The angel scene was so gorgeous! Also there’s something about the closeup on Mogumo’s face on page 122 that’s just stunning to me…the art is just amazing in this series.
Also, I’m glad Mogumo stood up to Koto about not wanting to be treated as a girl by Koto anymore. And now that Koto has reevaluated her relationship with Mogumo, I hope they’ll be able to move forward in a healthy manner…
2 chapters a week is likely to be difficult for me as I’m still a very slow reader, but not impossible!
I don’t want to hold everybody else up though, so I’m going to try to keep up.
頑張って!
There will be one more 1-chapter-week, as 4th volume has an odd number of chapters.
As for this week & volume ending… Will Sakura be one more person to be saved? Because by now I think this series is too good-hearted to have a real villain
Do I understand correctly that the misunderstanding at the beginning of the chapter was coming from the fact that cafe’s people thought that Kotone wants advice about the specific girl (where in fact she was doing a coming out about girls in general)?
This panel, page 149 - I did found しらじらしい in jisho, but I still don’t know which meaning it is in the context.
Ok so the best I can come up with is that she thinks Tenmaru is exaggerating his reaction because for the members having someone come out is not as much of a big deal? That would fit with definiton (3) of the J-J dictionary I think. That would also lead nicely into the next panel, but my confidence in that translation is not very high, so take this with a grain of salt!
You mean Madoka Magica’s Kyuubey? Hmm. I only saw the anime, and all the creepy expressions seem to be from manga.
And now I can’t unseen the fact that they both have ponytails with different color on the tips.
I just reread it over (so take mine with a grain of salt too since I haven’t spent time with these characters in a while!) - I think the misunderstanding is more that like, for Kotone it was a dramatic coming out, but for the others it was just an exciting opportunity for 恋バナ and the gay aspect is so normal it doesn’t register as a big deal even though for Kotone it super is. So the goofier ones had to be reminded that for Kotone it’s a big personal step, and they need to listen and appreciate that before launching headfirst into 恋バナ.
And for this part, I think it’s just “bare-faced” in the sense that てんちゃん is totally excited at the prospect of seeing / gossiping about Kotone showing up to the cafe with a partner, and isn’t hiding it at all. So I read it as like a, “settle down / don’t be so eager about it”
Both of which play into Kotone’s next reaction of tearing up in happiness at just how needless her worry was. To her it was this huge step she built up in her head, but her friends at the cafe are 100% unfazed.
It was my second interpretation, but I wasn’t convinced, because it felt weird to react that way to someone’s coming out, so I decided they must have thought it wasn’t coming out at all thanks to the lack of plural form in Japanese. But it also seems like a plausible version, that’s why I asked!
I’m not sure the 女の子しか好きになれない part could be misinterpreted as singular though… I feel like the X in Xしか would have to be established as a singular for it to be mistaken as like, “except for (a specific individual of) X”
I think it feeling weird to react that way to a coming out is the joke! And their reactions afterward are about their mistake in reaction (“should we act surprised?”) not their having misunderstood what Kotone was saying. Like, to me I think they didn’t catch that it was a capital-C capital-O Coming Out but they knew she was saying she liked girls.
Like, Tetsu’s “この店だとあんまり珍しくないからな~” is to me an explanation/excuse for the other two’s behavior “it’s 'cuz it’s just not anything out of the ordinary here!” which launches into the brief argument with his sister about how they were both worried about coming out in the past as well (I think).
Either singular or plural, the 女の子 part for Kotone was a HUGE deal, but like, not really relevant or unusual at all by the other two, is what tripped the misunderstanding in reaction I think.
Still just my opinion, but that’s the textual evidence I’m drawing on, if it helps form one’s own opinion!
I said it last volume but as a repressed-gay character lover, I enjoyed so much Kotone’s storyline! I’m also really glad she was actually confronted when she messed up. Sakura, on the other hand… I don’t trust her at all (I hope I’m wrong though!)
This chapter’s reaction expressions were great, Kyubey-Mogumo and this panel were my favorites.
A friend asked me if I could find any information about reactions in Japanese to Utada Hikaru recently coming out as non-binary, and some of the sources I managed to find reminded me of this question from a while back.
One article that functions as a good explainer about LGBT topics with a gay lifestyle magazine editor consulted heavily as a source breaks down four types of セクシュアリティ:
So there’s a similar construction there (but with scare quotes undercutting it a bit).
Not conclusive, by any means! But I thought it was interesting since I don’t remember any of us coming to any kind of conclusion (and I’ve felt a little weird about it in manga recap pages too).
My impression from this is that it’s a messy area like it is in English, but I think the 体/心 pair might fit at least a bit better (and less offensively) than body/mind does in English (or at least be an even more tempting easy way to explain it), because they’re more of a direct paired set, and because of the extra connotations of 心. Like, mind+heart+core+self vs. body, feels a bit better as a distinction to me than just “their body’s X but they think they’re Y” for example.
I presume also though of course, that in pieces where they didn’t feel like they had to explain these concepts to a general audience, using phrases like 生まれたときに割り当てられた性別, 性自認 and 性表現 without using 体/心 at all would be even more preferred.
Ultimately just speculating based on limited sources though!
Thank you, that was an interesting read! And it reminded me of this project outinjapan.com where members of the LGBTQ community talk about their coming out experiences. So I read through some of those stories again and found at least a few trans people (probably around half of those whose entries I read) who used phrases like
to talk about their experiences. So I’m under the same impression that the phrase seems to be viewed more positively by the community than its English counterpart.
Agreed, the extra connotations of 心 give the phrase a different vibe than just using ‘mind’ alone.