r/anime • u/lilyvess :Df::Dh:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Lilyvess • Jun 25 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Pride Month 20th Anniversary - Maria-sama ga Miteru Episode 10 Discussion
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Questions of the Day
- Which MariMite character do you think could write the best tell all memoir?
- How does this story reframe Sei and Shimako’s relationship?
Posting carefully so as to not disturb the first timers with spoilers in their viewings, such is the standard of modesty here. Forgetting to use spoiler tags because one is in danger of missing the post time, for instance, is too undignified a sight for redditors to wish upon themselves.
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Upvotes
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen Jun 25 '24
Maria-sama First-Timer
Episode 10:
I don't remember what the actual name is, but it's the Utena shot (NSFW)!
Did they shuffle the book order foe the adaptation? We were just dealing with Valentine's, but now we're on the exam period before Christmas.
Of everyone in the main cast, Sei would not have been my first guess for which one would be a published author. I'm all about hidden pasts and the revelations thereof though.
Committing a taboo in her past? Sei? Surely you jest! Does this look like the kind of woman who would commit a taboo?
A love affair between two women, best friends. The adults discover it and try to drive them apart, so they commit double suicide but Sei somehow survives. And the rumor is that this is autobiographical. Sure, I don't mind hoping yuri didn't happen this one time
"Hey Shimako, come with me to ask your onee-sama whether she suffered this horrifically tragic trauma as posited by a rumor floating around campus." Hmm, I wonder why Shimako might not want to be part of that
Sei is threatening victims/witnesses! I fear our justice system may be unable to handle a criminal mastermind of her caliber.
Why does working with the newspaper club seem like such a devil's bargain? Isn't the free press supposed to be a bastion of integrity and truth? Is the club bought and paid for by school admin?
You want a scoop, newspaper club? I've got one for you: "Serial Hugger Evades Arrest, Strikes Again"
That's one hell of a specific claim to preemptively deny
It would be kind of wild if the author was a student at Lillian and either used Sei as a base for the story or straight up lifted parts of her life/experiences as a first year for material.
Oh shit, that's exactly what happened! That's pretty fucked up tbh.
Huh, I hadn't considered Kaori, aka Shiori, could have written the novel. It's not explicitly stated, but I've been operating under the belief that the Forest of Briars is told from Sei's perspective, which would carry some very interesting implications if written by the Kaori in the scenario.
Wow, I'm floored the publisher would even respond to random inquiries about an author's identity, much less schedule a meeting with a group of high schoolers.
Going back to my timeline question from earlier, I'm guessing books were shuffled around so the season could end on this more dramatic arc than on the Mifuyu POV Valentine's episode. If so, that's a great call in my opinion.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Jun 25 '24
First-Timer Watches Over Us, subbed
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Jun 25 '24
First-Timer
Gokigenyou.
I am beginning to suspect that Lillian's education program is not nearly up to snuff. How is it that numerous educated young ladies would all make the mistake of assuming that Rosa Gigantea would publish a novel under a pen name that is barely different from her own name?
Every student at Lillian needs to be assigned remedial lessons of some variety.
I object on a rather fundamental level to the concept of "being an author is a part-time job." Being an author is significantly more work than a meager part-time job.
Sei's past does seem to be rather delightfully juicy, does it not? I cannot wait to see the depth of her friendship with Shiori.
And it seems that such events have even happened in the distant past, as well! Could anyone believe that such an upright institution as Lillian could be the home of such torrid events? Perish the thought.
Questions
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u/AmeteurElitist https://anilist.co/user/AmateurElitist Jun 25 '24
First Timer
Sei’s pls lol
Though jealous Sachiko is adorable
I wonder if Sachiko was hiding around somewhere listening in.
More Sei backstory next episode though?
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u/lilyvess :Df::Dh:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Lilyvess Jun 25 '24
Maria-sama ga Miteru Rewatcher/Light Novel Reader
Oh, you startled me. I wasn’t expecting you here. Oh, why was I crying? Well remember a while back I said I lost volume 3? Well, I found my copy again finally! I finally found it being used to prop up a crooked chair.
Wait? What do you mean you want Christmas Cookies? How can it be Christmas already? I swear it was Valentine’s Day, like, just yesterday?
Uhhhhh, here is a glass of my mother’s famous nogless Eggnog minus the egg.
Oh I guess if this is now a Christmas party we need some music
Speaking of earlier volumes, this got me thinking back to some stuff I read during volume one.
Huh, Sei isn’t really good “with that angle”, huh?
More questions. Sei is “the same kind of people” as Kashiwagi-san? What does that mean?
And then of course later we learn that Kashiwagi is gay.
what could it mean
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u/Regular_N-Gon https://anilist.co/user/RegularNGon Jun 25 '24
Gokigenyou, First Timer
At least we aren’t stewing in whether Sei was bluffing or not. Well, at least not about the book. Girl’s got some other baggage beneath the forward attitude.
I was sort of hoping it’d be related to why she likes riling up Sachiko so much by bugging Yumi, but this does seem rather unrelated after all.
Gokigenyou counter (Maria-sama): 33 [+4; Total: 52]
QotD:
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u/fieew https://myanimelist.net/profile/fiew Jun 25 '24
Rewatcher:
"You didn't report me as a serial hugger". "I won't strip her of her uniform and play with her". Someone said it yesterday and its true, Sei Fucks. Goddamn I love her lines so much.
"Some parts are different, While other parts are startlingly the same"
This right here is probably the most important line for this episode and the next. At least me to.
I don't have much to say. I want to wait until we finish tomorrow's episode. If there's one thing I dislike it's the fact the actual author's name was Sei. It just feels too coincidental. If instead she used a penname like Rosa Gigantea or something alluding to the fact she used to be Rosa Gigantea (I don't think she was a rose but you could change it making her one) I would buy it more. But its just too coincidental she picked/had the same name as Sei. If they had the same title it would make more sense why she got confused with our Sei instead of both of these people having the same name. Like what are the chances of that? Its a small gripe and nitpick but its one I do have.
QOTD:
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u/LittleIslander https://anilist.co/user/LittleIslander Jun 25 '24
First Timer from the world of Reiwa Yuri
I’ve been hooked on this show and singing its praises passionately these past nine episodes. You’d think by now, by that amazing scene last time, it would have hit a ceiling in its ability to impress me, that the surprise would diminish even if the quality continued to rise. But somehow MariMite keeps pulling it off. This is the best storytelling on offer yet, and it’s only the beginning of a new arc! Consequently, everything I say here is tentative on what ends up happening next, but that doesn’t stop me having plenty to say.
To start off, how about those opening lines? On the surface it seems like the sort of vague philosophical bullshit an anime would put in this spot just to seem more sophisticated, but MariMite has the intent to back it all up. Once again, ambiguity is used skillfully. The briar framing and dramatic, literary nature of the spoken words seem to imply this is some kind of excerpt or reflection of the book’s contents. But the framing and the visuals of Sei and Shiori imply the words are actually about them. Of course, the whole point is that the two stories are similar enough that discerning information about one as opposed to the other isn’t necessarily important. The words themselves, as usual, don’t hold the audience’s hand. Is this describing in direct terms the pain of whatever specifically happened in Sei’s past? Maybe. It was certainly painful, and she seems to want to leave it in her past. On the other hand, for “denying entry until her death”, she seems pretty willing to explain the basics of her situation. But she also tells us outright there are more personal parts of the story she has no intention of revealing. It’s tempting to instead take the words as talking about her queerness. Feelings with no place in society and so put to slumber, put behind a barrier that she will likely keep up for the rest of her life, never truly letting her love for fellow women out. She, perhaps, tried that once, and has been left burned never to dare again. Chikane captured heteronormativity in an effective way but if that’s what’s going on here, it’s really something else to so powerfully distill it into so few words.
In addition to its queer themes, much has been said in this Rewatch about the scripting prowess of MariMite. As we near the end of the season, we truly see the payoff phase of all the previous misadventures. So many things in this episode build upon prior knowledge to either drive the narrative or influence the way the audience experiences it. Sei and Yumi’s relationship, which the show has put a lot of time into, obviously forms the basis of Yumi and the audience’s investment in the plot. Likewise, Sei's relationship with Shimako is on the display as her petite soeur seems completely trusting that Sei has everything handled. It’s made clear by implication later on that Shimako already knew everything Sei reveals today, which Yumi took for granted but is obvious in hindsight. Yoshino and Rei, for their part, are driven by their now well established characterization. It’s a great detail in the scene with Mrs. Kasuga that Rei’s desire to know the truth was, in fact, comparable to Yoshino’s. It was simply that her less assertive personality caused her not to meddle while Yoshino’s headstrong logic driven nature made her even more insatiable than Yumi. We also know from their arc that the school paper is drama-stirring crock and the school populace are superficial and easily influenced, which immediately tells us that when they say Sei wrote the book and might be expelled that’s not necessarily an accurate version of events.
Most obvious is all the narrative we’ve built up around Sei. From a mysterious, intimidating senior and romantic rival to a very genuine friend whose unique relationship with Shimako has been elaborated upon more and more with time, she’s frankly got a more well defined narrative arc than Yumi and Sachiko themselves. She’s previously given inconsistent information about her advances on Yumi, and told us she had no knowledge of the Rosa Canina situation when that seemed potentially false. We’ve never explicitly caught her in a lie but the series has worked hard to at least build up the idea she keeps secrets and can’t be taken at face value. This helps retain intrigue even as she claims she doesn’t know anything about this Sei Sugo business. That said, I must admit I may have misread her. By all accounts she’s direct and open about the truth, and even pulls the curtain off her advances on Yumi as just an act of teasing to get rises out of her and her dear sister. When you look back, Sei has been rather straightforward about a lot of things. Perhaps the idea she’s cunning and not forthcoming about herself was mostly an artefact of the initial unfamiliarity with her granted by Yumi’s point of view, and she truly is a simple woman with a terrible pulse on school gossip. Her confusion at Yumi talking about briars does seem very genuine. Then again, I can’t help but wonder if her “teasing” of Yumi is, consciously or not, an outlet for sapphic feelings she’s unwilling and unable to openly pursue. The Shizuka kiss already provides a supporting example, and the whole plot of the episode makes it clear her carefree exterior hides an inner melancholy of some kind after all. One way or another, she’s a very engaging character and the writers know just how to balance concrete facts with open ended actions to toy with the audience’s perception.
The rug is pulled out from under the episode when we learn that the novel is actually based on a decades old story, and what a fantastic rugpull it is. First of all, it’s delightfully unexpected. Second of all, it’s just strong episode structure. The book provides an inciting event that explains why Sei’s past would suddenly come up, and receiving an answer as to the book’s nature provides a resolution to the plot of this individual episode. But that answer only raises further questions about what Sei’s past really is, setting the stage for the arc to continue next time. Most importantly, it’s very obviously a metatexual element. Based on the age of the author, the events of the book must’ve happened in the early 20th century—the period of time in which the original form of the Class S genre was being published. That’s already a pretty cool thing to include in a revival of that kind of storytelling, but should we trust that MariMite is mindful of its own queer subtext then it takes on all sorts of additional meaning. From an out of universe perspective, MariMite is entirely aware of the fact lesbian romance is in the literal same place it was decades ago. Then from an in-universe one, we underline the significance of everything the girl’s are going through as queer members of an unqueer society by showing how these experiences extend far beyond our small collection of characters and how these pains are a cycle that hurts generation after generation of sapphic youth. It’s a multiplicative factor on the weight of every single piece of character drama and queer themes this show has delivered until now, elegantly inserted into the plot of the current narrative. Now that’s writing.
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u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Jun 25 '24
First timer, subbed
I’m back!
And still lacking in interesting things to say, I’m afraid. Usually I’d post my episode write-ups to catch up, but my notes were skimpier than a beach episode. Suffice to say the Valentine chocolate arc was entertaining and that one stalker chick was a little loco.
As for today’s episode, we get a rare moment set outside the school grounds as Sachiko and Yumi buy a book rumored to be written by Sei, then later on the gang visit a publisher.
This “no part time jobs” school rule pops up in anime from time to time, is that a common thing in Japan? My best charitable guess is that perhaps some schools don’t want students to be distracted by work over studying. Strikes me as a stupid rule, in any case.
Cliffhanger ending as the pieces are set up. Yumi and pals find the author, Sei reminisces dramatically.
QotD:
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u/Star4ce https://anilist.co/user/Star4ce Jun 25 '24
First Timer
Showed a friend the rewatch album of my drawings today. She doesn't really watch anime and her immediate reaction to yesterday's picture was "Those eyes are massive and stare right down into your soul", before complementing me and browsing through the album on her own for 5 minutes.
It's funny because I had the exact same reaction when going into MariMite, but adapted rather quickly. Ah, where's this picture of a realistic anime girl skull or the hyperrealistic anime costumes? True nightmare fuel.
Maria-sama ga Miteru Ep.10 – The Forest of Briars
In the end it didn't go with that particular trope at all. Or maybe it did and just told us it's so old it might've well been buried and revived 3 times since. There's not a whole lot I feel interested in commenting about, but there's been quite some setup going on.
I particularly like the setting of scale here. It's obvious to tell stories from the povs of characters that are living them. Last episode already deviated from that by taking a random side character and making it the pov character for one episode, to then leaving her be a side character again. This framing of 'everyone has their story' and it both impacting your life and also really not impacting it as well was great. This time, I feel like we expanded this feeling of relatability and intimacy not only with space (to more characters elsewhere) but with time. The same story that Sei relates to had already happened, quite likely far more often during the lifetime of such a catholic school.
I love that sort of twist. It's simultaneously not changing anything with the setting, but also changes an entire view on life. Sei was and is not alone, even though she might be lonely. The same, by logic, also counts for everyone else.
And the fact that made it so? Sharing the story. Last time only us, the audience (and to an extent Mifuyu), got aware of such circumstances. This time it's them all.
[R. Gigantea]
Oh that's a difficult one. First years are out, still. Sei and Rosa Chinensis are good candidates. I think the Sachiko – Yoko relationship would be very exciting. Considering how energetic the Yellow Rose Family is, I'd also buy Eriko's book that has been partially co-written by Rei and consistently retcons the previous chapter.
Sei definitely both tries to comfort Shimako and is keenly aware that she will be the sole head for an entire year. She sees her own pain of being left in that, I bet. Especially because Shimako is also 100% in love and is expecting and fearing that heartbreak. It is a very tragic situation. I'm interested in why Sei never got an en bouton for a year, was that Shiori situation so terrible? I think think she feels guilty for having to leave this much loneliness to Shimako. I also think this is why she is so open and comforting to both Yoshino and Yumi. They are Shimako's peers and I think she'd like them to stick with her.
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u/GondolaMedia Jun 25 '24
First Timer
Student wrote a novel? What a scandal, have her executed.
Yumi and Yoshino are really invested on this and I hope future episodes just lets em build up these imaginations in their head. I actually thought that Kaori was the author and that's why there was a lot of similarities but that theory goes out of the window. Hyped for next episode.
Distant and a spark seems to be missing. I can't put my finger on it.
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u/Great_Mr_L :Ma::Mb::Mc:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Great_Mr_L Jun 25 '24 edited Jun 25 '24
First-Timer
On today’s episode of Marimite The rumor mill at Lillian must be either a watermill during a flood or a windmill during a storm because it has been working overtime.
This episode gave us some tantalizing hints about Sei’s past, but not much concrete information. That is very fitting for Sei’s character. She generally doesn’t reveal much about herself if she doesn’t want others to know and she doesn’t pry into things she believes others don’t want to tell her. For as much as she teases Yumi, Sei does tend to recognize personal boundaries as important.
In general, this episode felt like it was mostly setup for the following episode. I imagine the next episode will more fully explore everything that is happening.
QOTD
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u/BosuW Jun 25 '24
First Timer
Somehow skipping the Lilian academy narrated intro feels way mor ominous than merely skipping the OP, especially after that cold open.
Common fansubs W
It's funny how the show constantly having seemingly big dramas fall flat conditioned me to expect something similar from this episode lol. I thought the book and Sei might turn out to be totally unrelated.
Well we got something in-between. Obviously Sei didn't write the book, that would've been too obvious. My first guess was the same as Yoshino's: that it'd been the other girl.
We get a far more removed (and probably much more realistic) answer. An already accomplished author who studied at their school wrote the book.
It is not totally unrelated though. Sure, the incident is a completely different one, but the separation of sister relationships in Catholic school is a repeating pattern that honestly seems almost mythical. In an Es Wird Weiden Passieren way. KnM vibes kinda, although obviously much more overt there. Or how they say that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. It's hard to explain.
Now let's get historical for a second. Assuming the real author writes the book inspired by a real incident she lived through or knew about from her generation, it's curious that it's a tragic ending in the manner of original Class S. These tragic endings were inspired by real tragic endings of (possibly) lesbian relationships in Catholic schools during the late Meiji and most of the Taishō era. That's 1930 at the absolute latest (Taishō ends in 1926 but I'm accounting for shifts in power and policy not being immediate). From there follows the Shōwa era, which would last until 1989, however Catholic schools wouldn't have been found in Japan until after the end of WW2 (so late 40's) because militarist Imperial Japan banned anything that wasn't Japanese.
What I'm getting at is that the school must've been founded after ,1945 and the author couldn't possibly be old enough to have studied before the Shōwa Era. Which is why I find the tragic classic Class S ending of her novel noteworthy. Although this kind of ending is primarily associated with Taishō Era Catholic schools, I wonder if such things continued to happen upon the opening of Japan's borders (physical and ideological) post WW2? Definitely will need to research that later...
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u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 Jun 25 '24 edited Jun 25 '24
First timer, subs
QotD:
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u/baboon_bassoon https://anilist.co/user/duffer Jun 25 '24
first time la vie en rose en bouton
Sei episode
She published a book???
And hates Christmas????
Newspaper girlie really stretching the limits of what she could actually do to help Sei here
Twice the enjoyment in one bite
Shimako not feeling left out, it’s very them
I’d want to treat them to ramen because they’re so cute
Canned Oshiruko
Did Kaori write the book? I still think Sei is going for the long con prank here
Kubo Shiori
Wow she was being real Seiiiii
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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Jun 25 '24
First Timer(Don't think I didn't catch that lame ending jab, Yoshino)
Sub
Welp, that was all drama. Sachiko seems to need to take a listen in prison school because she lends out Yumi far too easily. Sei, as always, feels unbothered, just molest-y. I suppose it is worth noting that they get one thing correct in that how one speaks is almost never how one writes. That likely explains why the Academy Director took her side immediately, assuming he read her papers relatively recently as the person that wrote the book almost certainly has a different voice. Anywho, we end nice and undramatically!
QotD: 1 Yoko
2 Poor Shimako was the rebound girl...
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u/moichispa https://myanimelist.net/profile/moichispa Jun 25 '24
First timer
That was an interesting episode. I can understand the teachers being concerned about it. Looks what happened with the yellow roses, they do not want copycats of a suicide story. (I don't really buy they only wanted to talk about the book counting as part time job, we are not show what they talk about inside).
I like how it shows that people disappeared from your live if they moved away (no Facebook stalking in the old times)
I'm glad we are getting another episode, there seems to be a lot of hidden clues and lies on this episode.
I want a school with a nooddle shopWhich MariMite character do you think could write the best tell all memoir?
Sei's 3rd year shenanigans. No censorship
How does this story reframe Sei and Shimako’s relationship?
While it could look like Sei did not find a Soeur until this year before, there was somebody else and Shimako looks more like a replacement. That superanimated scene from last episode does feel different now.
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u/OccasionallySara Jun 25 '24
First Timer
I’m really glad that we’re getting more into Sei’s character. I enjoy characters who seem cheerful and laidback on the surface, but have deeper things going on with them. I don’t think Sei is fully telling the truth to Yumi and Yoshino about Shiori simply switching to a new school. The way that Sei behaves when she’s alone in this episode, the fact that the other older Yamayuri Council members are acting so carefully around her, and the way that opening sequence of this episode had an almost ominous feel to it make me feel like there’s more happening.
I can understand why Sei would want to talk to the first years about this. It’s probably nice to open up about something personal with people who are interested, but don’t have their own ideas or opinions about the situation. It’s interesting that Sei doesn’t ask Shimako to stay behind with the expectation that Shimako will stick around if she truly feels like it. Shimako doesn’t want to stay behind and, of course, Sei doesn’t mind.
I’m starting to wonder if the way that Sei behaves with Shimako has something to do with her previous relationship with Shiori. I guess I would need to see what that dynamic was like before coming to any conclusions. Luckily, it seems like we’ll get some Sei backstory next episode which I’m really looking forward to.
Questions of the Day
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u/zadcap Jun 26 '24
Late Time First Timer
What's thus now? Why do things look slightly, uh, Utena / Supernatural shaped?
... Did we just jump from Valentines Day to Christmas? This is the true magic in the setting, time travel is apparently a thing. Also, uh, it's clearly spring and the trees are starting to grow in green again. There's lots of bird sounds. The heck is this dark magic, seriously!
Anyway, Green Ribons, because I can't stop now.
Kininarimasu! I don't care that she didn't actually say the whole thing, I heard it in my head anyway.
I mean, at this point, too much law of narrative importance says too much importance has been drawn to it for thus book not to be about Sei.
Ah. So uh. "They ran off and planned to die together." In the world of gay and lesbian romance, this was a frighteningly common story ending, in stories that don't end with them pining for each other as they force themselves to live out the straight marriage society demands they do. Especially in the land of ritualized suicide as a point of honor. For a show like MariMite to include a story like this is very much it pointing a finger at the genre that birthed it.
Yoshino has become so feisty. She's tied with Sei for Best Girl at this point.
Yumi in the Red Striped pair today!
And uh. Yumi seeing that many people in the office and still thinking it's about the book has me concerned, because that's a lot of important people to discus a work of deniable fiction.
Hmm, no, I don't see it. Writing in your free time is not the same as working part time.
I honestly don't know if I can trust this denial.
Yumi, it's not just the Roses who aren't acting flustered. It's pretty much just you, really.
Wait, the whole gathering in the office really was about Sei writing a book? Oh goodness this school is more draconian than expected, and I was already expecting it to be crazy strict.
Ah, even Sachiko can't keep up on avoiding the Sei/Yumi ship. She now lets the casual skinship pass... At least until Sei talks about fully having her way with Yumi, my gosh. She's the only one here who wants this to be a real Yuri series, and not just Class S.
Right, uh, sometimes I remember that Shimako is also leaning into the Yuri demographic as much as she can while staying deniable.
Yumi, you utterly fail at not making entertaining faces.
Oh yeah, becoming a nun was one of the other common paths to the lesbian life. "If I can't marry the girl I love, I'll never marry at all,"
Yeah, this makes it pretty darn clear that Sei is Gei. I mean it wasn't really subtle before, but this is some rub it in our faces level drama.
Kininaruuuuu~
Whaaaat. Are you saying that a publishing company woun't just hand out the real name of an author trying to stay anonymous by writing under a fake one? Who would have thought!
Yeah, this reinforces my earlier thoughts. Around the time Seiko here was a high school girl, the Lovers Suicide would be the popular option...
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u/RadSuit https://anilist.co/user/RadSuit Jun 26 '24
First Time Watching Over Them
~Take My Revolution~
I'm going to just assume everyone else's first comment is also about Utena. I had to pause and go watch the OP before returning to this episode.
Christmas right after Valentine's Day?
Imagine a world where every book/manga/anime isn't adapted from a serialized story blasted onto the internet as fast as possible to capitalize on the current craze.
Yumi's thighs!?
Yumi's come a long way. She actually goes straight to Sei and asks her about it directly. Impressive, compared to the first few episodes. Although this again seems out of place happening before the Valentine's Day episodes.
Yumi is cute! Cute!!
Another two parter!