actually, you can tell it's the divorce arc by the fact that they're listening to oasis

I think this is the direction Igarashi always intended to take it. While this scene was definitely a dramatic escalation, it's not entirely out of nowhere. The art's always had this slightly unsettling atmosphere to it, and looking back this chapter is making a lot of callbacks Kasumi and Haruyo interactions. Kasumi exploding with rage when Haruyo ghosts her parallels Mizuki's reaction to Sayori telling her she's not moving in; and Kasumi telling Haruyo she wanted to punch her afterwards and says that she wanted her verbal abuse to hurt is sort of analogous to the cutting; the panel where Mizuki says she'll call the police and won't see Sayori anymore is 1:1 with the panel of Haruyo saying she won't touch Kasumi anymore; Sayori and Mizuki's expressions when Sayori says "then I can forgive you" is the exact same pair of expressions Haruyo and Kasumi have when Haruyo touches Kasumi's lips.

Not to mention there seems to be a recurring motif with Kasumi and hanging. (Bottom panel of ch3p21 where the window framing evokes Kasumi hanging; the light fixture shape and placement at top center panel of ch7p13, which are absent in the reverse shot; bottom panel of ch8p22 where she looks like she's hanging from the light fixture).

There's been some pretty ample foreshadowing that this story was going to go some pretty dark places from the start. This chapter doesn't feel so much like a tonal change as much as it does shifting gears.

So I know noighd had a note at the end of the last chapter about the flower on the title page being a chrysanthemum, but we have more of the plant from the flowers spilling out of the cut on Sayori's back on page 11. That's definitely clover. Some of the hanakotoba meanings are "Think of me", "good fortune", "promises", and "revenge"

Hey all, sorry this took forever, the redraws were a tall mountain to climb with not as much free time to climb them... Chapter 17 released on Thursday and it looks comparatively benign, so hopefully we'll have that up soon.

Just for the record, the narration on page 10/11 appears to be from Io's POV, so I'm pretty sure the choking is just another one of those "no contextually means yes" scenes. Do be dearies and actually have boundaries, safewords, and the like negotiated and understood before trying out CNCplay like this IRL tho!

Well, that marks the end of Koi Fishing! I thought we were making pretty good progress, but girlswhokiss has informed me that we're only about halfway through the novel.

The good news is that Terra and Diode's long separation is over, and there's lots to look forward to as they discover the joys of American beer on the flight over to Table of Johor.

last edited at Sep 18, 2025 8:17AM

Hats off to girlswhokiss for translating intro to planetary plasma physics 101. Not often you get a lesbian story that has that and traditional work chanting in the span of a chapter...

Why? Meika is a fun villain.

I really can't wait to learn what angle Pri is working in all this. She's out there doing masterful work in collecting info while giving away nothing about herself.

Looks like Kaori's parents are yuri shippers...

I'm so glad Sappho picked this up! I've been looking forward to reading it since I saw a JP bsky yuri account mention it when the first volume dropped. It looks super cozy, can't wait to see where it goes!

I'm here because of an english bsky yuri account. Its good there's people out there spreading the good word!

I'm curious what accounts these are, for both EN and JP

I learned about this manga through this account, which I found back before the yuri feed got overrun with tagspam.
https://bsky.app/profile/oyunomi-hom-mad.bsky.social

Yuri Bungeibu also does a lot of reviews of new JP releases, I occasionally spot something interesting through them.
https://bsky.app/profile/yuri-bungeibu.bsky.social

even the introverted gals wanna get out of there!

From an art/horror perspective this was great, though the bantering fell a little flat this time around. Fun chapter overall!

I'm so glad Sappho picked this up! I've been looking forward to reading it since I saw a JP bsky yuri account mention it when the first volume dropped. It looks super cozy, can't wait to see where it goes!

The story is sort of exploring the theme of how hierarchies reproduce themselves through abuse, coercion, and violence. Tsukasa isn't out killing monsters as part of some master plan—he's doing it in spite of one, because his grandfather threatened to kill Aju if he didn't. She's likely aware of that, and I don't think she's so altruistic as to submit to a death that is almost certainly guaranteed to traumatize Tsukasa into compliance. They accept this is how things just are, and hope to change it in the future.

However, Tsukasa being the designated monster slayer is essentially a hazing ritual to make him complicit in upholding the existing power structure. A person who commits atrocities will almost certainly never be able to regain the trust needed to negotiate a lasting peace, and so the family's position at the top of the hierarchy, not to mention their extremist position towards monsters, will be maintained for another generation.

You also catch bits and pieces of how those dynamics perpetuate the power structure, whether it's Urabe losing a loved one to violence (presumably by an ogre's hands) and the Watanabe group playing on her insecurities as a woman in a leadership position, to Hinata being coerced into her role as the next Shuten-doji despite her desire to escape that role.

That's what Naori and Hinata have to wrestle with if they want to be together. They are a same-sex, interracial couple in a violently conservative society, and their relationship carries a freightload of historical baggage that they have to deal with in some way or another. They can either confront the system or run away from it, but either choice carries its own set of problems.

Isanuma and Mine seem to be the real toxic yuri here. I'm sure Kudou banking on them as part of her plan to isolate Naoi will go exactly as planned :)

Ironic that despite the fact Sakurako is not the one wearing the collar, she's the one most acting like the dog that caught the car

It's the kind of story where the spooks are more often than not a load-bearing structure for the yuri. The hot springs scene with Kozakura is even a note to the reader that the Otherside entities are hinting at something Sorawo's unconsciously looking away from. More often than not it's family trauma that scares her away from a conventional relationship with Toriko or some aspect of her relationship with Toriko that she's stressing over.

I think Misa might have accidentally unlocked something for Io with the humiliation/imagined exhibitionist play here. Io's thinking about all the disappointment in those online comments when she cums. I'd guess there's some connection between that and her fear of losing herself from the day-to-day of being a starlet, and well, it's a way out. No more expectations if she does exhibitionism For Real, and with her lack of boundaries I wouldn't be surprised if she starts taking risks like going commando in a skirt.

Okay, we're caught up again until the next issue of Yuri Hime!

I can't wait to see how Io's mom handles all of this...

To put it bluntly, that's a political cartoons peddling soft genocide denial and slavery apologia dressed up as cutesy yuri. There is an extensive and ongoing history of Indigenous women being forced into slavery, raped, and/or murdered by colonizers and their descendents while their cultures were/are actively suppressed. It's not any different from drawing comfort women fawning over a woman in IAJF uniform or Jewish women fawning over a woman in a Nazi uniform and calling it a "joke". Centurii can draw whatever, but the only reason to advocate sharing it here is to see if hate speech can be smuggled in if it's cutesy/jokey/yuri enough.

Sorawo hitting them with that "come with me if you want to live" rizz

I'm a little curious about Eda, she seems skeptical of Diode, to say the least. She kinda second-guesses Diode when they're inside of FBB ("is this girl giving you trouble?"), and hints that she's only doing this wife heist with Terra because Terra will blow up the warp drive ship on her if she doesn't. Pointing out the age gap and the fact that Terra's facing down 20,000 people to get Diode back almost seems like her impish way of asking "you sure you wanna do this?"

Also I love how oblivious but earnest Terra is when describing Diode's piloting style. Somehow even made her experienced lesbian copilot blush.

Io has a fever and the only cure is more milkies...

I was so excited to be able to use the "nipples on page 16" tag for this chapter and it turns out that's the one page in the boob sucking scene that doesn't actually show them. The rare tags remain ever elusive.

Just Diode perfectly predicting how this kidnapping was gonna shake out. "Well you see my wife's got that dog in her so she'll be back to rescue me shortly."

Meika just completely missed the scene where those two proved they were 100% ride-or-die for one another.

i thought, until i found the fanlation, which at least helped me get started quickly and get hooked. and i'm really impressed with yall's work!

Thank you for the kind words, as well as the typo reports and second pair of eyes on the translation. Those have all been fixed on the website and in the Dynasty versions.

even so early in the story i feel like this is shaping up to be a pretty singular work of yuri. i've never seen such explicit discussions of comphet or trauma-informed consent negotiations in japanese fiction before. and what kinsei-san posted earlier about meika being a class S subversion, i thought was really insightful. it made me think perhaps ogawa-sensei built the setting with population concerns and comphet on purpose as commentary on the way japan's birthrate situation influences its family-centric social dynamics.

There's definitely an aspect of Japan's social dynamics woven into the book, since I do remember Ogawa-sensei tweeting about some of the feminist perspectives he had been reading for background. One of these specifically concerned the psychological effects of train groping, and I would not be surprised if the trauma-informed consent negotiation was heavily informed by that reading.

But taking a wider perspective, it also seems like a comparison of the way different social systems work. Chapter 1.3 sort of starts extending the Endeavours as a metaphor for Space America with the surveillance, and Pohi's perspective on the QOT also suggests that contrary to the Endeavours' assertions, perhaps they're not the most egalitarian clan around.

also, just, the way book 2 picks up right after book 1 ends, showing us that yeah, terra and diode do need to talk stuff out, both for their relationship and for planning their escape, was really realistic (sadly so, in the case of escaping, especially living in the US today...). i had been expecting a timeskip and while a lesser author might have glazed over that stuff i'm really glad ogawa-sensei took the time for it. i'm excited for this ride.

I think the character dynamics are the real joy of this series. It's definitely here for the worldbuilding and adventure, but at the end of the day, they take a back seat to these two doing the hard work of figuring out how to make their relationship work. Doesn't pull any punches.

so what's going on with this manga? is it dropped? axed?

Sorry, I've been dealing with some chronic health issues for a while which have made it really hard to work on this recently. Hoping to have something for you all soon.

Typo/error report

Thank you for the continued typo reports, these should be corrected on the Dynasty and website versions.

Is there a good way to donate to or otherwise support the translation effort?

I think the best support is just building buzz for the series in the West. Both of us really just want to have more people we can talk about this series with.

Meika is a really interesting character to me. Her dynamic with Diode and the contrast in how they deal with comphet reads a bit like a modern twist on a Class S story. She's compelling because you can kind of see the tragedy to her character, since this chapter does a really nice job of illustrating how her acceptance of the inevitability of marriage is destroying her and her relationships. On the flip side, this chapter does a nice job of establishing how her acceptance is bending around to reinforce patriarchal structures, given her expectation of Diode to support her through it and the lengths she'll go to make sure that expectation is met. The paragraph showing how Diode is just totally worn out from dealing with her relationship with Meika was heartbreaking, it's really effective at illustrating how toxic and abusive that relationship must have been beyond the glimpse of the dynamic we got here. Fascinated to see where this goes.

last edited at May 14, 2025 2:19PM

I think there's a big difference between someone speculating/analysing how a series handles gender identity via their own personal interpretation of a character's identity and someone nagging a real person about the same topic.

100% this. These pages are in the story because the artist wanted to make it clear that Ren has a difficult relationship with her own gender, either personally or socially. Reader speculation about that, especially trans posters highlighting Ren as going through an experience they recognize, is not causing anyone harm.

I would also argue that the harm being done in story isn't that Ren's gender is being questioned. We don't live in a world where the vast majority of reactions to expressing discomfort with gender is the entire weight of culture saying "holy shit go get HRT and SRS immediately." The actual harm from questioning someone's gender is when it's framed in a way that makes it clear to that person they don't fit in and never will. Ren is suicidal specifically because she "doesn't fit in", and these pages make it clear a lot of that feeling is based in her relationship to her body and how people talk about not meeting whatever gendered standard they expect of her. She's not suicidal because someone suggested she's trans a little too insistently, she's suicidal from an adulthood being treated like an outsider.

This whole line of discussion is functionally the "polite" way of erasing trans experiences from the conversation. Violent cisheteronormative enforcement of gender standards, good-faith questions to someone who might be struggling with gender identity, and reader speculation about a character's gender identity in a story with gender themes are not equally harmful. Treating them like they are creates the perception that pointing out a trans or trans-adjacent experience is rude and potentially damaging to a person. Isolating those experiences from transness and then reframing them as something else entirely is how cisheteronormativity operates.

Yeah, sorry, that's as far as the manga goes. I hope you all have enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed working on it. It's made me happy to see it find a small cult following over the last couple of years.

I think this series probably got word of the axe around ch12/13, since it really starts cutting large chunks of material to make a mad dash to the finish starting there. If any of the worldbuilding choices seem like leaps, or Terra and Diode's relationship development feels rushed, definitely go check out the novel. It's really good.