#kurosuna

[osamusbigtits]

suna hugs kuroo from behind, quietly humming along to the song that's playing. suna kisses kuroo's neck and kuroo chuckles.

kuroo leans back. "you got anything going on this week?" he asks, looking at their dry erase calender. kuroo's on top of changing it each month, listing all their plans for the month.

"no," suna replies. "fucking you each night, maybe." he replied.

"can you be serious?" kuroo says, lighthearted.

suna laughs. "nope. I can't."

"I'm gonna stay at work a little later on wednesday." kuroo leans forward to mark it in the calendar. "kenma and I gotta figure out money and stuff."

"I'm glad my job is to just look pretty."

kuroo turns and kisses suna's cheek. "I don't think you have the brainpower to do anything else," kuroo teases.

suna gasps. "I could throw you, tetsu."

kuroo cackles. "I know."

[approximateknowledge]

how it started:

how it's going:

[kodanshamanga]

NEW Kodansha Digital:

🧜‍♀️Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: Aqua, Volume 2🧜‍♀️ By Pink Hanamori

💗She’s duty-bound to marry a merman fiancé she’s never met, even while her feelings for Kurosuna-kun continue to grow stronger and stronger.

[ekparavani]

me seeing someone ship a ship with zero canon interaction whatsoever: ooooh that makes sense, I could see that. actually let's look for some fanart rn

[incorrectmmpppquotes]

chapter 9 is out and i've got Thoughts. i'm actually pretty excited for where the story is starting to go.

first off, COCO IS BACK BABEY. best girl makes her return and i am HYPED.

anyways, so is lucia not aqua regina? it really makes sense for her not to be at this point. it makes sense for her character in pure to be a housewife & not have to worry about being ocean god.

but then, what is with the side story then? is it not canon? was it all a dream? did lucia become aqua regina but then give the position back so she could have lukia? was it all kept a secret & no one knows except lucia & kaito, and maybe laurent captured the original aqua regina thinking she's still The aqua regina but really she's powerless? (not sure how that works out but hey i can think of something). i hope it's explained rather than glossed over bc i think just about everyone considers that ending the true ending of the original rather than rina's fever dream in episode 91.

my other question is why bring back izul & potentially 2 of the other dark lovers. while they are my favorite villain group it seems like an odd choice, unless they're setting up for laurent to be a half merman half panthalassan who they serve?

(left: chapter 3, right: chapter 9)

it's interesting to see how the silhouettes have greatly changed for the villains too. i had definitely pegged the one to the left of laurent in chapter 3 as suspiciously similar to izul & looks like i was right. between the glimpse of the woman to the far right of laurent given in chapter 3 & the silhouette on the left in chapter 9, i think we can safely suspect maria is back too. i'm very curious about the last one though. the one in the back in chapter 3 definitely looks like erill, but the silhouette in chapter 9 does not, unless her hair is entirely covered by her bandana.

it's not hard to guess why yuri wouldn't be back as a villain but i do hope we get to see her. & i hope we get to see her & hippo together too.

as much as i love the dark lovers though, i wish someone else could have come back. they sort of got a redemption arc in that short story where hippo & yuri met, although the anime episode was far more of a redemption arc than the manga was.

it would be nice to see a redemption arc for michel's servants, assuming their spirits are still around considering michel created them & he peaced out at the end of pure.

it would be nice to see the black beauty sisters too. it was anime-only, but mimi did have that redemption arc going for her & she did seem to consider the princesses friends at the end. in the manga their death was a lot more gruesome but hey michal got reborn, why couldn't they have been reborn?

either way, it seems like we'll be seeing more characters from the original going forward. maybe hanamori realized that the new characters she was writing have no personality so reverted back to the ones who were already established, or maybe they're all coming back as a homage to the original. either way, excited to see where things go!

[hotwaterandmilk]

I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not a vocal Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch fan, but I did read/watch the original series and you’d have to be living under a rock to miss the let’s say mixed reception the aqua sequel has been receiving from English-speaking fans (though I’d call its Japanese fan reception muted at best too, tbh).

Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch aqua

Hanamori Pink, the illustrator behind the original manga series began aqua in the September 2021 issue of Nakayoshi magazine. aqua is being written and illustrated by Hanamori without the input of original co-creator Yokote Michiko this time around.

aqua, a sequel to the original, tells the story of Nanami Rukia, daughter of Lucia and Kaito from the first series. Raised without knowledge of her mermaid ancestry, Rukia learns about her parents’ legacy upon turning 17. She must now deal with a betrothal, danger in the seven seas, and her unexpected mermaid abilities all at once.

There are a lot of issues people cite with the content in the first two chapters of aqua (which is all that have been released to this point, September 7th 2021). Common ones I’ve noticed include: Lucia & Kaito look like teenagers, Rukia and Lucia look identical in mermaid form, Hanamori’s anatomy is all over the shop,  Kurosuna Ryuusei (Rukia’s love interest) is mean and kind of a dick, it makes no sense that the characters from the original series would keep all the mermaid stuff secret, arranged marriage haha wtf, etc. etc.

Most of these are fairly subjective and not what I want to focus on here (though imho the art and story here are not great). It is the change in maturity level that is seen in aqua vs. the original Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga that first graced the pages of Nakayoshi magazine way back in 2002.

What do I mean by change in maturity level? Well, you certainly didn’t see panels like this in the original MMPPP manga:

(Kurosuna  “a fish is fine too” Ryuusei  + mermaid Rukia from the second chapter - scan thanks to @hikayagami).

And frankly, if you haven’t looked at Nakayoshi magazine for 20 years I can appreciate why you’d be shocked at not just this, but Kurosuna’s fairly nasty behaviour over both chapters (treating human Rukia coldly because he’s only horny for the mermaid that saved him). However, this is only really surprising if you take aqua on its own, without the context of the changes seen in Nakayoshi since its readership peaked in 1993.

"But Nakayoshi is for girls aged 8-14! It isn’t like this!” Yeah... see Nakayoshi really is like this, nowadays. Forget the powerhouse magazine that ruled the shoujo landscape in the 90s and early 00s, Nakayoshi has been steadily losing readers for quite sometime -- we’re talking a circulation rate below 60,000 (when modern Ciao magazine is hitting over half a million -- see all mag data here). 

Without the power of strong media mix tie-ins, Nakayoshi has seen a change in the type of stories it serialises. What do I mean? Well, let’s compare what was running in Nakayoshi September 2002 vs. Nakayoshi September 2021 (when the MMPPP and MMPPPA manga began serialisation).

Nakayoshi September 2002

Daa! Daa! Daa! - Kawamura Mika (media mix)

Sister Witch (Love Witch) - Takeuchi Naoko

Juunikyuu de Tsukamaete - Andou Natsumi

Tokyo Mew Mew - Ikumi Mia and Yoshida Reiko (media mix)

Yobarete Tobidete! Akubi-chan - Kamikita Futago (media mix)

Urukyuu - Akimoto Nami

Kekkon Shiyou yo - Mizukami Wataru

Musume. Monogatari - Kanzaki Yutaka and Tanaka Rika (media mix)

Hoppe Ni Chuuboo! - Natsukawa Rika

etc.

Nakayoshi September 2021

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Hen - CLAMP (media mix)

Tokyo Mew Mew Olé - Seizuki Madoka (media mix-ish)

Shinkon Dakedo Kataomoi - Yukimori Sakura

Chihiro-kun wa, Atashi Holic - Itou Sato

Unrivaled NAOMI Tenkaichi - Kamikita Futago, Mizuno Tama, Osaka Mari

Vampire Dormitory - Tooyama Ema

Chou ka Han ka: Gokudou-sama Afurete Afurete Nakasetai - Toriumi Pedoro

Kamitsukanaide, Kiss Shite yo. - Natsuzono Gouka

Ouji ga Watashi wo Akiramenai! - Asada Nikki

etc.

I tried to pick the top-listed series or those with colour pages for the above. While this comparison is in no way definitive, generally speaking we have more content with overt romantic pursuit as a primary focus now + said romance is racier than what was seen in the magazine 21 years ago. 

Today when you open Nakayoshi kabedon is on the menu from the start, and you can anticipate lots of holding down/pinning, blushing, biting, licking, and aggressive romantic/sexual pursuit that can the blur lines of consent between series leads. Yeah you still have gag works like Wankorobee but it is the exception rather than the rule these days.

To be clear, current Nakayoshi titles do not cross over into explicit territory. However, they do contrast considerably with what was on offer 20-30 years ago. While you’d see kissing in titles like Sailor Moon (which included moments of Usagi and Mamoru in bed), these moments were presented as romantic but not definitively sexual in nature.

(This is one of the closer moments from the Sailor Moon manga, seen in the Dream arc)

You can compare this with current Nakayoshi titles, that opt for a stronger sexual undercurrent that frequently starts in the first chapter rather than building across an entire series.

(Here are the leads getting physically close in the first chapter of Chou ka Han ka: Gokudou-sama Afurete Afurete Nakasetai)

(Some first chapter licking from Vampire Dormitory. Yummo.)

(Things wouldn’t be the same without some biting. Watashi ni xx Shinasai 19 -- admittedly this series has ended, but it is a previous series by the author of Vampire Dormitory so... yeah)

In Context, aqua Makes Sense (Kinda)

So Nakayoshi’s readership has been plummeting over the years and the overall trajectory of the manga it publishes now aims for a more overtly sexual angle. There’s some debate about whether the readership started to drop and so Nakayoshi went a bit “lude” to try and drum up more attention, or whether the change in content led to the readership drop. My interpretation (and I am not an expert) is that it’s a bit of both; Nakayoshi’s media mix works stopped competing with Ciao’s (and to a lesser extent, Ribon’s), their furoku stopped being nearly as interesting, and their stories changed.

aqua, while it seems a world away from the original Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, is not worlds away from other Nakayoshi titles of the 2020s. The editorial direction of Nakayoshi doesn’t seem to be changing its trajectory and when titles like Watashi ni xx Shinasai win Kodansha Manga Awards in the children’s category (years ago, but still) you can see why they aren’t exactly rushing to change where their magazine is at -- for better or worse (I would argue the latter). When new media mixes are attempted or magical girl titles that aren’t Precure are created, without the edgier content they tend to finish quickly and not develop much online support, ultimately fading away (Brat Hunt Chu and Majo Kaitou LIPS).

And that’s where we are now, with a Nakayoshi magazine that for years has offered plot points like arranged marriages (aqua), relationships based on power imbalances (Sheikh-sama to Harem de.), and relationships born of blackmail (Watashi ni xx Shinasai). Relationships like these have existed in some form in a lot of older manga as well, but when you add in the increased emphasis on sexual imagery and dialogue in a magazine ultimately aimed at a young readership, it really does make you wonder what happened to the “good old days” like you’re a boomer or something. 

(Argh and I haven’t even touched on any broader social commentary or trends at play here!!)

Conclusion

MMPPP aqua, two chapters in, when viewed in comparison with the original MMPPP series lacks emphasis on magical girl elements, friendship, and frankly anything other than a sexually charged romantic relationship between the two leads. A sequel in terms of chronology, it has yet to find any true connection to the spirit of the original work (though that could change).

When you look at MMPPP aqua among its fellow modern Nakayoshi works, you can see how it slots into the magazine’s landscape and how keeps with current editorial trends within the publication.

MMPPP and TMM are both doing well for Nakayoshi in terms of nostalgic merchandise tie-ins (along with even older series like Kaitou Saint Tail) but I do feel there is a missed opportunity to create a stronger title here with aqua.

Perhaps I (personally) find it so disappointing because I’m wrapped up in Tomita Sukehiro’s Wedding Apple, a visual web novel and spiritual successor to Ciao’s 90s media-mix series, Wedding Peach. Rather than trying to slot into where the old series fitted in, Wedding Apple went for a cutting edge web service that allowed for greater exploration of series themes, improving on frequently cited issues in Wedding Peach like the emphasis on heterosexuality, marriage being the ultimate goal for girls, age restrictions for magical abilities, etc. Does it hit the mark every single time? No, it doesn’t. However, I appreciate the fact that it tries and that it exists to convey a story, rather than simply to cash in.

Compare this to MMPPP aqua, which has yet to find a purpose outside of the nostalgia gravy train. I could be wrong here, in the next few chapters aqua could find its feet and portray a strong Rukia taking charge and making new friends like her mother once did. The art could look better than whatever-the-hell you call how it currently looks (peak sameface?).

In the pages of 2020s Nakayoshi though, a title that does this is rare and with a media-mix legacy propelling it forward, MMPPP aqua may well remain a soulless fin-sucking extravaganza that uses the original series’ mythology as nothing more than window-dressing for a generic, sketchily composed, and kinda ick relationship between two leads with all the romantic chemistry of house bricks.

Meanwhile Nakayoshi itself remains aimless, adrift, and unsure of what it represents anymore from an editorial standpoint as its numbers continue to dwindle.

It’s a bit of a bleak picture though I do have my fingers crossed for aqua to improve. Please improve, aqua. ;o;

[mermaidmelodycolors]

AQUA RANT. Spoilers from chapter 2.

The fin sucking scene is disturbing as fuck. Also what the fuck happened to the way the mermaid tails are drawn? Now it looks like Rukia has a very defined ass... WHEN SHE IS IN MERMAID FORM. She's even got knees! It looks awful IMO.

Plot-wise, I'm getting worried. This is chapter 2 and we have no idol transformation, no new enemies, no new mermaid princesses, nothing. The only thing we have is the love plot, which I admit IS interesting, but the original PPP had both love and mermaid plots.

Rukia is definitely not my cup of tea. Lucia in the original had a very clear personality (bubbly, easily distracted, clumsy, subject to teasing from both Kaito and Hanon, kind of agressive with words, etc) even in the first two chapters. Rukia, I feel, doesn't really have that by now. She's far more basic and I cannot really describe her personality as more than a lovestruck teenager. She's like Lucia but with less personality, at least in my opinion.

I am not saying there aren't good things —I think the forced marriage is interesting and puts Rukia in a very good conflict. And I'm so excited thinking of the possibilities of Kurosuna having discovered Rukia's identity. Will we finally know how the bubble curse works? I'm hoping we get the revelation that the curse is fake or that Lucia got rid of it as Aqua Regina.

However, one thing that scares me... if Lucia isn't against the forced marriage then we're going to have a very, very OoC Lucia. I really hope there's more to it and not just "we're your parents and we decided this because why not".

[richehs]

so hard to ship extreme rare pair ships, especially those that not a lot of people ship LIKE u can't even scream about it with others,,, u gotta thoroughly find ur people and that sucks

n also i have like 2-3 friends on twitter so,,, imagine how lonely that is lolololol only one of them ships kurosuna like me rip

[kotsume]

i know you just started, but, haikyuu!!

okay so since i just finished haikyuu, i’ll be doing it again. the first one i did (x) was based off of what i watched in season 1 up to like episode 10. this one will reflect how i feel about the show a lot better.

Favorite character - daichi

Second favorite character - oikawa (i honestly have too many favorite characters)

Least favorite character - yamaguchi (i was annoyed at him for most of the show up until he got dem points)

The character I’m most like - oikawa or kenma

Favorite pairing - oikawa and iwaizumi

Least favorite pairing - none

Favorite moment - whenever kurosuna is talking about nekoma and nekoma’s volleyball team starts sneezing and getting chills. (more: when oikawa goes to say “i believe in you” and his team beats him to it, then goes on to add if he misses a serve he’s buying them all ramen and puts on additional things to it; when iwaizumiasks if oikawa would rather be called a crappy guy or a shitty guy; when kiyoko says “do your best” and all the third years start crying; anytime daichi gets mad; THERE’S TOO MANYYYY)

Rating out of 10 - 10/10

Send me a series and I’ll tell you my…

[keirangoldenwatch]

Bring Me a Dream

And it’s a twofer!  GASP!  Here’s the other half of my BNHA oc crew, Nemuri Kurosuna.  She makes people fall asleep with sand.  Yes the name’s a pun.

[osamusbigtits]

kuroo loves suna so much. he's also helpful and understanding when kuroo's stressed. but recently, when stressed, kuroo only cares about suna's dick. kuroo will just come home and pull down his boyfriend's pants, pulling his cock out and into kuroo's mouth. suna's always shocked and instantly flustered, he always tells kuroo to slow down. but kuroo doesn't care. he's just happy to have suna's cock in his mouth.

[aquaregina]

Y’all I won’t lie I’m not liking Mermaid Melody Aqua…like where is Seria and the others? Heck where are the other kids of the other princesses? You can’t tell me NONE of them had kids?!!

Also is Luchia not Aqua Regina? I mean, if there isn’t one then wouldn’t the seas be in turmoil? What is the conflict other than Lukia arranged marriage??? That’s about the only interesting thing about this manga. Even with that said, I think @incorrectmmpppquotes said, it would very OOC of Luchia to think an arranged is a good idea. And the thing at the end just 😣

Not to mention Lukia is a wet blanket, she doesn’t really have a defined personality. Like if your gonna have a kid heroine of the original main character and have her be a clone, give them the exact same personality. That could at least create some tension between mother and daughter who are too much alike.

Then we could get some father daughter bonding! Wouldn’t that be sweet? Also I think Kaito has been in like 1 or 2 panels?!???

[incorrectmmpppquotes]

Well now I ship Lukia with Sango way more than I do with any of those other love interests

mermaid melody canon gay relationship rep when

[osamusbigtits]

i think kuroo, tendou, and suna would be an interesting ship

[aquaregina]

I was browsing the Aqua tag on Pixiv and came across something that made hope this manga doesn’t get even worse.

What if since Pink didn’t care for the logistics of people ages…a reincarnated Mikaru ends up being Lukia’s age? We could have a Lukia-Mikaru-Kurosuna love triangle? 😰 I just hadn’t considered that before this but I wouldn’t put it past Pink Hinamori at this point.

The art was good tho! 😂 Here’s a link to the person’s pixiv page: