Aah so sorry about that. I saw that people were talking about the story and forgot that people might have half way through >.<
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End of story spoilers
Tokano’s relationship with Akina started as a power inbalance seemingly, but from what we see I think it’s clear that changed at some point before the start of the story.
Unclear if it’s romantic love or not but Tokano seems to care a lot for Akina. Tokano is there to actively listen to Akina’s rants / explanations, thinks Akina is cute despite her growth being stunted, malnourished and her pulling own hair out. She wants to touch her but holds back because she knows Akina hates it. Despite knowing Akina has killed her sister, Tokano still listens carefully to what she has to say. Tokano understands that Akina hasn’t done anything out of malice (and is probably severely autistic), so doesn’t get angry at her. To me it’s pretty clear that Tokano loves Akina.
The other way around I’m not sure. Its possible Akina only thinks of Tokano as a person that she feels comfortable with due to her perceived predictability? Maybe, but in a way that also sounds like a kind of love?
Are autistic traits being demonized here?.. mhh I don’t know, I doubt the author intended anything like that. I think the way Akina thinks and acts is shown to be negative because she hurts herself and others because of it (but I think this only due to the severity of it). At the same time, Tokano is shown to be incredibly understanding and presumably the way Akina is, is one of the reasons she likes her.
Akina in this story is reminiscent of Lenny in Of Mice and Men. With the added sci-fi / fantasy element of the afterlife being a ‘real’ place that is supposedly a more hospitable place to exist for Akina.
Reply (rambled a bit, sorry)
Except Tokano said she had never once thought Akina cute before. She thought she was ugly, and she knew that if she stood next to her, she herself, whom she knows is (or at least sees herself as) nothing to look at, will look that much better. As long as she’s next to Akina, Tokano will never be on the bottom. She never thought Akina cute until she had her helpless to her whims. It’s a power trip. She doesn’t find Akina cute, she finds her powerlessness cute.
She feels superior to her, pities her. She might care about her or feel protective of her the way you do someone beneath you, but I don’t believe she actually loves her. Plus, like, they’ve been together—connected, attached in some way—practically their whole lives, of course everything’s not just gonna disappear the instant she learns Akina killed her little sister.
She hears her out because she wants to at least try to understand why Akina did it, and because it’s familiar. Then she decides to murder her the same way Akina murdered her sister, to violently force her to understand other people and what her sister went through as she died. And because Akina hasn’t reflected, when really all she hasn’t done is reach the conclusion that Tokano wants her to have. Though granted I don’t remember if she mentioned reflection before or after Akina said she went wrong in killing the little sister since it didn’t get her the old Tokano back. (I just remember getting to that line and going, “Really? Or has she just not repented?”) (Oh, you reached this conclusion? Wrong, you should have reached this one. You haven’t reflected at all, I see.) (You say you had this reason? Well, that doesn’t match up with the valid reason I decided in my head, so clearly you’re lying/making excuses/etc.)
I doubt the autism thing was intentional too, but you see a caricature of autism made into a villain (especially when that’s the only autism in the story), that still doesn’t feel good. Especially when so many people hate and demean autistic traits all the time both irl and in fiction regardless of whether they know it’s autism or not. It doesn’t have to be on purpose to be hurtful.
There may be a lot of autistic-coded characters who are portrayed in a positive light, who may be misunderstood and/or disliked at first, but they find people who try to understand them and who accept them and the efforts that they make (even if other people/characters don’t see those efforts as “good enough”), but that doesn’t erase the ones who are portrayed in a negative light. Who are villains, or at least characters you’re not supposed to like, who are the butt of the joke, who are made out to be assholes just for the sake of it, who are infantilized, who are told to just grow up, get over themselves, who are redeemed when they see the error of their ways (trying to exist as an autistic person in a situation hostile to that) and turn themselves around (magically become neurotypical). When the autism-mom character is made out to be the hero and it’s the autistic-kid character who needs to learn to be grateful for everything she does for him (the absolute bare minimum as a parent) and to stop complaining (trying to get her to listen to what he actually needs and to see that the way she always makes it about herself and what makes her feel good is not helping at best and actually hurting him at worst).
I don’t care if other people don’t feel that way about it and/or like the story, autistic or not—everyone’s allowed to feel however they feel—but it makes me feel icky to see traits that I have exaggerated and twisted like that.
Note that I’m not saying that there aren’t autistics who are unhealthy or anything remotely like that, or even that there mightn’t be ones like Akina, but when the only character you can see yourself in is the antagonist—and one whom if anything you’re supposed to pity or feel sorry for, not empathize with and understand—that doesn’t feel very nice.
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end of story spoilers
When Akina is talking about ‘free energy’ I totally empathised with that’s how I feel quite a bit of the time. I don’t personally interpret the story to be criticising feeling that way though. Just she took it too far by killing Tokano’s sister, I suppose. I absolutely know what you mean with austitic traits being demonized in media though, the sad thing about it being that authors often do it unintentionally not understanding the actual experience of autistic people. For example misrepresenting autistic traits as character flaws that get ‘fixed’ over the course of the story doesn’t sit well with me.
Perhaps I misread or just interpreted it differently, but I had the understanding that Tokano initially used Akina as a tool to make herself look better when they first interacted, but when the story starts they had already known each other a fair while. She puts up with some fairly antogonistic language from Akina on the phone , and when they meet in the forest initially, presumably Tokano doesn’t stick around with Akina for the heck of it. I find it hard to believe that she puts up with that simply to make herself look better at that point.
There’s the context of the story too, being in a yuri anthology, the authors intent is presumably that there is at least the possibility that their relationship could be interpreted romantically.
That all said, that’s just my interpretation of a story in a language I’m familiar with, so shrug
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Just finished the story and I found the end really cringe.
If there’s no separation, there’s no consciousness. If there’s no consciousness, there’s no understanding. *The author even sites a research paper saying that much as his first reference”.
Also, being “input” into the Unseen world (幽世 here, although I usually see it written as 隠(り)世) would just destroy your body, like been put in a mixer; I don’t see how you would retain consciousness in that case. The story even went over the concept of sensory inputs and wold models… So, anyway, from the start, the intended punishment made no sense and, far from pointing that out, アキナ just said that she is afraid of understanding others (as if that’s a thing that would happen).
Fun fact, I thought @bombpersons’ comment was a spoiler for this part because of the way they translated 幽世, but I guess they just used one of the standard meaning for the word 
(turns out it was still a spoiler, though, luck of the draw). Meanwhile, I’ve never seen it used with that meaning despite coming across it relatively frequently. In modern fiction, the realm of the deads would be 常世. (And even then, some works, like かくりよの宿飯 just treat it as another place rather than the literal afterlife)
I can’t really comments on the autism but it’s also weird to me. Regardless of how severe your symptoms are, I don’t see how you could think of killing someone without being evil (which is independent of autism) but the story never adresses that. Instead, the main character seems to think of it as “well, that’s how she is”, which is indeed a bad take. At the same time, the author managed to be wrong about so many things in so little time that at this point it doesn’t really register for me.
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I think so as well that she might be in love with Akina, but perhaps doesn’t realise it herself. Initially, though, I don’t think Toka’s feelings were too… kind-hearted. Rather, from the story, I got the impression that Toka herself was not so much of a good person (not that she was malicious, or anything - just a human being, with positive and negative traits)
This is also what I thought, in the end.
I have to say, though, with the exception of the second story, the yuri so far feels a bit too… implied? Old-school? I was expecting at least more explicit yuri in the stories, but I feel like I’m reading old-school manga where it’s just implied that the two female characters may have something more going on. I’m also wondering if we’ll at least get one happy love story - nothing wrong with drama, but I’d also like to see a positive representation of a yuri/lesbian couple who actually gets and stays together, instead of the tragic love stereotype.
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There should be no 時 in here (it’s a date 
)
Does that mean “until those words” or “until the end of that part”?
Other than that, a vampire story could be fun, but there’s nothing really giving me hope so far. I have to admit the last two stories (the keyword list and the manga) kinda lowered my expectations…
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it means until that part of the chapter
what am I supposed to do with that 時 comment it’s literally copy-paste 
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It’s not in my copy either, it’s just 八月二十三日. I suppose someone somewhere had a typo at some point and then that got copied over.
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So I should read that part? (I haven’t yet)
About 時, just remove it (in the other weeks as well)
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to be honest it’s not even the first time I got corrected on things I copy-pasted, I’m starting to think my version is some weird beta or something
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I was counting on reading it(?)
I’m starting to question myself though, will go over the chapter order again when my classes are over
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I put off reading this for awhile, but I’m back at it 
I read:
week 3 - Dec 3 (chapter 2):
Very sad, unique concept. Seemed like a complicated relationship. I was satisfied with this story, more so than the first one.
week 4 - Dec 10 (chapter 3):
wat
week 5+6 - Dec 17/24 (chapter 4):
I am about halfway done with this and can’t see myself finishing it tonight because what is this boring wall of text about energy? And eating hair? And killing baby sisters? HOW IS THIS YURI.
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Chapter 5 / Week 7
I’m not done with this week’s reading, but I’m unsure if I’ll continue with this chapter. It personally just feels like the difficulty level really went up so much that I can barely follow the story (and end up having to look up almost half of the sentences) both in terms of formality and vocabulary. I’m just struggling to follow and the reading feels like a slog.
Can someone help me with the below?
先生が指名された猫屋さんという、級の中でも目立って小柄で京人形のような方が卓子に横たわった時、私、何の見世物が始まるのかと思いましたけれど、まさか胸を開いて中を見るだなんて、思ってもみませんでしたわ。
Is 猫屋 supposed to be someone’s name? And she is basically lying on the table like a doll being opened up, is that it?
青白い肌に走った縦糸を引き抜かれる様を目のあたりにする、それだけで私は痛々しくて息苦しくて、胸の古傷までじくじくと痛んで、そっと撫でさすったのでした。
Am I right in assuming both Nekoya and the narrator have these threads closing a wound in their chest (I am assuming it has something to do with them being vampires (?))
嗜血機関 (ヘマとフイリア エンジン)
Maybe this is explained later on as the condition they have? I really couldn’t understand what it’s supposed to be, but perhaps they will clarify it more later
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Week 7 answers
It is her name and she just lies there getting opened up. The doll part is about her looking like a doll in general.
Oh, that’s a good point. I assumed from the fact that girl hated blood that she was a regular human (I actually thought that the other girl mentioned that too, but I might misremember) but everyone else is a vampire.
I don’t know if more details are given later, but the first two kanji are used with the meaning of “vampire/vampirism” so far. The last two (especially with reading “engine” and the context) tells you that it’s the “organ” that makes them “work” and thus keeps them alive (and replaces their heart).
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Thank you so much!
I did read the next part and it seems that the narrator is a vampire if I understood it right, but one of the girls (the one who felt unwell) is indeed human, which is quite interesting in this setting.
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I mean, there’s no narrator, just two girls sending letters to each other. One is a vampire (even numbered dates), the other one (who wrote the one we were talking about; odd numbered dates) is a human (as far as I can tell)
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I feel a bit stupid that I didn’t realise it before but with the last two chapters (days?) I did feel confused that it seemed like two different people were ‘narrating’… it is much more clear now. I will try to reread the beginning later this week to see if I understand it better; it seems like the story is falling into place now for me. Thanks again!
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Oof, chapter 5 was a really difficult read, I think I managed to understand it but wow was that a jump in difficulty!
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