The only way any of his behaviour makes sense is if it gets revealed that he knew her in the past bc there’s been like no development on the guys side in the past 40 chapters
I just realized the little boy is Shinobu’s father…… Was not expecting that, really neat!! One thing I wished was explained more properly is what exactly shinobu and hatsue are and who/what hatsue was made from (I suspect the sister though)
I know this is clearly not the highest quality of translation but one thing I wanted to point out is that whenever starbuck mentions meeting “cute kids” the meaning of the jp word there is most likely “girl” not “kid” MTL usually defaults to “kid” but that wouldn’t make sense in the context because as teachers taiga would’ve reacted more strongly and negatively if that was the case because the TL makes him sound like he’s openly admitting to being a predator
We never know what might happen in future chapters of course (I sure hope not though) but just clearing things up before any false accusations occur because the story is quite interesting :’)
I don’t believe she’s lying about doing the things up to when he decided to cut ties because she loves him however the reason why her behaviour is so warped is probably because of her own insecurities about herself and was projecting them onto him, consciously or not. Regardless of intent, it is not other peoples’ responsibilities to deal with your internal issues and what she has done is objectively wrong even if there were times malice was not the motivating factor. Even if she wakes up and makes an effort to change, it doesn’t change the fact she hurt him and he has every right to distance himself. Personally I’d hate to see them become friends again but from a general perspective it should be his choice to give her a second chance and be on good terms but not because he feels bad for her circumstances (if they give her a sad backstory) but because he’s seen she truly tried to change and is a genuinely likeable person now. But considering how long she’s been hurting him and how badly, I don’t think it’s worth the effort for him to stick out and hope she’ll change and I don’t think it would do her any good either if she knows there’s someone who’ll never give up on her regardless of whether she changes or not
While I’m glad everyone lived in the end it felt a little unusually perfect world scenario because it’s not clear how the two of them travelling back together can prevent every little thing that instigated conflict esp when it doesn’t seem like they told anyone else. Preventing shinichiro from meeting the old man and gaining time travel powers would definitely solve a lot of issues but what about the tragedies that happened to other characters in their childhood? I also feel it waters down the meaning of some sacrifices, especially when someone learns something or wakes up thanks to it. If there was just a little more info on how the two made it to the perfect ending I think it be fine
Also I wish there was more info on where the time travel power originated, why it started changing , and where it went after the last travel to the past. For a series that emphasizes on fighting fairly and weapons are heavily seen as cheating, isn’t this power the biggest cheat of all? Maybe it’s just me being into the occult aspect of it but if was explained better maybe it’ll feel more fair
Like the sudden jump from talking to the shop owner to detaining nine, when did she get there??? There was another part around when they were planning the final battle where there was a brief flashback of when I think ms nat showed elli the orb thing before and while it wasn’t necessary to understand what the orb was, it makes the fact there was a flashback not make sense because it’s showing a scene we have never seen before
I definitely liked that there were multiple endings so as the reader we don’t really know which one is the “true” one but because there are also multiple endings it does make me curious as to what if hinase stayed without sex but it’s just a curiosity. A big part of the story and their character development is about challenging gender stereotypes set by society and how your sex doesn’t define who you are as a person. It would not really make sense for them to stay sexless because change not being a bad or scary thing is also a core theme in the story as they are also growing up into adults so if hinase stayed the way they had always been it would contradict their conviction on how they feel about gender and their identity on top of the health issues they’d have to deal with for the rest of their life if they stayed sexless. Change is inevitable and we already saw a POV of someone who didn’t want to pick a binary through Lisa who couldn’t accept the change and chose to end their life before they changed too much. I personally think hinase making a choice was to show despite becoming part of the binary, they were able to remain themselves because their identity is not tied to whether they’re male or female.
ch2 p37 - very clever to consider it a Johnny's reference but i don't think it's that deep.
since the reference is not a name of an idol and rather lingo within fans, the likelihood of hoshi being a fan and knowing is very slim. i think he just thought it was cute because "fuku" is a common pet name and adding "tan" at the end is a cutesy way to address someone
I did a quick search because the ending wasn't quite satisfying for me and it looks like the series may have been axed. the author didn't literally use the term "axed" or anything similar but they mention the "serialization would end" after vol 4 (now playing used to be serialized in the magazine gangan online) and that it would be hard to continue the story after that in this blog post by the author (in JP). in the blog they talk about "shortcomings" in regards of the series so i believe it might have ended because of lack of popularity
http://number1of2lumbers3.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-83.html
im not an expert on how publishing works so i didnt quite understand what the serialization part had to do with the inability to keep going (since there are series aren't in magazines and publish tankoubons volumes only), but i guess this manga was the kind that only got tankoubons after enough chapters were published in the magazine.
in terms of whether or not it's worth reading, knowing the fact, i think its decent. as with all axed series, it won't an award winning level, but i think it's still enjoyable despite the goals left unfinished
while we were just recently introduced to a number of new characters, the main group had their personalities and back stories fully fleshed out to a satisfying level. also with the new characters, it's not like they're there and then it ends; there is enough screen time for them to get a decent idea of what kind of people they are. it's also at the timing of the story it ends at, they haven't reached a level where you've become so invested in the story that it's frustrating that they don't see it through. Now playing ended at a time where their dreams may now not be just dreams but there's still a long ride ahead of them. i feel like it would have been more satisfying if the ending was clearer
sorry for the lack of proper title but im not a fan of how they brushed off the assault like that....even though (thankfully) the alpha dude didn't get to go all the way, it's still assault and honestly i was expecting yoji to be a little more affected by it. not saying it's bad that he was able to get over it so quickly and this isn't based off of a true story so it doesn't have to be realistic, but it does feel a little...odd? that he was able to pop back without any kind of ptsd (for the lack of a better wording) after a few days. not everyone reacts the same way after being assaulted so if he's able to move on easily then good for him but it's definitely not the usual for someone to be back on their feet like that so quickly and it kinda bothered me.
there's a total of 6 chapters for this book and i hope in one of the remaining 3 chapters that alpha and the dad get karma
Note that the chapters done by the person named "Denise" are not well done (which is expected since they used google translate) so please don't take any complaints you have about the sudden drop in quality and legibility to any of the two scan groups that did the chapters before theirs (it starts around ch 22 or so)
Putting aside the sudden change to chinese names, there are * in random speech bubbles that were really annoying because it didn't lead anywhere like side notes or end of chapter notes. if anyone know's whether the chapters they did were originally uploaded here or wherever they were originally uploaded by Denise, please let me know because I want to ask them. No hate or anything, it just confused me a lot while trying to read the story and i wanted clarification
it was vague but i think it's not as vague as people think it was. you can see in the last few pages he unlocks a chain that was on the doors. that means that between the few years since we saw him in the second last chapter and in the final, no one was there. but on p20 and 21 you see that smoke-like stuff around him and there's a rattle sound when he's suppose to be the only one there so I think it's likely to assume she is there. how is a ghost suppose to come back when they're suppose to have moved on idk, and you could argue the rattle could me a rat or smth, but the smoke where there's no natural reason to be heavily implies that she's back. hope that gives a little piece of mind to people
it was translated as badminton but the sport they played is called hanetsuki which is similar to badminton and its a tradition to play at new years; hence why the blond guy brought up new years. people play actual badminton in japan normally and year round, which is why i wanted to make that clarification.
about the confusion with "imadoki", it's a slang that refers to things that are hot or trending right now. i don't have the raws so i can't give an alternative translation of the line, but since the activities that mikoto said he did with kouichi are very old fashioned (makes sense since he's an ancient urban legend) and nowadays you'd often only see old people playing those, kouichi's friends are probably surprised mikoto knows nothing about what popular pastimes high school boys (which he's pretending to be) enjoy in modern times.
kind of wish the translator included the jp word for each password because the information that it has to be "5 characters long" is kind of useless otherwise. also there are many different words that more or less have the same meaning, but have different implications depending on the word choice. for something as simple as "justice" as it says shiho said, there are absolutely multiple choices she could have chosen and her confidence may have made more sense if we were given the original word and what that particular version of the word "justice" means compared to the others.
one example off the top of my mind is the word "truth". there are many words in JP that get translated commonly as truth, including but not limited to 真実、and 事実 . now in JP these 2 words are very distinct from each other. 真実 is a subjective truth, it may or may not be wrong or it could be different between two people's responses. for example, someone driving in the opposite direction of a car on a highway may say the car is driving fast, while someone driving in the same direction could say the car is driving slowly or even not moving. both of them are correct, because that is the "truth" relative to their positions. 事実 is an ultimate truth. there can only be one correct answer. for example, things like mathematical or scientific constants or theories (which although are technically 真実 because they're just proposals or numbers scientists and mathematicians have come up with after years of study and repeated results to help understand concepts in the world and it may or may not be truly correct. if someone one day is able to disprove any of them, then they'd be deemed incorrect or a 真実 if both can exist)
The scanlation team posted this about the series. It has been on indefinite hiatus since 2018.
Tldr the initial magazine it was being published in was discontinued in 2017 and in early 2018 the magazine the series was transferred to was also discontinued. The author has expressed interest in continuing the series but it has been difficult for her to find a new publisher.
https://hachimitsu-scans.blogspot.com/2019/05/there-will-always-be-way.html
In addition she's picked up a lot of more ongoing work projects like KareIrai, Vtubers Caname&Haruky and ImSora Project. The Bproject franchise that she's been a major illustrator for is releasing a new game very soon as well. She also recently had an art gallery and published an art book for her 12 year anniversary. And so as you can imagine, she's very busy. However it's not like she's given up on the series! just don't expect it's going to return soon
not sure if p2 "lets watch sumapura" and p9 "lets play sumapura" is actually what it said because i don't have the raws but if it is the latter one what came to my mind was that its a knockoff of "sumabura" which is short for smash bro(s) as in the game super smash brothers. its a game thats pretty popular with boys but there isn't any show based off of the game so it wouldn't make sense if "play" and "watch" are both what the raws said.
just wanted to give my insight since the scanlator said they had no ideas on what sumapura could be