Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku - Vol. 4 Ch. 50 - The Shape of Happiness

[ricecrops]

...
i think i still gotta wait for a happy ending for the sapphic AND trans mc but well, whatever. the manga was great dont get me wrong, but still... so much could have been done.
regardless, really thankful for the translation team at hachimitsu scans, always bringing us amazing stories to see.

 

[theHist]

Akira gave off such lonely vibes in the last panels holding the bouquet. To me, this ending feels like a tragedy

 

[JohnJRenns]

that was an incredible story. one of the best depictions of LGBT characters i've seen in a manga, up there along with Hourou Musuko and the currently running Fukakai na Boku no Subete wo. i agree the ending felt a bit rushed, and Hime x Akira didn't come true and i'm a little salty about that, but that's not a detriment to the story. shit happens in life, love doesn't go the way you want it to, you get over some of them, abd you find new ones. Akira still remains as an important part of Hime's life, and she has a lifetime ahead of her to find new love.

by the way, nice tidbit, Makoto is a gender neutral name used for both boys and girls. which i think is cool of Akira to do. ("Akira" is also unisex of course)

 

[pinkclowny]

ive been following this since it started and this ending isn't... great. even though it had things i wanted to happen in the story, the writing didn't leave a great impact. i really feel like the story lost me, and i think i was hoping the ending would be great. i wish it would've focused more on fun character development besides them preaching at each other and having long deep conversations then bunches of time skips. im happy hime and hamu got together, but i wish akira at least realized she did have feelings for hime or something. they seem so lonely in the future, even saying hime has a child and she helped name it feels like a very... shallow and lonely way to be involved in your best friends life after everything theyve been through and how much time has passed. yukka getting married was beautiful though, im really happy that happened. thanks for writing a great trans character, kanoboku, i dont know if ill be recommending you but i really enjoyed a lot of parts of it.

 

[Raknasuu]

@Daxes

Momo? She was there, in the wedding. We can only assume she graduated and it's now a functioning adult tho.

 

[Raknasuu]

Well. The comment section it's really spicy.

This was a really good read over all, and the "giving the readers perspective on gender issues thing" is handled really well. In fact, I like that Akira looks like someone who's obviously biologically male because of her complexion until she let's her hair grow and becomes a beautician AT THE END OF THE STORY. Normally, a lot of trans-characters would already look pretty femenine by default when they are presented, making it less believable that people still recognizes them as their born sex. That choice of design on Akira's part makes sense because the series approachs those insecurities about not looking like the gender you identify as head on. I really fucking respect that.

I like to treat this ending as an epilogue tho. The series actually ends with the graduation. The reason we might not know if Akira is dating someone at the moment or not (In fact, we only know Yukko's getting married because it's a plot device) it's because even tho Akira is a central part of the story, she's NOT the main character. This isn't the story of a trans person finding love, it's the story of the best friend of said person.

Not that this is a completely satisfying ending at all. It's just not that bad after binge-reading.

 

[JanuaryAhihi]

Many people prefer Hime and Akira to be together but I think it would be better that they're not.
"Who Said That Your First Love is Beautiful?", remembered a whole chapter talked about that, with that title? Hime learned to let go & accept her feeling, and that her first love is not beautiful. If she ever ended up with Akira, the whole thing would have dumped into the ocean; the whole chapters would have been useless. Hime ended up with her first, and childhood, love would have crushed the great message those chapters send. "Happy ends like in a fairy tale surely don't exist", that's one of the many themes of the manga. So it'd be better if they're not together, and they're not a bad couple, just that it might be bad for the series. (Also, we got to see the queerplatonic representation, guys)

And the whole lonely Akira thing. Transgenders and the LGBTQ+ are still not always get accepted (in this particular universe, for example), so I see her as someone who " still fighting against prejudice and finally found someone she loves", I mean, although Hime caught the bouquet(Akira not lucky to found love easily), Akira is the one who holds the bouquet at the end(finally found it), not Momo or Anzu or anyone, but Akira.

The ending isn't awesome(I actually prefer it end at the graduation), but it really isn't too bad for a short read. The manga is still a nice one overall.

Thank you Takase-sensei for the story :Đ, and Hachimitsu for the translation.

 

[MyLady]

Personally I'm happy with the ending. I'm surprised so many people thought Hime and Akira would end up together though. It feels like if they did, it wouldn't end well, like it would defeat the point or something.

 

[Tatsuloook]

It also made me cryyy I think it's really beautiful

 

[kurarara]

OH MY GOSH YESSS YESSSSSSS THEY ENDED UP TOGETHER

 

[tsuyukihime]

I thought she was only attracted to women? I don't get how she ended up with the guy, the whole story made it seem like she was creeped out by guys being attracted to her... i'm very confused

 

[Icryalot]

@tsuyukihime she was more toxically attracted to Akira. Not sure if this makes her pan exactly, but the point was they were able to accept themselves and move on, F for Akira not finding romance herself though

 

[tsuyukihime]

@Icryalot Fair enough about Akira, but not sure that answers my point about when she was creeped out the wazoo when that guy showed very forward/creepy attraction to her. Made me think she was not okay with men being attracted to her

 

[Icryalot]

@tsuyukihime just my speculation, because she only had eyes for Akira she probably never noticed anyone else having similar eyes. And because Akira was attracted to senpai, getting attention from him was her first experience as well as some confusing emotions with Akira not getting the attention etc

plus someone you don't know being overly familiar like that :x

 

[alienhands]

Many people prefer Hime and Akira to be together but I think it would be better that they're not.
"Who Said That Your First Love is Beautiful?", remembered a whole chapter talked about that, with that title? Hime learned to let go & accept her feeling, and that her first love is not beautiful. If she ever ended up with Akira, the whole thing would have dumped into the ocean; the whole chapters would have been useless. Hime ended up with her first, and childhood, love would have crushed the great message those chapters send. "Happy ends like in a fairy tale surely don't exist", that's one of the many themes of the manga. So it'd be better if they're not together, and they're not a bad couple, just that it might be bad for the series. (Also, we got to see the queerplatonic representation, guys)

And the whole lonely Akira thing. Transgenders and the LGBTQ+ are still not always get accepted (in this particular universe, for example), so I see her as someone who " still fighting against prejudice and finally found someone she loves", I mean, although Hime caught the bouquet(Akira not lucky to found love easily), Akira is the one who holds the bouquet at the end(finally found it), not Momo or Anzu or anyone, but Akira.

The ending isn't awesome(I actually prefer it end at the graduation), but it really isn't too bad for a short read. The manga is still a nice one overall.

Thank you Takase-sensei for the story :Đ, and Hachimitsu for the translation.

i know that the comment section for this has been dead for a while but i gotta say that hime did get a fairytale happy end regardless so i don't know if that point is that valid

 

[recklessribbon]

Wow. I'm very unsatisfied with the ending, but chalk it up to my preferred pairing of Hime/Akira not pairing out. Although, tbh, I don't think I'm all that wrong in feeling that way. The pairing of Hime and Hiro really feels like it just comes out of left field there near the end. Like, it really felt like the whole manga was building up to the Hime/Akira ending. I guess it's supposed to be a more "realistic" ending but that's not really what I read manga for. Also, yeah the dialogue was very preachy at times with the characters really unnaturally just having everyone else's shit figured out like they're each other's therapists or something. That being said, the gender-diverse representation here is probably the best I've read (at this time, planning on exploring what little there is of this genre).

Very interesting because I'm reading this right after finishing Senpai wa Otokonoko. I was pretty bummed that the MC in that story wasn't as trans-coded as I thought they'd be so I looked around to see if there was anything that would fit that a bit better. Funnily enough, I got a little burnt out on the story of Senpai wa Otokonoko but I liked the ending (which also felt a bit rushed in that story, but at least my preferred ship ended up sailing). In this one, I liked the general story but I hate the ending.

Thanks so much for all your work translating this series!

 

[FalafelPizza]

This was something special.
This is embarrassing, but when I was younger I think that I would get angry for the sake of others (like a minority) and anger was not the most productive reaction. I appreciate that Hime had this phase too and learned from it.
I fully expected Hime/Akira to not be together by the end and like Akira says, maybe their relationship goes beyond being a romantic couple. I agree with the commenter that Hime learned to accept that her first love was not beautiful, so it would not make narrative sense for them to be a couple in the time jump.
I do like Hime/Hamuro, but I don't think it was earned within the story. Hime didn't seem to show romantic interest in him, though I was fully expecting her to in the future.
This is the reason I didn't like the time jump. I wanted to see when Hime was finally ready to see someone who was not Akira in a romantic light. I wanted to see them navigate their lives in high school. I wanted to see Akira confront her father. I wanted to see Yukko enter her first relationship after such a heartbreaking failed confession. Marrying the convenience store clerk was really random (which the author lampshaded with Anzu's comment about how that is something that would happen in fiction). I wanted to see Momo find the courage to go back to school. Anzu... well I just want to see more of her in general.
Because we didn't see any of this happen, the ending feels narratively unsatisfying to me. Mostly, I think I just want more story. The fact that I'm thinking so much about these characters means the author wrote memorable characters. I'll miss them.

 

[onedumninja]

A truly beautiful manga :')

I'm glad they all found their own path in life and it's happy. Yukka marrying the convenience store clerk is amazing too. God I love this manga so much!!!

 

[Thrembs]

“Not officially recognised…” ah, the whole works on the undercarriage.
I have mixed feelings on knowing that. Not very mixed. Mostly hate it, because it’s due to another layer of prejudice.
Can’t update your legal status (I don’t know about your legal name, even) without a complete remodel over there.

Times gotta change.

 

[LewynMartell]

congratulations on your win, heterosexual people