Neat to finally see something from CAUSTICSODA here. They / she (?) have a story in serialization in Japan that has really great art and has a pretty different vibe from other manga / manhwa I read. Most of it is not as heavy a bummer as this.

Battan has had a couple volumes of (quite varied) one-shots along with the two other series she's had since Kakeochi Girl came out. She's also been steadily working as an illustrator and has had at least one gallery show in Tokyo that I know about. Also, she's never claimed to be a yuri mangaka. It's a little weird to see people extrapolating things about male characters and whatnot based on her other stories, especially given how those stories have ended.

As for this one, I am locked all the way in. A pushy, manipulative editor who uses her wiles on her stable? With black, unknowable eyes? I am enchanted.

It's really hard to read manga from between the fingers over my face.

This story is serialized both on the web and in Comics EXE, an eromanga magazine, and all I can figure is that an editor saw a preserialization of it and couldn't understand why nobody had picked it up. I bought the first volume of this immediately when it was published, and it's one of my favorite manga of recent years. College art students, immaculate vibes, and that tattoo! Also I really like the art style.

Anyone confused about what makes this yuri, or indeed what the difference is between BL / yaoi and yuri, should (re)read this one-shot: https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/this_is_bl_not_yuri

That's a Tanjiu-level gag.

Pandacorya manages to make her stories completely predictable (at least for her) without them ever getting stale. This was fun.

Whoah, Arai mentions Clueless!

So, is there an actual CD with licensed music? Or just a liner of song titles for you to seek out on your own?

It's an official soundtrack for the manga you can get on vinyl or cd. Released in Japan, but also found imported in the US at Kinokuniya bookstores. Both versions come with the same booklet content. Considering they had to get license for each of them not a bad selection.

There is also an official streaming playlist that has more songs. https://umj.lnk.to/TheGuySheWasMP

There is also a vinyl LP that I think is only available in Japan, which I have a copy of. Because I used to be a (techno / drum'n'bass) DJ, I have a fair amount of vinyl, including some pretty exotic things, and this is still easily the goofiest record I own.

It is kind of funny that this is the first time that "Heart-Shaped Box" has been included on a compilation.

Did the scanslating team drop this?

Dunno, but there's a physical volume now, and it's marked 上, which implies that it's intended for either a 2- or 3-volume release when it's finished.

For those who aren't aware, Yuri Hime and Kashikaze put out a whole-ass volume of one-shots and bonus material for the series called "Flowers for Lonely Girl" / ロンリーガールに花束を on December 17th. Some of it's stuff we've already seen, like "marking", but some of it, like these two chapters is new. It's a pretty thick volume and I just got home from Japan with my copy, but I'm interested to see if there's anything else in there I haven't read already.

I'd almost managed to forget about these cursed things, which are apparently a Costco Japan exclusive. I have read several posts and even seen a couple videos about them, and nobody seems to know why they exist. I wonder if Costco in Japan got started after Japanese people got experience with it in Hawaii…

Also someone should get Kuran a FACELESS TECHNO BOLLOCKS T-shirt. As a DJ and producer, I feel both seen and attacked by her takedown of DJ culture.

Seriously – seriously – what is it about the Japanese and the Red Hot Chili Peppers??

A sequel to my favorite yatosaking one-shot? Straight (um, you know what I mean) into the favorites with you!

I am 95% sure I've seen this artist's H account because their art style is immediately recognizable, and given their interests there (largely various Magia Record ships) this is not what I would have figured their non-lewd account would be like.

There actually have been two more doujinshi published that continue this story. They are extremely horny and also pretty cute.

I am fully recharged now, thank you little lesbians in my phone.

This, only for the latest chapter. Seeing Eiko so flustered by Enami-sensei is healing for my soul.

This really is a palette swap for Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games, only in that the competitive tension between the leads emerges naturally from the text of the story, and here it feels incredibly forced. There is absolutely no way for a guitarist in a duo or trio to wrest control of the flow of a song away from the drummer, who is there to act as the timekeeper and tempo regulator for the music. It kind of blows my mind that 15 years on K-ON is still somehow the manga / anime gold standard for more or less accurately depicting the intraband dynamics of a high school band, especially given how much time HTT spends doing anything but working on music.

Those screwtails are ridiculous and remind me more of Souryu's Machimaho (the magical girl parody where the a yankee is made a magical girl) than I Favor the Villainess or Marimite.

What is it with Japanese rockers and the Red Hot Chili Peppers? If these girls are math rockers they should be listening to Polvo or Slint or something.

Sorairo Melancholic isn't canceled, it's on hiatus. And only the first chapter of two full volumes has been scanlated, so it's not like there's not plenty there if people want to find it / help Yuri Project get it scanlated.

I really liked the paneling and how faces were framed / cut off in this one.

Yukiko's style is a good match for these girls. This was cute! Thanks for the translation!

The true yuri is hallucinating an entire dramatic love story after spotting two women giggling together on the bus.

Yuri Espoir has entered the chat.

(I thought that series was too fluffy to deal with at first and it has its silly aspects (like the forced marriage framing story), but it's been getting steadily deeper as it goes along and now it's one of my favorites. The quoted text is pretty much the entire premise of the manga, where the main character imagines yuri lives for pairs of women she sees out in the world and then later we see the reality of those two, which is frequently different from her delusions in surprising ways.)

I want this all to be a long con on the part of class rep to get closer to the prince.

Given that this story is set in the gayest school in the history of Japan / the story's insistence in pairing off every character who shows up in more than one panel, I think you're probably right that it's going to be the Yuri Hime version of My Sister's Best Friend, My Lover. I mean, Miki seems pretty aware already that remaining hung up on her sister is not doing her any good, and also that Swimming-senpai is a nice girl (and also that Himari's situation at the beginning and hers are very much in parallel). This story seems only moderately more committed to its melodrama than Anemone Is In Heat. It seems like Miki + Girl Who Is Also In This Story are going to be a thing before too long.

It was just recently that shoujo decided to take a more wholesome approach to romance ie sonó bisque doll, shikimori is not just cute, tonikaku kawaii, the dangers in my heart etc

I know that the above quote was posted literally a year ago, but I just saw it, and it cracked me up that every example listed here of a "more wholesome" shoujo romance is in fact a shounen romcom / romance.

A big part of the split I see in responses to this story come down to how tolerant people are of melodrama and shoujo tropes. Messy feelings, acting out, wanting things that are bad for us, refusing to let go of doomed feelings – these are all shoujo tendencies, especially when deployed in a melodrama. I'm not going to say that shoujo is all vibes and feeling and shounen is about realism, because it's not true and leads to fruitless argument. One thing I do think is true is that shoujo fans enjoy mess / interpersonal melodrama / toxicity more than shounen fans, and it's interesting to see that play out in this comment section.

I'll lay down my marker here and say that while I think that Takeshima Eku is a ferociously talented artist, I have yet to see a story or character drama from her that I find compelling. That said, when I look at her paneling, her character designs, the flow of interactions between characters, and the tropes she deploys in the interest of writing drama, she neatly splits the difference between shounen and shoujo. It's pretty striking, and the only other mangakas I can think of that follow that pattern even a little are other women primarily publishing in shounen manga, like Shinichi Fukuda with My Dress-Up Darling. It's interesting to see the ways in which putting your story in a yuri magazine frees you up to tell it in an unconventional way (even when the story itself is deeply, deeply conventional).

Also, whether she planned to or not, she did manage to innovate a bit by stealthing some toxic yuri into what started as a super fluffy coming of age story / yuri romance. At the very least, it was good at starting fights!

(I'm not gonna comment on the recent developments with the anime because I predicted it was gonna be a trainwreck and I take no pleasure from being right.)