#koharu yorukura

[trans-ralsei]

the funniest thing about kiui/ryugasaki nox being canonically nb transmasc and koharu possibly being transfem

is that there's a chance koharu took a look at ryugasaki nox and mistakenly clocked them as a boymoder:

which meant that the first question on what's your cup size was meant to encourage rather than be invasive, but ends up being invasive either way

[dawn-lilacbloom]

when the character is wasted

[fullpower-88]

[nijigasakilove]

Best episode by faaaar, and that’s saying something. Every episode has been a step above the last.

That 17-18 year old range is one of the most difficult time periods in your life. It feels like you should have everything planned out and things start coming at you so quickly, but the reality is it’s ok to not have it all mapped out. It’s ok to be lost and just take it day by day.

I think a lot of people will be able to relate to Kano in this episode. Sometimes we look at our peers and see they have concrete plans for the future and it makes us feel insecure, but everyone moves at their own pace and you’ll never win a race against someone else’s life.

Enjoyed seeing her gradually come to terms with the fact that if you pursue your passions, you’ll eventually find the right path and it’ll fall in place over the course of the episode and the bike ride at the end is a nice analogy for that. Too bad Kano didn’t pay attention to the terms of her license and got a ticket 😭 worth it for the Kano and Yoru moments we got at the end there. “Say you’ll sing for me cause I really love your singing” 😍

Also, the scene of Yoru pulling Kano forward is a direct callback to the end of episode 1 with Kano pulling Yoru. That’s what we call character development.

Kiui and Kano getting groomed by Koharu still got me crying though “they’re high school girls, I hope this isn’t a crime”, deadass had to pause my tv several times during that half of the episode lmao. Didn’t expect straight up titties in my Yorukura this week.

Kiui becoming a teacher to be the person she never had in her life is so sweet and such a real motivation for so many real life educators. She’ll make a great one because she’ll truly be able to understand her students.

Amazing episode, so proud of my babies this week.

[ultraviolet-psyche]

One last Yorukura episode review thing from me. Spoilers under the cut.

Well... that was kind of disappointing.

I don't think the finale was bad, per se. We got some nice moments, like Kano's anxiety persisting even as she goes on stage to perform, and Kiui's big smile as they end their stream with their usual sign-off. Overall, I think Kiui and Mei got some pretty solid conclusions to their character arcs.

Everything else about this finale, though... it all feels very fairytale-like. It feels a lot like everything just got magically resolved with a song and some smiles. If this was a typical happy-go-lucky idol or CGDCT anime, that'd be fine, but Yorukura's first half gave me the impression that its conflict resolution was going to be more grounded. The pacing has been seriously off throughout the last few episodes, and while I certainly appreciate Mei and Kiui getting more development, I'm not sure if they each needed an entire episode dedicated to them so late in the anime. I don't even think the low episode count is necessarily the problem; I feel like 12 episodes could've worked fine for the scope of this series if they allocated their time more wisely and maybe cut out some parts that weren't entirely necessary (the Koharu episode for example didn't really add much to the overall plot; nor did the Shizue episode for that matter, and I say this as someone who really enjoyed that one.)

And yes, sadly, we all got baited. There's no confirmation, or even any sort of strong implication, that Kano/Mahiru is canon. I wasn't expecting them to start making out on screen or anything like that, but come on... even just a super brief scene with Kano or Mahiru saying something like "I want you by my side, for the rest of my life" while they're smiling and blushing at each other would've been enough for me. And I think it would've been enough to clearly communicate that yes, Kano and Mahiru are in love. As far as LGBT+ rep goes, I can at least say that we have the trans(-coded?) Kiui, and Mei very clearly having romantic feelings for Kano and liking girls in general (though she does unfortunately fall into the "predatory lesbian" stereotype), but Kano/Mahiru feels like a missed opportunity. We were getting some great relationship development that genuinely seemed like it was going to lead to a sapphic love story, then episode 9 happened and it all went downhill from there. I struggled to even care all that much for their relationship in these last few episodes because there was so little focus on it, and when they do finally see each other again, they're just hugging and giggling like besties as though nothing happened. (Well, they each acknowledge that they said/did some shitty things, but that's about it really.)

Make no mistake: I really enjoyed Yorukura. I love the JELEE members and even some of the side characters. The art, animation and direction is fantastic, and overall I think it's a fairly solid coming-of-age story that emphasises the importance of loving yourself for who you are. However, I do wish that the second half of this anime was better. I wish it had better pacing. I wish we had a more satisfying payoff to the major conflicts introduced, and Mahiru and Kano's relationship in general. I wish the antagonists – Yukine and Mero – got further development and perhaps more serious consequences for their actions. I just wish the last few episodes held up as strongly as the first few. I suppose I'll just go check out Girls Band Cry for the Yorukura I'd hoped that Yorukura would be.

So, yeah, that's about it. I may end up writing some fanfics down the line to "fix" some of these issues I have with the ending haha

[ultraviolet-psyche]

Okay, thoughts on Yorukura ep7, let's go. Spoilers under the cut.

I was pleasantly surprised that Kiui had a plan to get her life together, but the reasoning behind it is pretty sweet. She wants to be there for kids struggling to fit in just like she had. It's great to see her grow and develop because she's probably the character I can relate to most, personally. Her realisation that she's not normal, and deciding that trying to be "normal" isn't worth it because what does it mean anyway, resonates with me and honestly warmed my heart.

I think realising that even a shut-in like Kiui had plans for the future was particularly hard on Kano, but I'm glad that the two of them got to spend more time together and get to know each other more. And all that training to get her motorcycle license was worth it in the end, because she got to take Mahiru for a ride! The last couple minutes of the episode with those two were so sweet. We get some more teasing and it looks like Kano is a bit of a tsundere. We love to see it.

I'm not getting my hopes up too high because it's still possible that it's all just bait, but it really would be great if there's actual romantic feelings on either side and there's a real chance of something actually happening between the two.

The stuff with Koharu was kind of a nasty surprise for me because I didn't expect this show to ever go that far into uncomfortable fanservice territory, and playing it for laughs at that. It looks like she's here to set up something or other, or personify a particular theme, maybe allow for some commentary on plastic surgery and portraying yourself as something you're not, but all I could really think during the scenes with her was "what the fuck. can. can we move on from this now." I'll give her and her relevance to the story the benefit of the doubt for now, maybe somewhere down the line her predatory behaviour will be seriously acknowledged for what it is, but... yeahhhh that's the only thing really keeping me from absolutely loving this episode. Which is a shame because the continued development of the four main girls and their relationships with each other really did make this episode quite an enjoyable one.

In any case, I believe we have four episodes to go? Things should be ramping up pretty soon. I'm looking forward to it!