"Looks like I have a bad personality."
You're a character in a Kodama Naoko manga, the chances of that were pretty high from the get-go.

Well, I still give Kodama Naoko some credit, they're the only author whose works give me nausea. It's stronger than bitterness, so even if I hate nearly everything they do, I respect them for making such unpleasant stories. They're definitely skilled, though it's really not my cup of tea.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 12:50PM

If stories had temperatures like that of an environment, something like Kase-San would be a perfect 75 degrees with a tropical breeze, generic yuri school girl stories are like a sticky, humid 85, Kishi Torajirou an invigorating Autumn morning, Morishima Akiko like a spring afternoon with rainbows from yesterday's crucial rain (Amano Shuninta, of course) and Dowman Sayman one of those bizarre first warm and sunny then downpour but still sunny then cold and windy then back to sunny then storming days, but Kodama Naoko, Renai Manga aside, is an absolute zero, there's just no emotion coming out of these things. I feel like a robot could write these stories.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 1:11PM

:/ I don't know how I feel for this chapter

I liked it.. weirdly.. this author likes manipulative characters, and I'll admit it's kind of a nice change of pace from the super happy stuff you see in a majority of yuri. It's depressing, and drives you crazy.. but somehow appealing and interesting to me. I feel like this chapter in particular could be seen as even a little on the realistic side too. I'll be interested in seeing the second part and where it goes.

Sennheiser and hi fi man are the 1-2 chapters,3 is beats

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO ch.3 pls end as one shot.

if only this author's writing was any good...

lol so depressing and pointless... what is even the point, these characters make me feel dead inside

I really like Kodama-sensei's art... argh, I wish her stuff didn't hurt so much. Well, I understand the charm, I suppose, but...

depression intensifies

Nah, you just don't understand. A robot? Fucking identical stories of Morita-sensei with identical scenario is a spring afternoon? And Kodama is absolute zero? Like hell she is! She is mysterious storm with lightnings and thunder or an aurora in the North, or rather she is a boring Wednesday evening after a lot of work. Anything but not absolute zero.

3rd chapter is like a story from the real life, without illusional sweet both-sided school love. Kodama reminds us that things usually don't go as smoothly as manga describes. And that chapter is like a slightly open door to the brain of straight woman who is curious about lesbians and who plays with girl's feelings just to satisfy her own selfishness. The situation that's so familiar to many of us and yet so hurtful.

This is real life, chickens. After all it's an often deal when one gives another all their heart and another loves them back much less than we'd want.

It's been a year two days ago that this was last updated!

Nah, you just don't understand. A robot? Fucking identical stories of Morita-sensei with identical scenario is a spring afternoon? And Kodama is absolute zero? Like hell she is! She is mysterious storm with lightnings and thunder or an aurora in the North, or rather she is a boring Wednesday evening after a lot of work. Anything but not absolute zero.

3rd chapter is like a story from the real life, without illusional sweet both-sided school love. Kodama reminds us that things usually don't go as smoothly as manga describes. And that chapter is like a slightly open door to the brain of straight woman who is curious about lesbians and who plays with girl's feelings just to satisfy her own selfishness. The situation that's so familiar to many of us and yet so hurtful.

This is real life, chickens. After all it's an often deal when one gives another all their heart and another loves them back much less than we'd want.

I don't think so .. I got to agree with Breakdanceanomicon. an absolute zero, a fucking -273 degree Rukia's bankai.

A manga that reminds things don't go as smoothly as usual mangas show would be Octave (the first example that popped in my mind), a story about unrequited love , one about mistake and own foolishness. Everything but this.
Kodama Naoko's characters are just obnoxious. manipulative, fucked up, it's as if they were made to give the reader nausea. It's my point of view, but most of Naoko's character inspire me nothing but disgust. Yes, such people exist in real life, and yes people happen to hurt (consciously or not) other people, but everyone isn't as sadistic and perfidious as Kodama's char.

Again, I don't have anything against this artist, and I totally respect their work and wish them to success and sell, but I just can't bring myself to like their stories.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 3:26PM

This author is like a housewife likes watching TV dramas but instead of watching she crates herself. Yeah, drama until last chapter thing is not that good but I like this author because she draws what she wants to see just like Morisihima Akihiko and Takemiya Jin. And I think you forgot Summer Splash and Everyday Lingerie they're also happy-happy stories.

Nah, you just don't understand. A robot? Fucking identical stories of Morita-sensei with identical scenario is a spring afternoon? And Kodama is absolute zero? Like hell she is! She is mysterious storm with lightnings and thunder or an aurora in the North, or rather she is a boring Wednesday evening after a lot of work. Anything but not absolute zero.

3rd chapter is like a story from the real life, without illusional sweet both-sided school love. Kodama reminds us that things usually don't go as smoothly as manga describes. And that chapter is like a slightly open door to the brain of straight woman who is curious about lesbians and who plays with girl's feelings just to satisfy her own selfishness. The situation that's so familiar to many of us and yet so hurtful.

This is real life, chickens. After all it's an often deal when one gives another all their heart and another loves them back much less than we'd want.

First of all, it's Morishima. Second, let's see: School girl, adult life, office lady, age gap, NSFW, love triangle, incest, slice of life, 4-koma versus... drama, drama, drama, bullying, cheating, het and... more drama. Yeah, Morishima is definitely the one with the same story over and over again. Especially Yuri Kuma Arashi, that's totally something she's done before.
Secondly, real life isn't as happy as most yuri manga, or fictional stories in general, but it's also less sad than this. Pardon my slipping into theism, but our world isn't written by a single author trying to go for a certain feeling and ending, unlike a manga where it's destined to end up happy or sad. There's nothing "realistic" about scripted drama, especially a story like this where all the characters are so one-dimensional and hollow, whereas characters in a Morishima work, even while generally optimistic, come in various shades and have changes in mood. Kodama's are completely static and flat. They never learn. That's only realistic for a relatively small percentage of people.
This isn't real life, it's a melodramatic angstfest. Kodama's even admitted she loves corny soap operas and that her works are often based on them. Would it be realistic if they turned out to secretly be related, too? I'm sick and tired of people saying that super depressing, unrelentingly negative stories are "deep" and "realistic". Get a grip. The world might not be as good as it's shown in a children's show, but it's not as bad as it's depicted in "adult" works. And I'd rather have us think it could be like the former than it has to be like the latter.
@oguzhan96
I'll give you those two, also. I did say that there were a few exceptions like Renai Manga, but that doesn't seem to be the direction she's going in these days. It'd be one thing to be making stories both depressing and uplifting at the same time, but currently, Kodama's just on this downwards slope into endlessly cynical and bitter stories. Like Utoptia said, I don't hate this artist, I just dislike the current direction she's going in.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 3:32PM

Nah, you just don't understand. A robot? Fucking identical stories of Morita-sensei with identical scenario is a spring afternoon? And Kodama is absolute zero? Like hell she is! She is mysterious storm with lightnings and thunder or an aurora in the North, or rather she is a boring Wednesday evening after a lot of work. Anything but not absolute zero.

3rd chapter is like a story from the real life, without illusional sweet both-sided school love. Kodama reminds us that things usually don't go as smoothly as manga describes. And that chapter is like a slightly open door to the brain of straight woman who is curious about lesbians and who plays with girl's feelings just to satisfy her own selfishness. The situation that's so familiar to many of us and yet so hurtful.

This is real life, chickens. After all it's an often deal when one gives another all their heart and another loves them back much less than we'd want.

First of all, it's Morishima. Second, let's see: School girl, adult life, office lady, age gap, NSFW, love triangle, incest, slice of life, 4-koma versus... drama, drama, drama, bullying, cheating, het and... more drama. Yeah, Morishima is definitely the one with the same story over and over again. Especially Yuri Kuma Arashi, that's totally something she's done before.
Secondly, real life isn't as happy as most yuri manga, or fictional stories in general, but it's also less sad than this. Pardon my slipping into theism, but our world isn't written by a single author trying to go for a certain feeling and ending, unlike a manga where it's destined to end up happy or sad. There's nothing "realistic" about scripted drama, especially a story like this where all the characters are so one-dimensional and hollow, whereas characters in a Morishima work, even while generally optimistic, come in various shades and have changes in mood. Kodama's are completely static and flat. They never learn. That's only realistic for a relatively small percentage of people.
This isn't real life, it's a melodramatic angstfest. Kodama's even admitted she loves corny soap operas and that her works are often based on them. Would it be realistic if they turned out to secretly be related, too? I'm sick and tired of people saying that super depressing, unrelentingly negative stories are "deep" and "realistic". Get a grip. The world might not be as good as it's shown in a children's show, but it's not as bad as it's depicted in "adult" works. And I'd rather have us think it could be like the former than it has to be like the latter.
@oguzhan96
I'll give you those two, also. I did say that there were a few exceptions like Renai Manga, but that doesn't seem to be the direction she's going in these days. It'd be one thing to be making stories both depressing and uplifting at the same time, but currently, Kodama's just on this downwards slope into endlessly cynical and bitter stories. Like Utoptia said, I don't hate this artist, I just dislike the current direction she's going in.

Does it really matter what Kodama's work heads to? In the end it doesn't really matter if her works represents a realistic outlook on life or not; there are 7 billion people in the world who have different situations from each other and that we cannot perfectly put them into a category. Some people's lives are filled with happiness, others filled with sadness. An author's work is not classified as a season, but as a color. Different colors mixed into one to make a unique work that we ourselves take those colors and form an opinion on their work. No author is one season, but rather an aurora of mixtures, just how one's life is too. Minority or majority doesn't matter that much, it's how a human decides their own path that makes it interesting.

Kodama's stories fail at almost every aspect.

Characters remain one denominational.
Characters more often than not behave in an uncanny manner.
Plotlines are either generic soap operas or (like its the case on the first story here on Cocytus) it is unexplored falling short (people actually didn't know it ended. hell, I bet some are still waiting for it to continue). Or one-shots that are just basically nothing-stories.

First part of Cocytus sounds like so much potential, on paper, something that could've gone deep and explored and deliver SOMETHING... but it just remain on nothingness, with characters as deep as a puddle.

Looks like the artist tries to go for soap operas, I guess thas what the artists wants... quite the shoddy writing, quite the disappointment to see the art go to waste.

last edited at Aug 20, 2016 3:21PM

I liked it, dark, flawed, manipulative characters, whatever. I thought it was interesting. It's kinda fucked up and dark and dramatic, and I like it.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 5:35PM

Worst personality ever.

I think people are really missing that the reason the dark haired girl seems so fucked up is because we're seeing directly into her thoughts. To me, she is confused and and obviously projecting her imagination onto her friend. If you look at what physically took place compared to what took place in MC's mind, none of the characters treated her each other cruelly and horribly like they did in some of the author's other works. I think it's an interesting portrayal of how a seemingly nice friendship can have doubt and uncertainty in the mind of one of the friends.

I think it's an interesting portrayal of how a seemingly nice friendship can have doubt and uncertainty in the mind of one of the friends.

Yeah, just like what she said on first page if this was a het story it would be something normal and easy but because the other part is also women it's more complicated.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 7:36PM

this particular story in chapter 3 reminded me of Shiori and Juris relationship from Utena. Shiori is such a pitiful girl. Sorry a bit off topic.

And here I was somehow feeling a bit excited to /maybe/ get more from the first two-chapter girls, but that didn't seem to be the case. Then I was 'oh, alright let's keep reading anyway', to then finally splurting out a 'Kodama Naoko as it finest form!'.

Reminded me of why I don't even bother to read this author's overly edgy stuff in god knows how many time anymore.

last edited at Aug 19, 2016 9:55PM

This author... really likes to play with our emotion :((( I seriously don't know if I love her or hate her, lol