Actually teared up a bit. Might not understand it on a personal level but the story was good. The characters definitely felt believable.

this is great. nice ending too, good to see him happy.

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 4:59PM

The way the comments have been edited and (I assume) deleted gives the unfortunate impression that Madame_Firenze was making an offensive remark and got called out on it. A casual reader might not figure out that this wasn't actually the case.

Edit: Pekoe fixed things, so you can ignore this now.

last edited at Apr 8, 2021 6:16PM

Lizbo posted:

The way the comments have been edited and (I assume) deleted gives the unfortunate impression that Madame_Firenze was making an offensive remark and got called out on it. A casual reader might not figure out that this wasn't actually the case.

Yeah, that's a good point. It's too bad that my quote was made on mobile. I'll adjust the edits to make it more clear, along with my own post on the matter.

Welp I honestly can’t remember the last time a manga made me cry.. really happy this turned out good in the end

Pretty powerful and good! Always nice to see trans issues dealt with seriously and carefully.

That was fuckin good!

(Thanks to Stan and Kirin-kun for doing some legwork on this.) One thing that's really cool about this is the cast of people behind it. It was published in Shounen Jump+, a web magazine that could be said to be the slightly more mature version of Shounen Jump. Without a doubt, a lot of ordinary Shounen Jump readers are going to read this, too.

Tooda Oto, who gets the artist credits, is relatively new as a primary artist; they were a noted assistant on the popular shounen series, Fire Punch and have just one other credit as a primary artist. Yuki Suetsugui, who gets the writing credits, is the author/artist of the mega-hit shoujo series, Chihayafuru. Tokiumi Yui, who gets the scenario writing credits, is probably best known to Western folks for writing the LN adaptation of Your Lie in April. She's a noted (adaptation) writer in her own right. All three of them collaborated on the recent Chihayafuru: Middle School Arc spin-off, in very similar roles.

...which is all to say, in spite of the newish artist, this is a notable magazine with notable names writing a pretty real trans story. I've no idea what kind of precedent there is for this, but I was really pleased to take note of it, anyway.

The extra context makes me appreciate this a lot more. It's really good as a shounen genre piece, and I love how Chiaki's drawn and framed as a shounen protagonist even when his body's at its least masculine.

Plus this is exactly the kind of media trans guys should be featured in more. Both because they deserve to have men's media about them and because these are the kind of trans experiences cis guys actually have a chance of relating to.

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 6:32PM

This was so good!!

Great read

This was a very good read, :)

Thank you for translating and uploading this. It was a long great read

Im kinda wondering, how much of her motivation stems from being told that "girls cant do that". Its kinda framed like its the driving factor, which would be bullshit.

I hate the idea that gender has to match interests, personality exists for a reason.

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 6:44PM

Im kinda wondering, how much of her motivation stems from being told that "girls cant do that". Its kinda framed like its the driving factor, which would be bullshit.

I hate the idea that gender has to match interests, personality exists for a reason.

Who is her?

Not a fan of transgender stuff, but this is a good story.

Finally! A trans story that isn't suffering! Love it!

Im kinda wondering, how much of her motivation stems from being told that "girls cant do that". Its kinda framed like its the driving factor, which would be bullshit.

Well at least I'm not the only one who got that impression. It's internally consistent within the story. Looking at this page, there are hints at Chiaki's condition being more than "just" the result of socialization with utterly inflexible, prescriptive gender roles, though it's pretty safe to assume that tomboyish behaviour (and thus Chiaki's personality) had already been thoroughly judged as inappropriate by the father. Overall, however, the story gave me the impression that Chiaki wouldn't have developed gender dysphoria had "she" been accepted as a tomboy.

Given the way things developed, Chiaki did what he had to in order to have a chance at happiness, regardless of what cause we read into it.

*edit: yay, I think I found a way to phrase at least some of by debatable impressions of this story that should be okay here.

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 7:57PM

Im kinda wondering, how much of her motivation stems from being told that "girls cant do that". Its kinda framed like its the driving factor, which would be bullshit.

Well at least I'm not the only one who got that impression. It's internally consistent within the story. Looking at this page, there are hints at Chiaki's condition being more than "just" the result of socialization with utterly inflexible, prescriptive gender roles, though it's pretty safe to assume that tomboyish behaviour (and thus Chiaki's personality) had already been thoroughly judged as inappropriate by the father. Overall, however, the story gave me the impression that Chiaki wouldn't have developed gender dysphoria had "she" been accepted as a tomboy.

Given the way things developed, Chiaki did what he had to in order to have a chance at happiness, regardless of what cause we read into it.

I don't think that explains why he was so disgusted at his period or dreamed of getting his breasts removed though, it's not really a tomboy thing. I think the signs were pretty clear from him reacting to his secondary sex characteristics and sexualfunctions.

^^I reread it and I think so too. A lot of it seems to be an everlasting psychological trauma from being exposed to the dad's ridiculous sexism and heteronormativity at a very young age (which continued into the future). It also seemed like Chiaki's body dysphoria (on page 58) is driven by external factors (sexism) rather than internal feelings of discomfort and disconnect.

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 8:06PM

Chiaki's relationship with his dad is really compelling, and his friendship with Takatou is super heartwarming.

Even though this was 85 pages long, I feel like this kind of introspective story could have benefited from somewhat slower pacing. Maybe that's just me, though.

This is nitpicking, but Chiaki's doctor talking about "an SRS" was a little awkward and funny-sounding. A knowledgeable physician would be more likely reference the specific procedures (top surgery and hysterectomy) rather than "the surgery".

And, as someone who would prefer to not be perceived, being a closeted trans streamer sounds like a special kind of hell.

Im kinda wondering, how much of her motivation stems from being told that "girls cant do that". Its kinda framed like its the driving factor, which would be bullshit.

I hate the idea that gender has to match interests, personality exists for a reason.

This really says a lot about the society in which we live

^^I reread it and I think so too. A lot of it seems to be an everlasting psychological trauma from being exposed to the dad's ridiculous sexism and heteronormativity at a very young age (which continued into the future). It also seemed like Chiaki's body dysphoria (on page 58) is driven by external factors (sexism) rather than internal feelings of discomfort and disconnect.

Every cis weirdo thinks they’re a psychoanalyst whenever trans people are concerned I swear

last edited at Apr 3, 2021 8:34PM

I'll admit, I had been a bit hesitant to read this, but I'm super glad I did. Really good

^^I reread it and I think so too. A lot of it seems to be an everlasting psychological trauma from being exposed to the dad's ridiculous sexism and heteronormativity at a very young age (which continued into the future). It also seemed like Chiaki's body dysphoria (on page 58) is driven by external factors (sexism) rather than internal feelings of discomfort and disconnect.

I'm pretty sure he hates the sexism because it reminds him of his personal problems that he has with his body, not the other way round.

Every cis weirdo thinks they’re a psychoanalyst whenever trans people are concerned I swear

sadly

He didn't just want to go hunting, he saw himself consistently as a boy. A lot of girls want to do "boy" things, but their arguments tend not to include the phrase "I'm a boy"

My understanding of Japan is that they're honestly pretty conservative (you notice Chiaki was sterilized during his gender confirmation surgery, that's basically mandatory in Japan if you transition) on issues and so an old doctor using outdated terms isn't surprising.

This is a really well done story. I'm glad I stuck with it after the first couple pages (when they said Chiaki was a man, I was concerned it was a crossdressing story, which isn't my thing)