discharge she would have been sent home with either orders to get a normal amount of sleep, or been prescribed an OTC sleeping medication like diphenhydramine HCL (better known in the States as the active ingredient in Benadryl, Nytol, and Unisom, among others).

Providing of course that she has a normal EKG readout. But this isn't that kind of manga. Expect plenty of angst over her perceived failure to "keep up with" Mitsuki.

last edited at Jul 14, 2025 3:22AM

The Van Der Graaff classmate.

RIP Ruka the reversal is reaching one of its peaks

Minori.Chigusa released an R18 rated artbook of her work recently, and it included this series. The artwork indisputably sets Suuna as the top in this relationship.

Was that just a stress ulcer??? I’m confused lol

No. More likely she has tachycardia caused by anxiety and dehydration.

Edit: It should be noted that Aya had gone from walking outside in February cold, to entering a very warm subway car. The sudden shift in temperature caused her blood vessels to undilate, creating a normal drop in blood pressure. Her heart had to increase its beat rate, and because of her stress levels and irregular diet, it went beyond a normal rate.

last edited at Jul 7, 2025 12:36AM

Hinami: I told you I'd shoot! But you didn't believe me! Why didn't you believe me?!

(I'm sure no one will get this reference...)

There is a National Brow Day in the USA that falls on October 2 each year. Most of the holidays Hinami invents appear to actually occur somewhere.

There is an actual Shinsengumi Day in Japan, but it falls on February 27.

That vignette is more erotic than a hundred nudes. (Though I'm ace, so take my opinion on the subject with a few grains of salt.)

Implication is more engaging than blunt fact, you know?

DDDD

An abbreviation of '懂的都懂' (dong de dou dong), meaning 'those who know will understand'. Used when implying something without explicitly stating it, often in situations where the context is clear to insiders but deliberately kept vague for various reasons.

Synopsis from Comic Seymour:

One day, Nayu, who quit her job due to social phobia, meets Karen, who is as beautiful as a jewel.
Karen has a high fever and is curled up outside. Unable
to bear the sight, Nayu takes Karen into her house, bathes her, and takes care of her.
However, Karen is homeless and moves from one friend's house to another, and by chance, they end up living together.
Sensitive Nayu and free-spirited Karen.
Nayu's closed heart gradually opens up as she sees the contrasting lives of the two, and she begins to have special feelings for them.
However, it seems that Karen is hiding a secret from her past --!?

So let's unpack that last page:

She makes ¥220,000 ($1543 which is a pretty good starting salary for her position) a month.
Has a good house (two bedroom apartment)
Works for a "reasonably white" company (a Japanese corporation that actually follows national labor laws, usually, and doesn't treat their employees like plantation slaves).
I also think that these two had an off-page relationship, at least casual friendship, and these theatrical moments were just the younger woman's attempts to announce her willingness to advance their friendship to something more intimate.

Kind of an aside note. On page 7 where the turtle refers to itself as a "shameless turtle" is a callback to traditional Chinese/Japanese myths that depict turtles as lecherous or evil creatures.

Forgiveness is earned, not owed.

Wrong. Forgiveness isn't earned, but trust is. Never confuse them.

Look carefully, and you will see that Eff is wearing the same clothing style in the flashback that Kopeko is currently wearing.

I'm not sure if I agree entirely, but I do think you're right about regarding anti-gay societal beliefs leading to the characters being unable to express attraction openly and finding some other outlet. At the very least, that's what's going on in the story, whereas in real life sometimes the original motivating factor something non-sexual that gets reexpressed in a sexual context.

There are still these contexts of people who would be 100% okay with LGBT relationships finding it weird for someone to be sucking on doll legs or where these characters are not fully seeing the people who they think they love. I don't think any of this is really a contradiction. It's more that "the series/title/ is about X" is overly reductive and that this would be a one off instead of a series if the author only had one idea to talk about.

https://youtu.be/fjK1BkpOa8w?si=aCL1hpriYpNpLWwL

This manga is most likely based on the Toyoko Kids, which are teenagers in Japan who run away from their homes and congregate in the Toyoko Plaza in Kabukicho, Tokyo.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/02/05/japan/society/toyoko-kids-tokyo-subculture/

Recruitment kickbacks are illegal in Japan, they're not "society's rules." More likely these are shady web recruiters that dredge up workers that don't comply with Japanese labor and immigration laws and steer said workers to employers desperate for any kind of workers. Given Japan's cratering birth rate, companies will take anyone to fill positions and are willing to pay these kickbacks for no questions asked. Given how frequently aberration like these and so called Black Companies show up in Japanese popular culture, I have to ask, does anyone enforce labor laws in Japan? Or is exploitation somehow been made socially acceptable?

In light of what I just posted, there's a different meaning to Meguru and Azuki's conversation. Meguru is sitting there with Azuki's bodily fluids on her hands, which of course is pretty close to what happens with digital penetration (lesbian sex). Thus Meguru has to be the cop here, reinforcing sexual taboos (Azuki's feeling is not love or romance, which are socially acceptable, it's just animalistic desire, which is verboten) and keeping herself and Azuki in the socially acceptable category.

I also like how everyone's fetishistic hangups seem to revolve around obsession and possession. I assumed the title just referred to having weird fetishes, but maybe it's referring to the toxic possessive "love" that these characters have for each other? It makes the choice to have fetishes centered around malleable clay figurines all the more thematically resonant.

It's not toxic "love" so much as toxic "roles". Fetishes are a form of ritualistic substitution behavior that arises in societies where sex and gender roles are heavily policed by social consenssituation. rural Japan). A fetish is basically a ritual where taboo behaviors are acted out through an object or ritual that takes the place of the desired action or behavior (fetishes are sociological rather than psychological). The "disgusting love" in the title is just that old trope of homosexuality's repression in a deeply heteronormative part of Japan. If the fetishes are themselves "disgusting" it is because they hint at the characters sexual orientation. I can assure you that these characters are actually rather normal given their sistuation.

Is Hanako really a witch or something??? I'm very curious.

Half blooded, perhaps?

The Great Manga Detective (GMD) and his Deadbeat Assistant (DA) are discussing the case of "How to Break a Triangle":

DA: So you still think Erica is the guilty party responsible for Aya's disappearance?
GMD: Absolutely! When deciphering fictional cases like these, motive is paramount over evidence. Erica has all of the motive among the three friends. She an obsessive loner with no social skills.
DA: But what was the means?
GMD: I dunno. But it probably wasn't magic or yokai. Maybe Erica's grandfather was an eccentric scientist who dabbled in suspended animation, and invented a stasis capsule.
DA: That's pretty contrived as well! Literal plot device!
GMD: But I have to confess something. Something that has been bothering me for awhile....
DA: What's that?
GMD: I think we have misunderstood Miss Erica's motive.
DA: We have?
GMD: Absolutely. In the conversation between Erica and Aya (and the flashback) a few chapters back, Erica accused Aya of keeping her relationship with Koto secret. But the tone of the question, and indeed the person she was asking were off. If Erica was accusing anyone of keeping a relationship secret (which is suspicious anyway) it would have been Koto. It's not a question you would pose to someone Erica would have considered an outsider or an Intruder, since she and Koto had been friends previous to meeting Aya.
DA: OK.
GMD: So that's when I realized that if Erica's motive was jealousy towards Aya over Koto, which is what we've assumed, then the whole plot makes no sense.
DA: It doesn't?
GMD: Think about it. If Erica wanted Aya out of the picture, then why not just KILL her? Then stage her disappearance or make it look an adult pervert offed her. If she had the resourcefulness to keep Aya to herself for seven years, it would have been much easier to commit murder than go through all of the trouble of kidnapping and keeping her alive, which leads to a messy denouement anyway.
DA: A dead end really. So what's her real motive.
GMD: A really twisted plot development. Erica LOVES Aya, not Koto.
DA: WHAT?! But we assumed...
GMD: Again, think about it! Aya has no family anymore. Her mom's probably dead, and her grandparents are definitely dead. If Erica put her on ice for seven years, the time gap would destroy all of her peer relationships, especially with Koto. She's now exactly the kind of person who nobody would notice being in distress or duress. Predators like Erica are opportunistic, going for easy prey. Plus the theme of this manga is letting go of the past and evolving forward. If Erica is fixated on a fourteen year old girl, whose youth she can preserve despite the march of time, then she is even more of a twisted monster than we've assumed.
DA: Where the story is at now, Aya is staying in Erica's apartment, after breaking the leg of the triangle that keeps her connected with the wider world..... She's in danger.

Chapter 7 fan animation (set to the drama cd):

https://x.com/MickellPickell/status/1842225667288817856?t=Mek63fCe77-6lv2BFY_8dQ&s=19

last edited at Oct 4, 2024 4:44PM

I don't know if these were previously posted, but these are fan animations set to the drama CD

https://x.com/MickellPickell/status/1838223490882982361?t=zUrmryDa0afWh4Xs1T60Ow&s=19

https://x.com/MickellPickell/status/1838601787550716151?t=vpahf5WRLSvvyeAQxsw9Uw&s=19

Fun fact: The Earth's moon has no magnetic field because its metal core has long since cooled down and stopped spinning. As far as we know, magnetic fields have no tangible effect on human reproduction (gravitational fields, on the other hand... let's just say it's hard to have sex when your entire continent is flooded by high tides). And even if the Moon's orbit suddenly began to decay at the stated rate (ca. 384.4 km/year), it would have hit the Roche limit and disintegrated into an asteroid ring around Earth 38 years before the manga even took place.

I am sorry to all the catgirls who died when I brought real physics into a fantasy manga, but I am supremely peeved by sloppy worldbuiding from an author pitched to me as a "fantasy genius".

Another fun fact: The moon's orbital decay would increase the Earth's rotational velocity. This would increase average wind speeds to hurricane force. So everyone still died in a decidedly less romantic fashion.But this manga only blows in a metaphorical manner.

last edited at Aug 30, 2024 3:50AM

This is hella toxic but my eyes can't look away. The fact that they put the "beware bears" sign themselves makes sense (p31), there probably aren't any bears, but I wonder if it's actually going to play a role in the future.

They're on Hokkaido (northernmost big island), and there are big Brown Bears (Grizzlies in the USA) present in the local wilderness.

In case anyone is wondering.....

The author used the rl island of Kami-Shima (Aichi Prefecture) as their inspiration. The island and their newrby part of thr mainland has rocks going back to the Devonian Period (419 to 359 MYA), and perhaps the best fossil record going back to that period. It's also a region well known for shell middens created by the prehistoric Jomon people (basically a huge garbage pile of discarded mollusc shells). Kami-Shima was settled for fish processing, and features a large shrine at its summit.