Kyoukai no Nai Sekai - Vol. 3 Ch. 23 - Yuu's Choice

[MangaDex]

 

[ethylene]

Some background references in this chapter:

• The baseball team that drafts Honjou are based on the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. DeNA also owns part of Manga Box, who were the original publishers of this manga in Japanese and English.
• The text "KDKW" and "ACE" in the background of that page are a reference to Kadokawa and Monthly Shōnen Ace, the magazine this manga was published in after Kodansha refused to publish the volumes.
• The name of the OBGYN clinic is "Tsunokawa Clinic", which is also a reference to Kadokawa. The kanji 角 can be read as both "kado" and "tsuno".

For the translation of the post mentioned in the notes: https://ethylene.mangadex.com/kyoukai-note

 

[artyom]

Dang... My head hurts....

 

[MidnighTea]

Just a reminder -- this was 2014 when this manga started. Gay people couldn't marry in Japan yet. Trans stuff... well I was ten years out of the closet when this came out, but I was still a huge dumbass even then.

Please judge it for the era it was published and the author's intent. Because if more people were as pure and sincere as this author was ten years ago, this world would not resemble the one we're in now.

 

[Wolvenworks]

Oh it ended.

Still amused that LGBT stuff is not technically fully legalized in Japan considering all the Yaoi and Yuri stuff they’ve printed out. I guess the birth and pop decline is a much more concerning issue for the govvy?

Have sex, kids.

 

[Remissio]

Interesting to see this finaly translated. Though I got to see this ending in other languages Beforehand. Wanted to just mention how much this manga and a few other caught my eye and attention I guess back then. It's interesting to think about things back in 2016. The effort and care is defs there and even if there are things that I don't love about the approaches at times I understand that the author had their heart in a good place.

Tbh dunno what else to say. I enjoyed this back then and I still enjoyed it now. Thanks for the TL.

 

[xyzzy]

At first, I was sorta confused why a series in which gender transition is a regular occurrence still featured traditional gender norms. But honestly, given the time that the manga was written, it’s surprisingly progressive. At least the author’s note makes me feel like that was the intention.

Cute little ending. I like how at the end, it’s deliberately obfuscated as to which one is Aki and which is Yuu. You can imagine that either Aki was able to find an operation that would make her a woman, or Yuu turned into a girl himself. You can decide the better ending.

Hope the author’s doing okay now. After this and a couple other trans doujins, they mostly get by drawing isekai series (which pays the bills, but still…)

 

[Hexxy]

I guess I give this manga an A for effort, even if the rest of it is a bit, ジャア

At first, I was sorta confused why a series in which gender transition is a regular occurrence still featured traditional gender norms. But honestly, given the time that the manga was written, it’s surprisingly progressive.

It's a common problem in a lot of gender change manga even now where there's this belief that sexual orientation is linked to gender identity, therefore trans women must be attracted to men and vice versa, or the only way the relationship can work is if one transitions properly.

It isn't as common these days (especially after Fukaboku) but you still see it often enough that it's noteworthy.

 

[TheBlackGamer]

Wow I remember reading this when I was young and still learning to develop what I like in anime and really despising this story because of how nonsensical it came off as. And (sad to say for some people here) I still hate it probably more than back then. Well at least I can finally put this old memory to rest.

 

[mendics]

At first, I was sorta confused why a series in which gender transition is a regular occurrence still featured traditional gender norms. But honestly, given the time that the manga was written, it’s surprisingly progressive. At least the author’s note makes me feel like that was the intention.

Cute little ending. I like how at the end, it’s deliberately obfuscated as to which one is Aki and which is Yuu. You can imagine that either Aki was able to find an operation that would make her a woman, or Yuu turned into a girl himself. You can decide the better ending.

Hope the author’s doing okay now. After this and a couple other trans doujins, they mostly get by drawing isekai series (which pays the bills, but still…)

When i first saw the raws, i thought mc turned into a girl to save their relationship, but it was actually more interesting than that, it was you choose which one you'd like to believe what happened and while i find that i prefer the original assumption i have, i think it is more unique to have the ending what it has now. I dont think ive read any gender bender that had it while what i assumed i could probably name 1.

Thank you for the scanlator groups that did this, I would have never learned what really happened if not for them.

 

[MidnighTea]

Thank you for the scanlator groups that did this, I would have never learned what really happened if not for them.

Seriously, absolutely. This manga deserves to be preserved and remembered forever, warts and all, as just an incredible attempt at progressive storytelling.

 

[slyss]

Just a reminder -- this was 2014 when this manga finished. Gay people couldn't marry in Japan yet. Trans stuff... well I was ten years out of the closet when this came out, but I was still a huge dumbass even then.

The manga ran from 2014 to 2016

The series started in late 2014 but was canceled the next year due to Kodansha's concerns about its content and direction.
This left the mangaka conflicted and drew criticism from the LGBT group "レインボー・アクション". There was quite a bit of buzz back then, with one of the leading theories being that some lines in the manga (especially in Chapter 5) came off as discriminatory and could’ve angered LGBT groups, but "レインボー・アクション" defended the manga and denied this, which suggests the issue was likely just Kodansha’s decision. Anyway, it got canceled, but Kadokawa picked it up and wrapped things up by 2016.

As a side note, this wasn’t the mangaka’s first time working with these themes, as this manga is essentially a SFW retelling of a hentai series they created between 2009 and 2010 in COMIC Penguin Club.

You can also see how attitudes in Japan have shifted since then, because this manga inspired a derivative work in 2021 (here). But this time it uses proper MtF terminology and progressive language even in the description, making the themes clear. This suggests the mangaka may now feel more comfortable addressing these topics openly. That said, I haven’t read it, so this is just my speculation on what I see on the Amazon page.

 

[Kampfarsch]

fucking deranged ending
im telling you this is a cautionary tale about the horrors of reassignment and hasty/wrong diagnosis

 

[NinjaGoemon]

Seriously, absolutely. This manga deserves to be preserved and remembered forever, warts and all, as just an incredible attempt at progressive storytelling.

Yeah i liked this manga and most importantly it tried. It managed to convey the themes it wanted. So few manage to do that.

 

[JasonRed]

Of course it doesn't give us a definite answer. If I had to guess, I'd say it was Aki that gave birth. Love that drawing of all four of them in gowns at the end.

 

[Xamdiz]

so yeah I think there's a lot of logc that just didn't logic for plot convenience's sake but it's a pretty okayish ending. but man I'm so used to shitty endings lately, this one felt kinda good instead. Thanks for finally scanlating the ending for us.

 

[Sandmann1st]

Kudos to the author for writing this story and thanks to the scanlators for finishing it up 👍

 

[ReikoLupus]

An unexpectedly good ending, that lets you believe whatever you want of how things ended for them.
I will believe that he managed to cure her!

This work is indeed pretty flawed, but after hearing that this was made in 2014, it's quite impressive considering how slow Japan is with all this.
It's quite clunky, but you can see that the author tried his best to understand and portray a lot of important and hard subjects, including going as far as showing the worst consequences of not providing Gender Affirmation and Care to Trans Youth.
Maybe it was a C in Execution, but it gets an A in Effort and Intentions!

 

[Goldis]

Dayum they just skip it, like which one turn their Gender, sure yuu say he will find the tech, but i didn't see any line that say "he success"

 

[Ultraforce]

Just a reminder -- this was 2014 when this manga started. Gay people couldn't marry in Japan yet. Trans stuff... well I was ten years out of the closet when this came out, but I was still a huge dumbass even then.

Please judge it for the era it was published and the author's intent. Because if more people were as pure and sincere as this author was ten years ago, this world would not resemble the one we're in now.

I definitely would be interested to learn more about the mangaka, since this is the last manga they've actually authored outside of part of a Fate/GO Anthology but based on their manga updates page they didn't pick this topic randomly. They seemingly were doing manga of the adult variety that were categorized as gender bender since 2005. With this being part of their start into mainstream.
I really enjoy the slums isekai story that they are doing the art for now but I do wonder what we might see if in the upcoming years they try to do a story with LGBTQ+ themes again.