Haikei, Arishi Hi ni Saku Hanatachi e - Vol. 2 Ch. 10

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Igarashi has been giddy over this one on Bluesky. Weeks of wanting to see reactions, announcing the chapter with jokes like "Sorry I kept you waiting for this," "Thank you for having faith in me all this time," "Dominant is like a curse that hangs over every manga I make. I love it forever."

Igarashi's previous manga, Dominant, was a very dark romance with a few infamous scenes involving a hammer and a guitar. Now the box-cutter joins their ranks in Japanese fan memes. I'll cover Dominant more later when I translate Igarashi's crossover art for the two, but Japanese fans have been waiting for the other shoe to drop while Igarashi teased whether AriSaku would reach that level of crazy. Dominant was innocent too, until the twist ending of volume 1. And now we're here at the twist ending of volume 2.

Chapter 10 opens with hesitant ambiguity (waiting to be heavily re-contextualized). Sayori is a total unknown. Kasumi is hoping for answers to questions she hasn't quite figured out yet. The reader is on-guard towards Sayori hurting their relationship. But she quickly becomes an ally with the reveal of Ono-senpai. The reader and Kasumi's goals are likely opposed here: Kasumi wants reassurance this relationship hasn't gone too far and she can back away from her feelings for Haruyo. We (surely) want escalation. For Kasumi's relationship to become unavoidably romantic, for the senpais' relationship to lead by example and show us how far AriSaku is willing to go.

Knowing the reader, Sayori's flashback slowly teases how explicit her relationship with Mizuki was, only hinting at how they've kissed and done more (Igarashi pointed out on page 22 how deliberately Mizuki is touching Sayori's breast while Sayori begins to slip Mizuki's skirt down). We hang on every page as a promise of future developments, just as much as it discomforts Kasumi. Then the ending dumps a bucket of menhera ice water on us.

You now see how far AriSaku is willing to go.

This chapter is a crushing realization for Sayori, Kasumi, and the reader that this isn't playing around — serious feelings are involved. Serious feelings that come with serious, unavoidable consequences. Sayori is trapped in her confusing and likely still toxic relationship with Mizuki. Kasumi is trapped with her suffocating love for Haruyo clashing with her buried trauma and self-loathing. We're trapped with a maniac mangaka.

It's a fitting end to an early volume. Volume 1 reinvented itself with Haruyo's reveal, 2 with Mizuki's. AriSaku keeps growing, changing, drawing in a wider world to the initial fantasy that brings with it both beautiful and disturbing realities that have been lurking beneath the surface.

I for one am excited. But hey I loved Dominant.

So now we're completely caught up. Going forward I plan to translate half chapters as they release, every 2 weeks.
I somewhat regret not doing that with the first half of 10. You missed weeks of thinking Ono-senpai was the sweetest thing before this dropped.

The manga is so strongly partitioned in halves it might be part of why developments feel fast paced. Technically you could call this chapter 18 and 19, not 10. Elements aren't introduced and resolved in a single chapter but 2 paired together, if I were updating as it came out. Of course, if you read it with the volume it would still be one single chapter. But then you'd have 5 in one go.

It's interesting how much the format affects the experience. And scanlation can be its own unique format mixing elements from both. It's something I've been thinking about, and whether translating half-chapters means there'll be new comments saying the story's pacing slowed down even though the content hasn't really changed.

Dayflower has at least been adapted to manga and translated. Read it here.
 
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This chapter is a crushing realization for Sayori, Kasumi, and the reader that this isn't playing around — serious feelings are involved. Serious feelings that come with serious, unavoidable consequences. Sayori is trapped in her confusing and likely still toxic relationship with Mizuki. Kasumi is trapped with her suffocating love for Haruyo clashing with her buried trauma and self-loathing. We're trapped with a maniac mangaka.
Meanwhile Haruyo
P7Ipodr.jpeg
 
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I want to buy a book(let?) of just your notes work for each chapter, expanded further into whatever ramblings you feel are even tangentially relevant to each post.

That aside, I do wonder at the exact nature of Sayori's relationship with Mizuki-senpai as it currently stands, and whether the "letter before ours" directly informs Mizuki's reaction to Sayori's desire to not attend the same university. (I assume yes; and that it reflects Mizuki's own connection to a previous S-pair that introduced her into this world--like how Sayori is indirectly Haruyo's--and that relationship likely also references a third story from Hana Monogatari, with a similarly 'bad' ending, which gives rise to Mizuki's violent response at the end of this chapter.)

Which makes me wonder - if this hints at a cycle of S-relationships at this school going back generations of students (or at least many years' worth of grades), then did they all happen to end badly? And does that spell doom for Kasumi & Haruyo? It would be an easy thing to have the two of them 'break the cycle' and find their way through; but something tells me that the author would absolutely not go that route "just for the pretty and tidy ending of happy feelings".

The mirroring of the external versus internal conflict--and dare I say implied violence--between Mizuki & Kasumi's reactions to the desire to end their respective relationships is an interesting dynamic. Kasumi isn't holding a box cutter to her own heart or anything, but she sought to rip herself out of Haruyo's life regardless by "dumping her on someone better", is how I will choose to frame it.
But I imagine that it would cut Haruyo deeply all the same if she knew what Kasumi has been grappling with all this time. And since Sayori & Mizuki are still ostensibly together, that's another nail in the coffin for Kasumi; if their relationship can "survive"[citation needed] such a confrontation, then Kasumi might wonder if she could escape, herself--both her own feelings and the gravity pulling her toward Haruyo.

Also, not too much in the way of "cold and snow and Winter" this chapter, at least explicitly. Lots of lighting as always ("every panel is frame-able", to re-re-reiterate), but strangely the most frightening turn happens on what appears to be a bright and sunny day.
Which makes for a very interesting juxtaposition when "cold & warm" are such intergral parts of the story in the emotional sense, both of the relationships and the level of intensity of the story (where the cold has always been the "heavy intensity" parts, until now).

-

I have no idea how long it'll take, but I can't wait until Kasumi's own trauma is explored in more depth. I expect Haruyo will be fully involved in that, and I kinda expect that it will show a side of Onee-san that we haven't seen--not the Older Sister or the Airhead Kouhai, but perhaps a much more solemn, serious, maybe even scary Haru that no one expects to be lurking beneath the surface, since everyone in this story thus far seems to have a Warm Side and a Cold Side, waiting to be unveiled.

But either way, that's for later, and I'll just have to sit tight and be patient for the next volume to start.
 
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Oh, so she's a menhera? That's one hell of a tone shift considering the previous 9 chapters. Can't wait till this fad in yuri dies out. It's fine in like Kyoukano, or what have you, but now you have authors throwing a psycho in there just for the fad.
 

KZO

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Now I need an anime adaptation of this manga just to see the reactions.

I felt something was coming, but wasn't expecting exactly that.

It's interesting black bars means flashback and still currently she proposed the double date, so she's still in this relationship and I kinda doubt she'll ever leave.
 
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oh fuck

so that ending scene was in the past right? and then she's still dating her? damn, this got dark suddenly. how does it relate to the past letter?
 
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Oh, so she's a menhera? That's one hell of a tone shift considering the previous 9 chapters. Can't wait till this fad in yuri dies out. It's fine in like Kyoukano, or what have you, but now you have authors throwing a psycho in there just for the fad.
It's not just for the fad. The author has posted some pretty unhinged ideas on their Bluesky. From what I heard, their previous series was mental.
 

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