Fukakai na Boku no Subete o - Vol. 3 Ch. 17

[ringo_juusu]

Looking at Mogu's face sure made me lose all the cheerful happiness this chapter managed to give me ahaha

Also, it's weird to me that their sister knew where they were working since I think only a handful of people are supposed to know and I'm quite sure Mogu didn't talk about it with their family.

EDIT: Maybe at the end of this manga's journey people will finally acknowledge that Mogumo is non binary and not a girl.

 

[Juliko]

Yay! Kotone finally apologized for being a bitch to Tetsu!

"I'm gonna resent you for the rest of my life! Just kidding!"

Really, Kotone? You're gonna undermine your apology with a mean-spirited joke like that? Come on!

 

[Thrembs]

@ringo_juusu
Everyone who’s cool (cafe peeps, friends) accepts them as they are.

The translator uses male pronouns and I don’t know why. They don’t in Japanese. “Boku” is a first-person pronoun that’s more commonly used by boys, but it’s the most gender-neutral one.

Using “watashi” in a casual situation is far most common among women.

Anyway, they’re accepted where it matters, but it’s so easy to be insecure when dealing with birth-assignment issues. “I’m so weird. No one will accept me as I am”.
There’s the title, even.

@mirewitch
These days I’m big into manga acknowledging prejudice, but keeping it as M a source of stress, but the cast being accepting.
Well, I like one or two friends to do a quick turn-around.
My fav manga of all time is Sasaki to Miyano. No spoilers, but yeah.
The spin-off is about that more, but it’s directly addressed eventually in the main series.
...geez I love that series

 

[mirewitch]

@Thrembs Yeah, everyone has their own tolerance level for prejudice in media. What feels authentic to one person may feel excessive to another person, depending on their personality and experiences. I can certainly see the appeal in what you describe: a supportive main cast facing external prejudice from parents, co-workers, society, etc. It imitates how a lot of LGBT people deal with bigotry in real life, i.e. by forming small communities to face the outside world together. But personally I've never been heavily involved with those communities, so I tend to favor stories involving one or two isolated LGBT people winning over their more bigoted/ignorant friends and family. Obviously not every story needs to be like that, but those tend to be the ones I most connect with.

That may be why this manga works so well for me; its a hybrid of those two approaches. The story is primarily about the LGBT community of the cafe, but several members of the main cast have fairly bigoted views, like Mei in the first few chapters or Ayano until this arc. The goal of the manga seems to be to carve out a community through conflict, teaching everyone in the cast to accept themselves and each other. It can be a bit melodramatic at times, but occasional drama makes the happier chapters feel earned.

I like Sasaki to Miyano too, though I must admit I'd like it more if it didn't drag out the plot so much. I'll avoid spoilers as well, but the last few volumes have been a bit frustrating to me in regards to pacing. I haven't read the spin-off yet, but it sounds interesting so I'll probably try it.

 

[ringo_juusu]

@Thrembs between boku and watashi, regardless of your gender, the most gender neutral one is watashi.
Mind, what I say now is my assumption so the chances of me being wrong are probably high.
For the sake of being clear I'm gonna use some words that I don't like (male/female), I'm not great at speaking English so this is my fault.
Mogumo has a female presenting look with bits of their personality/sense of fashion more boyish/more common to find in boys.
Despite Japanese not having grammatical gender nor number, the language is much more coded than your average one in the West so you can have girls that use boku (which is popular in manga since girls sound cute, says your average Japanese) and man in their 30s that use watashi.

Watashi is very formal, that's why it's considered the go to for gender neutral but for Japanese people having a female presenting character that use watashi means first being female aka the character sounds female instead of agendered or non binary.
To defy that I think the author opted for boku which works for Mogumo since he probably was forced by their family to use it and got used to it, much like was Mei before.

To backup my reasoning I'd like to mention that in Houseki no Kuni, for depicting agendered characters, the author used the same form.


Regarding what the translator is doing, I think it's unfair to blame them for conveying how Mogumo speaks in Japanese, since anyone with at least an N3 can tell you that they sound pretty boyish.

 

[Thrembs]

I skipped that, having lived in Japan.

I’d explain further but it would be patronising at this point, and I’d say there’s been enough of that, wouldn’t you? -.-

What I will say is there is a big difference between first and third person pronouns. One conveys something about yourself to the world, the other how you are seen.

No distinction is being made between those who do and do not accept them in this translation. I can’t think of any of them using any pronouns. They all say “Mogumo” or “Mogu-chan”. An effort is being made.

It is not being conveyed.

✊🏼
👋🏼
💥

 

[hizack123]

Look like the ball about to be drop

 

[elefantine97]

oh no..

 

[AnacondaHL]

you can't Ara-ara tease that strong, girl just barely came out like yesterday lmao

 

[bahamutmybitch]

family drama shit is about to go on a roll!

 

[yuragiruria]

@smolbaka

Sounds like you believe less in "accept yourself for who you are" and more "accept yourself for what I think you are"

lmao how are you this far into the series and unwilling to accept the different viewpoints presented in all of the characters.

it's not worth giving this guy a time of your day