Cuz a scene in ありえない 3 made me think of a moment (near the end of the series), and I never finished my reread. I’m curious if I can finish without lookups. (はなにあらし is totally wholesome, unlike ありえない)
Some old Yurihime stuff. 1 & 3 are Yurihime S (former 男性向け magazine), and the other was originally in a mix of shoujo magazines
Finished this, and liked the cafe setting and general vibe. Left a review here. Note: age gap (16 & unspecified “young store owner”)
I’m a huge fan of 私の百合はお仕事です! | L27 - and this is other earlier 2 part side stories by the author. At 74% in, I’m pretty mixed on it. Most of the relationships feel pretty 微妙. Definitely nowhere near the quality of わたゆり. One story is an adult couple though, which I always appreciate
An “I’m gonna win my probably(?) straight best friend over” manga, with a weird twist of “you don’t have to answer my confession till graduation, and can do whatever you want to me”… But so far it’s just the interested girl trying to push/tease the other girl into various suggestive scenarios (or accidentally ending up in them)… which of course the other girl starts to gradually consider
This is 4-koma right? How is this in terms of "just (aimless?) SoL comedy) vs “meaningful plot and character development”?
Same on that actually (and too many lookups, a year ago). I have to wonder if it’s more intriguing to people unfamiliar with the topic. I will eventually finish it though
It is, yes. The plot is pretty minimal so far. It’s basically about four girls in a high school dorm playing piano. Three have many years of experience and one is new. One of the girls stopped playing for some reason before the manga started, but it hasn’t been seriously addressed yet (and may never be). I don’t get the impression it’ll be much more than a SoL comedy.
It did feel a bit… let’s say “educational” at some points.
It’s been great so far! I love the drawing style, the characters are realistic and yet things are moving forward. I particularly enjoyed the first kiss scene (as well as the build up towards it). Plus, it’s great that there’s zero fan service nor “male gaze” or whatever (I mean, I didn’t expect any knowing the author, but it still feels good). On the contrary, 杉本 is very 凛々しい indeed.
So, yeah, it’s pretty much everything I hoped for in a 百合 story.
I guess the one I would say is that I am over all more interested in stories involving adults… but I guess that will be taken care of by おとなになっても. It’s literally in the title.
I can swear you made that reference last time we talked about ごきげんよう, but I can’t find it. I guess them’s the rules; you don’t make them.
Edit: I now have finished volume 1, and it was great overall! I’m not sure I want to start yet another story riiiiight now, but soon I guess.
Also, I finally got the readings of the name of the three background girls. And immediately forgot them, as it should be
Funny enough that scene makes me kind of uncomfortable, but 杉本 does in general… I see a lot of my younger self in ふみ, and 杉本 is pushy and forward in a way that I would have been really uncomfortable with then, and probably still now. I agree it’s well written and built up to though - and she’s a great part of the story
This is also a thing I love about it (though I did once see someone call it male gazey, and I was reaaaally perplexed)
Hmmm maybe I should make a list of those one of these days
That is interesting indeed. She is the kind of person I would fall head over heels for back in high school. There are parts of her attitude that I would not like nowadays but somehow made me think of the kind of defense mechanisms people who suffered some rejection-related trauma puts up (testing the boundaries of others, for instance). And then the book went on to show me a past rejection she suffered and still strongly feels about! That felt really satisfying (and realistic), and the author isn’t putting it in our faces at any point. That would not excuse that kind of behavior for me as an adult (please go to therapy, that’s your problem, not mine), but it’s not like I knew enough as a high school student (plus, making mistakes is part of the learning process… AND there’s a chance for 杉本 to get better). Still, that’s also why I’m more interested in stories involving grown ups.
About the kiss scene itself, while there was no explicit verbal consent, ふみ has been displaying a lot of signs of interests so far, 杉本 恭己 (it feels weird not to be consistent with name usage ) is moving in slowly, ふみ is not moving back, nor has any “rabbit caught in the headlight” frozen look, so it’s pretty much as good as it gets. But YMMV, of course.
It must be because the author is showing us their feet in the scene we just mentioned. I forgot the boys get craaaaazy for some nice ankles.
More seriously, except if there’s some crazy shift in tone in the remaining volumes, I really don’t see how that could happen.
That made me check the free preview of volume 2, and I want to keep reading, but that’s a heavy price tag. I don’t think I can justify buying books that expensive right now.
inb4 I just immediately give in and just buy the remaining 7 volumes.
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for various reasons, so just sitting on the couch and reading manga this weekend.
Finished 私の拳をうけとめて! 1 | L21 earlier this week. Really struggled with the ヤンチャ talk, so I think I’ll come back to this series later because I was enjoying the plot. I really relate to watching all my friends get married and start having kids and feeling a little like I’m getting left behind. Although for a different reason than Takebe…
Lastly, finished up ざつ旅-That's Journey- 1 | L24 today because I need to free up some room on my reading schedule. This felt comparatively breezy after struggling with 私の拳, but I also didn’t bother looking up any of the words in the “explaining the history of the location” text boxes. It’s cute. Not the best, but it does a good job of fulfilling the fantasy of having time/money to travel (in Japan or elsewhere, really).
And why did I need to clear up room on my reading schedule, you ask? Because the tankoubon for 魔法少女ダンデライオン(1) | L24?? came out recently and I must to read it. I read the first few chapters in English prior to switching to reading manga in Japanese only and really liked it. I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes…
That’s very helpful framing. It’s exactly the boundaries stuff, combined with being pretty self-absorbed, that makes me really uncomfortable… that’s at least partially tied to some stuff I’ve gone through tho
Indeed, to all of that
I’ve generally read/viewed the scene as being much more mixed wrt Fumi showing signs of interest, plus not having the “in headlights” appearance. Looking at that page now, I see what you’re saying though. I did watch the anime first, and I wonder how they compare in their portrayal (it’s been a while)… And admittedly there’s probably some degree of 積み重ねる/self-projecting, in how I read the scene
Gold … Really though, I have no idea what would make someone think that
This is making me wanna either resume vol 2, or rewatch the anime… tho I probably shouldn’t start another manga rn
Finished にゃん! 鈴江三万石江戸屋敷見聞帳 | L35?? today. I’m never quite sure how strongly to recommend humour, because I could easily see somebody bouncing off this: if you don’t find its silliness amusing then you’ll probably hate it. But I enjoyed it…
Finally read おかえりアリス 1 | L17 and wow I Hated That. It’s earned the dishonor of being the 3rd book I’ve given a 1 star to… I’m somehow experiencing the desire to hate read volume 2
Finished 飴色紅茶館歓談: 2 | L19 main story - and it was sweet through the end (and stayed non-physical).
additional thoughts with some spoilers
The relationship stayed non-physical, which I appreciated given that the MC is a minor, and it felt consistent with the characters. It ended with couple rings, and I’ll stay by your side in this cafe sorta thing, which the time skip(?) epilogue reaffirms
I liked the first volume better bc it was set almost entirely in the cafe, which has a cozy nice vibe. This one also involved a 3rd character to push the two, which I was less crazy about. Anyway a bit unrealistic, but nice enough. There’s an unrelated story about 2 grown-up, radio voice actresses that I have to finish.
Finished https://learnnatively.com/book/d1b4997f48/ - it’s entertaining enough, but the whole premise was that the character who was confessed to could do whatever she wanted to the character who confessed… And the execution has been entirely the confessor making advances. So like what’s the point? I’ll probably read the remaining 2 vols soon enough. Update: I finished it. She finally realized she could make a move. What an odd series.
Gotta catch up with book clubs - こいものがたり, 明日の世界で星は煌めく, and トーマの心臓 - and hoping to start focusing on novels a bit more… But also still wanna finish all the manga series I started
Well, at the very least, misery loves company, so I’m glad you went through that too and shared your feelings. It’s funny that the last paragraph of your review really reflects how I feel about the author
My original review sounds much tamer than I remember… I did feel pretty bad while reading it, to the point I am confused about why I gave it 3*. At the same time, it was at the beginning of Natively, so I may have been more random with that. Downgraded to 2*.
I did get that too for a while, but then the free preview of volume 2 cured me of it. Just saying.
I remember you writing that - tho was confused why I didn’t see it on the book page before
It’s very well articulated though - much more so than mine
I was also confused by that… But I know some of my reviews from when I started reading things on here are probably higher than I’d give them now. I do generally try to give books the benefit of the doubt though
Wut even?? I guess it’s just another wet dream? It’s almost increasing my morbid curiosity, but if I’m gonna waste more book money, I’ll do it for trashy yuri something I like instead
Right, I don’t know about this one specifically, but there have been times when I thought “oh no, 2* might be too harsh!” while nowadays I would probably go “off with their heads! 1*”. At the same time, I don’t really want to just wade through the *checks* 1400+ books I added on here to make sure everything is consistent.
I always feel like I should write more reviews directly on book pages. Every time I try to adapt something I wrote here the context is missing, the formatting is wrong, tone is wrong,… just trash the whole thing and start from scratch (which I don’t do).
Also life is just too fricking short to waste time on that kind of stuff.
Definitely not! someone else will be there to course correct someday
I always write reviews on the book page immediately after finishing. Easier to adapt those to forum posts, or just link. And yet I still ramble too long on here :sweat_smile. Starting from scratch is so hit or miss anyway… Sometimes you just can’t replicate what you were saying, in an equivalently good way
I mean, it’s mostly manga and light novels.
If I remove those from the count, I am left with only 200 books (it should be 201 though, since there’s one book without ISBN that I couldn’t add to Natively).
Plus, as you say, it just builds up over time. I’ve been reading manga in Japanese for 16 years now. My bookshelf will soon be able to legally drink alcohol.
So do you find there’s some meaningful difference btwn light novels and other novels? So far 若草物語 | L39?? is the only one I’ve tried to read where I felt there was a meaningful difference, in terms of difficulty and feeling… But it’s an odd reference point, since it’s American. Otoh the 1920s-50s ones I’ve read are basically the girls’ LNs of their day, and I always question whether I should just put them in as LNs (so far I have continued adding them as “regular” novels, and probably will do)
I’m not sure why you deleted your post , but sure, I do see a difference between LNs and novels, usually in terms of writing style and quality.
I read LNs purely for enjoyment while I feel like novels have more of a literary value (that’s the theory at least). But then ライト文芸 and whatever 阿修羅ガール | L30 is supposed to be come into the mix and it becomes a lot more fuzzy. I mean, there are unending discussions about what is and isn’t a LN. I remember for instance that RDGレッドデータガール はじめてのお使い | L34 was republished as a LN… Does that make the original edition a LN too? The content is the same except for the illustrations
Non-fiction is stuff that I read for learning about a topic, so the writing quality really takes a back seat.
I just realized I have short stories and children books in that 200 count, though Some “short stories” in there are actually short stories collections, so I would count them, but a bunch aren’t. Meanwhile, some children books do have literary value (I would say that 赤毛のアン does) but some are much closer to a LN (e.g. 魔女の宅急便). So it’s more like 150~180, I guess?
) is moving in slowly, ふみ is not moving back, nor has any “rabbit caught in the headlight” frozen look, so it’s pretty much as good as it gets.
Although for a different reason than Takebe…
… Really though, I have no idea what would make someone think that
