This story is so sweet it gives me canaries more please

A romance so sweet the queen of the elves declares it ancient forbidden knowledge and sends her enforcers to arrest you for reading it

No new chapter this week, but we're blessed with this hilarious "introduction" instead:
https://twitter.com/agu_knzm/status/1784438628183404822

I'm not super surprised (the combo of a soft fantasy style and then a princess eating cookies covered with ants off the ground probably served as a wall for a lot of casuals) but it's still sad news. Hope the author's self publishing goes well for her.

Kaguhara was already a funny character but getting outside her head and only seeing her externally has made her so much funnier somehow.

I think it makes perfect sense that high school yuri especially doesn't ever really fit my experience actually being a teenage sapphic. Especially since I didn't go to a private super high class all girls Catholic school like apparently 90% of kids in Japan go to, if yuri manga is telling me the truth :P

There's a few different adult "yuri" manga that has this feel like "This is not inspired by other yuri manga it's inspired by real life". Stuff like how Run Away With Me Girl spends a lot of time on the emotional battle of the pull of personal gay desires and the pull of your whole entire world telling you to be straight instead (much to the consternation of the comment section lol), or Ohana Holoholo's portrayal of bisexuality (much to the consternation of the comment section lol).

The Guy I Liked is the first time I've seen this kind of approach used for a teenage story. I honestly think the biggest obstacle a lot of angry posters have is that this isn't a story about a gay romance. It's a story about being gay. And a whole lot of gays spend their whole teenage years without any romance because we're all so anxious and isolated and frequently soaking in the self-denial society demands from all queers of all stripes. The fact that these girls have gotten as far as they have in how long they've known each other? Well above the curve when we compare them to real gay kids instead of yuri manga.

This is precisely it. I think a lot of people, subconsciously, want the proverbial U-haul romance where two people throw themselves at each other in a heat of passion and desire. In many cases though, things take time? Slow burn romances are real? Being a teen with a billion feelings to manage and also trying to figure out dating, let alone dating in a non-cis-het frame takes time and energy and isn't always front of mind. Also, queer relationships often exist in messy gray spaces for significant periods of time, as do really many relationships. Hell, we invented the word 'situationship' in the 00s for this sort of kind-of-but-not-quite-a-thing-but-maybe-getting-there. It's fascinating because in this case, Joe and Kanna are an obvious parallel/secondary couple who are also dealing with a lot of complicated emotions and a lot is going unsaid though there's obviously a lot of affection between them.

Idk, it's nice to see romances that are situated in stories about life generally vs. being wholly about falling in love hard and fast. Everyone here has stuff they're working through - their relationship to music, what they want in life, past choices, making friends and being open about themselves even just on the level of interests. And they've all made so much progress. Aya actually has music community and a pseudo-second family with Joe, Kanna, and Mitsuki. Mitsuki is slowly realizing that she doesn't have to live like she's some forever outsider who has to hide her true self from the world. Joe and Kanna are doing the messy business of patching up an old relationship (maybe?) that ended not because of incompatible personalities or a lack of desire, but life calling them in different directions which is the hardest sort of break-up because its not really anyone's 'fault'.

That's such a rich portrait of life, esp. in this punk slice of the world that exists on the social fringes, that you almost never get to see in media.

This is such a good post and the fact that it's starting with adding onto mine makes me feel all warm and fuzzy ^_^

I can't agree with you more.
That's why while l can (kind of) sympathize with Koto, Erika is totally another story.

I even laughed out loud when someone claimed Erika is the most mature out of the three.
Then how can she not be able to let go the girl who never likes her and even tried to use her as a rebound？？？

At least Koto did try to move on but sadly found herself couldn't.

The one who really needs to grow up here is Erika.

Maybe I'm misremembering but didn't Koto go through a long series of rebounds, and when she finally turned to Erika for one Erika turned her down bc she knew it wasn't real/earnest?

Also in general I don't find it hard at all to sympathize with someone "not moving on" when the person they love is hurting right by their side every day. She continued taking care of her personal life just fine at least.

last edited at Apr 25, 2024 6:13PM

I think it makes perfect sense that high school yuri especially doesn't ever really fit my experience actually being a teenage sapphic. Especially since I didn't go to a private super high class all girls Catholic school like apparently 90% of kids in Japan go to, if yuri manga is telling me the truth :P

There's a few different adult "yuri" manga that has this feel like "This is not inspired by other yuri manga it's inspired by real life". Stuff like how Run Away With Me Girl spends a lot of time on the emotional battle of the pull of personal gay desires and the pull of your whole entire world telling you to be straight instead (much to the consternation of the comment section lol), or Ohana Holoholo's portrayal of bisexuality (much to the consternation of the comment section lol).

The Guy I Liked is the first time I've seen this kind of approach used for a teenage story. I honestly think the biggest obstacle a lot of angry posters have is that this isn't a story about a gay romance. It's a story about being gay. And a whole lot of gays spend their whole teenage years without any romance because we're all so anxious and isolated and frequently soaking in the self-denial society demands from all queers of all stripes. The fact that these girls have gotten as far as they have in how long they've known each other? Well above the curve when we compare them to real gay kids instead of yuri manga.

last edited at Apr 22, 2024 9:06PM

I am very unnerved by how their big dangly earrings stayed on during sex. That's just asking for trouble, the kind that hurts enough to be a mood killer.

Well now that that's over, we can get back to talking about this gay comic full of gays. Hey y'all remember just like a month ago there was a chapter where Aya said to Mitsuki directly "you are the same person as 'onii-san'", thus telling her to her face that all those feelings of love apply to her? God this comic is good.

The term being corrupted by westerners does not destroy the original intent of shoujo ai . It’s basic research, you can just look at references, read actual articles, consume the manga and content tagged it, etc l. Idk why you guys are over complicating it and trying to tie loli in, it’s pretty dishonest and bad faith

You can go read Wikipedia and they'll literally tell you the exact same stuff lol. They've even got a bunch of citations and junk, but I'll let our resident brain genius look them up if you don't believe it lol
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoujo_ai

I may not have intelligence or mental faculties but at least I can actually enjoy this comic about gay alt rock girls. If mental faculties means you can't enjoy good art then forget em, I say.

Who said anything about sex? Strawman city

It’s about wanting romance/lesbian content as a lesbian, and not dragging fans along through volumes of no relationship progress so they can plug uninteresting dude chars and make money off cds. At the end of the day consume what you desire but I will always criticize crooked stuff. I don’t care if it’s nsfw, could give less shits

I just don’t enjoy the bait and switch from an interesting romancing to a slow burn with all these chars idgaf about that are trope after trope copy and pasted from other mangas. Maybe I’m just expecting too much

Great convo tho salute

We weren't strawmanning you, we were ignoring you and talking about something someone else said. The stuff you're saying isn't really worth responding to. Sorry for the confusion :)

The idea that yuri is inherently sexual or erotic is a thing Western comics fans made up like 15 years ago, it's not a thing in Japanese. There's been a handful of different authors who say they dislike the label but not because it's sexual but because it's a specific genre with conventions and fans with annoying expectations, as we're seeing live in this very thread.

Yeah, that is more in line with what she actually said during that older interview. I don't know where this idea that "yuri" implies sexual content comes from. Ironically, "Shoujo Ai" is a unique tag that I don't think is interchangeable and if I understand its usage correctly, is the more sexually charged term in Japan. Someone can correct me.

Don't know if it's true but I've heard multiple people say the phrase "shoujo ai" in Japanese has lolicon vibes to it. What I am confident in is that it's not an actual genre name or commonly used tag.

I have no idea why those older fans coined "shoujo ai," it's a completely fake term. They took the words for girl and love and mashed them together, meanwhile in Japanese they actually use the borrowed English "Girls Love" lmao. Those weebs were trying to be more Japanese than the Japanese I guess. No idea why they wanted to divide yuri up on those arbitrary lines instead of just using a second goddamn tag to indicate content. Best thing about Dynasty by far is the complex tag system.

The idea that yuri is inherently sexual or erotic is a thing Western comics fans made up like 15 years ago, it's not a thing in Japanese. There's been a handful of different authors who say they dislike the label but not because it's sexual but because it's a specific genre with conventions and fans with annoying expectations, as we're seeing live in this very thread.
Also the idea that Arai would dump her intentions and interests for a paycheck with this series that's been an act of love and passion for most of its run is just cynical and kinda insulting. What reason has she given you to directly attack her character like this? And it doesn't even make sense for the corporations to ask her to make it not gay, because they have enough sense to realize that if their attachment to a piece of media ruins it people will hate them instead of like them. Nobody likes it when you kill the golden goose.

That was just to set up the twist of Sayaka and Kasumi being in a relationship, nothing is implying either of them would be fine with multiple partners.

Oh I don't think Kasumi "would be fine with multiple partners," I think she specifically wants that for herself lol. That girl's secretly way more bold than anyone realizes, and that's been the theme of multiple reveals about her, right from her introduction where Michi thinks she's friendless only for Kasumi to reveal she's got a senpai bff with matching hair styles. Bet she ain't vanilla either lol.

Like yeah, sure, it's a crack theory basically. But for all the things I can explain away, there's one I can't: why did Kasumi come out to Michi because " I want you to be friends with Sayaka-senpai". She just watched a whole chapter of them getting along for her sake, so what role does she imagine being openly gay will play in that friendship?
It's fun to think about, if nothing else. :P

Yeah I'm not gonna expect the book until new years at least probably, but I'm glad they take their time with it because so far all the official translations have been excellent and I don't want to see that quality drop.

Lapis is super savvy about manipulating people. It would be kind of bad writing for her not to see through Rubeus pretty much immediately. I get that jealousy is a powerful force but it feels like she is smart enough not to get dragged down by it. Then again, her whole plan is basically a pointless self sacrifice so maybe I am giving her too much credit.

I agree, especially since he directly insulted not just Diana but also Natalie. She might be possessive/competitive with Diana but she's absolutely not gonna act based on that goober's influence lol. I think that scene was mostly to show us Rubeus is still acting against the two of them and will have future backhanded schemes in store.

Go back and look at her scenes with that lens and maybe you'll see what I mean. I'm not predicting any sort of ending based on it, just a character detail of Kasumi, that she's open to having multiple girlfriends.

Lol what an age gap. People sure were immoral back in ye olden times, huh :P

Every time a new chapter comes out I feel compelled to reread the series, I like it so much. Findings this time:
1) Wrt who Reona was supposed to meet, I think it's very likely to be Non: look at her profile in volume 2. The attached picture is a duet with somebody she's hidden with a sticker, but the hair style exactly matches Non's hair.
2) Anyone else get major poly vibes from Kasumi specifically? Besides her obviously blushing and looking enamored around Michi she also repeatedly compares Michi to her gf, talks about Michi constantly to her gf, in her flashback to how she met her gf says "there's something about off-beat girls, I always end up..." while comparing them again and showing a love at first sight moment with senpai, and specifically mentions when she comes out to Michi she's doing it "in part because I want you to be friends with Sayaka-senpai". So it really feels like she's dreaming of a weirdo girl harem lol

I'm expecting possession to be the loophole they need to directly communicate. Even if Honami still can't talk, I'd bet Michi can address her directly in that state. She should probably come out to Kasumi sooner rather than later considering she got hurt this time, and maybe then Kasumi could even consent to lending out her body for a moment. Or Reona lmao you tell her she can get possessed by Honami's ghost and she'd sign up in a heartbeat

The thing about Sorawo being collected is that she's not lol. She's just super not aware of herself. Since we're locked to her perspective most of the time, we don't get a description of her reactions to things because she doesn't notice herself reacting: what we get far more often is seeing Toriko reacting to Sorawo making a face or saying something odd, and Sorawo thinking "huh, was I making a face? Did I say something weird?"
Sometimes though something hits her in a way that she can't not notice, can't not viscerally feel in a way that directly bleeds into our perspective through her.

I'm so confused by Yoru's shirt that looks like a dress shirt but has large printing on the sleeves and back.

We've come so far from people doubting whether this manga was even yuri, lol.

I dunno if you're reading the same comment section as me, but people were arguing about it not long ago saying it was yuribait. I'm sure it'll come up again.

To be fair, there's still a pretty good chance that we won't see anything definitive as far as confirmed romance goes. It all depends on how you define ''bait'' in the end.

None of the author's other works have stopped at subtextual gayness. They got a ton of subtext but the characters being wlw is never on that low level.

If anyone here hasn't read it yet I super recommend Arai-sensei's one shot "The Real Momoka," it's an easy 10/10 for me.
https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/the_real_momoka

last edited at Apr 14, 2024 5:35PM