Ikoku Nikki - Vol. 3 Ch. 14 - page.14

[MangaDex]

 

[Lililily]

In a very weird way, this chapter really echoes something deep within me.

 

[JKTV]

Didn’t knwo emiri was gay

But damn this was a really rough chapter, made me feel frustrated along with Asa

 

[shishamo]

Growing up with parents who controlled nearly every aspect of my life well into adulthood while constantly saying that they're never wrong no matter what, this hits hard.

 

[orzamil]

And that concludes this prequel to K-ON!

 

[AgentKuga]

Man this hits really close to home.
(Dunno if I’m using that phrase correctly)

 

[Purplelibraryguy]

I'm glad I have an imagination because I so can't relate to that directly either as a kid or as a parent. Not that my parents didn't sometimes tell me what to do, but it was more like "Do your homework", "Do your (really rather small) chores", and fair enough. But not about choices--they left that to me.

 

[tickub]

It's rare seeing teenage angst portrayed so beautifully. I love this series to bits.

 

[Pyoro]

Oh yeah, careless parental comments. They sometimes forget how casual remarks are anything but for their kids.

Excellent writing as usual.

 

[25mg12]

Didn’t knwo emiri was gay

So, author does her best to mention stuff like that casually (even tho given the characters' age, proximity-location* context, and the artist's cultural background it might've as well been just a class s trope), but there are still readers who, out of couple hundred-something-odd word manuscript, will search for, fish out, and mention this kind of meaningless - in relevance to the story - throwaway line.

Oof.

(Even more so seeing the title had originally been tagged as gl - let it go people, you have a problem. Scavenging for scraps of whatever you'd wished to find originally - even tho seeing the creator's portfolio or just reading three or four initial chapters should've been enough to clarify that this isn't this type of plot - is just 'eh')

*maybe, don't care enough to reread for now for checking whether she'd been attending an all-girl middle school.

 

[Ice_Leaf]

@25mg12 Yeah, that "I like girls" comment is to vague to be taken at face value. You can appreciate a woman's beauty and talent without being sexually attracted to them, don't straight women do it all the time?
I will also admit that that it would be refreshing to see a character be open and "allowed" by everyone to be gay without much drama, though I'm not sure this is it.

And they didn't go to an all-girls school, there was a male class-/schoolmate at the entrance ceremony chapter.

Speaking of that chapter, ever since, I've been expecting Asa and Emiri's eventual realization that they are not each other's best friend anymore. That is probably going to be heartbreaking, since Emiri is Asa's remaining link to her past life...

 

[Misiakk]

That emiri girl. First she was crying and all, when asa was upset at her. And now she ignores her when she's with her new friends.

 

[itsamihan]

emiri: i like girls!
my gay ass: 👀👀👀

seriously, i hope the author throws us a bone here. while i liked the story now a lot, i read this because it used to have the shoujo ai tag, so going in i've been expecting either asa or makio to get a love interest.

 

[mystriga]

(removing my comment)

 

[bloquer]

I love how terribly unexiting this manga can be about everything, it feels very grounded and real. Thank you for translating this wonderful work!

 

[25mg12]

>One casual line about identity in otherwise thematically unrelated story about a girl on the verge of adolescence losing her emotionally estranged parents
>Typical influx of personal infodumps from people wanting to drone about themselves and reframe the plot in context of their own identity_related experiences in desperate need to find a character they can pour themselves into and live the plot through ('self-insert' if you will, though technically it's inappropriate term) ; all of that with mentioning the appreciation they have for the ' "issue" not being made a big deal out of' while simultaneously directing attention to it.

Once again oof, you guys have a problem - specifically with your ability to abstract an experience, which is kinda funny considering that you do, or did - by your own admission - live at least part of your lives playing the role of colloquially proverbial 'other'. Low-key preaching the need for openness and clean slate expectation approach about how people are when getting to know them while presenting yourselves the way you do might be a bit too much tho.

Good thing I can weed all of you out in the future with block function.

Great manga with complex characters and occasionally amazing - usually good dialogue (when translator raises up to the task, which is not a problem here, but is in some other titles penned by the author), tumorous comment section populated with some bad agents.

-----

edit: About the school - yeah, I've seen the current institution being of the 'mixed' variety, not sure about the one they were in before (and not gonna bother to check now either).

 

[marianolinx]

"I like girls"
Thats fine
"I like coldplay"
😱

 

[mystriga]

(removing my comment)

 

[Ice_Leaf]

@mystriga

I still think Emiri's a good friend, like she did notice she slighted Asa a little & ran all that way to check up on her; but like, she is allowed to have other friends & have her own life, it doesn't have to revolve around Asa & Asa's trauma- it's just that our perspective in this chapter revolves around Asa, we're like living in her head, so like remember Emiri can't see Asa suffering like we do.

Maybe I was a bit of a Negative-Nelly before, you're right about that. But they are clearly also starting to drift apart. They haven't learned yet that it's gonna take more conscious work and effort to maintain their friendship from both parties, especially now that they aren't classmates for the year. I still predict that a moment of realization of their current relationship is in the future, but how they'll resolve it might be more positive. We'll see.

@25mg12
Woops, I wasn't clear enough! I meant that there was a guy from their old school at the entrance ceremony. He talked to Asa, and gave her a gift from the graduation party. I checked for you, it was chapter 11. You can also see male students in chapter 7, when Asa was supposed to attend graduation.

 

[25mg12]

So, to miss Adda below: good. You couldn't even understand what I was "being dick" about, which is, the recurrence of compulsion for "addressing elephant in the room", even when there's effectively no reason for doing so in the context of the story so far (aside from the one throwaway remark, which again, given the pervasive acceptance and culturally codified awareness of class - s type adolescent limerence in Japan could be just that: a trope), and is rooted only in you being present because of accidental wandering in through initial mistagging. Not so far from a person, let's say, invited to a fanciful dinner, generally enjoying her time, but going on off on a tangent about 'responsible fishing' when they bring out shrimps: all of this while commenting how well prepared the seafood is. What's more, you couldn't help but to stuff the reply with additional small tidbits about who you are as a person (or rather, who you're not). Oof, for the third time. At this point it looks like speaking with you would be a waste of time, primarily because it seems like I'd already talked to you many times before - not in person, but through others acting just like you.

I'll give you some brownie points for what I can only see as vaguely alluding to me being some kind of "x-ist y-phobe", and just for that, because it was very subtle. Oh, and like, drop the gyaruisms.

That's that, bye. Feel free to respond if you feel like it, as it is only fair that you do so. Just don't fucking misrepresent me anymore, kay?