Here's the discussion
that Willbyr might be thinking of.
20 Chapters.
- 1: Koume Sato (F, said to be 15, Junior III) in the backstory was manipluated into oral sex by Misaki (M, graduating to High) and then rejected. Confused by her feelings, she dates another, Isobe (M, Koume's classmate and childhood friend), with interest to do it properly out of curiosity, but he really doesn't like being a pretend boyfriend, but agrees to anyway.
- 2: There's a quick explicit sex scene (here and afterwards, as in genitals are drawn as white silhouettes, but effectively useless censorship) with Isobe, but still unsure.
- 3: Next school year Koume and Isobe secretly have an explocit sex in the bathroom. In follpwing text chat Koume gets aggressive and Isobe submissive.
- 4: They later hang out and try talking about families and try smoking, but nothing appears to be interesting. Because Koume is on period, they do it explicitly orally.
- 5: The two hang out with their respective families and later Koume visits. Isobe tries to make a move by Koume is already tired of it and considers breaking up. Isobe proposes hardcore ideas to try out but Koume leaves.
- 6: Isobe gets increasingly depressed. The two meet up, Isobe finds an old camera and finds swimsuit photos in there. Koume is annoyed that Isobe finds older girls more interested and as punlishment makes him masturbate in a power shed while she watches.
- 7: The two meet up and do 69. Both talk about how they can't manage at school and get depressed. On her way out she wipes Isobe's camera.
- 8: Koume talks to various people. When asked if she has a boyfriend, she says no because she doesn't want anyone to know. Isobe is really angry about losing the bikini photo.
- 9: Isome goes into a Motive Rant. Koume still wants to be in a relationship with him, but he tells her off. With noone there, Isome tries sex toys by himself.
- 10: Another classmate Kashima is interested in Koume and asks Isome. Isome smugly spills out everything and gets clocked in the face. Kashima threatens Isome with yakuza connections and reveals his brother's death "was no accident". When discovered by teachers, Isome tries to play it off as an accident, but Kashima tries to shove him downstairs and gets flying himself instead.
- 11: Koume manages to get friends while Isome goes into Never My Fault with the teacher, evidently it didn't go well for him. Kashima is in the hospital.
- 12: Koume is hanging out on the beach then karaoke with class while Isome works on his brother's blog. Isome tells a penpal that his brother commited suicide on his birthday, but Isome hid the note and it was passed as accident. Isome updates the blog out personal obligation and asks for help. A man offers Koume drugs and sex, but she decides to leave. Koume discusses a class trip, while Isome is home masturbating.
- 13: Koume visits Isome and stars venting and Isome is not happy. Then they sex the entire day.
- 14: The two sex multiple times. The two discuss how they've both met, what they'd do when are adults, how they've got trust issues, how nothing interests them. The two discuss dying and decide it's not for them.
- 15: Koume has fun at school. Kashima is dischared from the hospital and forgives Isobe. Apparently Koume and Isobe haven't met in a month. Isobe writes an autobiography for Koume and finds a taser.
- 16: Isobe tracks down Misaki and finds him after sex with someone with drugs in the bag. Somehow Isobe fonds Misaki's behavior unacceptable and it turns into a brawl. Misaki is relatively fine, but Isobe is very satisfied with victory. Koume gives her parents stealth relationship advice.
- 17: Koume is at school festival at school. Isobe is gone missing and even his PC is empty, and Koume remembers the suicide talk from before.
- 18: Koume skips the school festival and is looking for Isobe in rain, with son lyrics commentary. Isobe is alive at a cafe and finds the girl from the camera (Title Drop).
- 19: The class be teenagers and discuss everyone's relationships. Koume finds Isobe. Isobe goes on a rant how he hates the town and is planning to go to where the bikini girl studies. Koume can't believe what she hears. Koume makes a love confession and gets friendzoned. Isobe leaves and Koume panics, then Isobe is taken by the police for skipping school.
- 20: Koume hangs out with friends and for a month has been dating someone else, eho's apprently the original owner of the camera, then confess officially. Kashima is doing okay and with Koume discuss how they feel. At the beach Koume smiles for the first time.
It's published in the English by Verical Comics, who do from "12+" to "Mature". Seem to get a few critics awards.
Most Asano's work have "kids discover puberty and deal with it" as a theme, and have graphic content, but from a few I know these are pretty minor. Here it's explicit teen sex on multiple occasions with "minimum attempt at censorship". It's not close to Hentai level and it decreases over time, and there's a long Coming of Age Story with additional non-sex B-plots, but...
Imho, I'm not super confident it's keepable on both porn and pedo fronts, but it may also be fine, and would like someone more professional on policies to review also.
Interestingly, there's also a 2-hour 2021 movie adaptation rated 15+ and not 18+, so that's something to check as well.
Edited by Amonimus on Aug 29th 2022 at 7:41:55 PM
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupSounds fully keepable on the porn front, from the way you recapped the chapters it sounds like it falls along the same "dealing with puberty story" lines as the rest of the author's work just with more sex scenes in a way that goes well beyond an excuse plot.
On the pedo side... hmm. It sounds like the characters are 15-16 ish years old, which puts them above the threshold for "there better be a damn good reason for a sex scene" level, and given that the theme of the story seems to be "teenagers dealing with sex and relationships" I'm inclined to give it a pass on explicit sex so long as the sex scenes serve a narrative purpose (ex. establishing something about the characters involved, serving as an endpoint to a narrative arc, etc.) rather than being for pure titilation (or titilation at all, really).
So I guess my question to anyone who's actually read the work is "Do the sex scenes pull double duty expanding on the characters/furthering the plot/etc. or are they mostly sex scenes to have sex scenes."
Very much the former. The thrust of the story (so to speak) is that Koume and Isobe are using each other as life preservers both physically and emotionally to get relief from their respective issues. The twist is that Koume gradually develops genuine feelings for Isobe, while Isobe is revealed to be focused on "the girl by the shore" and eventually breaks Koume's heart by basically saying "It's been fun but I'm going to chase after this girl now" and walking away.
Inio Asano doesn't do casual sex scenes; across his body of work, with maybe one or two exceptions, if something of that nature's happening on-page, it's integral to the plot, fleshing out characterization, or shining a spotlight on something the reader needs to pay attention to. It just happens that in this case, the characters in question are at an age that many people would have a WTF reaction to, especially from a Western perspective.
Edited by Willbyr on Aug 31st 2022 at 8:58:50 AM
I'm still confused how the policy excuses author intent over graphic content, but I agree it was not made with tiltation in mind (still personally think there's no need to actually show everything in detail). If it's okay with policy then it's okay.
Also I've looked up the movie, a rather faithful recreation. Explicit top nudity from Koume, but everything else is either in clothed, obscured or glossed over.
TroperWall / WikiMagic CleanupI think the "authorial intent" point is fundamentally incorrect - we have never assessed whether a work is paedobait or porn on the base of "intent" but always on how it's presented. Gauging by intent also opens up the risk that we miss "accidental" paedobait and porn.
Now, I suspect the problem here with Asano's works is that he kinda tightrope-walks with discussing sexual aspects regarding children w/o falling into paedobait, but one has to actually read the scenes in question to properly gauge content policy compliance.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

The flag here for Umibe no Onnanoko was sent with the rationale