Yes the pun was tadashi = correct. It was my pun tho, not the author’s
I checked the comic, it’s ゆいじ… Which did not come up when I looked in a names dictionary app or searched with 読み方 
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Yamato is a first name and Yoshinaga a last name. I don’t know what order you meant to use in your table, but since usage is inconsistent, I’ll mention as well that Yuiji, Kyosuke, and Natsumi are first names as well.
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It’s time for week two! This week and next week are some of the longest sections we have, so just a reminder to pace yourself. We’ll also have a vote for a catch up week next time.
| Week | Chapter | Pages | Page Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 2 | 2 | 49 - 98 | 49 |
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Oooh chapter 2 is from the point of view of Yamato-kun! That’s promising.
Edit: well, not as exciting (to me at least) as I hoped. Turns out being in Yamato-kun’s head was not that special. That chapter did remind me of teenage angst, but I’m honestly not missing it. I’m sure glad for the existence of Yuiji, though.
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Finished week 2 as well. The book is definitely living up to its slice-of-life tag so far. All the characters are so prettily drawn, I gotta say; it’s nice just looking at them.
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Finished week 2… Much better than last week, tho still dragged for me a bit. Yamato PoV was a huge relief.
Additional thoughts
I love that there’s such an exploration of staying closeted vs confessing, coming out, etc, and all the social pressure/concerns. Definitely really felt for Yamato. I read primarily yuri, and those sorts of things are often left unexplored (for better and worse), unless it’s some sort of taboo love like incest, or a couple intentionally hiding their relationship or something - neither of which are very common storylines.
It’s nice to see Yamato and Yuiji bonding - and like it was already apparent, but they definitely have chemistry. Also was interesting to see Yamato’s conversation with his female friend, as well as overhear the classmates talking about him. Another thing that’s fairly uncommon in yuri - mixed gender schools. It exists, but it’s the minority. I definitely like it here - fleshes out the environment very nicely. And speaking of differences, I’m sooooo not used to the rough, 男らしい speech style. So it was a bit refreshing when Yamato was talking to the girl in the cafe.
I groaned when 球技大会 came up. I’m so sick to death of that sorta thing (and literally just finished reading 体育祭 chapters in another manga), but it was bearable.
Overall I’m not totally sold on this manga yet, but it’s convincing enough that I’ll stick around for a 3rd chapter.
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That’s really bizarre to me as a BL reader: mixed gender is typically the default, as far as I’ve seen, though girls don’t typically feature in any kind of non-background character role unless they’re specifically a villain of some sort trying to pry apart our heroes or whatever. トーマの心臓 in a single-gender school feels novel to me.
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So yuri has its distant roots in Class S and 少女小説 - which generally featured homosocial schools, bc that was the reality of girls education back then (early 1900s). Tldr: that carried over into 70s and 90s yuri, despite Class S being extinct by then.
Shoujo, Class S, and Yuri history
Girls secondary schools were a new thing (initially only affordable to the wealthy)… And the whole 少女 culture was created from these schools and girls magazines where the readership was almost (if not entirely) all girls. It was basically a temporary bubble from stuff like marriage and employment. The schools were a safe place where girls could develop very intimate, quasi-romantic relationships (that at least in theory didn’t didn’t cross the line into sexual stuff).
The girls schools came out of legislative reforms that were intended to help Japan modernize (to Western influence and morals), and this worked in conjunction with the whole 良妻賢母 (good wife, wise mother) policy/outlook. Consequently the magazines were monitored by the government, so overtly homosexual content wouldn’t fly (especially in later years). And part of what emerged from that is a pure love that was kind of “for practice”, and technically ended after graduation - though in practice, many women in the stories and real life maintained those relationships in some form throughout their lives.
This is also the culture that Takarazuka Revue emerges from - because it was a “safe” theater, by virtue of its all girls cast. One of the defining aspects of Takarazuka Revue is the 男役 otokoyaku - where male characters were played by androgenous women - who were a sort of idealized form of masculinity, more (ideal) masculine than actual men, while still being female - and thus neutral & safe (Oscar from ベルサイユのばら, Haruka from Sailor Moon, Utena, etc all derive from this. And even in ベルサイユのばら, one of the significant male characters Andre essentially has to be de-masculinized before his love for another character Oscar could be fully accepted).
Anyway, that all-girls space and elite private school setting still carried over years later into 70s shoujo yuri (ex 白い部屋のふたり (which really solidified that setting and various tropes) or おにいさまへ (which deconstructs that)). Even when the readership for yuri started to diversify, and 男性向け yuri started getting produced in the 90s, it largely kept that default setting (despite Sailor Moon & Utena paving the way for that).
While a lot of modern yuri go so far as never even having a male character shown (404: Men not found), the pre-war Class S and 少女小説 (pre and post-war) and 70s yuri definitely includes them as side characters. I’m not 100% sure when that changed… probably in the 90s, due to largely emerging out of 同人誌 culture). I think the stories in early Yurihime editions (back when it was a shoujo magazine) generally maintain this - but I’d have to double-check.
Side note: despite the 良妻賢母 origins of shoujo culture and magazines, they took on a life of their own, and created actual physical and virtual communities that fostered a lot of personal growth, wisdom and professional development for women at the time - and helped give them more independence than they’d previously had. Even here, the editors were all men, but (at least in the case of 少女の友 magazine) when they answered letters and such, they wrote in the same style that the girls wrote to them in - again the whole de-masculinization thing, like with Takarazuka Revue. (In the more conservative 少女画報 that was not the case tho… But that magazine was more aimed at parents anyway)
This is part of what I like about it
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There’s also the requirement of a cute girl 告る to one of the mains, which may or may not send the other main into a “he doesn’t like me after all” and/or “it would make sense for him to be with her instead of me” spiral. 
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Okay, that explains some things. I remember complaining about the lack of that element in the GL book club and felt like no one was really getting what I meant. But yes, it’s fairly common in BL (and real life). It’s wild to me that it would just… not be a thing in a whole genre.
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wait a min… gay people aren’t real? oh no…
guess im just a pigment of my own imagination 
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For which book?
non-taboo yuri that does include this stuff
I like that it’s not present a lot of the time. But two I can think of that do have it (and aren’t dealing with taboos) are はなにあらし | L18 and ロンリーガールに逆らえない 1 | L21 (hiding from friends and classmates). GIRL FRIENDS | L23 and 踊り場にスカートが鳴る | L23 have characters dealing with internalized homophobia, and 雨夜の月 | L24 has “nobody I know who I can talk to about these feelings I don’t quite get, besides this one older lesbian I met”
Indeed… Part of the appeal of many yuri for me is exactly that I don’t have to consider that IRL stuff. The cloistered space is nice in a way. I do like stories that deal with it too tho… Maybe I should try to field some recs
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That was a super neat history lesson; thank you! You’re becoming quite knowledgeable about the field, haha.
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I know, right? Maybe I’m just a butterfly dreaming I am a person too.
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Yeah, you mentioned the exact same thing at the time. 
I guess for me it’s a way to relive/explore some other aspects of my life.
I can’t go back to high school/early adulthood and re-come out of the closet (or not).
Thanks for the recommendations, I’ll have a look.
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well not with that attitude… pfft!!!
the angsty stuff..... semi off topic :man_shrugging:
I used to enjoy reading or watching more of this when I was younger. The older I get the less patience I have for mental immaturity … going back to high school…ouch no thanks 
It is interesting how much of that angsty stuff feels over the top, can’t tell how much of it is because a lot of the BL writers are not necessarily gay men … but it can get old. At some point I got old and have less patience for it. It’s a stage of life I’m glad I’m well past…thankfully!
I am reading two other books right now, one found from someone’s BL list somewhere: 僕が夫に出会うまで | L30
Loved the first half some of the growing up stories…really great. The 2nd half is slow going cuz of the authors angsty stuff…kind of want to smack him upside the head and tell him to just grow up… but then I think about where I was at at his age …and yeah… tough…
the other BL im reading right now is just delicious and no angsty stuff… just some delicious yakuza men (nice when they are adults and not in a high school setting)
獅子と明星 | L24?? (found this one randomly … and had to investigate for … science - someone had to verify the artwork quality … or something)
oh yeah also not level 24… yakuza speak + ksb…probably 28 happy joy (but worth it)
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Glad you found it interesting. I feel bad I skipped over the 50s, but it wasn’t relevant for the question, besides 「パリー東京」「さくら並木」 | L24?? (Takahashi Makoto, EN link cuz JP is OOP) - which is still Class S, but artistically closer to modern yuri manga. His work was influential on shoujo in general.
At least I’m consistent? That said, I could do with more inclusion of family dynamics and male characters… Oh, I forgot 青い花 | L27 as well (that one has some cousin incest early on, but it’s not the focus of the story, beyond the MC moving on from it). But she’s very scared to come out to her best friend (and others?). Same author as 放浪息子 | L25
For better or worse, I didn’t understand anything about myself till my 20s when I was living on my own… Well I sorta realized I was bi, but it never really seemed like a big deal at the time? Don’t think I told anyone
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Back on-topic… There was a scene where one of the characters used ちょうだい - which surprised me, cuz I think I’ve only heard it from female characters (or maybe the very gay, effeminate male villains in Sailor Moon). Is that a thing guys actually do?
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I feel like I’ve heard it from men (well, teenagers, which this also is) among friends 
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Some more out of topic
It’s true that it gets old. It depends how much of it I read recently. That being said
To this day, I still spend a ridiculous amount of time day dreaming about that period of my life and how I could have managed it better with the knowledge and experience I now have… But I guess you are right that just day-dreaming isn’t going to send me back in time.
I own the first volume and plan to read it some day™
Same as @shitsurei, I have heard it from younger guys. That usage of the word sounds childish regardless of gender.
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