Home Thread for 少女たちの痕にくちづけを 1 | L21 - Class S (and related) club

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Welcome to Class S (and related) club’s reading of 少女たちの痕にくちづけを 1 | L21

あらすじ

秘密の花園で紡がれる、吸血鬼少女たちの物語――開幕!

深い深い森の中に建つ学園で過ごす少女たち。 彼女たちの秘密は、全員<吸血鬼>だということ。 人間に気づかれることなく狩り=吸血をするため、血の絆で結ばれた“姉妹制度”が少女たちにもたらすものとは――?[/details]

EN blurb

**“I’m sure someday, I’ll get you to look my way.” Danger and uncertainty are common for a young vampire, which is why Emille will be assigned a “Big Sister” on her fourteenth birthday, like all the girls at her school. Deep within a secluded forest, her sister will teach her how to hunt and safely feed on humans. Learning to rely on each other for survival cultivates a deep relationship comparable to that between family-but does theirs have the potential to evolve into something more?"

No set schedule

Feel free to ask questions, share thoughts, etc, just post chapter or pg numbers, and keep things under [details] or [spoiler] tags, unless they’re general enough that they wouldn’t be a spoiler even for ppl just starting out.

Looking forward to reading/discussing this with everyone!!

Will you be reading with us?
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  • Just following the discussion
  • I came along later
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I read this already recently, but I enjoyed it enough to read a 2nd time around

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finished the first volume

vol1

The first 2 chapters got me worried that it would be very generic genki girl x tsundere onee-sama, but it got more interesting afterwards. Especially towards the end. I can’t say I’m interested that much in the main couple but I’m curious how Yucca (awful romanization but, it’s what’s used on her room sign…) will develop. Also the other girls (Violetta? perhaps I am blanking on the name) relationship with her onee-sama. She also seems interestedin Emile, but not really aggressively pursuing her like I expected at first.

I said before I don’t really love the genki girl yuri heroine. So far Emille feels like a really generic version of it :sweat_smile: Well she is cute, I guess. It’s not like I hate this character type either I just need her to have a bit more going on.

It’s a very quick read so I’ll read the next two volumes soon hopefully.

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That was fast!!

You probably saw my review already, but I shared that same concern when I first read it. Anyway I’ll post vol 1 thoughts sometime in the next few days I guess

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vol2

Yucca backstory was very intense. For a while I even believed she killed her own onee-sama, because she was that into seeing emile (or a girl she thinks resembles her) suffer. I don’t mind that I was wrong on that or anything, I think it’s good enough that the story invoked these doubts in itself. I also think it’s fitting for a vampire story have that sort of more twisted and possibly sadisctic character. I was really interested in how it was going to get resolved…but then it went in a very underwhelming direction where she was just talked down, realized the error of her ways and left the school. This reminds me a bit of how I felt about the last group read, where I had also felt the solution was disporportionate to the drama build up.

Maybe I just want things to be more dramatic in general.

Next plotline about the vampire hunter girl…I quite like her because I like dojikko characters. Eve’s actions this arc feel…odd. The way she couldn’t tell Emile about her being a hunter was a bit contrived, but w/e not a big deal. The second time around her getting them face to face instead of just telling her felt really dangerous. She seems to have thought that the hunter would just let Emile go but she knows this girl even less than Emile does. And a hunter knowing their faces and names, isn’t that awfully dangerous? I’m confused on why Eve did this especially considering her backstory. Although right now I geniunely can’t tell if this is actually supposed to be Eve being reckless or we are just supposed to accept it as another plot contrivance as Emile seems much more upset about her friend being a hunter and not at all about her onee-sama intentionally putting both of them into mortal danger (that they could still not be out of if her hunter friend changes her mind)

So I’m kind of of two minds about it, if Eve’s actions are actually going to be explored, great. If not, I’ll be annoyed again.
Besides that I look forward to seeing how things resolve with the hunter. I think it’d be nice to get more from humans perspective. Emile obviously and understandably only thinks from the vampire pov.

Lastly the half vampire half human character. I asume she won’t be too important at this point, but I like her design.

I imagine the next volume will be resolution of the hunter plotline, and afterwards focus on whatever is going on with violetta.
I am hoping Yucca will get some more content as she just dissappeared in to the night, but not sure at this rate if there would be enouhg room in a single volume for that to happen.

I feel like I come across very negative when writing these, but I am enjoying the manga fwiw.

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Your vol 2 thoughts make me much more excited to reread now (that was my favorite volume of the 3)

Hopefully I’ll get to it this weekend, tho it might be next week at this point…

要約

What would have been a more satisfying solution/conclusion narratively?

I think I totally agree with you on all this. I really loved the stuff with the hunter and Emile otherwise though.

Good to know :slight_smile: I can get fairly critical myself, even with things I’m enjoying

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Btw @Marifly are you still interested in reading this? I noticed you voted for it, so just wanted to check

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Thanks for the ping! I had completely forgotten this, but it looks interesting, so why not!

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I have read the first chapter now. It sure is different from what I usually read! A bit darker, a bit more dangerous… I really like it though. Looking forward to reading the next chapter!

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vol3

I’m not a writer, all I can say is my experience when reading, and that is that I felt it was too easily wrapped up, and then the relevant character just left (to not return ever). Her obsession was a bit explained by stuff in vol 3, at least.

This was my favorite volume, despite it continuing my problems of things not getting elaborated upon. The hunter stuff basically had no follow up at all, what a let down.
However this volume made me actually care about the leads finally, which was welcome. Although I am not sure Emile’s condition was planned from the start, I like how it at least felt like it tied things up. I also liked her feelings of inadequacy over Eve’s dead onee-sama.

Violetta is an interesting case I felt like she was set up as the main rival/“villain” but she barely mattered in the end.

In general my feeling on this manga is I wish it just handled each “arc” a bit more thoroughly. Emile is asking these questions over whether humans are all bad, meets a half-human half-vampire etc but none of these doubts she has really matter, she never meets the hunter girl again and it is all left hanging. Similarly Yucca is just gone, Emile hopes she will come back eventually but if she does it is out of the scope of the story. It just left an unsatisfying aftertaste in my mouth.

I had issues with the resolution of certain aspects 行進子犬に恋文を as well, but overall it didn’t leave me feeling like things were left hanging. I rated both manga consistently 3 stars (which is to say: I liked them! but didn’t love them), but I prefer 行進子犬に恋文を if I were to compare. Mostly because I think I liked the main characters more, as well as the setting. 0

On a semi-related note, when starting this manga I was under the impression that it was going to be a human-vampire relationship. Like the S relationship would involve a vampire and human being paired up as a willing blood donor :smiley: It just seemed to be the most obvious way to take this concept, but I was way off.

Thanks for hosting as always

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vol 3 response

Hmm, personally I liked the way it was handled - bc how else could that go? - but it would have been cool for them to bump into each other in the city, or while they were out hunting or something

I figured that would be the case, but totally agree! That was my favorite arc by far, and it felt like the author could have done more with it

Couldn’t say, but I agree about both of those. I had to double check that Emile’s condition was what I thought it was, cuz there’s another work I read with a character who has that exact same problem, and it’s used to very good effect (tho I have other issues with that series)

I was fine with that personally, it’s kinda more realistic(?) to me. Tho I guess I could see it being a bit 拍子抜け

I think I agree with that feeling. It kinda felt like the writer was just trying their hand at various ideas they found interesting, but didn’t know how to develop them so much.

But my general feeling was more of “oh, that did some interesting and out of the box stuff” - which even if it didn’t go as deep as it could have, was still nice to see.

I can’t help but 積み重ねる this manga and きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい 1 | L23 . That one’s not Class S, but the setting/vibe is similar in some ways, and at 8 volumes (and still going) it’s able to develop things a lot more than this story is - and characters there still matter, even after they exit the story. Which is to say, I have a feeling you’ll like it, if you haven’t read it already

Yeah - it’s a much more thoroughly developed story, and I get the impression the author had a much clearer vision for their story than here. Where as I feel like 少女たちの痕 kinda wanted to be more cute and fluffy, and maybe hadn’t considered things quite as thoroughly. To be fair, 行進子犬 had 5 volumes to work with - but still, everything felt more deliberate, and had more depth. The MCs their are certainly more dynamic as well.

I’m so, so glad it wasn’t that cliche. Plus what benefit is there for the younger sister (who I assume would be the donor) in that scenario? Idk, I’d definitely be interested in that as a yuri story… But for an S relationship, I could only really see it being interesting if there were some sort of incidental element - like how Yumi & Sachiko have the Cinderella play thing hanging between them. Idk maybe there’s ways to make it interesting, but I think I prefer the way it was here.

Thanks for reading, and all the lovely discussion :slight_smile:

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