wow, Kiyoko will really change through those 5 years.
she looks more confident in the past

Ah Kiyoko was different before

This story gets more and more messed up with each chapter

This chapter, chapter 7, confused me about what happened between Kiyoko and Mitsu. Maybe in the next chapter we'll get a clearer explanation.

please, not a credits page without the sauce for the cute image! can someone identify the sauce?

i gotchu

thank you fam, you da mvp

I'm still so confused, each chapter is harder to wrap my head around, hopefully I'll understand once it's completed and I can then read it backwards (chronologically).

My guess:

Kiyoko was the one who convinced Mitsu to commit suicide with her. However, once they reached the mountain they realized they didn’t want to die. They made a pact to never forget each other and both cut off a portion of their pinky fingers so they would always remember each other.

The mystery deepens. I like this turn

Isn't it wonderful when suicide would be the happier ending.

I'm still so confused, each chapter is harder to wrap my head around, hopefully I'll understand once it's completed and I can then read it backwards (chronologically).

I'm basically the same, but the storytelling is so intriguing and well-done that I also enjoy each chapter despite my confusion (I'm resisting starting over again from the beginning with each new chapter). I keep getting little hits from all sorts of Japanese cinema--the "reporter pieces together an incomplete and ambiguous story that doesn't get printed anyway" this time reminded me of pieces of at least three different films.

I am really looking forward to reading this whole thing when it's done.

^ Any watching suggestions?

^ Any watching suggestions?

The one I've seen most recently is A Man Vanishes from 1967.

https://mubi.com/films/a-man-vanishes

As I said, it's mostly bits and pieces--scenes and fragments of scenes--that come to mind.

(Also generally the elliptical narrative style of directors like Yasujirō Ozu.)

Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

last edited at Aug 30, 2021 9:03AM

That’s it for me! I’m done with this “Depressing as fuck” manga, where’s Mira or Canno to lighten my spirits? (Two of the best mangaka’s out there)

This is heavy material with several themes in each chapter. All of them can make a good internet series, and this latest chapter would be the best stand alone episode. My compliments to the author, now come up with something more syrupy next time!

Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

If redone/rewritten for a movie plot, a policeman would be a good substitute for someone trying to get the record straight without seeming weird nor seeking titillation for the masses.

Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

This is just a general impression from old movies and from reading about the period, but post-war Japan was mad for "Where Our Culture Is Going/Kids Today/Disturbing Happenings, etc." stories.

It's not so much that journalists were "starved for stories" as much as, with Japanese culture reshaping itself in the wake of WW2, everything that happened seemed to be potential evidence for the nature of those changes and the future of the country.

Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

lesbian suicides or attempted suicides were all the rage in prewar magazines, it's not weird at all. Distasteful maybe, but not weird.

fuck this is definitely not helping me with my anxieties.

At the time of their attempted suicide it had been four years since two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

Next chapter… I don’t know where the story will go

I thinks the choice to move the story backward is kinda brilliant, it keep to mystery going and not really "depressing as fuck" anymore and for this we know them not because how they end but how they live. This become bitter sweet now maybe because we know the ending before it unfold. It just life people choice different path and I not saying which one is better, it just different.

Though their life I think I have learned that maybe life is that fuck up and it will bite you if you chicken out, so I think I will just take any chances when they come and maybe things will work out okay. Not saying that the choices that I make will always right but at least I make it by your own will and I can regret or grateful with it.

The first 3 chapters are hard to get though but I hooked now. Can wait to see how it unfolds.

it looks like kiyoko was the only one that cut her pinkie even though they both agreed to do it which is interesting — most people are jumping at kiyoko for not going through with maintaining a relationship with mitsu, but the little hints and actions you can see is that kiyoko lost faith and felt that their promises were breaking and mitsu did nothing to stop it is a common theme in these chapters — kiyoko's depressive nature and mitsu's happy-go lucky attitude just covers up that.

Since I struggle to keep track of the timeline, I started writing it down on paper, then decided to post it here instead:

• Ch 1 - 2018 (85-ish)
• Ch 2 - 1988 (55)
• Ch 3 - 1969 (K36, M35)
• Ch 4 - 1961 (28)
• Ch 5 - continues 1961 forward to 1963 and back to 1961
• Ch 6 - 1957 (23)
• Ch 7 - 1949 (15-ish?)

Guessing the end is still 2-3 chapters out.

Since I struggle to keep track of the timeline, I started writing it down on paper, then decided to post it here instead:

• Ch 1 - 2018 (85-ish)
• Ch 2 - 1988 (55)
• Ch 3 - 1969 (K36, M35)
• Ch 4 - 1961 (28)
• Ch 5 - continues 1961 forward to 1963 and back to 1961
• Ch 6 - 1957 (23)
• Ch 7 - 1949 (15-ish?)

Guessing the end is still 2-3 chapters out.

I still hope we get some chapters focusing on the granddaughter’s point of view to see that Kiyoko and Mitsue’s story doesn’t just fade into obscurity when they both pass away, and maybe to see a happier wlw couple who were actually able to get together.

I think some people are too privileged to acknowledge the hardship that women ALONE in those eras had to face, not to mention queer women. That was literally hell. Heck, even nowadays there are still so many cases in which women don't have any authority in their OWN lives as well. This is still common in Asian countries, the cultures here are much more different from Western cultures, so please don't use your point of view in a modern, more free society to judge people who are oppressed in such long period. Comhet is real.

About Kiyoko and Mitsu here, sure thing that Kiyoko's choice was way too wrong for both of them, but as you can see in the newest chapter Kiyoko had been a more confident woman, there must be something that tired her out to be the indecisive, reluctant woman now. Or maybe her relationship with Mitsu was tiring enough. She did, and i think she still does, love Mitsu, but the prejudice back then was too overwhelming. I really feel sorry for both of them, to live in a society like that.

Am I the only person kind of weirded out that a magazine writer would track down and question children about their attempted double suicide to "set the record straight"? Were they that starved for stories that they had to corner a couple of hormonal powerhouses about why they made a dumb decision?

lesbian suicides or attempted suicides were all the rage in prewar magazines, it's not weird at all. Distasteful maybe, but not weird.

It was also the standard way to end a yuri novel or manga—with the tragic suicide (or for greater ambiguity the "accidental-death-that-looks-an-awful-lot-like-a-suicide") of one or both of the lesbians.

You find it in postwar fiction too, all the way to the last stretch of the 20th century.