Can't imagine, what's it like choosing your gender. Then again, is their ratio balanced? Ritsu's story of going against the flow out of spite is believable alright, but can't imagine that being en masse. Why would one pick being a girl over a guy in school?.. The male body is too far more functional in every respect, as in faster, stronger, etc.. Do they choose female for the wider range in clothing? Would be possible to come up with lots of perks in adulthood, but that's a different story. Also, if everyone starts out the same, it would affect society quite a bit, I'd say. There not being inherent difference between sexes from the start and folks hanging out with folks not based on genders too.
It's super annoying how they keep calling MC "they" tbh. I mean, sure, they got no real choice, I guess. But that's so confusing and weird. Takes 1-2secs to process what it purports every time. That plular noun isn't made for that after all.
Up to ch 5 so far...
Art is great. At times it reminds me of another manga, Shishunki Bitter Change (body swap manga between a guy and girl btw). Another aside, seeing those teal eyes makes me wish teal was a common eye color. lol
Story has a neat premise (though there have been other manga that have explored the idea of choosing which way ya go as ya get older).
Little bit of drama, but to be expected in a romance manga.
As far as the stuff about the friends forcing Hinase, in the flashback with Ritsu, you could argue (considering peer pressure is a main focus in this, especially for high school) Hinase "pushed" Ritsu more towards female and the other lil ones were "pushing" Ritsu to be male in a way, but that's mostly childhood naivety, so /shrug. They're gonna say rude stuff.
Heck, if the older brother is cool (as shown in the flashback for Shiori), you might want to be male as well.
Overall, it's a neat love drama, and looking forward to the rest.
Edit: caught up to current chapter, and still feel the same about it. Just different enough to give it that something special. The gender change thing feels like an allegory to puberty and all the changes that come with it.
It's getting harder and harder to think of either choice as anything but the bad ending, personally. It seems like the healthiest and most narratively satisfying path for Hinase is to see that they don't have to become someone they don't want to be and that their affection for Ritsu and Shiori exists because of who they are, rather than just their gender. I have some hope that that's at least sort of what the author is heading towards, given how the doctor mentions that the young deaths of previous genderless kids were due to social pressures.
I'd also say that Hinase doesn't even need to choose one of his friends, but the poly end is probably a bridge too far. I can hope though.
Myself...I have a preference for the ending, but it's based entirely on my own RL preferences. @Jet
>Why would one pick being a girl over a guy in school?.. The male body is too far more functional in every respect, as in faster, stronger, etc.. Do they choose female for the wider range in clothing?
Most people don't think about gender in such a way. There's no reasoning in the decision to be male or female, it's a matter of preference alone. That's true in the comic and it's true IRL.
I'm at chapter 4 and I must say, as a trans person myself, this is an extremely rough story to read.
Idk what's the author's stance on gender roles in society, but seeing how in their story, the separation between both gender is so extremely clear cut makes me uncomfortable, and doesn't really makes sense anyway. Maybe that's the point trying to be made here ?
I still enjoy the story, no matter how intense it is for me, however I can't help but feel like the author tried to write a complicated story about gender, without having a proper understanding of it.
What I know, is that the more I read, the more my hate of shiori grows, because of how forceful he is towards Hinase. I want to punch him
@exploFey gender norms are going to be different in a world where everyone chooses their gender/sex. to them, gender and sex are basically synonymous to them
i just searched this manga again to see if someone finally picked it up bc the last time checked there were no English translations.
mixed feelings. happy bc someone finally picked it but somewhat bitter to see so many 🤡 in the comments.
some of you quickly judges a character as soon as chapter three without giving them any chance of improvements. i know y'all loooove jerking off to being the morally superior than a fictional character but like, give it time. maybe after dozens of chapters they prove themself to be a decent human that can see the errors in their ways and be a better person. or maybe they are indeed the jerk you expected them to be. but all those things aren't decided in the early stage of the story--everything needs process.
i also see some of you reprimanded the Author for the way of their storytelling and their take on LGBT+ issues. your criticisms may be valid but also keep in mind that the Author is Japanese growing up in Japanese culture and norms. the way they see and interpret things like gender identity and sexuality maybe a bit different and projecting your own beliefs (that's high chance: very westernized) on it is kinda... whack, to say at the very least.
maybe this manga is a way for them to explore and challenge all the norms they were taught. who knows. some of the things in this manga kinda rubbed me off the wrong way too (i've read up to chapter 29) but i'm willing to give the Author the benefit of doubt.
Up to chapter 28 and 1/2 (I self translated part of chapter 29 myself)… it is an interesting manga. (My only hope is that it does not have a tragic ending… therefore it will probably have it.)
The idea of kids not having a gender is not too far fetched. Kids do not consider their sexuality as strongly as adults. In fact, their sexuality is more something that is imposed on them by society rather than something they are truly aware of. In this manga, rather than having kids adapting their behaviour to their gender, you have kids’ gender adapting to their behaviour (and even so there are people uncomfortable with their sex… how ironic 🤣). <<<I know… it is a simplistic explaination… afterall gender and behaviour are not that directly interconnected.>>>
Moving on to the plot, I would say that the story is still pretty open. The two “love interests” are still pretty much on par (even though there is one noticeable difference in Hinase’s behaviour towards Shiori and Ritsu... and also in their respective behaviour towards Hinase) and there are multiple death flags here and there that might lead to a tragic ending. Also, there is the fourth mysterious character whose motivations are still to be revealed. And then, there is the additional theme of Shiori struggling with the clash between his aspirations and the expectations of his family. So, a lot of material for developing the story… if they will use it.🤔
Which leads me to one point that puzzles me: the amount of pages that was used for side characters so early in the story. It almost feels like the author is trying to extend the content of the story without touching the most important threads within it. And that makes me wonder if they have already planned the number of chapters of this manga… or they are going to decide based on how weel it gets received. (The latter option tends to produce stories that drag themselves with very little true development up until an abrupt ending... 😔)
PS: I do not know why somebody said that he/she wanted to punch Shiori. His character acts solely out of love for Hinase and concern for Hinase’s life. He does not even care to be hated by Hinase if that can save Hinase’s life… not much to hate there.
Just... Please don't read this... Especially if your understanding of sex and gender is accepting of the existence of nonbinary and aro/ace people. Which clearly this mangaka does not.
While the premise seems compelling for a work to talk about a nonbinary experience, this work suffers heavily from the rigid gender norms in manga written not for the gays, girls, and theys (aka most hetero romance). In a world where the existence of nonbinary culture should be a thing (especially since the transition happens at puberty, well past the point where children can interact with other people in general), the hyper rigid gender norms of Japan still exist. Sure, women are totally fine being femme and men are totally fine being masc, but I see no alternatives to this in the manga. It's as if suddenly this nonbinary system existed in the middle of modern day Japan as we know it, but like the super straight side of Japan. There should be way more non-binary people, if not physically then in variety of presentation. The doctor character even mentions that there are some who are uncomfortable with what puberty assigned them, but the visibility of that is literally only via the words of the doc, and sure, being out as trans is hard, but there's no thought on how it would be like in a world where literally every person goes through something akin to transitioning at puberty.
There's also toxic masculinity and other really regressive shit in here too, but really the waste of using this premise is the main issue with this work in favor of soap opera drama. It's revealed that
no physically nonbinary person survives past 20, but not due to physiological reasons, but due to murder/suicide/accidents, ie tragic main character syndrome.
The entire manga is just a generic coming of age puberty story, but with extra soap opera BS in order to keep up the ~drama~.
I guess it's "progressive" once or twice, but in the "I'm not anti LGBTQ+, I got gay friends" type of energy. Like girl character tries to backpedal later basically saying "I love you main character regardless of gender! #loveknowsnogender #yasqueen #slay" Tbh sounds more like the mangaka seeing the writing on the wall and backpedaling to the audience than the girl coming to terms with her puberty awkwardness, esp since boy still got that toxic masuclinity in him at the point of me writing this, and hasn't also backpedaled saying "be a girl for me."
In summary, just don't read this if you accept nonbinary and aro ace existences... Or if you do, read something soothing afterwards.
And ftr there's much better manga about the enby/LGBTQ+ experience out there. Genderless Boyfriend's a good one with depicting heteronormative microaggressions towards "genderless" people, and Shimanami Tasogare is a classic one with just a lot of queer acceptance stuff (even nuanced things with how the LGBTQ+ community can be bad to people in their own community too, like attitudes towards trans people), and it's recommended as part of the curriculum in Japan for children too.
Also good on you new translator, using gender neutral pronouns to refer to the MC :3 main thing that gave my mind a bit of serotonin while reading this clusterfuck. Tho also liked older translator using gendered pronouns via the dude character... Because it just made him seem way more menacing XD
