Let's start with the very basics
- Hinata is an Ogre Girl. This is different than a Human Girl. She is a different kind of girl, a monstrous other.
- Hinata Ibuki is the descendant of, and the successor of the Shuten-doji, an Ogre Man whose misdeeds against women cursed all of ogre-kind. One would expect given how patriarchal the times would have been at the legend, this would be a patrilineal, birthright. Though unconfirmed, no one's really given any attention to the fact that Hinata is a woman as Shuten-doji besides some of our monsters I believe. It's vague and could very well be arbitrary as to how shuten-doji is passed from generation to generation.
- Ogre Girls who wish to participate in Human Society are summarily excluded from 2 major social conventions of humans, that being eating (they can kinda choke down small amounts of food, but they can't really share meals) and drinking booze. This is more back to point 1, but this is a marked social marginalization. Both of these things become very dangerous to the effect of revealing their identities.
Alright, on to some more in-depth analysis. Chapter 2 gives us a lot of expository info as to what Ogres are. In that, Hinata lays down another legend, a sake that will allow her to be a Human Girl. To escape the veil of double life, and live free (23-24). She also says that in her family, mentioning this sake is forbidden. It's an impossibility, it's wrong, it should not be done. Which ok, sounds a lot like how most families treat the concept of transition. Precisely because the concept is so foreign, so unconscionable, we find out she has run away from her family in pursuit of this goal in chapter 3. Now, family is a pretty loaded topic for trans people, and a pretty important aspect of the narrative seeing as how ogre-kind seemingly have all derived from a single family. This entrenches the kind of power and control the family has in enforcing its will upon its subjects, as there is literally not an alternative, much more so than the typical human family structure would have. Regardless of how it was decided, we know there is no refusing the role of Shuten-doji, not even transitioning will save you (booo!), though they still let her do it which is cool of them.
Now, sidebar, I know you might be thinking "but Vivi, Naori sees Hinata full-frontal in chapter 4, surely she would have said something, right?" What were you expecting? Some kind of pastiche of the scene from Naked Gun? I mean, if we are positing that the authors are like making both an allegory to trans women and Hinata being trans herself... it doesn't make sense to give away the game right at once, for one thing, and two, why would they do all that thematic craft and then make the other lead like reject it immediately? Nah, all this to say is there was no definitive view of where Naori or how long she looked for one thing, and two, well Hinata's loaded and her family is on board (granted she still be Shuten-Doji) she could just have bottom surgery too. And again, this wouldn't be the sole red herring in the text so far (see mikage unresolved lesbian vampirism / secret ogre fact #xxxx). Regardless, Naori is a chill and good person and acclimates to Hinata being all the way down to her underwear.
On to the Big Fucking Gun of the whole thing. Chapter 5. From pages 6 on, we get her POV and just how important and deeply dear to her being able to do what pretty much looks like "the girls night" out. Her desire to be like others, to be included, and yet the danger and pain being so close and yet so limited in how she can actually navigate this world, this social engagement because of who she is, as an ogre, as a trans girl. I think it's important that the pain of unoffered alcohol is an involuntary action that y'know, can totally undermine and out you. For trans people that's something like reacting to your deadname, a sneeze, or a little too perfect of a John DiMaggio impression. It's a painful reminder that she "doesn't belong." We get this bit immediately after on page 11, and I think this is dual purposed in assuming both trans allegory and trans text. Hinata sees the other girl and imagines herself in her shoes, able to talk normally to a guy. We have all the immediate context that says human girl here, considering the next page of her narration is, "I love humans". While on the other hand, in the text, we've seen her have a particularly higher walls than most women do with men. Whether that be the first drinking party we saw her, as she was feeling pressured to do something that could out her in multiple ways. By this I mean, both her ogre horns, and two the convention of drinking and hookup culture. Plenty of reasons for a high femme lesbian woman to have her walls up against men for one thing in this scenario, but i think the second detail I mentioned is more immediate, considering how later on we see the campus basically knows Hinata is gay as fuck. The same could possibly be said of her transness. There's a deliberate effort made by the women in this chapter to specifically include her among their number, she was included before at the initial drinking party, however, I personally lean on her being more stealth. Regardless, many trans women find themselves fairly alienated from men, and trust them verrrry little. I know I personally have my walls up pretty high in most situations I'm around them. To be honest, this whole scene just is so profoundly resonant with me. The panel of her taking an outstretched hand, while hiding away her pain in the other? Too real, too emblematic of the way trans people have to navigate the auspices of the cis people that attempt to include us. Yes she is hiding her burn/scar because it's the work of a curse, but it's something that wouldn't immediately betray the truth just visually, it's incomplete. She is hiding a part of herself. This is why I think stealth fits her best. It aligns with what's there allegorically, and honestly makes sense given how she moves socially. Like, as far as the other humans go she's really one of the girls, and that's something you really don't ever get unless you are stealth.
Back to the allegorical side. Lets go to Mikage's unresolved time bomb in Chapter 7 on page 20). She says that Naori doesn't really have any idea on what it "means to provide food to an ogre". I've talked about one possible answer to this hanging thread being sex, which absolutely does fit in this mold still. Let me reiterate here, there is a dependency between ogres and humans not unlike the kind of dependency trans people have on cis people, who have thus cursed us to the margins, who hold so much power in our lives. I think a lot of us feel like cis people will never grasp just how stark the reality of it all is, and this sentiment is echoed here. "You don't know us, you don't know the ugliest parts of us, our desire, our sexuality." But hold your horses here, a lot of people thought, retroactively, that Mikage was simply referring to the fact that Hinata is an Ibuki, and the next Shuten-Doji." And you wouldn't be entirely wrong! But again, that was just
one of the stories red herrings so far, The Ginka/Doc arc revisited some of this mystery well after the Shuten-Doji reveal, which came almost immediately after Aju echoing Mikage's warnings at this point of the story. This is where we slip back into text in my opinion, as looking back, we can see that something immediately physical seems to be at issue rather than the apparent narrative trappings of "mystery" as a genre wherein you find things like red-herrings and dramatic reveals. We get to the Ginka chapters and its like oh shit, there's a lot of sexuality going on. And in all that, you wonder why Hinata is seemingly left out. Well, she is out of commission literally. But there is this question of what Hinata may feel sexually about Naori and vice versa as everything Utsugi charges forth about the impossibility of humans and ogres being together is backgrounded by this extremely sexual scene with Ginka. I think for the purpose of both narratives here it was a really big moment when Utsugi calls Hinata a weak woman, which sure, is it because of her attachment to a human, most likely in the same way she is attached to an ogre? Pretty plausible, but considering how Hinata take the opportunity to assert her womanhood alongside Naori, alongside the fact that she is an ogre, I think bears a lot of weight. Especially considering on the flight back they somewhat point a lamp at the nature of their relationship being queer. I don't know what the actual text says as to whether gender was the word used, or if the phrasing was less explicit and more along the lines of, "We're both women huh?" Regardless, functionally it serves to call attention to their relationship not being considered normal.
If we back up to the chapters we saw Hinata's family, there's a ton of family dynamic stuff there that bears parallel with what I've said of "family" in relation to trans people. I won't bore you any more at this point by getting into it, but feel free to re-read it if you so choose.
Anyways, to catch us back up to speed with this chapter 40 cover that started this all, I'd like to note the visual language of ogres, again with particular interest to Hinata's hands. Now, this is not the first time her hands have been drawn fairly larger, or rather more monstrous. She's fairly unique in the way, as she transforms into her ogre form (which whew duh, anything involved with transformation is an obvious parallel), her nails become claws, her fingers longer and sharper—her hands become as weapons when she reveals who she is. I think this is particularly important to understand that when it comes to trans women there is a mechanism to 'phobes that the hands reveal what they want us to be, that we bear the hands that commit a very specific, "masculine" violence. The narrative in Ogre Girls rejects this, as Hinata is empowered literally and metaphorically to protect women, to protect her own womanhood. She has her high femme nails done up in her day to day, it's a core element of her design, etc, and yet as silly as it is, it is a stop-gap measure in us masculinizing her ogre form, which is INCREDIBLY important, as like the narrative will not, and my whole point here, is not to say oh "Hinata has the qualities of a man still." It's a very clear, she was once derived from this, but no longer is. I mean the size change textually is like, extremely subtle both throughout the manga and this cover where like, only people who have gotten dysphoric about their hands before will recognize, but it's the other process of monsterization that really attracts our attention. Sure, we've seen the femme fatale, the Dangerous Woman countless times, armed with a gun, but rare is it to see the permutation of "woman with claws" be so literal. It's important to note that this is derived from a legend in which her namesake preyed upon girls, a common paranoia of transphobes.
All this is background to the immediately present allegorical weight of horns as a phallic extension of the body. And sure whatever your critique of of that framework, I don't particularly care because like, we are all misogyny-rotted and the world runs on misogyny so unfortunately the kind of masculine deference here is hard to avoid for one, because it has centuries of dudes literally making the point in literature. But nonetheless, as I said this is phallic imagery imbibed into the body of an ogre. There's an immediate physical difference between the Ogre Girl and the Human Girl, and I'll even go so far as to say that it's very much intentional that this "phallus" is concealed, that it's presence is an outing, a sign of danger (in the very first chapter), that it too, is a weapon. For me, the weaponization of my body, as a deliberate consequence of being trans in a transmisogynistic society, that is to say, a society that has subjugated and marginalized people like me, I feel close to Hinata, in this visual and allegorical sense.
As for the implication that Hinata is "detransitioning" herself via becoming a cis woman, in this framework I really don't think that holds. This chapter sees her in such a different place from the beginning. She seems to accept a humanity, and her role as Shuten-doji. I want to assert that this isn't some third-genderization bull, the author is better than that. This kind of new Shuten-doji, this new form where she no longer can transformfor very long with just any alcohol, hasn't really been seen before if we go off what Taina has said to the current Ibaraki and to Notaro. Again, this is about being derived from these roles/aspects of identity. Something of her newness is derived from humanity, derived from her ogre ancestry and reconstituted. I find that disarming of any objection that they might not be handling her with due dillegence. Hinata stands as a woman in front of Naori and Isuzu here.
Anyways if you enjoyed my rambling spiel, everyone say "thanks mad nerd!" for prompting it. If you found me annoying, you can tell me "thanks mad nerd!" Also if you loved this you can say that too. I wont be able to tell which is which :3
