My guy, i don't even know if you read my reply or not. If you liked the manga or not the focus of my reply. Infact, i didn't talk about you not liking it, at all. All i was saying was that yes, women CAN be masculine and that the acceptance of it was the point of the manga. And your point about it being 'americanized' is just sad to me.
I live in the philippines. I'm filipino. I'm also masc. The philippines is not a country where you would find any masc women. I'm not westernized, or white-washed. I am fully filipino. All of those things can be true all at the same time. You implying that being a masculine woman is an inherently 'american' trait which is just, plain wrong, is just insane to me. I didn't feel masculine and feel like i didn't want to wear dresses because of america, i felt like it because that's how i wanted to dress and express myself. This genuinely has nothing to do with america. Koga and oosawa DON'T like japanese music because it's not their style. Name a grunge rock band from japan. You can't because people over there don't make that style of rock. I don't like traditional filipino pop music because i don't like it. It's not cause i'm westernized, it's not cause i'm whitewashed, it is simply just because i don't like the style of pop in this country and would rather listen to saosin and kendrick lamar. People here don't make post-hardcore. People here don't make the genre of rap that i like. People don't make the style of music i like, that's why i don't listen to the music from my people. I don't "praise the west" because i enjoy a style of music that the west made. I just enjoy the music the west made because it sounds good in my ears.
Also your point about the artstyle, the reason why other mangas have more consistent artstyles is because they have teams to draw them ON MODEL. Mangas and animation usually have character models they have to go by and i'm pretty sure the artist/writer of this manga doesn't have either of those. Take steven universe for example, you'll find that in different episodes the animation style looks different sometimes. That's because they didn't have models for the characters and let the animators have creative freedom and draw them how they want while still keeping the somewhat same artstyle. And plus, those mangas are professionally made. And pushed out. This is not. This used to be just a manga series on twitter, mind you. They didn't publish it or have any advertising. It was an indie manga.
If you actually read all of this, i thank you. I'm not trying to disrespect you or start an argument, it's just weird to me that you think they changed their artstyle to purposfully make koga 'look like a guy' and that they praise the west and that women can't be masculine and that it's inherently an american trait, thank you. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
i'm surprised that you seem to think that most manga i read are professionally made and by teams, on top of that, when half of them are made by exactly one person, non-professionally.
i'm not saying that art styles cannot change, they obviously do, but i prefer it if the artist or artists stay more truthful to their designs.
and we cannot really do much about our own appearance, though we do choose our own style.
you've chosen how you want to be, as i've chosen how i want to be, and i can absolutely relate to your story, even if i'm not into rap or grunge rock or whatever, but the base idea is the same.
when i said that this manga in particular feels americanized, i'm not talking about the art style or the music.
it's drawn less like a manga and more like a comic (i know they mean the same thing, but their places of origin are different).
if i had to compare it to something else, take the chainsaw man animation as an example.
the guy who directed that, thought it would be a good idea to turn an anime into a hollywood-looking high-budget production.
long story short, i think it fails entirely as both a good animation, and a hollywood-style production.
the person who makes this manga seems to love america a tad too much, because it's reflected in everything, down to the change the main character goes through.
i know we keep disagreeing but this is how i see it, and ultimately, this is what made me go from liking this, to hating this.
