Shiokaze to Ryuu no Sumika - Vol. 2 Ch. 9

[MangaDex]

 

[eeeeero]

let's go girlie, stand your ground

thanks for the chapter, amazing work as always

 

[UdenEmpati]

Tenshin's adoptive father seems like such a wonderful person to be around. Can't imagine why Tenshin would want to leave a home like that.

More seriously - It is interesting that we get the initial view that all Ryuujin are "condescending" and generally emote differently than humans--standoffish, potentially haughty, seemingly emotionless and "above it all" at times.

But when Kou-chan finally opens up to Mizuka, she's giddy, gossipy, wants to hang out and do "love talk". Nothing like the serious, almost hostile-stare girl we were introduced to.

Kairi was charming and flirtatious with all the girls at school, but it was like a mask that fell off the moment he thought Mizuka was "taking" Tenshin away. That hostility came through to the point he pulled her off a cliff into the ocean, and though it all worked out without injury for her and she forgave him, we see those archetypal "tsundere" qualities come to the surface. He no longer hates her, but retains his hostility--now, without all of the bite behind the bark. He's protective, afraid of losing those he considers his support base, and feels jealousy. All emotions and sentiments intimately familiar to humans.

Tenshin remains the most enigma-like, but he still strives for independence and agency over his own life. Mizuka denies having feelings for him, and he outwardly shows no indication he feels the same (outside of a few narrative beats wherein he blushes or looks at her askance for a brief moment before moving forward with whatever's happening), but though they both strive to reinforce the "we're sharemates, not friends or dating" line, there's already something there.

It's just a neat little dichotomy of the Ryuujin being the descendants of a deity, but still very much retaining their humanity from the side of that progenitor human woman. Given they're treated with relative reverence by those around them, I guess this is showing that they might have been isolated and thus "closed off" as a result, until Mizuka shows up--a complete outsider yearning for connections of her own--and through a series of coincidences, has fully inmeshed herself with the three, and has thus discovered and is starting to reveal that they're not so different from everyone else, after all.
And I really like the way the author's handling that shift and the pacing of the little reveals.

I went and read their earlier story "You'll Awaken In Spring" over the period of a couple days, and I think this is a good progression in their storywriting, at least in the initial stages of the narrative. The narrative being driven by the characters and their interactions against a larger mundane setting with a hint of the fantastical (cryosleep & dragonkin) feels like just the right sort of "Slice of Spice" genre for their talents.



Thanks for the TL, as always.

 

[v.roderick]

Lol, the arrogant bastard got put in his place.

 

[ksjhor]

thank you for your translation!!!<3

 

[radiantmemories451]

Cute.

Also, wow, his father really is as much of an a**hole as we were all told.

 

[13courtney]

Ty for the translation! Does anyone know how often the series chapters release in Japan?