That panel with their hair blowing back made me lol.

Ah… that was worth waiting for.

Just ran across this one and thought it was pretty good.

And it’s especially notable for being just light and fluffy and amusing, since the mangaka’s other works are… not. At all. Even the tiniest bit.

And this surprisingly awesome manga continues to defy expectations.

I was expecting more about the other members, and specifically Rei, since she’s gotten enough focus to be recognizable. I was not expecting fujoshi though - not even for a second.

And another person with expectations for Ri-chan to defy…

Yeah - look at the face she’s making at the top left.

There’s a lot of dere under her tsun.

I think we can safely assume that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of those two women at the community center - they’re too detailed to be throwaway characters. And I’m looking forward to it - Ri-chan with an ara-ara onee-chan and a little, sharp-eyed tsundere should be good.

Those last two panels were subtle but nicely done. It took me a minute, and a bit of zooming, to figure them out.

I’m pretty sure they’re meant to illustrate Ri-chan’s perception of the world changing - going from dark and simple and vague to light and complex and detailed, as she figuratively comes out of the dark and into the light.

I suspect a lot of us can relate. I know I can.

That was quite the info-dump.

I was sort of curious what was going to happen to this. Early on, it looked like the overarching plot line was going to be the search for Aki’s dad and the question of whether or not she’d be able to kill him if they found him and he was a kairi. But then they did and he was and she did and that was that.

So then… what next?

And I guess we just found out. Sort of. Though I have no idea where it’s headed next, other than, apparently, winter.

Yep - glasses guy did it, and that’s a lot of what this has all been about. I was pretty sure of that.

So has Chiaki manipulated Kouhei into this road trip for her purposes? Or is it something that Kouhei unconsciously did for her benefit? He does apparently have suppressed memories of her, so it’s possible he’s effectively tricked himself into helping her.

Odd twist that it’s even the same car. I’m not sure what to make of that.

I didn’t expect that. At least not so soon.

It’s a good sign though - I take it to mean that it’s going to focus on real issues of building a relationship rather than the typical manga bullshit of not even communicating in the first place.

And I’m looking forward to the next brain cell board meeting.

I love the brain cell board meetings.

This manga just impresses the hell out of me.

It was already good when it was self-published, but all we really saw then were scenes between Urumin and Kimiya at and after concerts. But then when it got serialized, instead of just redoing the existing chapters, the mangaka took the opportunity to basically start all over and flesh it out, and it’s so much better.

It’s especially neat that we’ve learned why and how it is that the rest of the group tolerates her clumsiness. And it’s made it so that instead of Kimiya being inexplicably obsessed with this idol with no apparent redeeming qualities, it’s Kimiya recognizing, just as her friends, fellow idols and family do, how adorable she really is underneath that awkward exterior.

Good stuff.

Even the mandrakes mock him.

Gurren Lagann

Saw that coming.

It’s a neat trick - an amusing and effective way to illustrate internalized struggles. It sort of reminds me of B Gata H Kei’s personified “sex gods.”

That was adorable.

Presumably, yes. It’s scheduled to end next month.

And her goal is now his goal too, so it’s just a matter of him saying it out loud.

There’s certainly room for a dispassionate analysis of the social battle over discrimination and the presumptions made by and motivations of those who oppose it, and even a relatively generous analysis of those who engage in it or even advocate for it.

This is not it though. Underneath all of the pseudo-scholarly trappings, this is just a painfully blatant bit of apologia, attempting to somehow normalize bigotry.

The author’s intellectual dishonesty is neatly illustrated when they address the fact that there’s no commonly accepted umbrella term for those who oppose bigotry. They present a number of possible explanations for that fact, but conveniently fail to mention the rather self-evident actual reason for it - because opposition to it is such a fundamental moral position that it’s rightly seen as simply the default, and the only thing that might need a name to distinguish it is an opposing view.

Exactly as it’s the case that there is no, because there need be no, umbrella term for those who oppose theft, or rape, or murder.

As if that wasn’t enough, the author again reveals their intellectual dishonesty in the section in which they address the assertion of “Kingists” that “aKingists” engage in hate.

Everything in response to that is then framed as if the “Kingists” accuse the “aKingists” of hating the credo of “Kingism” or of hating those who practice “Kingism.”

But that’s not what “Kingists” are referring to when they accuse “aKingists” of hate. They’re rather obviously referring to the hate that in fact defines the “aKingist” position - the hate of some other race/ethnicity/gender/etc. “Kingists” accuse “aKingists” of hate simply because hate is the specific thing the practice of which defines their position.

And I have little doubt that the author goes on to reveal their fundamental intellectual dishonesty some more, but that was more than enough for me.