Kare to Kanojo no Sentaku - Vol. 4 Ch. 18
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Ngl, I like this series but knowing what happens in the end has demotivated me…
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damn I don't care anymore about who ends up with who. that flashback made me want an ending where haruka is happy and doesn't have an identity crisis.
like, he got a recommendation and has a dream chasing. he wanted to fulfill his promise.
like, he got a recommendation and has a dream chasing. he wanted to fulfill his promise.
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Thanks for the translation. Glad to see that this is still being worked on.
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sooooo... some spoilers?
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Between releases, I totally forgot that this is a sex and gender change story. Most of it works with a boku/nonbinary tomboy who wasn't romantic and who had a growth spurt, and a typical dense male roommate.
Gender bender feels weirdly less contrived to me, as the scenarios and emotions resemble stuff some transgender people experience on HRT. In this case someone settling into a gender identity and a roommate who is less dense than iron.
17.5 is literally a slightly improved reprint of the oneshot Trans Star, reaaally should've sparked my memory. I thought there was more allegory or something.
Gender bender feels weirdly less contrived to me, as the scenarios and emotions resemble stuff some transgender people experience on HRT. In this case someone settling into a gender identity and a roommate who is less dense than iron.
17.5 is literally a slightly improved reprint of the oneshot Trans Star, reaaally should've sparked my memory. I thought there was more allegory or something.
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Yeah, if I’m gonna be honest like half of all gender-bending series have something which could be viewed as a metaphor for trans or NB people.
The problem is that whenever you try to posit that idea here, you get bombarded by readers who tell you that there’s no way you can have nuanced subtext hidden in regular text.
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Not just half, but I would say it's baked into the genre. Oftentimes, I think it's used just for a gag or a cheap joke, so people don't think that deeply into it.
But if someone's body randomly were to undergo transition one day and then everybody began treating them differently because of how they present and they either take issue with that or feel extremely validated by it, then that is a trans allegory. And that's not even subtext, that's just text, but I think people miss it anyway because "haha, funny manga"
It would be like this:
- if they transition but don't feel that their body belongs to them, then their mind identifies with an identity that is not represented by the body that they are in, so they are trans by definition, ex. one day a guy's body turns into that of a girl's but he still has the mind of a guy and feels weird in a girl's body therefore they are trans
- if they transition but feel much better and comfortable in their new body, then that means they felt less comfortable in their old body and much better in their new one meaning that when they were in their previous body, their identity and presentation were at odds, so they are trans
I mean, that's just how it is. It's really impossible to write a gender bender without it coming off as a trans allegory or have a trans subtext in some way.
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The two best friends DON’t become a couple and stay best friends
Kazuma and Akari stay together as we literally saw the moment he fell for her
Kazuma and Akari stay together as we literally saw the moment he fell for her
I’m honestly a bit glad about it as just because something is expected of you doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen.
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I am pleasantly surprised. Looking forward how they will build up to that ending then.
I'm honestly fine with this.
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I feel you, but I still want to understand how it got to that point.
As long as it makes sense, I'll probably still be fine with it.
As long as it makes sense it is okay. But not going to lie, it is not the ending I wanted.
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Same for me
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I got mega disliked on an earlier chapter discussion, where I was trying to explain the identity crisis and sexual orientation confusion is valid, and opening the topic to how dysphoria works in trans/NB/Agender people is important. in a story like this too cause whether it’s magic genderbend, we exist in reality whether the transphobes like it or not. Society will place precedence on how should love, why, and what your gender means in all of that. But you don’t need to place a hierarchy on all your relationships for some heteronormative and amatonormative lens. Or be a girl or boy to like your best friend in a nuanced way. (Please mangakas, read about QPRs) You can love your best friend, not have a gender, or maybe experiment instead of conforming to another assigned sex given by magic genderbend, and be open about it with your friend who already supports you. You can do these things, but the author either doesn’t know or believe in these possibilities. And as a Agender Femme, I find it hard watch Haruka being written into a tunnel with no light, and no communal support. Even the one friend from work isn’t a major supporting character despite sharing a similar experience very directly. Manga that isn’t made by queer people, but even sometimes is, commonly falls short on discussing polygamy, gender non conformity, and aromantic/asexual nuance, etc.
How?
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Gender and sex don't match up and/or one transitions from one to the other. That's by definition trans. Transiting over the usual sex-gender barrier. There's no how or why followup. Even if someone wants to be pedantic, it's too simple to argue over.
You might elaborate on the border lines of gender expression and preferred labels, like being polite about detransitioning. You might not bring it up with things that are super fetishistic, demeaning, or otherwise kinda bad representation. Still, the umbrella is super obvious when a discussion involves any sex change and two gender categories.
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I am going to use a quote from one of my favorite movies (The Prestige): "... if people actually believed the things I do on stage, they wouldn't clap they would scream, think of sawing a woman in half..."
That is exactly what people who write gender bender stories should always keep in mind.
You aren't writing a gender transition story, you are writing an entertaining illusion for your audience.
As soon as you dip into transgender issues then people immediatly feel a bias message because: gender transition is not a happy thing, ir forms from psychological problems and it often isn't solved with a wave of a pencil on paper.
If you want to do a gender transition story, show your character going through psychological issues, hormone therapy, surgeries, etc. All of them are done by choice.
When I see a gender bender comic, with a trans message, I question: so why do you cherry pick these issues? Why not make a full transgender manga and show the actual real life of a transgender character?
The author should never forget that he is writing entertainment, not drama or realism. If manga was realism then: Goku breaking his bones would mean he is out of training for a year he wouldn't chug a senzu bean and walk off the injury.
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