Mm, definitely loved this a lot? It feels like U-temo's built very profoundly upon a lot of themes present in their other works, such as the intersections of queerness and art as well as the multifaceted desire that people considered 'different' have to both belong and integrate themselves into existing systems and paradigms and yet also their need to create a shift that can accommodate them more completely and let them not only fit, per se, but grow and stretch and overflow.
That constant negotiation and reflection upon being, becoming, belonging and believing in selfhoods and tomorrows feels incredibly relatable to me, and moreso because U-temo's fascinatingly portrayed intersectionality here as not only a combination or connection of labelled differences or deviances, but also a process of apperception and feeling from the perspective of the intersectional subject who cannot naturally or easily arrive upon a self-categorization of themselves as, say, an Autistic Demisexual Lesbian, but simply see themselves as themselves, as an I given in language that takes up more space than it signifies on paper, that cannot fit between words and into sentences and produces therefore a certain weight, a complicating, queering abrasion that both Takahashi and Yamashita begin to feel, leading them to experience an alienation that necessitates an acceptance of separation and nonconformity, a reluctant diagnosis of their uniqueness-as-selfhood that must bear them into terminology that still feels like, in its provision of labels, foreign and external, an imposition and reduction. This also exemplifies why a lot of queer people, and especially some queer creators and critics, dislike and strive to complicate labels of identity and genre ranging from 'gay' to 'top' to 'transbian' to even 'yuri' that they feel do not quite convey the texture of their this-ness.
The way Yamashita and Takahashi thus look to find themselves in art is perhaps my favorite aspect of this work, because it expresses beautifully the complexity of art and queerness in a modern world, in contexts that, as fantastical or tropey as they may be, cannot be detached from reality. On the one hand, someone who's not 'normal' might look for art that represents them- not even explicit representation, mind you, which is both rare and does not necessarily equate to resonance with a queer person's feelings even if it represents the labels or categories that they would fit into, because 'lesbian' or 'trans' are heartening words to hear in media for those hitherto erased, but are not ideal types or terminuses of representation, but must necessarily be pathways unto an opening. Thus, this 'resonant' representation may be and often is the kind that pops up in gacha games or other similarly otaku-esque media that might not be made with queer audiences in mind, but still have features that lead queer people to see themselves within in and grow invested, emotionally and financially, in these pieces of media (hence the practice of queer 'claiming' applied to a lot of works with no explicit representation, but still a common resonance among queer audiences). On the other hand, the financial aspect is its own issue and rabbit hole, because these pieces of art in which Takahashi sees herself are also produced by the same capitalist machine that drives her to labor and fit a narrow conception of productivity and predictability, and so she faces the hellish prospect of working her ass off in stifling, repressive jobs in order to fund her investments and purchases in franchises and gacha games that don't necessarily care about representation so much as profit, and will continue to squeeze out those ambiguous, noncommittal, don't-ask-don't-tell bits of media so long as people like Takahashi are willing to pay for their content-parcels, which, again, requires her to work a shitty job- a positively Sisyphean fate, and yet also part of the complex reality of queerness, and perhaps even neurodivergence (hyperfixations on gacha games, anyone?) in late-stage capitalism. Yamashita as a manga artist looks to produce this sense of representation and resonance internally rather than seeking it externally, but this too, is an issue, because the publishing industry, the tyranny of demographics and genre, and the narrow definitions of realism and commerciality bar her entry into the field, making her unable to create images that might serve as points of resonance for those similar to her across Japan, which in turn shall leave them alienated and lonely because they don't feel seen or represented in stories. This may drive them in a best-case scenario to create those stories themselves, and be barred once again, just as Yamashita was, from mainstream success or even basic entry into a cultural industry that necessarily privileges neurotypical narratives and forms unless an author can slant their narratives enough to pass and gain access, leading perhaps to someone like Takahashi to pick up on the subtext and desperately try to find more- a microcosm of the way queer, neurodivergent and other such marginalized groups have always narrowly managed to indirectly support and see each other in media across the ages, despite thorny and omnipresent systemic obstacles.
In that regard, I love how U-temo expresses how normal doesn't exist, and is an imitation without an origin, a copy of a copy, with people like Yamashita and Takahashi, who reluctantly learn and do the bare minimum to fit into capitalist and neurotypical conceptions of normalcy primarily so they can support the queerness, both physical and spiritual, of their private lives, representing, like lavender marriages or drag shows, the artificiality of everything that is presented as 'conventional' or 'acceptable', but conversely also the potential of the 'abnormal', the divergent and the queer to make a home amidst it all, to reject the tyranny and glamour of normalcy, the deferred ideal of a perfect belonging, and create within the present queer utopias, queer space and queer time, queer refuges bigger on the inside than the outside, queer dimensions that let them embrace their multidimensionality. To be normal, then, is to surrender life, reject the deliciousness of paradox and the thrill of changeability, to scrape and squeeze oneself into an image without weight or form, a corset crushing ribs that strive to imitate the lightness of printed pictures on paper, and restrain the very breath that would let them paint images of their own, to blow themselves aflame and alight. The fact that Yamashita and Takahashi can find a quotidian queerness, a daily drive, a regular multiplicity, is their triumph over alienation, their success in not fitting in, but expanding past the lines of normalcy, proving that their divergences are not reductions, but multiplications, expansions into and beyond their selves. And what a wonderful affirmation that is to see!
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