I mean yeah, from the get go I think expecting more focus on Akira when Hime is clearly the main character in this is setting yourself up for disappointment, even if I wish there was a greater focus on her.

I still think the way Akira was handled is perfectly open for criticism. It's true she's not the main character, but she shares space with Hime on the cover, when it wasn't focused on Hime it was usually focused on her. She was clearly supposed to be important and unfortunately that wasn't really reflected in the ending.

Like... I dunno, it just feels like very disappointing bait, especially for what it could've been..

Agreed

Nice realistic ending. Why the hate?

I still think the way Akira was handled is perfectly open for criticism. It's true she's not the main character, but she shares space with Hime on the cover, when it wasn't focused on Hime it was usually focused on her. She was clearly supposed to be important and unfortunately that wasn't really reflected in the ending.

Oh yeah, I definitely wouldn't say its not without criticism and like every other lgbtq character show she gets sidelined to hell (especially given the more prominent focus on her), I guess I just feel like it was clear the heavier focus was on Hime and given how it ended, the mangaka not bothering at all on Akira only makes sense to me lmao.

Nice realistic ending. Why the hate?

Cause it's a story that set itself out as 'girl with confusion on her identity has a crush on her trans best friend' and it ends with basically every lgbtq character shown being sidelined and the ending being the main girl ending up in a really heterosexual and heternormative relationship with a kinda boring guy that I don't think many of us cared about.

Honestly it doesn't even feel realistic, the last we saw of Hime's future husband, she said their date was nice and appreciated that he had a nice day with her too, and then he moved out of the prefecture and she mostly hung out with his sister with no mention of like, continuing to date him. Meanwhile there was 40+ chapters of her not really sure where she felt with her crush on Akira, confusion on her own sexuality and gender stuff only for it to just end up with her being a gender-conforming cishet woman. Like, I guess that's realistic, not everyone who questions their identity ends up LGBTQ, but so is 'And she figures out she's gay and dates Akira' (Which, honestly I feel is way more realistic than their 'eh yeah I'm just gonna deal with this weird crush I have and never bother to explore what it could mean further')..

this and Run Away With Me, Girl which also just ended with a time skip both have 2030+ japan still not having legal gay marriage. wtf?

So Hime someone who has shown revulsion to men is married to one (maybe she's bi but they didn't say that so no way to know) and Akira not only is single but really a blank slate. Like she is a stylist (real stereotype breaking there) anything else?

Let's look at the silver lining, guys.

Almost all of us can bond over our disappointment towards this train wreck.

It's been a while. I just re-read it again so I could give a thorough critique.

I think that this story could've been so much better. I think there was a lot of wasted potential to discuss various queer issues. I felt that a lot of the queer plot points seemed to primarily served to be fodder to spur speeches full of platitudes, especially by the straight characters. It felt like a "very special" episode in parts. Basically is was too simple and generic of a story (a girl falls for a endlessly selfless and understanding boy who is helpful to her when she's going through a difficult point in her life) for the (queer) themes it seemed like it wanted to explore.

It's not horrible, but it didn't live up to its promise.

I liked the ending, I'm a bit disappointed other people didn't like it as well :(

For starters, if you're unhappy that Hime didn't end up with Akira (basically what would've been the yuri ending) it was quite obvious they wouldn't get together from the start. She fell in love with her before she revealed to her she was trans, Hime fell in love with her because she thought she was a boy. We shouldn't try to shame Hime for having a sexual preference (even if it is straight, since we all know how that goes). She clearly struggled with accepting the fact that Akira is trans. Possibly because she knew her before she decided to change the way she dressed and that Akira didn't look like a cis girl (not that that's a bad thing, just saying it probably made it harder for Hime to accept her, weird brain things). Also Akira is straight. Hime and Akira would never work out. Even if Hime became trans it wouldn't be a good ending because she would've changed herself for Akira and not for herself.

Basically, this story was all about everyone else's happiness and how it can differ from one another. Don't get me wrong I love my yuri manga and normally shun away manga that isn't yuri, but this one was just different. If you're unhappy with the ending well too bad because that's their happiness and not yours.

I also thought Hime's child with Hiro was cute to be honest, we must protect Makoto at all costs.

EDIT: I also forgot, Sasaki sensei is the best sensei and you can't tell me otherwise. If you didn't like the manga at least like Sasaki sensei.

last edited at Aug 29, 2020 1:59AM

^ I mostly agree, but I think Hime is Bisexual. She may have liked Akira before, but her feelings developed into love years later, after she knew Akira was a girl. Hime seemed to quickly accept her as a girl. Later, her conscious reason for cross-dressing was to support Akira, but subconsciously she was trying to become a possible romantic partner by acting like a boy. It's just a shame that so many people here hate bisexuals--and asexuals too judging by some posts. (They called him an alien!?)

last edited at Aug 29, 2020 3:03AM

Later, her conscious reason for cross-dressing was to support Akira, but subconsciously she was trying to become a possible romantic partner by acting like a boy.

Exactly this. I forgot to write this in my original post but yes, part of the reason Hime was trying to dress up as a boy was to get Akira to maybe have feelings for her as well. Which is why even if Hime became trans and got with Akira it wouldn't be the "true" happy ending. Might even be a bit melancholic if you think of it as changing yourself just for someone to like you back and realizing you are not who you want to be.

So Akira is straight and Hime becoming trans wouldn't be "true", the Hime x Akira ship was doomed from the start. But that is the beauty of reality, I suppose. I'm just happy they all got their happy ending.

Welp, I just read it. It seemed to be going well until literally the last few chapters where the author seemed to throw out everything they had developed between characters for the whole fucking series. While it was written to look like a happy end, it was a very bad end indeed which featured next to no romantic resolution for anything. All it did was give us a lesbian marriage to a side character and someone we know nothing about and fucking shoehorning fucking het marriage between two characters who were fake dating and had no chemistry between each other whatsoever. All in all, I'm very disappointing with this manga.

As a trans woman, I also want to say that I'm glad we had the inclusion of a diverse cast of characters - a cisgender lesbian, a trans woman, a periodically-crossdressing cis pansexual woman, a periodically-crossdressing cis man, and an asexual man. However I feel like the ending completely threw away our co-main character, Akira the trans woman, as soon as she transcended the awkward start of transition.

gwennie-chan posted:

co-main character

I'm sorry, but Akira was never main character. She was always only supporting character to Hime.

gwennie-chan posted:

co-main character

I'm sorry, but Akira was never main character. She was always only supporting character to Hime.

It's rather clear Akira was the deuteragonist, that's why she's on the cover and most of the story follows the interaction between Hime and Akira. How the mangaka brutally just throws her out is hideous and I can't stand it.

gwennie-chan posted:

co-main character

I'm sorry, but Akira was never main character. She was always only supporting character to Hime.

It's rather clear Akira was the deuteragonist, that's why she's on the cover and most of the story follows the interaction between Hime and Akira. How the mangaka brutally just throws her out is hideous and I can't stand it.

I think the characters were treated pretty similar in that regard. The manga is more of an aangst-based "this happens, then this happens" coming of age rather than a slice of life. Once the characters have fulfilled their purpose (either it be coming to terms with who they are, their feelings, or their views), they're all usually sidelined. Take the lesbian character for instance. Once she explains her standpoint and her "interesting-thing-about-her-that-stands-out"(from a manga/writer standpoint) she becomes irrelevant. Once Akira's sense of self was worked out and then her relationship turmoil was sorted (I use the term relationship for all types in this scenario [romantic, friendship, self, etc.]) she was backburner-ed. Same with momo and cute-girl. It's pretty common in manga that doesn't have a direct main character (or a large cast) for them to be put on the backburner after their "use" is complete. This being because side characters are usually meant for the main character's growth in writing and when you try and make too many stories around characters at once or keep them all equal in plot-importance, the story can easily get messy or boring. It can be done right obviously, it's just incredibly hard and something that takes a lot of writing to master (I still suck at it and end up having characters mysteriously disappear for a bit after they've used up their "interesting points").

Now I wouldn't say that it's a good thing, but it is a consistent thing in manga and writing in general; despite how easy it may LOOK, it's not easy to keep an equal focus on multiple characters in writing without continuously adding drama or added plot points/individual struggles. If you took out the LGBT aspect and made their individual plot points something random, it would seem like most other multi-focal manga, right? It's a common thing, especially in media with a short-run time.
I 100% understand that we're grasping onto any positive representation we can get (especially with manga in general being pretty bad at repping actual LGBT+ stuff [I love yuri don't get me wrong, but it's sooooo not representative of lesbian stuff as most know and acknowledge] and trans rep in general is horrible especially with other genres/tags like "trap" polluting the system [and the misuse of the term "crossdressing"]) but I don't think it's right to pin this as a horrible manga just because it made mistakes.

In my opinion; it was honestly one of the best representations I've read in manga (which isn't saying much, but still) despite it's storyboarding issues. The consistency with pronouns, the intrapersonal turmoil, and the insightful and open-minded look on things (even outside the LGBT+ theme) was refreshing. It felt less like they were using LGBT+ stuff as a plot point (even though it obviously was) and more that they were actually trying to educate as best they could, which I can appreciate.

@Other people
Also, I'm a very gay woman and het stuff usually isn't my thing but I was kind of hoping she would get with the guy in the end. Not sure why everyone is mad about this. Bisexuals exist. It's not like the plot was super het, half the story was a girl having feelings for another girl. You don't need to get mad when something is not 100% pure yuri. He seemed like a very cool and well-fleshed out character (for how short the manga was) and the fact that people are getting mad that she ended up in a "het" relationship is indicative of their character. Honestly if you're that mad that the character is male then you're no better than the people who get mad when a "straight-seeming" character on a show ends up with a member of the same sex. If you're using lack of rep as an excuse to hate a het relationship then you're just a sad person. If you're using the excuse that it was "out of nowhere" when it obviously wasn't you sound exactly like straight people when they say a gay couple was forced and "came out of nowhere". Chill the fuck out.

Yeaaaaa sorry this is so long, i'm pretty high haha. Also I'm not @ing you directly for the later points Gwennie. Just didn't want to double post. Also I say all of this with no malice or desire to start drama and I respect your opinion and agree with some of what you say. This is all just my opinion and observations.

last edited at Oct 2, 2020 3:53AM

@Other people
Also, I'm a very gay woman and het stuff usually isn't my thing but I was kind of hoping she would get with the guy in the end. Not sure why everyone is mad about this. Bisexuals exist. It's not like the plot was super het, half the story was a girl having feelings for another girl. You don't need to get mad when something is not 100% pure yuri. He seemed like a very cool and well-fleshed out character (for how short the manga was) and the fact that people are getting mad that she ended up in a "het" relationship is indicative of their character. Honestly if you're that mad that the character is male then you're no better than the people who get mad when a "straight-seeming" character on a show ends up with a member of the same sex. If you're using lack of rep as an excuse to hate a het relationship then you're just a sad person. If you're using the excuse that it was "out of nowhere" when it obviously wasn't you sound exactly like straight people when they say a gay couple was forced and "came out of nowhere". Chill the fuck out.

Yeaaaaa sorry this is so long, i'm pretty high haha. Also I'm not @ing you directly for the later points Gwennie. Just didn't want to double post. Also I say all of this with no malice or desire to start drama and I respect your opinion and agree with some of what you say. This is all just my opinion and observations.

Oh, god, can you not with the, "if you didn't like this you are biphobic", stuff? I'm bi as hell and I despised this ending.

@cowyouto: I don't think it's too long. You actually talked about the manga, rather than throwing it under the bus for being less than perfect. How sad that the discussion on Mangadex was more enlightened.

This was one of the first manga about trans people that I encountered, so I didn't really see a lot the issues on my first read. The segments that everyone described as preachy, for instance, came off as fairly informative to me, because I wasn't well-educated about the issues at hand. With that being said, I kinda noticed that the actual events and plot weren't anywhere near as elaborate as the poetic musings about gender issues, and I definitely felt like the ending was nuclear-level trash.
Now that I've read it a second time, after having explored various other trans narratives, I can say for sure that this series is a massive disappointment. The one thing it has going for it is that it's very clear in what it wants to express, but the ending pretty much dunks all the buildup into a bin, making it one of the worst works about trans people I've ever read (heck, you could argue that it isn't even about a trans person so much as her cis best friend and her saviour complex). Almost feels like the author is one of those people who go 'The A in LGBTQIA+ actually stands for ally, because look how hard we work to give our oppressed little buddies the spotlight!'

2SpiritCherokeePrincess posted:

@cowyouto: I don't think it's too long. You actually talked about the manga, rather than throwing it under the bus for being less than perfect. How sad that the discussion on Mangadex was more enlightened.

You mean they blindly praised it instead of being critical of its flaws?

Kirin posted:

heck, you could argue that it isn't even about a trans person so much as her cis best friend and her saviour complex

You got that right. I said so since chapter 4.

Maybe I'm weird but I really enjoyed this. I did spoil the ending for myself ahead of time so I knew the pairings in the end, maybe that's why.

I'm usually a Yuri person, and this is the first het romance manga I've ever enjoyed.

My (not-serious-but-also-wish-it-will-happen-just-for-the-lolz) predictions:

Next chapter, Akira runs away from Hime to avoid replying to Hime. Five chapters later, while still avoiding Hime, Akira talks to five other characters for advice, who all account to her how they have been confessed to by childhood friends. Their backstories help Akira realize that it is bad to avoid replying to Hime and finally approaches Hime to reject her.

After being rejected, Hime then spends three chapters talking to other characters, who tell how how they have been rejected by childhood crushes, and she realizes that she needs to move on from Akira. Akira, sad that her friend isn't talking to her, talks to six other characters for help, and they help her realize that she can still be friends with Hime.

Akira talks to Hime, and they become friends again. Cue in obligatory flashback to their childhood, when they first became friends. Fast forward to the present or future, where Hime says, "Turns out the real Kanojo Ni Naritai Kimi to Boku was inside us all along." The last page is a panel of all the characters walking next to each other towards the beautiful sunset, smiling.

The End.

Oh god this feels way better than what we actually got

I've read a lot of Yuri in my life, several good ones, and several disappointing ones, but I don't think I've ever read one that I liked and in the final stretch it took a 180° like this, what a disappointing ending, I wish I hadn't wasted my time with this work, sometimes it's good to get spoilers from the end of a work so you know when to drop it.