I appreciate how Eve’s tsundere scales seem to be biased towards the dere side.

Most other manga: The story must end once the main couple gets together because the shift in their relationship is hard to write.
This manga: We’re just getting started.

I really liked their flirty and private interactions in this chapter.

Today, I came back to this because it’s still listed as ongoing. It still looks very much complete when I read the last two volumes again, but this time, the children’s book mentioned in chapter 76 intrigued me more. The book turned out to be “The Rabbits’ Wedding” by Garth Williams. A translated version has been published in Japan and its cover page matches the book Kasumi is holding on the following page.

The terse summary on Amazon US has this to say:

Truly exquisite large pictures tell a sweet story of two little rabbits who lived ‘happily ever after’ in the friendly forest.

The summary on Amazon JP is more verbose:

A white rabbit and a black rabbit used to play together every day. However, the black rabbit sometimes looked sad and thoughtful. When the white rabbit asked him, the black rabbit replied, "I am making a wish. What the black rabbit was wishing for was to be able to be with the white rabbit forever. What did the white rabbit do when it found out? This is a story of two soft and gentle rabbits, often chosen as wedding gifts.

Kasumi and Sakurako reading a wedding-themed book that mentions living “happily ever after” and is (in Japan) often gifted at weddings is quit nice by itself already, but let’s continue.

The plot summary on Wikipedia has this to say:

The rabbits live in the forest, where they go on journeys. The black rabbit (male) feels conflicted; finally he reveals why he has been depressed and thoughtful, conveying to the white rabbit (female) that he wishes she will stay by his side forever. The white rabbit accepts the black rabbit's wish and love. A wedding is celebrated and the bunnies dance under the moonlight with the other creatures of the forest.

After Sakurako mentioned the book, Kasumi turns Sakurako’s ponytail into bunny ears and says “Found a black bunny”, to which Sakurako replies “Then I guess that means you’re the white bunny, Kasumi-chan.” If we adjust the Wikipedia summary accordingly, we get this:

The rabbits live in the forest, where they go on journeys. The black rabbit (Sakurako) feels conflicted; finally she reveals why she has been depressed and thoughtful, conveying to the white rabbit (Kasumi) that she wishes she will stay by her side forever. The white rabbit accepts the black rabbit's wish and love. A wedding is celebrated and the bunnies dance under the moonlight with the other creatures of the forest.

I’m amazed by how well this matches the latter part of A Room For Two. Sakurako’s growing insecurities culminated in her armor-piercing question at the end of volume 9 and I think volume 10 is all about showing us that Kasumi accepts. Considering that Yukiko not only namedropped the book but also showed the cover page, this seems a bit too much of a coincidence to not be intentional. In the answer to Q3 of the interview, she said she had to be more careful about the things she drew at the start of the series. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if she took some inspiration from the book when she started the series and it had been her goal all along to end it with the book as an analogy for Kasumi and Sakurako’s relationship, making it clear what kind of relationship the two would have in the end, even if she might not be able to show that explicitly.

The series was a bit too open-ended for my tastes, but with the knowledge about the referenced book, I feel reassured about Kasumi and Sakurako’s future. <3

As an additional bonus, the final panel of the final (regular) chapter showing the book and Kasumi and Sakurako talking about “seeing the future” and “funny details”, kind of makes it look like Yukiko really wants to tell us that the book is showing their future, but maybe I’m starting to read too much into it.

last edited at Oct 6, 2024 8:32AM

Bugger me, Chapter 100 is right around the corner. Also, does Kei's getup meet school regulations? Given how strict Japanese Schools can be, I reckon Mitsuki's attire is pushing it. Even though she looks so boss.

I vaguely remember a manga from a while back where one of the characters wore the opposite gender’s school uniform by abusing the loophole that their school’s regulations only required the students to wear “the” school uniform, but didn’t specify if it had to be the boys’ or girls’ one.

A few years ago I read an article about some Japanese schools intentionally changing their regulations like that in order to become more accommodating for trans students. Some schools went even further by only requiring students’ school uniforms to consist of the approved items, so students were free to mix and match as they wanted. Apparently, the girls’ blouse and blazer with the boys’ pants became a popular combination for girls in winter, to the surprise of absolutely no-one.

Bullying the streamer with superchats, Hikawa Shou really knows how things work in the vtuber community.

Clipped here

Big “parents watching the kids play” energy.

I wonder if the ring is supposed to be a reference to the ring Fubuki actually got from Mio, which turned out to be the ultimate friend-zoning ring because of the type of stone it had embedded.

The initial premise might be based on this.

But it’s fuzzy tail, not fluffy tail…

Dangerous birthday gift

Bae: they were black.
IRyS: Oi

Reference

Reference

Reference

Just once, I would like one of these "got drunk and confessed" stories would end with someone vomiting, pissing the bed, or both. (you know, for realism)

I thought Bright and Cheery Amnesia had you covered, but it was actually different from what I remembered.

Here’s your Kronii x Kronii with audio.

Clipped here.

Adding insult to injury: Kiara hates wireless earphones with passion.

I can’t really relate to all these complaints.

I mean, most subtext in slice of life or gag manga never leads anywhere. At all. So readers complain that nothing came out of it. Then there’s manga with stronger subtext and the MCs are heavily implied to become a couple after the series ends, but nothing is actually shown. So readers complain that they wanted at least a confession or kiss. Then there’s non-subtext yuri manga where the MCs unambiguously get together, possibly with confession and kiss. In the last chapter, and then the series ends. So readers complain that they wanted to see more of their couple time and possibly a sex scene. If there actually is a sex scene, it’s right after the confession, like, two pages after.

Now this series starts of like any other SoL gag manga with subtext that leads nowhere, but this time it actually does lead somewhere, the MCs get together, with kiss, confession and sex scene. But it’s all spread out over a few chapters, so we do get to see some of their couple time and, as my personal favorite, they talk about having sex before actually having any and it’s even split across two chapters with quite some in-story time implied to pass in-between! Sure, I would’ve appreciated more couple time and teasing as a couple, but I’m fine with what we got, because based on the initial premise of SoL subtext, this is all that I hoped for and definitely more than I expected.

last edited at May 15, 2023 10:07AM

Tickling each other, according to the artist. Going by the other images in the artist’s tickling series, they’re probably younger than usual here.

^^^^ Futa not required. If you watch Kiara’s Sims streams, you’ll realize that all it takes is a mod and the “This Sim can get other Sims pregnant” option. It was Calli.

I sincerely don't know what's going on. From what I thought, the policy was to at least contact the current scanlators for picking up a series. Now many groups have stepped in after I did only 5 chapters. Of course I could have been faster, but usually what you do is ask to help.

Nah, that’s the dark side of scanlating. For some reason, offering help seems to be avoided like the plague, even if you have recruitment posts/pages up. Many people seem to prefer starting their own group to do a crap job than to join an existing group and get trained on the job.

You even got off lightly, as one of the usurpers seems to be delivering acceptable quality. Imagine an impatient reader throwing a whole bunch of money at a group that does commissions, but they deliver really bad editing with the worst raws imaginable, while you’re sitting on the high quality scans that you made yourself but couldn’t get them edited properly fast enough for free. Source: me.

Is the short story the joke?

No, the joke is the April Fools' tag on April Fools’ day, despite it not being an April Fools’ release.

Might as well be read right to left.

^ Well, Noel and Flare got (totally-not-wedding) “pair” rings that were expensive because they were from the wedding ring section of a jewellery store, made out of platinum and durable enough to be worn all the time.

Bae and Irys basically agreed that they got scammed with Gisney fan articles that are only good for putting on display at home. They ended up agreeing that they paid for the experience and the memories, tho.