Blood types are to the Japanese what horoscopes are to Westerners, in that it's supposed to predict a person's personality. That's why a lot of character sheets will list blood type.

It's also why in lots of media (manga, anime, but others too), if there are four characters, you can be kinda sure that they will have all the blood types and they will roughly correlate with the abovementioned predicted personality. Notable example is Wotakoi. Very notable counter-example is Lucky Star, where they even point out that Kagami and Tsukasa have the same blood type (of course, they are twins), and their personality differs quite a lot.

I just had a horribly sad thought. Sakura was apparently in some kind of program, that was training orphans to be assassins, or something, I guess? She was obviously hopelessly alone. What if Chiharu, Saaya, and Ruka are all just figments of Sakura's imagination, she created to help her cope with the horrible pain of loneliness.

I really don't think that's true but now that I've had the thought I can't shake it. Honestly the whole series gives sad wistful vibes that makes feel like someone is dealing with something very painful in their life, and is looking back remembering all the the good times they had.

I really don’t think the whole series is in her head. Seems more to me that she got adopted and is working out the numerous problems she has from her upbringing with people that love her.

Yeah, also the whole "It never happened" or "It was a dream all along" trope is really too overused to give sad endings

It's definitely one of my least favorites, another one is they're in a coma, or this whole thing happened in their head after they were shot while they were dying, and so on. It pisses me off in all honestly and it usually feels like a cheap way to do a dramatic twist, especially as it usually undermines everything at the last minute.

It can be good, especially if hinted at in the work, kinda like The Truman Show. But usually it's just cheap, yeah.

(Also I don't believe that's what this manga is going for, but that's another discussion ww)

YESSSSSSSS

This was so fucking cute I can't even.

Also, are they using "koi" in the chapter?
(I understand the translation wouldn't change if they were using "suki", but "koi" feels more appropriate here since it's from a booklet from the literature club, right?)

Checked it out and in fact they aren't beating around the bush and just use "ai" straight away www

Tsukushi: "So, well, here's the plan..."
Hinoka: "Plan? Where we're going we don't need plans~"

Surely there will be Olympics in UK, hm hmmmm~

There's so much spaghetti being spilled this chapter. We know about Asumi-chan's, but you can tell those Mai-chan's as well, right from the get-go and it only gets more and more spaghettified (unless you're nervous Asumi-chan and you won't notice even if Mai-chan hit you in the head with a brick).

Loved this chapter.

No fair! I wanna play with those dangos too!

i feel like we're being trolled at this point

Always have been

Now I crave something sweet but only have a shitty chocolate with palm oil here, noooooooo...

True, though using a whole name seems unusual itself.

"TOSHINO KYOUKOOOOOO" vibes?

That cover sankoma, though, hhhhnnnngggggg

Why is it a big deal that Asuka used Ayumu's name?

In Japanese using one's name (without formal suffix) is considered more intimate - reserved for good friends and such, you wouldn't use it with classmates you don't know well, or colleagues at work.

Saaya is so insecure it's not even funny, to be honest, it's kinda scary ^^;;

Just get married already!

Ka-ki-ku-ke-ko-sa-shi-su-...
Ka => Ki
ko => sa

That's a very simple shifting cipher you have there, miss future Kako! Would be a shame if someone fou... oh, nevermind~

Oh nyo, otaku Airi-chan is showing!

YOU

ARE NOT

ARIMOTO

AIRI

B-but what happened to Niji?

Wooooooo, it's back. So glad the hiatus is over.

Also, I just realized ... "Mirai" can mean future. Is there any deeper sort of kanji-based pun, or is the girl from the future literally just called "future"?

Mirai means future
Kako means past
Nozomi means hope

(Author is pretty obvious with these ww)

I am super confused about their dynamic (unlike, say, AdaShima, where I can grasp it somewhat easily). It seems so fragile, hanging by a thread and like it could break at any moment. I think I need to read more (way more) of this to understand it properly...

The last few pages weren't rushed, they were a goddamn speedrun.

Page 121 has a bubble duplicated? Or is she saying it twice without being called out?

Please, Yukiko, keep drawing about the girls, until they (and we) are all old and wrinkly~ =w=

Fun fact, Mt. Takao (which is the thinly veiled image for Mt. Takami in this chapter, some spots are drawn 1-to-1; you can see quite more of the site in some other manga and anime, like HibiMeshi episode 3) is pretty much nothing in terms of elevation change when you take the chairlift. Yamada's stamina must be really bad~ =w=

And why is the English title of this series "The summer you were there", while the Japanese title "君と綴るうたかた"

Both titles are Japanese (you can see the former on the covers and next to chapter titles). It's trendy to have a secondary or tertiary Latin alphabet title on the cover, be it a mere romanization, a clumsy literal translation, or a wholly unique subtitle, with a chance of it sounding natural.
The English publisher probably just chose one over the other, with a small chance of the licensor pushing for it..

That said, it's a standard practice to localize titles to fit the target language, culture or publisher's market research better, with no requirement to preserve anything from the original title.

Thank you for your explanation, I keep wondering if the Japanese title has "Utakata", but the English version doesn't have the word "Singing", or the English word "Summer" but the Japanese version doesn't have "Natsu", so are two titles with different meanings

I haven't seen anyone reply to you, so just a heads up that the title says nothing about singing; the word is うたかた, not うたった (or better yet, 歌った). うたかた is "fleeting, ephemeral" and 綴る is in this context composing/writing (as in writing a book), so the translation would be something akin to "Briefly / fleetingly writing with you", which is very tough - in my opinion - to translate into good sounding title in English.