It’s doubly a shame too, not just because I liked the series, but because a rushed ending, which is pretty much always a bad thing anyway, is just that much worse with a manga that was as slow and gentle as this one.

Ah.

I just found out why this series made such a sharp detour into sich an ugly, contrived drama - it got axed. There are only three chapters left.

So presumably the author decided they couldn’t just let things continue to coast and let Hiragi and Taiyou continue to slowly grow to recognize their feelings for each other, and instead a confession was going to have to be forced.

It’s doubly a shame too, since it could’ve been done pretty well.

Having Reona step in to handle the beatdown is actually a pretty good idea, since she’s been shown to be at worst only barely short of Kazuhana in ability, and she’s been so eager for an opportunity to prove herself, so it’s pretty much a perfect chance for her. And with a bit of narrative framing, that could’ve been made satisfying. But instead it just came out of nowhere.

And yeah - it really looked like they were setting up an opportunity for the stuco prez to shine, then just missed it entirely.

There’s another unfortunate missed opportunity in the chapter too, and again it seems as if the author went out of his way to introduce it, then just didn’t do anything with it - Kazuhana’s mom showing up just in time to hear those guys say the dojo is a yakuza front. There then should’ve been a scene of her confronting them. That would’ve been the final indignity - even getting dominated by, or better yet getting their asses whooped by, Kazuhana’s mom.

Broadly, I wonder what the deal is with this manga. It’s not just that it’s gotten lazy, which would almost be better. Instead it’s almost as if the author is trying and is setting up something interesting, then suddenly switches to lazy right at the last moment. Instead of just not going anywhere, it looks for all the world like it’s going to… then doesn’t.

I assume so, and I thought it was pretty funny in a meta sense, since it’s such a little and sort of vague thing, but to any long-time fan of the series, it’s as blatant as a boxed announcement saying, “And tune in next chapter for fanservice!”

This manga is so far gone that it was actually sort of a relief rhat this chapter was only mediocre, since that means that it could’ve been much worse.

On the other hand though, the credits page was epic! I’m still laughing to myself.

Glad to hear that.

I could’ve seen it going the other way too - manga means not western - which would’ve been disappointing but would narrowly make sense.

And yeah - left-to-right always trips me up too.

And with a dash of Made in Abyss too.

This mangaka did an earlier series called Kyoukai Senjou no Limbo that was very good but sort of flew under the radar and ended up prematurely axed. This one thankfully got enough interest to keep going.

He has an unusual talent for blending fluff and drama, so the story is sort of alternately cute and harrowing, and neatly balanced. And there are a bunch of intriguing mysteries surrounding this world and Yakone’s place in it that have slowly been revealed.

I actually thought the series was winding down over the last few months - there have been some momentous events and answers to some very central questions - but with this most recent chapter, it looks more like it’s going to instead go into another entire arc. Which is fine by me.

The biggest event for me last week, by far, was getting a new chapter of Food Court de, Mata Ashita (See You Tomorrow at the Food Court).

It was originally self-published, and then the author got a serialization deal but for whatever reason, it then went on a sort of hiatus. Now, apparently, it’s finally starting back up. And it’s easily in my top five all-time favorites, so I’m thrilled.

It’s a deceptively simple premise: Wada and Yamamoto came to be friends late in their time together in middle school, only to discover that they were going to different high schools. Wanting to keep their friendship going, they agree to meet at a centrally-located food court every day on the way home from school, where they talk and catch up.

It’s brought to life by their very unique personalities and the way they play off of each other.

Part of the reason they’re so dependent on each other is that they’re the only ones who really know that the other is entirely different from who the rest of the world thinks they are. Yamamoto looks like a gyaru and is very reserved, so people think she’s mean and scary. She’s actually extremely intelligent and observant and compassionate, and with a wonderfully dry sense of humor. And Wada looks like a quiet, studious, reserved ojou-sama, and she’s actually a loud, brash and moody self-proclaimed menhera. They keep up their deceptive appearances at school, and it’s only with each other that they can relax and really be themselves.

And their conversations and interactions are wonderful and hilarious. And I’m so happy that it’s back.

Sort of interesting that this chapter didn’t have any real comedy to speak of. It was just Daisuke worrying about Tanaka and Tanaka telling him why he didn’t need to worry, but that she appreciated it. Just two people sincerely communicating.

And I still think it’s significant that Tanaka wasn’t in the timeskip chapter…

Gray’s my hero.

He goes from being the total head-detaching badass on one page to the sweet and caring “daddee” on the next, and he’s so good at both of them.

You’re conflating two entirely different debates.

Yes - there has been some debate around western publishers overly aggressively “localizing” manga and/or changing details to not just make things more understandable to western readers, but deliberately altering social /political content to accord with their own views. The two broad positions in that debate are to continue to depend on western publishers and their translations, or to keep translation in-house - under the supervision of the Japanese publishers.

This debate starts from the position that translation will be kept in-house, and concerns how it will be done - whether by human translators or AI. The publishers want to use AI for one and only one reason - because it would be cheaper. The JAT’s position is that machine translation is so vastly inferior that it will not work, and that human translators must be used.

As is always the case, all publishers need to do is look at the scanlation community to see how things will or will not work, since the scanlators are already doing, for free, what the publishers hope to do for profit. Whatever problems exist and whatever solutions there are to those problems, the scanlators have already discovered.

And if they would only do that, they would discover, for instance, that MTL, presented as a finished product on its own, is so blatantly crappy that it’s essentislly universally derided, with the only split being between the people who might grudgingly tolerate it in a specific case and the people who reject it outright.

There’s no need for the JAT to argue that case when vivid proof that they’re right already exists in virtually every comment section of every machine translated manga.

But instead, the publishers consistently make choices that any halfway decent scanlator could tell them are going to fail to appeal to the fans, which choices then - surprise surprise - fail to appeal to the fans.

Wow - a sweet and vulnerable side to Karla - I sure didn’t expect that.

Of course it won’t last, but it’s nice to see it.

So here we have a six day old account with a link to an obscure promotional site in its bio, from a known bot-hosting instance, whose one and only post is an off-topic bit of Welsh political astroturfing made to an instance dedicated to anime and manga.

WTF?

It’s safe to assume it’s a bot, but it seems to be a notably stupid one. How is that even possible?

Yeah - I’ve been figuring that even if I don’t catch up by the time that the scanlations catch up to the current releases, it’ll likely settle down to the magazine’s semimonthly schedule, so I’ll be able to catch up then.

And yeah - it doesn’t pull its punches.

Yesterday, I made it through three or four chapters, and then got to the introduction of Hikasa Ken - the leader of the Anti-transfloration movement - and his men methodically murdering the entire family of a recalcitrant politician. And that was enough for me. Later, when the edge had worn off, I went back to it, only to see the girl whose name I forget at her work in Austercity, pruning rotting human body parts off of warehoused transfloration subjects who are destined to be made into rich people’s furniture. That demanded another break. And so on.

It’s weirdly compelling, just because it’s so intense, but only in relatively small doses.

I keep plugging away, trying to catch up with this, and it keeps moving forward almost as fast as I do.

Part of the problem is that it’s relatively complex - there’s so much going on that the plot is complex, plus there’s another whole layer of allegorical philosophical commentary on top of that, so there’s a lot of detail and nuance to catch. But most of it is that it’s so often so emotionally draining that I have to keep taking breaks from it.

It’s very, very good, but it’s neither pleasant nor light.

Just tell me that they live happily ever after, and that’ll be fine.

I assume that was a conscious decision too - we knew from the moment she was introduced that Erika was special.

I loved her whole scene in this. She notes that Komichi wrote an entire story in response to a simple question, in ballpoint, and with so much determination that she dented the paper, which is so Komichi-like. Then, at that thought, she smiles to herself, which is so Erika-like.

Damn I love this manga.

I really don’t know of any other mangaka who does a better job of conveying raw, intense emotion better than Hiro. And as always, the art is just stunning.

Always nice to run across another fan.

It’s easily one of my favorite works of literature. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I’ve read through the whole series at least half a dozen times now, and still discover (or figure out) new things every time.

And I could go on at great length about it, but I’ll refrain.

On another note, I’ve been threatening off and on to reread Foundation, since I read it the first (and only) time about 30 years ago, and pretty much all I remember is the broad outline and that it impressed the hell out of me then. But for whatever reason, I never remember it when I’m casting about for the next book to read.

And right at the moment, I’m casting about for the next book to read, so thanks for the reminder.