Forum › Swap ⇔ Swap discussion

Untitle435ed34qwrqwd
joined May 15, 2014

Faust posted:

Aw why is everyone so positive that it will remain platonic between the two of them?
Haruko is gay af (and Yume seems to be kinda gay too)

It will probably end in something because this is a yuri manga not a subtext one so it will be surprising if nothing happens

last edited at Dec 17, 2015 6:03PM

Bunnythor_full_small
joined May 17, 2015

Faust posted:

Aw why is everyone so positive that it will remain platonic between the two of them?
Haruko is gay af (and Yume seems to be kinda gay too)

It will probably end in something because this is a yuri manga not a subtext one so it will be surprising if nothing happens

I've seen too many yuri mangas where it ends and we are left only with the unfulfilled and undefined yearnings of the main characters. For that matter, this manga already has 500% more kissing than 90% of the yuri mangas I have read.

Haha YES, NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST LOVER- I MEAN "friend"! XD

Ratana%20avatar%203.3%20dynasty
joined May 11, 2012

I don't know, this is published by Time Kirara and they pretty much never go full yuri, they do have a few exceptions, in Houbunsha page on Mangaupdates you can see all magazines they publish, if you see all their Time Kirara releases you'll notice that not even 10 mangas from them goes full yuri and they publish Tsubomi too for mangas that really are yuri, maybe Swap ⇔ Swap will really be yuri because Time Kirara have some rare few exceptions and Tomekichi did some yaoi trap hentai before, just don't be surprised if this end with them as friends though, most of Time Kirara mangas are nothing more than subtext if they have female main characters.

Not to mention that Dynasty seens to be the only one tagging it as yuri too, rest just shoujo ai at best, so yeah might not go anywhere...

last edited at Dec 18, 2015 2:47AM

Kira%202
joined Nov 29, 2014

Not to mention that Dynasty seens to be the only one tagging it as yuri too, rest just shoujo ai at best, so yeah might not go anywhere...

To be fair, shoujo ai is just yuri for people that don't know what they're talking about.

Ratana%20avatar%203.3%20dynasty
joined May 11, 2012

But not everything they call shoujo ai is yuri, some are just subtext, it's more or less what I tried to say but I guess I should have been more clear.

last edited at Dec 18, 2015 12:46AM

Femshep%20x%20liara%20avatar
joined Dec 8, 2013

Only the fuckin yuri genre can have two people kissing and blushing at each other while still leaving the status of their relationship an absolute mystery until (and sometimes even past) the very end...

What's all the "friend" stuff? lol

last edited at Dec 18, 2015 3:43AM

1
joined Aug 15, 2015

To add my opinion to the discussion of yuri and shoujo ai - As far as I understand:
Yuri can bluntly be described as lesbianism which involve more than one characters romantically and/or sexually attract because of their female gender.
Shoujo Ai, on the other hand, is a theme which centered around a strong relationship between two or more females character. By "strong relationship," this does not necessarily indicate that members of relationships are romantically or sexually involved. It can simply just mean a very strong/powerful friendship. So even if the two characters in this series are constantly kissing but absolutely have no romantic or sexual feeling toward one another, this would be shoujo ai, and not count as lesbianism or yuri.

As for the series itself:
I am a bit torn. I enjoy it so far for its comedic relief and creativity. However, it does not seem that there will be a "serious" plot or conflict which I have not seen for a while in the yuri genre.

Rosmontis
Nevrilicious Scans
joined Jun 5, 2015

aelfgahr posted:

To add my opinion to the discussion of yuri and shoujo ai - As far as I understand:
Yuri can bluntly be described as lesbianism which involve more than one characters romantically and/or sexually attract because of their female gender.
Shoujo Ai, on the other hand, is a theme which centered around a strong relationship between two or more females character. By "strong relationship," this does not necessarily indicate that members of relationships are romantically or sexually involved. It can simply just mean a very strong/powerful friendship. So even if the two characters in this series are constantly kissing but absolutely have no romantic or sexual feeling toward one another, this would be shoujo ai, and not count as lesbianism or yuri.

Then you understand it wrong. Yuri is used when there is any kind of love between 2 girls. Shoujo Ai doesn't exist as term. Americans for some reason wanted to distinguish between stories with only kissing, holding hands (gasp!) and stories with sex and adult content, hence they invented term Shoujo Ai for the first which mean pedophile in japan and you should avoid to use it at all cost. Still according to them both Shoujo Ai and Yuri are used for stories about 2 females in love, the only difference is the amount of adult material shown. I learned about it only recently, but from what I got the strong feelings between friends and female friendship thing would be that whole Class S?

As for the series itself:
I am a bit torn. I enjoy it so far for its comedic relief and creativity. However, it does not seem that there will be a "serious" plot or conflict which I have not seen for a while in the yuri genre.

Well it is yonkoma after all. It usually tends to only have comedy and humor and (almost) none drama. I don't expect it to get too serious, but Ichinose is so deliciously gay for Nikaido that I think they will at least become a canon couple.

last edited at Dec 18, 2015 6:45AM

joined Mar 25, 2013

Well it is yonkoma after all. It usually tends to only have comedy and humor and (almost) none drama. I don't expect it to get too serious, but Nichinose is so deliciously gay for Nikaido that I think they will at least become a canon couple.

She's gay for her body, not for her. And not only for Nikaido's body as well. At the moment there's no romance at all. Just used as the joke.

Girl%20friends-av
joined Jul 13, 2015

I learned about it only recently, but from what I got the strong feelings between friends and female friendship thing would be that whole Class S?

Class S seems more about a context and an epoch. Strawberry Panic is a Class S yuri, and in it, the girls are more than sexually interested into each other.
Class S is more about all the "sister system" in all-girls schools, and affiliated/derivative stuffs. And all the Japanese pre-war "lesbian" stuffs.

But from what I read about what Japanese are thinking about yuri: even in Japan yuri is ill-defined, the boundaries of the yuri genre are vagues.

The best definition of the yuri genre that I found is "female same-sex intimacy". So it's everything that is more that "just friendship": including lesbianism, "spiritual connection" (that's the expression used by the director of Yuri Hime…), the Class S things, or even intimate friendship.

Fennec
joined May 28, 2012

Peek...

joined May 23, 2015

Only the fuckin yuri genre can have two people kissing and blushing at each other while still leaving the status of their relationship an absolute mystery until (and sometimes even past) the very end...

What's all the "friend" stuff? lol

Well, it's not marketed as a yuri manga, for one. Kirara is marketed as cute/moe and slice of life. That genre just tends to feature primarily girls getting along really well, so people will read yuri vibes into it.

F4x-3lwx0aa0tcu31
joined Apr 20, 2013

moguTL posted:

Only the fuckin yuri genre can have two people kissing and blushing at each other while still leaving the status of their relationship an absolute mystery until (and sometimes even past) the very end...

What's all the "friend" stuff? lol

Well, it's not marketed as a yuri manga, for one. Kirara is marketed as cute/moe and slice of life. That genre just tends to feature primarily girls getting along really well, so people will read yuri vibes into it.

But if they were guys it would be full, solid and undoubtedly marked as yaoi... And yeah, girls can get more intimate with their friends unlike boys but they're KISSING and groping and who knows what comes next! it should be marked as yuri like Valkyrie drive (good example in fact) where there's a reason for them to kiss or even have sex but if they don't love each other, is not yuri? come on if they were straight, forcing them to become weapons would be rape

Edit: Even if they're both lesbian in valkyrie drive, if you're forced then is rape anyway but my point was that, someone heterosexual would try to refuse... A LOT

last edited at Dec 18, 2015 3:17PM

joined May 23, 2015

But if they were guys it would be full, solid and undoubtedly marked as yaoi... And yeah, girls can get more intimate with their friends unlike boys but they're KISSING and groping and who knows what comes next! it should be marked as yuri like Valkyrie drive (good example in fact) where there's a reason for them to kiss or even have sex but if they don't love each other, is not yuri? come on if they were straight, forcing them to become weapons would be rape

Not necessarily. In fact, a lot of the series girls get the most worked up over don't actually contain any explicit homosexuality: Haikyuu, Kuroko no Basketball, Prince of Tennis, Free.

Hell, far from being yaoi, those series are in shounen magazines.

Basically, shounen sports is to girls what moe slice of life is to guys.

Kira%202
joined Nov 29, 2014

They don't kiss in Free, though. Point is, if this was het or even yaoi with the same setup, nobody would even get the idea of them not being a couple in the end.

Ozy_avatar
joined Jan 30, 2013

They don't kiss in Free, though. Point is, if this was het or even yaoi with the same setup, nobody would even get the idea of them not being a couple in the end.

One word: Harem

Ratana%20avatar%203.3%20dynasty
joined May 11, 2012

They don't kiss in Free, though. Point is, if this was het or even yaoi with the same setup, nobody would even get the idea of them not being a couple in the end.

True, I hate how they insist on making female characters act super close and extremely gay and then come with bullshit that it's normal friendship while here in the west we can't see anyting except obvious atraction between them, Hibike Euphonium is worst offender in that, only in japan to have that stupid value dissonance, it's not even this manga but pretty much all mangas here that are just subtext, if you change them to het or yaoi pretty much everyone would be 100% sure the characters would end up together, seriously, because of this kind of bullshit and many others that sometimes I can't help but really hate japan, sigh.

Good to know I'm not the only one doing this...

That's probably a lot more common than we think iwi

joined May 23, 2015

Yeah, but on the other hand, as I mentioned, most of the "softer" all-male cast stuff is printed in shounen magazines. There aren't separate magazines specifically dedicated to that type of thing, so the genre hasn't really had the chance to expand to the point where it starts including more overt elements. When you're either getting it from shounen magazines or from outright boy's love magazines, there's really not much chance for in between.

And yes, in Japan, who the publisher is alone has a huge effect on the type and direction of the story, as well as how the series is marketed and viewed by people. Which is why rather than by genre, they sell manga by publisher. Which can be a real bitch when you're trying to find a specific title in a store.

Ava
joined Jul 16, 2013

But not everything they call shoujo ai is yuri, some are just subtext, it's more or less what I tried to say but I guess I should have been more clear.

Shoujo ai is a very outdated term.

Rsz_youravatar_3
joined Jun 30, 2015

If you're looking for a manga focusing on relationships, check the romance tag. This is more a gag manga with Yuri elements, shouldn't be that hard to understand. Whether they actually get together really should be a side issue.

Kururi
joined Aug 25, 2015

Seriously, people here are too used to how western things work.
Japan usually tease even het relationships. I think even fans usually don't want most of couples in anime/manga to become canon, because it will diverge from their ships. Except when the genre is already romance. Also, gag stories usually don't have character evolution at all, so start romance in them would feel out of place.

There's a big relationship between original work and fanwork in Japan, since it generates a big market around it.
Also, most of the times, these authors won't even deny or confirm relationships. That just happened with Hibike because the writer from the novels isn't really involved in otaku culture. But as far as I remember, that staff of the anime never said anything for sure, they just teased a lot with KumiRei comments.

But even if that all wasn't truth, this are ficticional works made to entertain their readers. If you want to see the girls like lesbians in a relationship (and the work even helps with that), nothing should stop you, no even the author's real intention, that we will never find out anyway, since they usually never talk about it.
That's why yaoi fans can see yaoi in those shows like Kuroko no Basket and Free. And sometimes the author even tease them inside the original work. The same way, we can say this is yuri if we want to. Even if some people see it as only friendship.

F4x-3lwx0aa0tcu31
joined Apr 20, 2013

For me is not really about the lack of romance, I'm just asking... Can any of them say "I'm lesbian" ? it shouldn't be such an outrageous thing to do because you're selling your work for yuri fans, doing things like kissing, touching and having lewd thoughts/dreams but then there's always the possibility of one of them saying #Nohomo :v that makes me think that they avoid it just to sell illusions dakimakuras and make the reader believe that they can be waifus no matter how they behave.
You keep saying that mangas like Kuroko and free have yaoi baits too but I bet they would never hold hands and blush and much less kiss and then be like "You're my ....best friend"

Girl%20friends-av
joined Jul 13, 2015

Can any of them say "I'm lesbian" ? it shouldn't be such an outrageous thing to do because you're selling your work for yuri fans

Because you're not Japanese.
Japaneses tends to distinguish lesbian stuffs and yuri ones. Tends to, so not all Japaneses do that, but an important amount.

Try to read this, you'll see different reasons why actual Japaneses make (or make no) difference between the lesbian stuffs and the yuri ones. Either that these Japaneses are editors, journalists or fans.

And I suppose that the description of the yuri genre by the magazine Yuri Shimai will upset some of people here. :D

Nevertheless, here yuri is defined as “the overdone affection between two girls peculiar to girls in puberty,” adding that it is “a limited-time pseudo love”

You can finds other shorter studies who broach that question of the distinction between lesbian/yuri, like here or here, both from the Japanese revue Eureka.

So if you find the sentence "I'm a lesbian" in a "yuri manga", you can wonder if that manga is really a yuri, and not a lesbian manga considered as "yuri" by Westerners.

last edited at Dec 19, 2015 1:49PM

Ratana%20avatar%203.3%20dynasty
joined May 11, 2012

I second that Serenata, a lot of those series that end in subtext at least one of the girls could easily say she's lesbian but it always end as het friendship, because you know, it's normal for straight girls to be extremely gay with each other, on #Nohomo, worst offender in that is Nanoha, it's pretty much unspoken canon that Nanoha and Fate are a couple, sure yuri is not the focus, but it feels they never outright say it just to sell merchandise to male otaku that want them as waifu, Love Live is other, the writter is female and did yuri before, if anything at least Maki x Nico is pretty much canon, they sing about each other, their duet is about mutual attraction, the valentine day pics they give chocolate to each other while other girls give to unknown person.

Nevertheless, here yuri is defined as “the overdone affection between two girls peculiar to girls in puberty,” adding that it is “a limited-time pseudo love”

"pseudo love" because you know, girls can't love girls, really, japanese should stop with this bullshit and make a magazine that is explicity for lesbian stories, sigh.

To reply you must either login or sign up.