This manga feels like it was written for wlw women who love women by somebody who loves and cares about wlw stories. Im not actually sure of the authors identity but regardless of that its clear that a lot of love has been put into these characters. The story begins revolving around our 2 main girls but as it progresses it skips around to a few different sets of girls with varying relationships. Each set of characters feels representative of different experiences of queer women and its incredible to be able to see parts of myself and my friends in each one. The relationships arent watered down either for the sake of the audience this story handles some circumstances and emotions that are uncomfortable and difficult to read especially for those that may have experienced something similar. The conflict of Reis story deals with repression and for those that have dealt with feeling like their emotions are wrong or taboo it may feel similar but Im impressed with the authors ability to write these kinds of conflict without making oppression porn. Thus far theres never been a point in the story where theres been overt and explicit homophobia or other forms of bigotry. Reis issue of repressing her feelings comes more from her desire to preserve her friendship with Kei rather than anything to do with it being wrong for a girl to love another girl. As far as I recall theres maybe one line like that which I dont think is bad as ignoring it completely might give it the image of being ignorant of those issues that wlw face in their lives and is still important to the wlw experience. The writing treats their relationship the same as a heterosexual romantic comedy while writing it as distinctly lesbian rather than just putting a girl in the place of the guy. While the chapters are shorter than standard the amount of nuance and emotion that the author packs into each page is really impressive and I never feel like the chapters are too short or lacking in any way. As I said before this story handles some uncomfortable topics but theyre written very skillfully and theres never a point where I feel like its glorifying something to the audience that it shouldnt be. If you want absolutely 0 spoilers skip this next paragraph but I feel its important to acknowledge that there is siscon in this story. For those who dont know siscon refers to sister complex or a sexual/otherwise inappropriate attraction to ones own sister. To clarify theres never a point where the sisters are sexually or romantically involved its more about the sisters broken relationship with each other where Hiiragi detests Tsubaki while Tsubaki is obsessed with Hiiragi which at the point of introduction is to an uncomfortable degree. The place where the story is heading currently is to a place where they are both healthier individuals who will then be able to reconcile with each other and have a healthier relationship. This story never fetishizes them the way something written for a male/fetishistic audience might be and each sister is given the proper depth so the reader is able to understand why their relationship is in the state that its in. Its the only time Ive ever seen a relationship like this in manga or anime written well and not fetishized or sexualized. In line with that this story in general takes anime/manga tropes that treat lesbians and women in a fetishistic and sexual manner and turns them into something actually representative of queer women and something enjoyable to read. It never feels like its being written for a male audience that wants to sexualize wlw. I said before that this story is distinctly lesbian but it doesnt base its whole identity around that fact. Some people tend to praise queer media just on the premise of it being queer but this story stands apart from that as well. Each character is fleshed out apart from their queerness and everyone feels like a full person and each relationship has aspects that arent specifically tied to a queer experience and are just more general tropes that you see in high school romantic comedies. The author has struck a perfect balance of writing something for wlw while maintaining an identity outside of that. Sorry that this was kind of disjointed please read this manga you will have a good time.
100 /100
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