Barddoniaeth posted:

Well yes, Hanigare was used to promote Nagahama tourism, high school's campaign (this won an award), and mentioned in local NHK twice or thrice. The town is literally nowhere in Japan, so the people might be not as open minded about homosexual relationship as people that comes from, let's say, Tokyo. Imagine if you find out that someone used your town as a setting of a story that might upset you...

Also, Hanigare always put Nagahama High School Aquarium Club in every chapter as Information Aid, and I don't think they'd be happy if they're helping a blatant gay manga.

Hagino-sensei only wrote the gayest thing possible without upsetting those people.

This was a super interesting comment, thank you for making it.

BeanBeanKingdom posted:

I wish I had the energy to rebuke some of these silly if not malicious assumptions, but it's been like talking to a wall the last few times so I'll just leave people to their own devices, unfortunate as they might be.

Thanks. That said, I do have something to say.

There's some stuff in this comment section that rings rather false to me, so I'd like to share a bit about Makoto Hagino that others here may not know. Hagino made her way drawing explicitly homosexual doujinshi for years prior to this being published. She has in the past repeatedly expressed joy and feelings of fulfillment at having drawn GL. She is (or was?) a well-known yuri fan. She's been very consistent that their relationship is not meant to be one so easily-read, and that she is drawing the exact story that she wants to. If this story was "supposed" to be about explicit GL, I firmly believe that she would've done an excellent job making that a reality.

Something that fewer people will know is that she has also given great insight within the past few years, in since-removed YT videos (wonder why those were removed?), of her own feelings of loneliness and alienation from city life. She's spoken of the difficulties of moving to a new place. Of not forming close bonds with other people. Of missing opportunities long-since passed and people she's not ever likely to connect with again. There's a line in one of those videos that goes something like, "No matter where I go I never stand out much, and I always end up alone."

I feel like some of us are jumping to come up with explanations as to why it wasn't the Yuri story we wanted. Maybe what she wanted to draw was a manga that reflected her life experiences, and perhaps depicted the relationship - of whatever form you wish to perceive this as - that she always wanted? Yeah, as mentioned, there are actually are plenty of women who for whatever reason find their soulmate to simply be what the outside world would call "a friend." A lot of those relationships probably do read as romance to outsiders. (Note this down doubly for Japan, where very strong / "romantic" friendships between women are a known phenomenon.)

I don't know what manga Hagino wanted to draw, but I find a lot of the doubts expressed throughout the entire thread to be really concerning. I don't believe it should be so hard to imagine that other people might see the world differently, and want different things out of it, than we might. Of course it should be obvious I am a fan of hers and this is someone I'm willing to go bat for. I certainly view this story with added context that others may not have. Still, I don't think one should require extra context to simply accept and believe what's being presented as it is.

Blastaar posted:

We seem to have lost one of the best posts I've ever read in this forum thread.

Very sorry to see it gone.

If you meant mine, thanks, I'm flattered. It was too confrontational before, bad habit of posting before settling a bit.

Thank you for this post @OrangePekoe

last edited at Mar 29, 2021 9:48PM

@OrangePekoe: Thank you, you went into way more detail about Hagino than I ever did in my previous posts about the matter from a while back. I have a lot of respect and admiration for her and it annoys me to see several people assuming she either gimped herself or was forced by external influences not to tell exactly the story she wanted even though she clarified multiple times that she did and from how clearly her intentions came through in the series itself if you try looking at it without skewed expectations. This is the last time I'll repeat myself on this and I won't go into detail since all my old posts are still there, but while it's entirely fair to be disappointed by the story's pacing and direction for being slow, too reiterative or frustrating, saying it took a sudden turn or that it completely changed out of nowhere is ignoring its development and explicit inspiration. I'll just quote Hachimitsu Scans since they put it eloquently:

"From the very beginning, there was a certain expectation placed on Nettaigyo wa Yuki ni Kogareru that the author wanted to avoid so as to tell a different kind of story than one that you would expect at first glance. I for one appreciate that Nettaigyo is not like every other generic manga out there, and that the effort Makoto Hagino put in to tell a story inspired by Masuji Ibuse's "Salamander" short story is immense, with constant allusions, symbolism, and callbacks to earlier events to tie everything together."

"Nettaigyo is far more than the sum of its parts, and tells a story more rich than what may appear on the surface without delving into the intricacies that Hagino wove through the story, and most of that cannot even be adequately appreciated without either re-reading it, or reading it all at once now that it's complete. Those are the things that make this series stand out from so many others, and even though it could have potentially been more popular had Hagino written a more conventional tale, as the old adage goes, "The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long." The mark of a good series is not in its overall popularity, but how well it tells its story, and if Hagino is guilty of anything, it's telling a good story, so this is a series I will dearly miss."

I think it was a beautiful story, and I loved it very much. Reread from the beginning at least three times while waiting for new chapters. And I'm sure I'll do so again once I've digested the latest few.

I felt so unbearably sad when I saw the "epilogue" in the title of the update. I stopped caring about whether it was really yuri a while ago, because while it not explicitly being so is somewhat disappointing, it is a story that aims to say something. And that something is about a sinking loneliness, a way in which we can grow out of our caves, and how we can all be salamanders while thinking others are frogs. I'm not fully settled on my personal feelings of this work and how much I want to like it as a whole in execution, but I found it beautiful, drifting, and charged with an idea that the author wanted to see carried through. I can always only respect the clear purpose in stories like that.

Thank you to Makoto Hagino for creating this. And thank you to Hachimitsu Scans for translating this.

........................ I just felt that there's so much potential lost with this series. It could have been a classic like Bloom Into You; instead of about love, it would be a classic about loneliness and finding "special companionships" in life. It has better art and arguably a more relatable premise than Bloom Into You, yet while Bloom Into You dissects and questions the emotion of love, Tropical Fish just says everyone feels loneliness and we need companionship. What could've been a deep introspection about loneliness just turns into superficial dramas with misunderstandings. And the "subtext" thing is annoying too. How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

What could have been...

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

last edited at Apr 12, 2021 12:16PM

Gridman posted:

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

last edited at Apr 12, 2021 1:00PM

Waited for it to end and all I can say is what a completely melodramatic and boring series. How the author managed to spread such a weak premise of "loneliness" over 34 grueling chapters is beyond me. Surrounded by loving friends, family and peers makes the loneliness theme so forced and unbelievable. And the overuse of the salamander and frog analogy was just cringe inducing, making the same call back over and over was just to pad frames of drawing the same salamander over and over again.

Nice meme.

Serenata posted:

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

They're the same person who periodically go to Room for Two thread to complain how it's not yuri and everything they ever did was only as friends, so yea, complaining about subtext series seems like their favorite pastime.

Weird kink but we shouldn't judge.

HAHAHA bullshit I'm judging intensely

TotemsInTheNight posted:

How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

Since when loneliness is inherently connected to love?

I never said love is "inherently" connected, but it is a relevant issue that when discussed can make the story better. I am not saying the story is not good, I'm just saying it could have been so much more.

Serenata posted:

How you forced yourself to read 34 chapters of what you consider grueling is beyond me, surely you must've understood by the second or third volume that you were not enjoying it, right?

They're the same person who periodically go to Room for Two thread to complain how it's not yuri and everything they ever did was only as friends, so yea, complaining about subtext series seems like their favorite pastime.

Gotta love that I don't even have 100 total posts and yet you remember me. My opinion must really have stung.

I feel like some of us are jumping to come up with explanations as to why it wasn't the Yuri story we wanted. Maybe what she wanted to draw was a manga that reflected her life experiences, and perhaps depicted the relationship - of whatever form you wish to perceive this as - that she always wanted? Yeah, as mentioned, there actually are plenty of women who for whatever reason find their soulmate to simply be what the outside world would call "a friend." A lot of those relationships probably do read as romance to outsiders. (Note this down doubly for Japan, where very strong / "romantic" friendships between women are a known phenomenon.)

I recall there being an earlier discussion after one of her streams regarding an anime adaptation. She had clarified that she was drawing the manga the way that she wanted it to be drawn, and if she had changed some aspects (I'm assuming either making it explicit Yuri, or making one of the main characters male) then maybe it would have been more popular. She has reiterated more than once that she has been able to draw her thoughts exactly from start to finish, so while some of the other theories on this thread may have some substance, the thought that her creative process was somehow stifled in any way contradicts statements made by the author herself.

I think the coolest thing about her intentions is that even if she drew the manga depicting the relationship that she wanted, she gave the reader the ability to interpret the story in many ways, even if none of them were explicit. Maybe she wanted us readers to be able to relate to the main characters as much as she made them to relate to herself.

I finished a full reread in the last ~10 days. It's really good, you can tell that it's all pre-planned and doesn't rely on the serial format at all, which is always refreshing. The flow and continuity is also impeccable, though it had some real trouble maintaining any consistent tone. There's a ton more one could say, but I don't think I want to. I hope Hagino goes back to her old art style someday. I wish Konatsu had chased after her, even though I know that's totally undercutting the (relatively little) development she got. Koyuki only said "Holy moly" 7 times. Kaede is best girl. Think that sums up most of it.

I recall there being an earlier discussion after one of her streams regarding an anime adaptation. She had clarified that she was drawing the manga the way that she wanted it to be drawn, and if she had changed some aspects (I'm assuming either making it explicit Yuri, or making one of the main characters male) then maybe it would have been more popular. She has reiterated more than once that she has been able to draw her thoughts exactly from start to finish, so while some of the other theories on this thread may have some substance, the thought that her creative process was somehow stifled in any way contradicts statements made by the author herself.

I think the coolest thing about her intentions is that even if she drew the manga depicting the relationship that she wanted, she gave the reader the ability to interpret the story in many ways, even if none of them were explicit. Maybe she wanted us readers to be able to relate to the main characters as much as she made them to relate to herself.

Yeah, that discussion is right back here.

That is a very good point. By leaving so much of the manga itself down to subtext, she's opening the story and its circumstances to almost infinite interpretations from outsiders. I really appreciated that, too. I believe I could make a convincing case that Nettaigyo is meant to be queer-coded by appealing to the Bonus chapter, the realities of publishing, and even the specific point in the story where the blushy subtext died down. I believe the opposite case could also be very plausibly made. Yet even though it's impossible to know any which way, I'm quite convinced the story would've been written the same way regardless of when, where, or how it was released. The ambiguity is just so powerful.

last edited at Apr 16, 2021 12:40AM

TotemsInTheNight posted:

How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

Since when loneliness is inherently connected to love?

I never said love is "inherently" connected, but it is a relevant issue that when discussed can make the story better. I am not saying the story is not good, I'm just saying it could have been so much more.

How in the hell do you think that they don’t love each other? I think it’s pretty explicitly clear that they do, It’s just not explicitly romantic. There’s nothing inherently more meaningful about romantic love compared to any other kind of love. I’m just gonna say it, the people saying it’s worse because it’s not yuri is just sad that they can’t project their own fantasies into the story and live vicariously through them. A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

last edited at Apr 16, 2021 1:09AM

Eggon posted:

A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Please refrain in the future from making such sweeping assumptions and generalization. It really doesn't add anything to discussion and only serve to dismiss and discourage other person from proper discussion and can easily devolve into just name calling.

Eggon posted:

A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Please refrain in the future from making such sweeping assumptions and generalization. It really doesn't add anything to discussion and only serve to dismiss and discourage other person from proper discussion and can easily devolve into just name calling.

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

Eggon posted:

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

I don't have the link handy (someone else probably will though) but there's been a survey of the people on Dynasty and about half of them are actually female.

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/15346-dynasty-specific-demographic-survey

Most respondents are age 17-26
45% each male and female, 9% non-binary
het cis men are 35% of the responses
cis lesbians are 18%

Relatedly: https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yuri-isnt-made-for-men-an-analysis-of-the-demographics-of-yuri-mangaka-and-fans/
70% of Comic Yuri Hime readers were female
62% of Yuri Hime S readers were male
Another survey:
"According to this survey of 1352 people, 52.4% identified as female, 46.1% identified as male, and 1.6% identified as other... It is not likely you would find nearly as many queer men in BL fandom"

And another:
"In this survey of 695 people, 47.19% identified as female, 44.31% identified as male, and 8.49% identified as some other gender. While the ratio of men-to-women here is similar to the Japanese survey, the number of people who selected other is markedly higher... Sexuality is another area that differs significantly from the Japanese survey. A whole 96.04% of women selected a sexuality other than “heterosexual”, and the same is true for 23.38% of men. While the Japanese survey showed a large number of queer people in it, queer people make up well over half of respondents in the international survey."

Eggon posted:

Is it not true? Many yuri fans are straight men who have unrealistic expectations of lesbian relationships and get mad when their fantasies aren’t indulged by authors. The opposite is true for yaoi, just go to Animate and observe yourself. Let me make this clear, none of what I said is name calling, I mean every word literally.

It's not. I'm sure many of people unsatisfied with this story are lesbians or lgbt+ people sick of lack of representation, bait and general way publishers are always afraid of properly confirming anything. You're making it sound like they're the only people who could possibly complain about it and not enough girl on girl action is the only possible reason for it. While there definitely exist straight men that just find lesbians hot, there's also plenty of them that read yuri for actual story and romance. And even if, it's still just a huge generalization that doesn't add anything and simply antagonizes other people. Only reason you added it was to just call them out and shame them, without any intention for discussion. Maybe you could actually convince some of them to take stories about lesbians more seriously than just fetish fuel, but attacking them like that instead puts them on defense and give no reason to even try to engage into discussion with you outside of attacking you back.

TotemsInTheNight posted:

How can you discuss loneliness without discussing the elephant in the room, love?

Since when loneliness is inherently connected to love?

I never said love is "inherently" connected, but it is a relevant issue that when discussed can make the story better. I am not saying the story is not good, I'm just saying it could have been so much more.

How in the hell do you think that they don’t love each other? I think it’s pretty explicitly clear that they do, It’s just not explicitly romantic. There’s nothing inherently more meaningful about romantic love compared to any other kind of love. I’m just gonna say it, the people saying it’s worse because it’s not yuri is just sad that they can’t project their own fantasies into the story and live vicariously through them. A lot of them are probably straight men as well who fetishize lesbian relationships.

Those are hurtful words to someone who's on mtf HRT. But anyway, I'm trying to reread without an assumption of romance between the two characters, and well the author's intention actually makes more sense. That also means the first couple of chapters are kinda too blushy-subtext. The story is widely advertised as LGBTQ+ (I was recommended from BIY) so I got the wrong assumptions from the start.

TotemsInTheNight posted:

Those are hurtful words to someone who's on mtf HRT. But anyway, I'm trying to reread without an assumption of romance between the two characters, and well the author's intention actually makes more sense. That also means the first couple of chapters are kinda too blushy-subtext. The story is widely advertised as LGBTQ+ (I was recommended from BIY) so I got the wrong assumptions from the start.

Good luck. As has been said better by others in this thread, it was never advertised as explicitly LGBTQ+ by the original artist or in its (Japanese) volume 1 marketing materials. Sadly it does seem to have gotten all mixed up - for any number of reasons - so those people who got the wrong impression are hardly at fault for not knowing any differently.

There are definitely some unfortunate tonal problems as the story transitions from light-hearted blushing to intense drama. Not the least of which is Koyuki being a 24/7 blush mess for three and a half volumes, only to seemingly lose that part of her identity for 95% of the story afterwards. Personally still, I find it a bit difficult to not consider romance with more than a half-a-dozen multi-page sequences of the two leads sharing wistful looks and achingly tender touches. That's just me though.

There is absolutely nothing gay about the line "[The girl who called out to me was] more clear-blue than the ocean itself."

boring pointless trash 1/10

The art style is truly amazing and the story is cute but there was so much more potential with it that wasn't explored and it's sad

This week's episode was really nice though, with Kuuya's backstory and stuf.... oh wait