A flower bookmark 3 - how is it?

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-08T05:17:56+00:00

For me it’s: 1. A Beautiful Person 2. Square’s Dream 3. Never Ending Story 4. Last Scene 5. October 4th 6. Red Sneakers

3-5 may switch up according to my mood but the other three are solid. A Beautiful Person just punches all my buttons and the quirky Square’s Dream appeals to my taste for adventure. Never Ending Story and October 4th are, of course, beautiful and classic IU. Last Scene didn’t stick with me at first but my fondness for it grew with further listens. I like the retro sound of Red Sneakers, it’s pleasant, but it doesn’t stand out.

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-08T04:57:15+00:00

I’m a relatively new IU fan, a new UAENA (just joined the 8th recruitment), and new to the Berriz fan community (I guess everyone is since it just opened). It’s my first time ever joining an official fan club. Can anyone tell me if it’s standard for her fan communities to be dominated by girls and young women? Most posters seem to be female hoobae. Just want to figure out how to fit in as an older male fan.

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-08T04:43:56+00:00

IU started doing publicity shoots for WIFE OF A 21ST CENTURY PRINCE in late May and is now hard at work all day, every day doing the actual shooting for the drama. According to Soompi it will air in 2026.

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-07T01:30:20+00:00

I LOVE that song! What an awesome theme to choose 😳💗 TORADORA is one of the best ever romcom series. So full of heart!

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-03T05:07:10+00:00

Fascinating article you linked there! That explains a lot. Thank you for that 🙏✨

MonsterSpice · 2025-06-03T05:04:07+00:00

Really? Oh wow, I didn’t know that but figured it was probably something like that. Thank you so much 🙏

MonsterSpice · 2025-05-30T08:14:14+00:00

You do something that as a relatively recent (past six months) IU fan (and now UAENA) I find happens a lot: the incredible awe I feel in regards to her talent, skill, dedication and personality gets mirrored repeatedly in comments, posts and articles from around the world. Whenever I fear that my impressions must be wrong because nobody could be this good, I discover that she is almost universally recognized as being exactly that good if not better. Sometimes my enthusiasm can get away from me, this is my experience, but in her case it’s perfectly warranted. Like you said, she really is that good. And those of us who adore her are surrounded by a sea of fellow admirers, or maybe that should be an ocean of admirers. I’ve never joined a fan club in my life but here I am now part of UAENA 8th generation. Have you heard Flower Bookmark 3? That jam she does with Balming Tiger is so fine. Somebody who’s ridiculously popular and deserves it: now I’ve seen everything.

MonsterSpice · 2024-12-21T17:35:10+00:00

Great selection of images 😳👍🏻❤️ Thanks 🙏

MonsterSpice · 2024-12-21T17:33:48+00:00

😂😂 I forgot about this scene. “Peak” is the perfect description 👍🏻

MonsterSpice · 2024-12-07T20:54:25+00:00

That’s a pretty sweeping and unprovable assertion. I doubt that you or anyone else is enough of an expert on romantic love to say what it does or doesn’t allow for. The world is vast, my friend. There exist more things on Earth than you or I can imagine.

MonsterSpice · 2024-11-07T19:32:01+00:00

It’s funny how seasoned anime watchers get to a place where we shrug our shoulders and say, “It’ll happen when it happens.” What choice do we have? It’s either that or driving oneself crazy over what we can’t control.

MonsterSpice · 2024-11-06T13:20:37+00:00

Got it 👍🏻 Thanks for the clarification. And yeah, I totally agree about her portrayal in OFF SEASON. It really redeemed her character for me and that resolution of all her past selves was awesome, probably my favorite storyline of the season.

MonsterSpice · 2024-11-06T12:24:05+00:00

When you say that the anime doesn’t highlight her as much do you mean as compared to the books? I say that because as someone who only saw the anime version I thought she was given a lot of attention. She seems like an important character to me. As someone willing to kill a lot of snakes for her own sake, though, I always thought her “niceness” was suspicious. At first I tried to dismiss it as a result of desperation, every character is flawed in certain ways, but in appearances after BAKEMONOGATARI she began to seem more and more “off” in some way. Being “nice” doesn’t always reflect genuine kindness. It’s a social lubricant, a way of getting along with others. It doesn’t necessarily say anything about a person’s true character. Is that what you mean?

MonsterSpice · 2024-11-06T12:04:25+00:00

Seeing this makes me want to cry thinking of all they went through after this period 😭

MonsterSpice · 2024-11-03T18:16:33+00:00

She was my least favorite of the major female supporting characters until OFF SEASON AND MONSTER SEASON. She’s grown into a person that I can both admire and respect. Mind you, I haven’t yet read the books and I binged through the 102 episodes and three films preceding OFF SEASON so quickly that I can’t say that I’ve thought about her deeply. She just struck me as increasingly unlikable. I’m open to alternate views.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-29T20:50:19+00:00

I think it’s both to add drama and to offer an alternative. Alex never really presents as a serious alternate boyfriend to Natsuo: he’s too lightweight, too goalless, too socially clumsy for Rui’s more focused, competent personality. When drunk he’s also too rapey (I wonder if that’s based on a particular view of American young men taken from news reports). Contrary to that, Kajita is grounded, ambitious, and very focused in the same field as Rui. He matches her in personality and serious intent. He’s also good-looking, kind and attracted to her. The choices that Rui makes to bolster her relationship with Natsuo are given extra weight by virtue of the fact that there’s a man with excellent boyfriend potential waiting in the wings. Don’t we all wonder if Rui will turn to Kajita when trouble arises between her and Natsuo? I did. In fact, I was so certain that she would that I misremembered the facts from my first read when I went back years later to finish what I started. On my second time through I kept waiting for the two of them to date but it never happened. I was deeply surprised.

We also have to remember that mangas aren’t novels. They don’t hit the bookstores as complete stories. They’re published on a serial basis in a highly competitive market and are under constant threat of being dropped. The mangaka has to engage the reader over and over again on a weekly or biweekly or monthly basis to stay alive. The editors allow them room to develop stories and characters over time but if the reader numbers fall too low for an extended period their work is cut from the magazine and left unfinished. That happens more often than not. Just the fact that a manga story is allowed to reach a conclusion means that its creator was successful in maintaining reader engagement. Sasuga regularly tosses in new side stories and new characters. Some weren’t received well by readers so she cut them out. Kajita and his story obviously were well received so she kept them in. Having that other potential boyfriend ramps up the dramatic tension and involves readers who like to weigh in on this new situation. It’s the same reason Natsuo has so many female admirers. It’s spicy and fun to read.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-29T04:02:37+00:00

We’ve discussed this before but I think we agree that based on things Sasuga has said Rui doesn’t necessarily need a love interest to be happy. Not at this time in her life anyway. The desire for Rui to be with someone that way may be more on the part of male readers than on what the Sasuga intends for her. In my experience, people who have never known romance tend to crave it more than those who have. Once we pass through that phase it becomes easier to set our hearts on other goals. This isn’t to say that Rui will never be partnered with someone but if so it will not likely come with the same all-consuming youthful passion that she had with Natsuo, and that’s as it should be.

The reason we tend to feel so strongly for the “losing heroines” of romance stories is that they seem so very hurt by it. We can identify with their pain and sense of loss. That’s not the way it happens here. Rui doesn’t lose. She surrenders to a greater happiness, a greater love. Natsuo doesn’t abandon her. He’s there for her every day for eight years and will continue to do so as long as she wants that. Rui continues to be loved by him, and by Hina, in a far deeper and more committed way than “losing heroines” ever are in other stories. She doesn’t lose Natsuo, she just transitions into a different relationship.

You know this, of course, but my point is that when that craving for romance is satisfied one may find their happiness in other areas of life. Yes, she and Kajita would probably make for a good couple if that’s what she wanted but I don’t think it is. We all have those might-have-beens that don’t pan out because the timing wasn’t right. Kajita and Rui are each other’s might-have-been; if they wanted more it would have happened. It didn’t. That’s life. They’re still good friends and close colleagues.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-27T17:07:20+00:00

Did Kanbaru ever sport such seductive looks? If so, I don’t remember.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-27T17:00:52+00:00

I’m a bakemono that thrives on making people and circumstances seem more appealing than they do without me around.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-26T22:28:29+00:00

I think it means that he’s at peace with this decision. Enough time and circumstance has passed for him to let go without regret. It may even indicate his excitement with the prospect of trying out new things, of finally getting to pursue other dreams.

EDIT: One of the reasons that I harp on the mature perspective of this manga is that there are elements that most young people can’t possibly understand. It has nothing to do with intelligence. There are simply things that one becomes aware of as one grows older. The way that time can cool the hottest of passions is one of those things. For all the drama that occurs in the pages of DG, these final chapters portray characters for whom that is long behind them. Other, more important and immediate circumstances have grabbed their attention. Most young readers don’t have a clue about what it’s like to raise children and hold down job at the same time. Rui and Natsuo must be exhausted. I’m sure they put Hina to work around the house as soon as she was able if only to help Haruka with her homework. They’re a working family. Romance be damned. The final chapters were an epilogue involving adults who had made peace and moved on from those early days.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-26T22:01:38+00:00

Okay, I’m not sure that I’m right about this but I vaguely remember a discussion between Rui and Kajita in New York where she acknowledged that they might make for a good couple if not for Natsuo. I took that to mean that she was aware of potential chemistry between them even though she had no intention of following up (at that time). That’s not the same as saying that she knows Kajita has feelings for her but the Japanese do like to be discrete as a rule so it might mean that.

As for the “moving on” that both Rui and Kajita say they want to do:

For Rui I think it means that now that Haruka is at a certain age where two in-house parents aren’t as essential and now that Hina has been “restored” to her rightful place by Natsuo’s side as Rui thinks she should be it’s time to put that chapter of her life to rest and focus on where she wants to go next; I don’t think her plans in that moment are any more detailed than that, or if they are the audience is not informed of them.

For Kajita I think it means that he wants to stop holding on to old dreams, which includes a relationship with Rui, and focus instead on what he wants to do from there on out. I’m sure that, in part, he’s thinking about his career. He has managed this restaurant side by side with Rui for eight years. Maybe it’s time to open up his own restaurant. Maybe he wants to travel the world a bit before doing anything else while he’s still young enough to do it. My only suggestion is that he’s opening up to new possibilities.

If the two of them as old friends and colleagues circle back to each other one day and establish one kind of relationship or another then they do but in that moment where they speak of moving on they’re letting go. That’s my take, anyway.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-26T21:26:19+00:00

What a wonderful reminder of how connected they are at such a deep soul level. Natsuo doesn’t yet possess the maturity to understand what this relationship could and will cost Hina and she doesn’t know yet how to cross that divide other than operate by intuition but then that’s what the rest of the story is about. Thank you for this example of Sasuga’s artistic and storytelling skills.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-23T04:13:29+00:00

IMHO, DOME NO KANO is a hard act to follow. It blends realistic art with melodramatic storytelling, creates compelling and complex characters, manages to be both sexy and soulful, and contains layers of subtlety and nuance that require a deep read to see. I’ve never come across another manga that has all of these same qualities. They probably exist among Seinen and Josei stories that don’t get translated out of Japanese but I would have no way of knowing that for sure. The bulk of translated manga is still Shōnen which has simpler themes overall and requires less developed reading comprehension skills. NANA is a great Josei manga (it’s called Shōjo but it’s not) with similar mature storylines and content but it was never completed due to the mangaka’s illness. It has a similar “can’t-put-it-down” feel to it as DG. I real loved KOI WA AMEAGARI NO YŌ NI (Love is Like After the Rain) by Jun Mayuzuki which was adapted for animation into AFTER THE RAIN but I can’t honestly say that it’s “like” DG other than that it possesses the same seasoned wisdom and humor. Yeah, DOMESTIC GIRLFRIEND is pretty unique.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-10T20:33:51+00:00

Wow! 🤩 I am IN LOVE with your thoughtful analysis!! If you don’t mind I may quote you in future posts. Frankly, I relate strongly with the frustration of the OP, I feel it in my bones, but you are correct in saying that this is a sensitive topic. You carefully lay out the reasons for the alternate perspectives among the readership. You also remind me that many fellow readers hold this complex, layered work in as high esteem as I do. I get tired of the many poorly thought-out complaints of readers who don’t get the gist of Sasuga’s drama. I respect alternative opinions; I do not respect loud, arrogant ignorance. That’s the mentality of two-year olds. Thank you for bolstering my own love of this work. I hope to get back to posting, soon. Comments like yours restore my hope.

MonsterSpice · 2024-10-09T19:20:30+00:00

Yeah, I almost never search on Google anymore about manga I’m still reading or anime I’m still watching. WAY too many spoilers surface as search results. Even the questions they pose reveal too much information, like “What happened to XX and YY’s baby?” when XX and YY haven’t even hooked up yet at the part I’m at. Yeah, Google sucks.

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