Forum › A World Without Freedom discussion

Rena_home_1
joined Aug 8, 2012

Still thirsty? There's more. Here's the bonus chapter "Late Spring".

Hi, if anybody has a decent scanner and happens to have the tank, please scan this and post it to the Yuri Project thread or the /u/ Translation thread. I'll take it from there. There's also 2 4koma on the inside front and back underneath the book jacket, if somebody could scan those too.

Bleach_589___giselle_gewelle_alux-d7quz%20(1)
joined Dec 2, 2014

I think the ending was kinda good, better than what I have expected. Yeah, it seems like not everything is fixed, but I think the ending was still more on the happy side, because Meiko was at least honest at the end and it seems like she wants so try to make things better now. This is the first step.

Wooper
joined Oct 25, 2015

The ending was OK--actually, it just seems kinda terrible. The let's do the thing where it happened part is messed up. Together, they're just ...as Reo said, she'll probably lose herself again.

This final chapter is less happy ending and more lost cause.

It was something to read. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

last edited at May 22, 2016 5:38PM

Untitled102_20231004232707
joined Mar 26, 2014

http://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/a_world_without_freedom_ch06#39
What made me laugh was "big tits". XD Hahahaha!
It was not Moe for me but then again (shrug) .

joined Nov 27, 2014

Jesus Christ, talk about glorified abuse: the series. What a disaster. And the author considers this 'moe'? Yikes.

Hqdefault
joined Apr 10, 2015

I really love the ending. So much feeling... it couldn't be any better than this. This story is really awesome

Dorohedoro_noi_big_smile
joined Feb 24, 2015

I expected this kind of ending. Not much changed between the two girls and I doubt it ever really will. Still, I've come to expect this from Kodama, so it's not a big surprise.

Reo understands Meiko's true feelings now, and, in Meko's absence, came to understand her own feelings as well. Seems like a big change to me.

The main thing is that the relationship is still pretty toxic. Reo even acknowledges that she will lose sight of herself and that they can't go back to how innocent they used to be once they are together. The whole issue with the story was how their relationship had deteriorated almost completely. By the end, there is some patchwork done to "fix" their relationship, but in the end, it was still just a patch job; it didn't fix the underlying problems. Thus, I personally don't believe that very much changed.

Korrasami
joined Dec 14, 2014

After reading it over since I was a bit confused. I realized, she had a weird type of Stockholm Syndrome. Yep makes sense.

Image
joined Jun 25, 2016

Reo so handsome <3

Jahy-sama%20(11)
joined Jul 5, 2017

Still thirsty? There's more. Here's the bonus chapter "Late Spring".

Can someone please provide the gist of what the bonus chapter is about?? Or better can it be translated??

Dynasty%20avatar
joined Sep 10, 2017

Re-reading this again and I realize how much I love Kodama's work. People may say that her work is trash and all, but I think it is more relatable than ever, like she understands the deepest and darkest desires inside everyone of us, those that even we ourselves are too ashamed to admit and then presents it to the whole world as the other side of love. I admit that I won't be able to understand these characters because they are too twisted and complicated, but that doesn't mean their love story is not a beautiful one. Nice ending for a nice story I may say :) Though chapter 6 really reminds me of NTR (Hotaru also ran away when she is heartbroken lol)

4bbe1078a9d82bf519de9e5fc56dee60
joined Feb 18, 2018

Damn this is amazing. There is no yuri without Kodama.

Gg
joined Jul 13, 2018

Disclaimer: I suck at Japanese, like, illiterately suck.

It's seems that both girls are leading a new, better life; the kouhai has somewhat gotten over Reo; and she paid a visit to check if our couple's been happy.

I don't know what the kouhai was talking about at the end, maybe Reo was complaining about how her lover is still (adorably) troublesome?

A%20%20gallery_compress77
joined Jan 11, 2019

Is this Netsuzou Trap

New%20dynasty%20reader%20profile
joined Oct 22, 2018

https://dynasty-scans.com/chapters/a_world_without_freedom_ch06#36

WTF? Censor those damn hands!

last edited at Mar 16, 2019 7:04PM

Capture
joined Feb 8, 2019

You shouldn't censor the best part of a story, even if it looks a bit weird...

I really like Kodama's work. For some reason I'm drawn to the dysfunctional relationships that she depicts. I think I like Kodama's twisted relationships exactly because those could never work in real life and I wouldn't want to experience them. So reading them in a manga is kinda tasting the forbidden fruit.

And Kodama's characters are super cute as well...

gwennie-chan
67351033_10220293459155029_8283322322757091328_n
joined Jul 22, 2015

The art was good, but I hated it.

joined Dec 30, 2018

Is this any good?
I like cute and sweet stuff so should I read it or is it really angsty

joined Jan 14, 2020

Angsty journey, happy ending. Well, arguably happy.

Capture
joined Feb 8, 2019

Reread this after a while. Nothing has changed: this is still perhaps the best Yuri manga out there along with Amano Shuninta's The Feelings We All Must Endure.

Toxic relationships + Yuri + Naoko Kodama = the best moe.

last edited at Jan 9, 2021 9:54PM

Capture
joined Feb 8, 2019

Still thirsty? There's more. Here's the bonus chapter "Late Spring".

I wonder whether it's possible to request a translation of this chapter? How would you do it?

With my very bad Japanese & a lot of help from dictionaries, I was able to figure out that basically glasses-san was pretty surprised when she met Meiko working in a store. Meiko had quit from school and started working in order not to rely too much on Reo and be a burden(?).

Later Glasses-san met Reo, who had heard of Glasses's meeting with Meiko, and Reo asked her to be Meiko's friend, which Glasses objected to. Reo said she and some co-workers had been worried about Meiko since she's not so good at interacting with people (no shit, lol). Finally Glasses-san said to Reo that the latter is overprotective of Meiko, who should be able to deal with stuff since she's an adult.

So basically they are living a pretty stable life together and there's nothing groundbreaking going on.

But would be pretty sweet to get a real translation...

RadiosAreObsolete
Img_20210321_022239%20(2)
joined Mar 6, 2021

I hated the characters, I hated the plot and I really wished they wouldn't end up together because Meiko is just... Let's just say that I felt about her exactly as I did about Hotaru and leave it at that.

Every time I start something by Kodama Naoko I end up binge reading the whole thing, because I hate it so much I can't bear to delay the conclusion. (I have to say, though, this definitely didn't reach the level of hate I had for netsuzou trap - that would be a tough task, which I am certain, only this author could possibly pull off xD).

Yet, why do I keep giving this author "one more chance" each time I come across one of her works. The artstyle is just so alluring...

Smol%20dankkonata
joined Oct 10, 2018

What the shit? How did they think this was "moe?" Whatever, moving on.

joined Apr 16, 2022

Definitely the darkest/most fucked up of Kodama Naoko's works, despite not having any cheating in it. Overall I think this was a very interesting idea that needed to be about twice as long to really be effective; with how complicated all three major characters are, and how much plot there is, one volume just isn't enough to adequately delve into the complexities and as a result it feels kind of surface level. In particular, there's lots of interesting stuff going on with Reo, from her suppressed jealousy of Meiko when they were in high school to her addiction to the dramatic lifestyle Meiko gives her in college, but Kodama doesn't really draw these threads together into a single coherent personality and as a result she feels more like a pinball protagonist that does whatever Kodama needs her to to move the plot forward.

That said, Meiko is a good enough character to basically make the manga worth reading by herself; she's almost too good for the manga, frankly. I think what a lot of people miss is that her behavior isn't solely due to her trauma from being assaulted and raped (although that is a large part of it). There's implications she's always been socially awkward and doesn't really know how to get along with people, and that plus her beauty means Reo was her first real friend, as other girls were jealous of her and the guys only pretended to be nice so they could get into her pants. The lesson she took from her rape was in this sense just reinforcing something she already believed: that she was a worthless good-for-nothing whose only value was in her looks. From all that, it makes sense why she would do whatever she could to tie down Reo, the only one she'd ever met who saw value in her as a person.

It hasn't escaped my notice either that so many people in this thread pulled out every misogynistic trope in the book to insult her, up to and including straight-up victim blaming with one person saying the rape must not have been so bad because she decided to use it to tie Reo to her, even though the manga hammers home over and over again via its flashbacks to high school that the rape was so traumatic it permanently warped Meiko's personality and her relationship with Reo. Meiko is both a victim and a victimizer, a terrible person who is terrible not because she was "born bad" but because her life experiences taught her to become that way, and while both she and Reo have made progress by the end neither of them is ever going to truly get over it. Which I find to be a lot more realistic and compelling than the "everyone goes to therapy which magically makes them healthy" ending that some people here were hoping for.

That said, I do think it's fair to criticize the pacing for being choppy and the structure of events to be more like a dumb soap opera than a realistic character drama, which is disappointing when Kodama is trying to tackle such heavy subjects. As a result, while I think this premise had potential to be her best work, it ends up clearly inferior to Segull Villa Days and Fake a Marriage With my Junior. But it is interesting enough to be worth reading if you can handle dark subject matter and mutually toxic relationships.

Img_0215
joined Jul 29, 2017

That said, I do think it's fair to criticize the pacing for being choppy and the structure of events to be more like a dumb soap opera than a realistic character drama, which is disappointing when Kodama is trying to tackle such heavy subjects. As a result, while I think this premise had potential to be her best work, it ends up clearly inferior to Segull Villa Days and Fake a Marriage With my Junior. But it is interesting enough to be worth reading if you can handle dark subject matter and mutually toxic relationships.

While this sort of story isn't my main cup of tea, it certainly is interesting as change of pace from the run-of-the-mill yuri story.

But I think it's pretty clear that a lot of readers don't have much (like any) patience with stories about "mutually toxic relationships." In fact, a lot of readers seem to be dead-set on identifying "the good one" (as opposed to "the least messed-up one") in a story no matter how much of a trainwreck all the characters might be. It's remarkable how often people will go to the mat for "[X] did nothing wrong!" when it's pretty obvious that, while X might not have been the worst of the worst, X still did plenty of things wrong.

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