Yeah, I gotta agree with the generic criticism. Also I imagined something way deeper than Ado for some reason, like, Ado is incredible, but not really where my brain goes when I think of a deep female singer, lol

also... not to revive an ended argument (i'm just sharing my perspective), but when you grow up autistic etc, there are a lot of things that just don't click for you until years later. like, oh, that's what they meant! that's why that happened! like the distance and experience ties up the logical loose-ends. it's not about blame or "who's wrong" so much as what's healthier for shou right now. what's going to help her grow as a person? it's like a kind of closure. yeah, these people hurt you for reasons beyond your control, and that sucks. but you're a little older now, a little wiser, and you can handle things better than you could as a helpless child, so you take the bad parts and learn what you can from them. it's not redeeming or validating the bullies -- if anything, it's making them even more irrelevant in her life and future.

Well to me, that equates to essentially victim blaming, and the equating of character growth with becoming more conventional and sociable is something I personally don't like at all. Though, it isn't really my only reason for falling out of love with the series. Just the general vibe doesn't do it for me anymore. Personal tastes or changes or whatever. Its not a big deal.

Yeah. I was feeling this last chapter, but I think I've fallen out of love with this manga. Oh well, it happens.

Yeah, this crap is killing my interest in this manga. It's a shame because I really liked it too.

I really wish I had known about that older manga, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten as invested in this manga. I'll check out next chapter. This very well could be a fake out. I can't write that possibility off. However, even beyond that, the sudden change in tone and writing style with this third character is already disappointing me, even if it doesn't go down a similar path to that other manga.

last edited at Aug 30, 2025 5:19AM

At first I was afraid this would be another Useless Princesses, a manga I personally despise. But, MC here so far actually seems way more self assured despite her introversion. So it may avoid the things about that work I hate.

About the versatility of the term between West vs Japan. Agree to disagree. Honestly it depends, when you read japanese articles about important yuri series from the past, Rose of Versailles is always there, never have I seen Dear Brother mentioned, even if it is “more yuri” than RoV. But then we have the resent discourse around Rock is a Lady’s Modesty in the west. It is a interesting topic.

This is why I personally increasingly prefer to just use GL. It doesn't stop all discourse, because people still argue about subtext, but I think it helps a lot.

I think it would be prudent to save any intense speculative discussion about authorial intent until we have a bit more material to go on.

This is always a super weird take to me, not gonna lie. Not just with this manga, but in general. The entire point of a first chapter is to get the vibe, if not the point, of a work across. The authors job in that first entry is to get people's attention, get them thinking. It's the perfect time to speculate if you ask me

I think crossdressing manga often exist in a sort of superposition where they're clearly trans but don't say so explicitly, presumably to avoid alienating a transphobic audience. That said, I can't say I recall many that are "very aggressively not [trans]"; most of the time they more sort of leave it ambiguous, like Prunus Girl, Koisuru Otome no Tsukurikata, or Misaki-kun wa Kouryaku Chara Janai. (Most of the time the crossdressing character's love interest is a cis boy too.) I don't expect the protagonist of this manga to explicitly say "I'm trans" or anything like that, but I think it's reasonable to expect her to enjoy living and being accepted as a girl, which is good enough for me. I don't think it's particularly useful to speculate about "what we're supposed to see the character as"; if the most natural interpretation of the character is that they're trans, then the character is trans as far as I'm concerned.

I'd argue all three of those are of the aggressively not trans category. Especially Koisuru Otome no Tsukurikata. But if some people enjoy reading it that way I can't stop them. But I think we should still be honest about what's being written, just so we don't get others hopes up, at the very least.

It's not what the character says about themselves but how the author portrays it what is the problem. And so far nothing the character has said screams "I'm a girl!" at all, they don't see themselves as a girl.

"If only I could abandon this body and be reborn as a beautiful girl..."

"Goddammit! I hate this! Even though I finally look like my ideal self!"

I've personally seen far too many crossdressing/gender bender manga, that seem super duper trans, then go on to be very aggressively not that for me to get my hopes up. There are many way way more trans coded ones than this that do this. Like one where the character insists they are a girl constantly, regularly wishes to be turned into a girl, and yet it still doesn't expect us to see them as trans. Forget what it's called. Anyway, this just doesn't have anything screaming that it isn't another example to me. Quite the opposite actually. Just, I hope nobody gets their hopes up too high

Doesn't really seem trans to me. Not gonna lie. Just a typical, crossdresser at a girls school setup, with extra steps. The isekai element just adds something marketable to a played out scenario.

Im honestly not sure how I feel about this plot development. Feels a bit convoluted to me. But we'll see.

It’s not a comparison, it’s a reference. The point is that it would be weird for Shou to think the other kids are wrong for not accommodating her antisocial attitude.

It wouldn't be weird at all. I'm a real person who has really gone through that and knows others who have, and I continue and will continue to think that those kids and the real people like them are wrong.

I know this might sound random and possibly out of place, but I feel that Temp simply wanted to express their thoughts openly about the whole concept of S-class yuri, along with some related topics, in their essay. They probably feel content with what they said now, especially since it seems like they've asked to have their account deleted. I noticed this when I tried to click on their username to read their essay on this forum, and I also came across a comment from them on another forum requesting to delete their account. :)

Well, they chose to do it in a weird accusatory way. I hope my comments had nothing to do with them deleting because I don't want that. But you can't just show up, start acting all superior and arrogant. Aggressively push back against anyone who dares disagree, including a ton of straw men and insults. Then get surprised when people start getting frustrated.

Clearly the solution to everything is more yuri. The more different types of stories are told, they more people can find things they prefer.

Amen to that.

Oh, My God. No one dismissed anything. No one said all these supposedly judgemental things. Y'all are arguing with ghosts. This manga was getting pretty much nothing but praise. Nothing wrong with heady discussions. But when it's drench in this many baseless accusations to nobody and dripping in self importance it quickly becomes tedious.
Edit: I totally agree with you ninryu, including about the short hair.

last edited at Aug 6, 2025 3:55AM

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Doesn't everyone?

I certainly don't. Sometimes I wish I did. But definitely not to that extent. Lol

There's a very common sentiment among the more amateurish parts of the yuri fandom that Class S is an outdated genre driven by historical compromises and editorial restrictions, rendering it unable to express a 'true' lesbianism because of its focus on symbolism and subtlety. This is a typically boorish and rather Western-centric conception of yuri that views it as a genre whose primary function ought to be the simple documentation and recording of the Japanese lesbian community and nothing else- any attempt to take the genre in more artistic directions, to engage in plays of identity, to experiment with the dynamics of girlhood, to explore dark and speculative quirks of behavior, are all viewed as being failures and distractions that do not reflect 'authentic' lesbianism, even if an avowed Japanese lesbian were to be creating the piece. Good yuri, in the eyes of many of these (usually Western) commentators, must therefore always be a publication of the LGBT movement (assumed uncritically to be both a homogeneous global phenomenon and yet also developed enough in the Western nations to let them dictate the correct line on sexuality to other countries)- anything else would simply be a distraction, a cowardly retreat into a subtext assumed inferior to the mythical 'textual' yuri (as if the avowal of lesbian identity made an artistic piece superior in and of itself), or at worst, a parody of true lesbianism written by the ever-present boogeyman of the secretly male yuri author who was simply exploiting lesbianism for profit and fetishes, obsessed with schoolgirls and either their purity or their sex lives (depending on how the work in question approaches sex), as if the exploration of adolescent sexuality was somehow not a recurring and key approach taken by art about queerness in every context. Thus, Class S becomes, within this vulgar realist critical model of yuri, the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the genre, and therefore something for the modern yuri artist to transcend and move beyond.

My God! Somebody thinks very highly of their self.

Just read it. I put it off because, well it's Naoko Kodama. Kodama has done wholesome before, but there's something about this one that is so deliberately anti her usual cynicism. This sort of meta status, almost poking fun at her own tropes. It's good stuff.

It's certainly a Yuri manga. I'm actually not sure where it's going. First you get vibes of "loser introvert learns to be more extroverted and thus gains value ", then she falls nearly instantly, then there's a cousin crush, then there's an almost Bloom Into You like dynamic. Guess I'll read a few more chapters. Just to see what kind of manga this actually is.

last edited at Aug 3, 2025 2:44AM

How is it victim blaming when it was just Shou gaining insight as to why her old classmates reacted the way they did? It shows empathy and emotional growth.

Her whole character arc is someone who lived an isolated social life who gradually opens up to Umi and gains more friends as part of her personal growth, this is just her gaining more social skills.

It would be super weird if Shou pulled a Principal Skinner and went “it's the children who are wrong”.

That comparison makes literally no sense considering Shou is also a child, and a victim of bullying. Not some stubborn middle aged man. For such a neurodivergent coded character, this manga really does often fall into a nail that sticks out kind of attitude.

It's not that getting bullied is her own fault, but they're children. They don't necessarily know the best way to respond to things that make them feel bad. Everybody has their own stuff going on. As you get older, you learn how to better interact with your peers, to understand that you might have done things that made them sad or uncomfortable. By keeping her distance and immersing herself in her own interests, she was sending signals to the other girls that she didn't like them.

The kind response to that kind of behavior (Edit: What we should teach kids, and what manga like this does teach kids by having them sympathize with Shou in the first place) is to assume that the person has their own reasons for being that way, and to give them distance while letting them know that if they ever want to approach you, they're welcome. The healthy and moral response is to just let it be and focus on your own business. But children don't always know the healthy response and aren't always kind enough for the kind response, so some respond to what they see as disdain with a like response. It doesn't make anything better, though, it just causes more strife and upset.

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, and all that.

It all just seems an awful lot lot victim blaming to me. Shou, and any more, self involved, introverted person is not at all and will never be even a little responsible for the ridiculous reactions of their peers. The whole thing is just reflective of our tendency to place extroverts feelings as more valid or important. There is no eye for an eye here, Shou did nothing to them.

I was really into this manga for a while, but I didn't really like this chapter. I don't know exactly what it is but it's like the longer this manga goes on the more it fails to pull me in. Maybe it's too much fluff now? Too slice of life? Too many characters? Or maybe it's just the tone is just different enough to be removed from what I initially liked. Though I can say I really don't like it implying Shou getting bullied is her own fault for not fitting in well enough or something.

This manga would give the "localisation is woke trash, literal translations only" group, an aneurism.

Coming back and remembering this story. I honestly have more mixed feelings than many here. Kaori was fantastically realized. The odd selfishness and forcing herself into people's lives, trying way too hard to be liked. It hit me way more than similar, but all too perfect characters. She was ultimately a kid finding ways to cope with her inevitable early death. However, the more I think about Shizuku and her arc, the less I like her. The bullying plot was a bit over done, the ending which almost shoehorned in reasons Kaori clinged to her so hard. It really tried to paint Shizuku as special to Kaori's story, when realistically, she probably just needed something to cling to to cope. The fact that this is ultimately Shizuku's story and not Kaori's really hurts it for me.