Hold on. He outright said he was out with Akira shopping for swimsuits and Hotaru acknowledged it by saying "yeah she's serious about wrestling." But she's surprised at the very end that Akira is a girl? I've read this over a few times and even in the next chapter she says "I thought Akira was a guy" and I still don't get this. Did the author forget halfway through or am I going insane? She know's Akira is the topic of conversation and that Akira is female, but is suddenly surprised out of nowhere? Again feel free to explain this to me as I'm drunk and probably retarded but this seems like a glaring oversight
Hold on. He outright said he was out with Akira shopping for swimsuits and Hotaru acknowledged it by saying "yeah she's serious about wrestling." But she's surprised at the very end that Akira is a girl? I've read this over a few times and even in the next chapter she says "I thought Akira was a guy" and I still don't get this. Did the author forget halfway through or am I going insane? She know's Akira is the topic of conversation and that Akira is female, but is suddenly surprised out of nowhere? Again feel free to explain this to me as I'm drunk and probably retarded but this seems like a glaring oversight
Japanese often omits the subject of a sentence when it's obvious and seldom uses its third-person pronouns, of which at least two are gendered.
Without going back to previous chapters to check if Hotaru has knowingly met Akira and put the name to the face, it's possible she heard "My friend who I went swimsuit shopping with and talked about wrestling with said 'I love-' and then punched themself in the face" and assumed that was a guy because only the name "Akira" was mentioned without any "she"s or "her"s to give her conclusive context.