Kaisha to Shiseikatsu: On to Off - Ch. 25 - The Hanku Family

[Andigo]

First thing I noticed: Mom AND Dad are fine as fuck. 10/10 hotties

This is just a theory/interpretation, but... I’ve been wondering if Amata might be demiromantic (meaning he doesn’t feel romantic attraction unless he’s formed a close emotional bond first) ? When he says, “I’ve never experienced romantic feelings,” I don’t think he’s just talking about Hanku. I think he means he’s never experienced romantic feelings in general. He doesn’t seem like the type to form crushes casually. He clearly likes Hanku and cares about her a lot, but is very careful not to call it romance.

I mean.. Amata has been hiding his crossdressing from everyone since he first started, which means he's likely kept himself emotionally guarded all this time, unable to truly fall in love while concealing such a fundamental part of his identity. He literally has a gaggle of women fawning and yearning for him at work, like he's clearly attractive so I doubt finding a girlfriend is a problem. Hanku is the first person he's allowed himself to be vulnerable with, and truly himself. It would explain why he gets so flustered and blushes around her, even when he doesn’t like her “like that.”

I guess it's the intimacy of being seen and accepted for who he truly is that's overwhelmingly new to him, and not romantic attraction (yet, fingers crossed!).

(Yeah not just Mom from our glimpse last chapter but seriously both parents are super attractive.)

Such feels there. Amata is written very consistently with a demiromantic girl, or I guess femme crossdresser in their case. It's cute that this kind of feminine depiction of delicately opening up applies across genders and stories, apparently emphasis on office ladies and office crossdressers.

Hiding some side of self like a hobby is often written as a reason someone is on guard and hasn't gotten romantic, especially during or past the age where "all the good ones are taken" if marriage pressure is high. Crossdressing often showscases both of those: A femininity that's core to a person that there's heavy social pressure and some bigotry against, and an engaging artful hobby where someone is safer and freer. Unlike some femboy and crossdressers Amata isn't showing really any masc traits at all so it's even more emphasized.

So Amata is very off balance right now. If anything there's the usual risk of someone's sense of being affirmed leading to attraction. Luckily Hanku isn't manipulative or problematic in any way, and the bonds aren't rushed. I guess this trip isn't rushing since it's more about accepting and treating Amata as family than simply affirmation. So this chapter aside, I'm psyched to see what our lead femme is like in such a free environment.

for all that other conflict

I'm not up for bad faith troll flame-fighting today. But I think it's better for your stress levels to draw a line that the labels don't matter, and folks honest experience does. If someone rules out all empathy for people living everyday lives, or gets religiously provocative, they don't have their heart in it and the manga is better for increasing empathy than argument. Someone trying to translate labels across cultures or even decades in one culture, when labels are practical and not sacred, rarely actually cares about the language so much as hallucinating inferior groups.

It's something to treasure that experiences carry across cultures and that freedom and tolerance let people flourish. Words are made up. People vary too widely for them to be adequate. Fishing for ways to turn that cruel, to legitimate aggression and paranoia, is a waste of limited life.

 

[mcmoor]

<Pushes the futons a bit closer>

<Replaces it with a big one>

 

[Midoriha]

Surprisingly, it was actually the mom.

Whenever this type of scenario happen in fiction I always wonder how it would play it if the person in question wasn't a 10/10 hottie who's indistinguishable from an actual girl. Being pretty affords you a lot of things.

 

[synthubus]

Surprisingly, it was actually the mom.

Whenever this type of scenario happen in fiction I always wonder how it would play it if the person in question wasn't a 10/10 hottie who's indistinguishable from an actual girl. Being pretty affords you a lot of things.

speaking from experience as a pretty butch transfem it def makes it a bit more stressful. it's kind of hard to explain but you know when someone is fully accepting or just accepting when it's convenient for them, and when people actually mean it then it's as natural as can be. so when you get invited into an environment you're trusting that person to have felt out the vibe for you beforehand and in the case of this chapter there's no way aki would've extended the invite if she wasn't totally sure imo. she cares too much for that.

 

[KensouADV]

Mum want's Grand Kids after all... Stealthy one.

And that's the room where they keep the altar where they pay respects to their ancestors. The whole family wants it even from beyond the grave.

 

[NitroX72]

Never mind the mom, i'm absolutely shook by the dad. like a fine wine... this whole family is stacked

 

[Remissio]

Ehehe, always happy to see this update. I need more!

 

[phorx]

I thought she’d just take away the second futon and have them share it

 

[ariel_haymarket]

Need me a family like that

 

[Rogojinen]

Brother watches Chainsaw Man once: 🤘

 

[mgRdr]

Right, I'll lend a hand

Ah! Me too.

They were both there, laying the futons in the same room one near the other

 

[draxdeveloper]

Fixed

 

[draxdeveloper]

50 years old, really ?

They are vampires

<Replaces it with a big one>

I wanted to be able to edit the image to have this result, but I am too lazy to do anything better than what I did

 

[RoseYuri]

both the parents are hot, i'd be their third

 

[Melvin_VT]

Oh right, he's a boy... removes one of the beds....

 

[MsW0lf]

And that's the room where they keep the altar where they pay respects to their ancestors. The whole family wants it even from beyond the grave.

“We don’t care which one of you gets the other one pregnant, we just want babies!”

 

[Jenaxu]

This shit is so peak. Don't worry about the bedding mom, they're only gonna need one futon tonight

 

[74HC595]

Ah, the age old paradigm of “if he passes, it’s cool”.

 

[Nonya22]

I think their reasoning is that cross-dressing boys who identify as boys and are NOT interested in being girls, or even think of themselves as girls, whatever their sexual preferences, is something that some people refuse to accept. They're automatically labeled as "eggs" and looked at with a "we know what you are" look.

I think there's a difference between making egg jokes about real people who don't identify as trans (which is rude, ignores their stated identity) versus making similar jokes retrospectively about someone who later came out as trans. And all that is still different from how fans talk about fictional characters, who may written to be trans but not outright stated to be due to censorship, or be based on/inspired by closeted trans people. We've seen plenty of examples of good autistic representation that the creators did not realize was autistic rep because they were writing from real life autistic people - or even authors realizing they have ADHD because the character they gave their own experiences to was identified as ADHD by the audience.

Japan doesn't have a problem with cross-dressing boys being boys inside.

Uuuuuuuhhh citation needed? Also even if there is room in society for contextual cross-dressing (for example in cosplay), that DOES NOT MEAN there is no stigma against transgender folks. Even if Japan didn't have any issues with cross-dressing men, that's only as long as they are men inside. Which is why some trans women may say they're not - because it'd be more dangerous to be known as a trans woman than a femboy.

 

[Kaito57]

<Pushes the futons a bit closer>

Nah.

<Removes one futon completely and just puts a second pillow on the remaining one>