Kyoukai no Nai Sekai - Vol. 3 Ch. 22 - Drowning in Despair

[MangaDex]

 

[MidnighTea]

Aki's mother deserves worse than death...

Thank you for the TLs, I've wanted to see how this story ends.

 

[LordofLeechers]

This is the second manga chapter I've read today involving a girl planning to commit suicide by jumping off a building, only to drag her boyfriend into it.

 

[Goldis]

"Nano-machine son"

 

[xyzzy]

I get what the author was trying to do, but someone who was born male trying to kill themselves because they are told that they can never become a woman feels a bit… like something a 4channer would write.

 

[ItsThatBriGuy]

I get what the author was trying to do, but someone who was born male trying to kill themselves because they are told that they can never become a woman feels a bit… like something a 4channer would write.

GID (which is itself a bit of a controversial term) has been associated with elevated likelihood of suicide regardless of whether or not any steps are taken toward reassignment or reidentification. This instance is obviously rather melodramatic, but it's not exactly dishonest.

 

[MidnighTea]

Not to mention that people who have the privileges of access to comprehensive gender affirming care (including surgeries) are... statistically? To the rest of the human race what billionaires are to Americans. For some people the burden is too much and the author accurately captured that despair state.

That said, introducing nanomachines that can stay active and repair your body forever to be a certain way? Uhm, doesn't that just mean Aki is partly physically immortal? And if not, why hasn't this tech been used in-universe to attain immortality?

 

[Starstreak]

I get what the author was trying to do, but someone who was born male trying to kill themselves because they are told that they can never become a woman feels a bit… like something a 4channer would write.

Wasn't she born a girl then changed as a child?

 

[xyzzy]

Wasn't she born a girl then changed as a child?

Ah right, forgot that part. The metaphor still stands, though.

 

[Arthean]

GID (which is itself a bit of a controversial term) has been associated with elevated likelihood of suicide regardless of whether or not any steps are taken toward reassignment or reidentification. This instance is obviously rather melodramatic, but it's not exactly dishonest.

More specifically, the stats show a greater relevance to acceptance of gender identity especially from those around such people on suicidality. Put simply, when kids are accepted as their gender by friends and family, they are statistically less likely to consider suicide or face depression regardless of medical steps taken. The opposite, more common situation, is as you indicate (when a kid is not accepted as their gender by family and society, even if they had options like surgery, they're more likely to die by suicide than the general population).

While she seems like a person with a lot of accepting friends and family around her right now, there's one really insidious thing about how people who know her full situation talk about her: When you become a woman/girl. It's the way she talks about her medical situation, how Yuu and others do as well... It reinforces the idea in her mind that she is not right now the girl she was all along.

For a lot of people in this kind of situation in real life; with friends like Yuu who say things like "when you become a __" to refer to some mile marker in surgery or social or legal transition, they will place every hope they have of being accepted onto the availability of that mile marker. Horrifyingly, if those milestones are found to be impossible, suicide is a really common response.

Add to that the scifi element, and the constantly in-her-face Satomi who has the ability to just go back whenever, and you can see how increadibly isolating it can be for a barely 18 year old person.

 

[kyrex]

There had to be a better way to reach this same conclusion besides "these older nanomachines are too strong for our modern, more powerful, more advanced nanomachines"

I didn't expect to hate every single one of these characters as much as I do now, after all this time since the last update. Aki's only reason to live is to be with Yuu. Satomi destroyed her relationship with Yuu over baseball and then instantly regretted it. Yuu is probably going to swap sexes to be together with Aki, despite all of Aki's drama being centered around wanting to be female.

 

[MidnighTea]

I do want to remind that for a manga from ten years ago, this one is sadly pretty progressive. But obviously fumbling extremely hard because it's clear the author doesn't know deeply the subjects they're trying to engage with. Instead of hating on this manga for failing a modern standard in 2014 (from Japan no less), I'd encourage reflection on how important it is to make gender identity issues visible. Even on this very site I have a laundry list of "Strike" and "Dumb" from people trying to discourage me from doing it. I'm pretty sure if the author had a better sense of the big picture thanks to visibility we might've gotten something legendary, because their heart is clearly in the right place.

 

[kyrex]

I do want to remind that for a manga from ten years ago, this one is sadly pretty progressive. But obviously fumbling extremely hard because it's clear the author doesn't know deeply the subjects they're trying to engage with. Instead of hating on this manga for failing a modern standard in 2014 (from Japan no less), I'd encourage reflection on how important it is to make gender identity issues visible. Even on this very site I have a laundry list of "Strike" and "Dumb" from people trying to discourage me from doing it. I'm pretty sure if the author had a better sense of the big picture thanks to visibility we might've gotten something legendary, because their heart is clearly in the right place.

The problem isn't that it's progressive or that it's fumbling by modern standards. It's that the author is trying to write a meaningfully deep, emotional story that uses the gender bending gimmick to juice up the drama, and he's doing that extremely badly.

 

[MidnighTea]

The problem isn't that it's progressive or that it's fumbling by modern standards. It's that the author is trying to write a meaningfully deep, emotional story that uses the gender bending gimmick to juice up the drama, and he's doing that extremely badly.

Define "extremely badly" and do it in such a way that isn't colored by the perspective of someone from ten years in the future from a culture on the other side the planet that's made more progress on LGBTQ+ and gender identity issues.

 

[Julian117]

I love that this manga is like: We have nanomachines that never die, you are never going to change back to a girl.

I think you habe bigger problems than that Doc.

Programmable nanomachines that can do anything used for only gender bender?!

I have a list as long as my arm for what you can do with that type of technology and trust me when I say Gender transition doesn't reach the elbow.

How is anyone dying in this world when Nanomachines should be a mandatory first aid treatment for everyone?
How is baseball tryouts done when a parents can ask for a nanomachine treatment to give their kids enhanced muscle speed and skill.
How is a doctor wearing glasses when nanomachines could fix their eyes?

I know the author is just now sprinting this reason up to explain how gender change is done in this world but this is not it, son.

A better explanation is that though Gene therapy they activate latent receive genes in their genome, but with nanomachines is like explaining food is only an apple.
Author is putting the mother of all sci-fi topes into a waffle machine and calling it the cure for a sweet tooth.

 

[kyrex]

Define "extremely badly" and do it in such a way that isn't colored by the perspective of someone from ten years in the future from a culture on the other side the planet that's made more progress on LGBTQ+ and gender identity issues.

Read again. The problem isn't gender politics, you doof. The plot writing and characters in this manga are barely 1 dimensional and are crudely shoved into place by the level of melodrama that the author wants to hamfist into the story, not by minimally believable motivation and personality.

 

[MidnighTea]

Read again. The problem isn't gender politics, you doof. The plot writing and characters in this manga are barely 1 dimensional and are crudely shoved into place by the level of melodrama that the author wants to hamfist into the story, not by minimally believable motivation and personality.

First of all "you doof" is just barely jovial enough an insult I won't hit "report". But I ask (but not demand), please be more civil going forward. Nonetheless, you didn't really define what I asked you to define. What makes it one dimensional? What's "crude" about how it's shoved into place? Why is it melodrama?

And please don't assume I disagree with you. Because honestly I don't, I'd actually genuinely like to hear your reasoning. I think the gender politics are 100% important to the failings of this manga, but I also think dissecting this thing on a narrative level has merit too. Because I don't think you're wrong, like, at all. But I do definitely appreciate this manga as an Icarus story.

Of course if that's a huge pain in your ass and you'd rather not, like, write a college paper on it I also 100% understand. Your time and energy probably have a better place to be used than replying to some person you don't know (me) on a forum that'll probably get buried and forgotten by web 3.0 or whatever.

 

[Ultraforce]

I get what the author was trying to do, but someone who was born male trying to kill themselves because they are told that they can never become a woman feels a bit… like something a 4channer would write.

I do personally wonder if one of the influences for that was the whole infamous Manitoba case where a botched circumcision led to a boy being raised for a big part of their childhood as female before they found out and their parents realized that they needed to transition him back to being a boy. The abuse that he received from a doctor trying to make him consider himself a woman was a contributing factor to his eventual death.

 

[Arthean]

--

 

[AncientWatcher]

Are those nanomachines EMP proof or something? Cause if they're not, a good EMP should fry all of them in a heartbeat. It's bad writing that such a failsafe mechanism would not exist in this manga.