ボッコちゃん | L31 p 192, この部屋のなかには、闇が静かにこもっていた。I like this start…
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Finished vol 2/3 and while the first volume was great, the second vol blew way past my expectations, and went in deep on the character and relationship development. My favorite part of the volume was actually that they had a huge, realistic fight - the kind where you get everything out and work out your issues, and realize you’re both kinda being idiots, while having valid points rather than drama, character runs away, reconciliation after prolonged avoidance. That and also watching a character have to confront her own beliefs and prejudices around comphet, lesbians, etc (and the series actually specifically references and portrays レズ as an orientation - which is not so common in yuri). While I’m a little worried that vol 3 won’t live up to vol 2, I’m also really excited that the story didn’t end right after the confession
On the other hand was pretty disappointing. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t good. The author talks in both afterwords about how her editor told her to write something happy that had the possibility to become an anime this time, and she was like “what??? Me, write something cheery? I only write messed up dynamics - how am I gonna write something like that??”… Which I think kinda came through in the story.
Like the parts I liked the most were around someone still being friends with, but clearly not over, their ex. And half the characters were on the toxic and creepy side. The parts that I wanted to like (the progression to and conclusion with polyamory) just felt very forced and unrealistic. I didn’t buy that anybody (especially the MC) was reacting that way to the situation. Definitely think 合格のための! やさしい三角関係入門 | L20 pulled this off much better
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Looking at the tags on 女同士とかありえないでしょと言い張る女の子を、百日間で徹底的に落とす百合のお話 | L20 and how questionable is the questionable consent? 
is it that one of the girls is paying the other or is it more than that?
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Finished vol 7 of 明日ちゃんのセーラー服 | L20 - and the storytelling and art continues to be incredible. I love how great the story is at both individual and group character development. And the relationship development is done really well too (vol 7 featured some beautiful color panels to accentuate this). It’s too early to say “this is definitely romantic”, but it’s clear Akebi & Erika have a uniquely special relationship. Unfortunately the kinda ecchi/fan servicey parts continue to be there - tho it feels a bit toned down from before.
It’s more than that. There’s only one scene that unambiguously crosses the line into sexual assault - and it has meaningful narrative purpose, and the characters talk it out afterwards (which is something I like to see, though I had mixed feelings about the conversation itself)… But even setting that aside, the consent stuff here is vastly more uncomfortable than say やがて君になる | L22 or ロンリーガールに逆らえない 1 | L21 . Tho not to the degree of 映しちゃダメな顔: 1 | L23 . If you’re sensitive to reading that kinda thing, then you’ll probably wanna skip it.
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I just finished 先輩はおとこのこ 10 | L17 which finished the story… I got tricked by the web comic version that is still ongoing, but everything after that has been a spin off of sort, focusing on the junior high time of Makoto and Ryuji, so the story won’t progress further than the current situation (and in the あとがき, the author said “they are fine from now on, we can just let them go” so they aren’t planning to write anything about the future… I really don’t understand that logic)
I guess the ending was pretty unsatisfying to me anyway…
Speaking of (somewhat) unsatisfying, I also finished the chapters of 男をやめてみた that currently available for free (basically 5 weeks behind the non-free version). My main issue with the “story” is that it’s just the author telling random episodes related to her transition, without trying to make a fully coherent whole. So there’s a character from volume 1 that became her friend and is mentioned from times to times, but we haven’t seen her ever since. It’s been a while since there’s been any mention of cancer (I assume that the author already received treatment at that point, but judged it not interesting enough to mention?). There are other parts where there are some intense stuff happening… followed by a completely unrelated chapter that probably isn’t even positioned in chronological order compared to the rest (it’s just something that the author remembered/ thought about, I guess).
It’s still fun overall, but if you are going to narrativize (?) stuff, might as well make it into a more coherent/consistent story…
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I am… not surprised at all. I could see that I would be disappointed after only three volumes, which is why I dropped it. You’re more of a completionist than I am though.
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It’s more that I still had hope until volume 10 (and then realized it wouldn’t get anywhere, but I got so far anyway, might as well finish the whole thing)
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Well, I wrote a review for the novel (女同士とかありえないでしょと言い張る女の子を、百日間で徹底的に落とす百合のお話 | L27) and the title of my review was “sexual assault with some plot”. So, very questionable. And unlike ルナ, my impression wasn’t “mature and realistic relationship dynamics” but “silly and trashy”. It’s engaging, but didn’t seem very good besides that to me.
This one I keep forgetting. I think I read the first volume when the second wasn’t out yet, then read the first volume again when I bought the second, didn’t remember anything about it and now have forgotten everything again. I didn’t even mark the second volume as read on natively presumably because I forgot to do so.
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I just started 青い花 | L27 based on @暁のルナ’s recommendation (and technically @seanblue? I’m pretty sure that’s them mentioning it that made me buy the ebook a billion years ago, and/or おとなになっても, I had both volume 1s rotting at the bottom of my 積読 )
GDI uncommon (to me) names with zero furigana. Pronunciation-wise, I’m just gonna wing it, I guess. Thank god for that one guy who couldn’t parse 万城目 and repeated it out loud in katakana.
Otherwise, it was funny to see “ごきげんよう” being referenced 
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Does your copy not have the colour two page spread at the start that gives the readings of the four main characters?
I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to guess the reading of ふみ’s surname, and indeed IIRC that dude guesses wrong. For her 万城目 is read まんじょうめ, but the (unrelated) author 万城目 学 is まきめ まなぶ, for instance.
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He doesn’t guess, he is just repeating what he heard, but without kanji because he didn’t get it. The reading was indeed まんじょうめ.
… it does… but my book opened directly on page 7 and I didn’t even realize (or think about it). I guess I opened it back when I got it, went to the first manga page… and just stopped there and forgot about it.
I often do that with LNs, and there’s usually no issue with that
I didn’t get the dakuten in 奥平, but I guess the names I had problems with do not belong to the main characters anyway, the so who cares 
(Edit: oh wait, no, I just didn’t recognize the color illustration of 井汲, never mind)
(Ah, I just remembered one, 千津, which I miraculously guessed right)
Edit again: okay, there were furigana on a first name near the end of chapter 3, sooo I dunno. And the beginning of chapter 4
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Neither 青い花 nor おとなになっても come close to the brilliance of 放浪息子, but they’re both still good. 青い花 will always mean a lot to me though, because the anime was the gateway that led me to 放浪息子.
Ugh, the names are the worst. If this is a safe manga to share irl, I’d be curious if your spouse knows the correct readings on sight.
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I “hate“ books that give me furigana only on the second appearance of a word 
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I’ve been spending most of my time reading サイレント・ウィッチ II 沈黙の魔女の隠しごと | L30. The prologue was a bit long, so it took some time to get into a rhythm. But I’ve been blasting through it since about the 15% mark. Now I’m about 60% done. This second volume has been doing a good job expanding the cast and the world. I’m really enjoying it so far.
Besides that, here are some manga updates:
- エイティエイトを2でわって 1 | L27 - Two chapters left to finish this first volume. Really been enjoying this and glad I bought the physicals.
- きみのせかいに恋はない | L27 - About halfway done, but haven’t touched it in a while because it’s not that interesting.
- キラキラとギラギラ 3 | L22 - Also haven’t touched in a while since I usually only read it when I’m at the gym (and the last few times I went I didn’t read any manga). I wasn’t particularly impressed by the really repetitive 祭り date/competition storyline. One chapter would have been fine, but three chapters in a row near bored me to death (and there’s one more with this setup before I can finally be done with it.)
- スキップとローファー 7 | L24 - Just started this volume a few days ago, but it’s cute as always.
- 少女たちの痕にくちづけを 1 | L21 - Started this yesterday because all three volumes were on sale and I had some points I needed to use by end of month. I’m not hugely into vampires or the Class S dynamic, so I’m keeping my expectations tempered. But the first chapter at least was fine.
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How you enjoy it, and curious to know what you think! And yeah the names are such a pain. I didn’t recognize any of the names just now, besides 万城目… I am considering rereading it soon tho
普通 
. More seriously I also found that scene amusing
Interesting, cuz I found vol 1 of that kinda boring. Though I imagine there’s a like if development in the remaining 14 Vols
You probably know, be there’s a book club for it: Home Thread for 少女たちの痕にくちづけを 1 | L21 - Class S (and related) club
Interesting. I’ll be curious to see your thoughts. I think it’s probably a good choice for someone who’s not super into the Class S stuff, but I might be wrong
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Ratings on AniList agree with my opinion that 放浪息子 is the best of the three, but obviously it’s individual.
I did not, thanks for sharing!
I’ll let you know. Honestly, part of the reason I don’t always like the dynamic is that I get annoyed any time I see “お姉様” in dialogue in this context. And that’s not even the fault of the manga. It’s been forever ruined for me by watching the anime of Railgun, which I enjoyed quite a bit overall, but Kuroko screaming “お姉様” makes my ears bleed.
I’ve never seen it - what’s the shared context? A school? Perhaps you could just overwrite it with other anime?
Idk that I have anything similar, but in マリア様がみてる | L27 anime, the main character Yumi is played by Ueda Kana, who voices Tohsaka Rin in Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] S1 | L30 and that definitely took me a while to adjust to… The blessing and curse of having good voice actor recognition
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It’s just that she screams お姉様 in a shrill voice. It’s also out of place and she acts like a creep towards the main character, but that’s beside the point I guess.
Anyway, won’t stop me from reading this other manga, so hopefully I enjoy it.
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That’s not quite what I was saying. While I haven’t read the novel, I think your take is fair as well.
additional thoughts on consent, plus another problematic content thing
I do slightly wonder how the novel writing compares… There were some short story scenes I skipped, cuz they seemed a bit meh (and I don’t like short story in manga usually)
To be a bit clearer, the reason I said there’s only one scene that unambiguously crosses the line is because the questionable consent tag says “In many cases, without the positive framing, the act(s) could be interpreted as assault”. In terms of tagging, I never quite know where to draw the line btwn those two.
That aside, there’s two tags I’ve been wondering if I should add: first is the ecchi tag (which I think I’ll add), and second is the pedophilia tag to vol 2, since there is reference to - but not depiction of - the fact that an older side character previously had an ongoing sexual relationship with a middle schooler, and that seems like something unexceptional for that character. Writing that out now, I think I’ll add it as a spoiler tag, with a low percentage (tho I always wonder whether it’s better to add those not as spoilers)
As an aside, I always wish ppl would talk more about the consent stuff in やが君, cuz that is one thing about that series that makes me pretty uncomfortable (with the difference for me being that ありおと is intended as a trashy series, and that’s what I signed up for, while やが君 is intended as something serious). While I like the story, I actually don’t particularly like their relationship beyond “I guess Yuu’s happy in the end, so I’ll accept it…”
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