Thank you all for reading the old chapters on here!
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Sha-tan, Aoi Shoujo Scan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvmmkx1dtmA&ab_channel=HeartNewsWestCountry

I really like how this manga balanced out fantasy and real life issues. Especially the Prince Yuu and their issue, it was handle with a lot more nuances than any other manga I've read. Being as popular as it is I'm glad this manga is giving voices to actual problems in the LGBT community.

last edited at Feb 20, 2024 12:44PM

I really like how this manga balanced out fantasy manga and real life issues. Especially the Prince Yuu and their issue, it was handle with a lot more nuances than any other manga I've read. Being as popular as it is I'm glad this manga is giving voices to actual problems in the LGBT community.

Honestly! And I hope the anime adaptation continues until it reaches that point, it would be kinda huge, and can really bring up a lot of awareness of gender and sexuality.

is that a ace attorney reference i see

Yessssssssssssssssssssssss it's back and I've reread the entire thing in one go again and it's making me go eeeeeeeeee with the cuteness, ugh why is it so good! I also love the mix of Yuri/otome fantasy game with actual real life issues

Ah, finally found the time to catch up on this huge bunch of new chapters as well.

Little mouse Rae is way too adorable. ^_^

HOW DARE SHE MAKE MY RAE FEELING THAT WAY UGHHH

oops i caught up to this in one day

On one hand, good for her to be finally able to live as her true self, but it's not like I entirely like the result here either. Probably the best they could have hoped for in this situation, though...

Awwww I'm so happy for Yu

I like how they thoughtfully went through the common yuri manga trope of "if it's love, gender doesn't matter"and deconstructed it a bit

Has Loretta always been this shredded? I don't remember it being mentioned in the LN...

Not that I mind, she's HOT!

The best handling of bisexuality as a topic and transing as a topic, in one single XXL chapter. :)

Has Loretta always been this shredded? I don't remember it being mentioned in the LN...

Not that I mind, she's HOT!

It's mentioned more in "She's So Cheeky for A Commoner." There's a lot more focus on the two of them there, since Claire's perspective would naturally feature them more.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 6:14AM

Unprotected hand holding? Lady Claire, what are you THINKING, allowing Lilly THAT?

Has Loretta always been this shredded? I don't remember it being mentioned in the LN...

Not that I mind, she's HOT!

Wildly enough, this came from when Coastal, a western fan pretty involved in the fan community, drew a muscular Loretta and then asked Aonoshima on Twitter if Loretta was muscular. (At this point she was probably always intended to be fit what with her family's position, but it's when she went from fit to shredded, just before the beach episodes were released in yuri hime.)

Overnight, Aonoshima drew a muscular Loretta and from then on her cut abs were canon. The second light novel for she's so cheeky was announced right around that day too, so the web novel descriptions predate the event quite a bit.

Here's roughly the tweet chain:
Original joke
https://twitter.com/CoastalService3/status/1590471608871047168
Sketching the joke
https://twitter.com/CoastalService3/status/1596380891952971777
Aonoshima previewing the upcoming chapter
https://twitter.com/aonoesu/status/1603240864184008704
Coastal "inquiring"about Loretta, somewhere here or elsewhere Coastal asks if Loretta's abs are ripped because Aonoshima refers to such a question later
https://twitter.com/CoastalService3/status/1603246683147489280
A quick response
https://twitter.com/aonoesu/status/1603248865326804992
A tweet about needing to check with Inori
https://twitter.com/aonoesu/status/1603251521776685056?s=20&t=3n9ZsOKobAzoCEj529iq9g
Then, ta da! Loretta's debut.
https://twitter.com/aonoesu/status/1603343068681613313
Google translate seems to say Aonoshima had to ask Inori if Loretta's abs were cut, then provides a lore response from Inori, then Aonoshima's interpretation. Thus the exact moment her abs became this cut with official canon blessing

I hope all these links are still live.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 9:59AM

Hmm, this king seems like a smart dude. If a single high school girl managed to outsmart your entire secret service, then that's exactly where she belongs, before she gets any more seditious thoughts, like starting a revolution, or something.

Sad to see Misha written out, but she gets to be with Yu this way, so I am happy about that, at least. TBH I have never really cared about any of the royal kid trio, but their sibling interactions are adorable.

Unprotected hand holding? Lady Claire, what are you THINKING, allowing Lilly THAT?

My thoughts exactly. My only guess is that Claire is much too innocent for her own good, and has no idea what she is permitting there.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 10:57AM

I somehow missed the last 5 uploads, so I got to read 6 chapters (35-40) at once. What a ride! But I can't help but wonder how different it would have been to read some of that in Japanese, where the language is less gendered. (Edit: not intended as criticism of the translation, merely an observation on the linguistic challenges.)

P.S., it was supervised handholding. She made Ralaire stay with them.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 2:09PM

I somehow missed the last 5 uploads, so I got to read 6 chapters (35-40) at once. What a ride! But I can't help but wonder how different it would have been to read some of that in Japanese, where the language is less gendered. (Edit: not intended as criticism of the translation, merely an observation on the linguistic challenges.)

P.S., it was supervised handholding. She made Ralaire stay with them.

oh Inori was super explicit about this arc in the LN, because she knows cis/het/cishet people and how willfully blind to inference when it comes to queer themes. She stops just short of explicitly calling Yu trans, except she DOES call Rei's deceased friend trans, and has Rei directly compare the two, saying she cares to much about Yu's situation because she's afraid she'll also end up dead like her other trans friend. Everything else about this arc has been incredibly specific, even to the point of making sure we know who's an exclusive lesbian and who's bi lol. I don't think the gendered inference of language from things like pronouns would change how this arc reads one way or another when Inori's working so hard to make sure everybody gets it.... of course I've seen people argue on twitter claiming Yu can't be trans ANYWAY, because "biology," which at this point is less misunderstanding the text and more just arguing with the author over her understanding of transness. IMO the fact that Yu "was always a woman" but "assigned male by her mother" is a very deliberate point Inori's making about the validity of trans women's womanhood: to deny Yu is a woman is to deny the factual reality about her, rather than making any sort of subjective or "political" claim. The same is true about non-magical trans girls IRL. If a woman tells you she's a woman then she's a woman, period, regardless of how you might have interpreted her before.

PS: One of the only changes from the LN I noticed with this arc is that the manga implies the Crosswise Curse physically changed Yu's body, whereas the LN says it's a semi-permanent illusion causing people to see her a certain way, not causing her to BE a certain way. But that might have been more complicated to communicate with a smaller text budget, idk.

I somehow missed the last 5 uploads, so I got to read 6 chapters (35-40) at once. What a ride! But I can't help but wonder how different it would have been to read some of that in Japanese, where the language is less gendered. (Edit: not intended as criticism of the translation, merely an observation on the linguistic challenges.)

P.S., it was supervised handholding. She made Ralaire stay with them.

oh Inori was super explicit about this arc in the LN, because she knows cis/het/cishet people and how willfully blind to inference when it comes to queer themes. She stops just short of explicitly calling Yu trans, except she DOES call Rei's deceased friend trans, and has Rei directly compare the two, saying she cares to much about Yu's situation because she's afraid she'll also end up dead like her other trans friend. Everything else about this arc has been incredibly specific, even to the point of making sure we know who's an exclusive lesbian and who's bi lol. I don't think the gendered inference of language from things like pronouns would change how this arc reads one way or another when Inori's working so hard to make sure everybody gets it.... of course I've seen people argue on twitter claiming Yu can't be trans ANYWAY, because "biology," which at this point is less misunderstanding the text and more just arguing with the author over her understanding of transness. IMO the fact that Yu "was always a woman" but "assigned male by her mother" is a very deliberate point Inori's making about the validity of trans women's womanhood: to deny Yu is a woman is to deny the factual reality about her, rather than making any sort of subjective or "political" claim. The same is true about non-magical trans girls IRL. If a woman tells you she's a woman then she's a woman, period, regardless of how you might have interpreted her before.

PS: One of the only changes from the LN I noticed with this arc is that the manga implies the Crosswise Curse physically changed Yu's body, whereas the LN says it's a semi-permanent illusion causing people to see her a certain way, not causing her to BE a certain way. But that might have been more complicated to communicate with a smaller text budget, idk.

Yes, the LN is very blunt about this topic. The person who "warns" Rei about the poisoned food is Misaki, her friend who she talks a lot about in the LNs (and who you saw in the manga from Rei's real life). He's the one she couldn't save and the reason why she wants to save Yu so badly this time.

He says: “Thank you for saving someone who knows what it’s like. Now don’t be an idiot. Make sure you check your food.” It's very straightforward on that front and there's a lot more discussion like that in the LNs during this arc. Its what we miss by not having Rei's thoughts in the manga. Misaki is always on her mind throughout it. Yu's situation is a very clear allusion.

last edited at Apr 9, 2024 3:07PM

of course I've seen people argue on twitter claiming Yu can't be trans ANYWAY, because "biology," which at this point is less misunderstanding the text and more just arguing with the author over her understanding of transness. IMO the fact that Yu "was always a woman" but "assigned male by her mother" is a very deliberate point Inori's making about the validity of trans women's womanhood: to deny Yu is a woman is to deny the factual reality about her, rather than making any sort of subjective or "political" claim. The same is true about non-magical trans girls IRL. If a woman tells you she's a woman then she's a woman, period, regardless of how you might have interpreted her before.

Unless they're complete idiots, which can't be ruled out either, twitter being what it is, it's more likely that they're not denying her womanhood but rather only seeing her being born as a woman and now living as a woman again. Only looking at the very beginning and end of her story it's easy to think of her as having not changed at all. But she certainly has very much gone through what essentially amounts to the trans experience, having had to live most of her life as a man.

PS: One of the only changes from the LN I noticed with this arc is that the manga implies the Crosswise Curse physically changed Yu's body, whereas the LN says it's a semi-permanent illusion causing people to see her a certain way, not causing her to BE a certain way. But that might have been more complicated to communicate with a smaller text budget, idk.

It probably also just makes the significance of it read more clearly without having to think about it deeply. "Something very unwanted happened to your body and you can't fix it" is more immediately alarming than "people can't recognize you for who you are" and many people would probably say they could just shrug off the latter (even if it's not actually true.)

If Inori was going directly for like a conversion therapy metaphor it undermines that, but if it was meant to be a direct trans metaphor this is probably a clearer way to express it. My impression from reading the novels was that it was meant to be conversion therapy*, but it wouldn't surprise me if I was wrong.

• obviously what that looks like in a given country is going to vary

My take is that it's not a metaphor for conversion therapy but rather gender assignment at birth. Her mother assigned her male in the most literal way. But underneath the assignment and expectations, underneath the mask of masculinity she was forced to wear, she's a woman, and she's decided to throw away that mask and damn the consequences so she can live her truth. As it is IRL with trans women.

I wonder if Rei with get arrested for saying no? Or rather, kept in the dungeon? Cuz she’s definitely not gonna agree when being Claire’s maid is 100000000000000000000000000000x better, not only cuz, y’know, Claire, but also cuz the major plot points that happen in game revolve around the school, therefore being away from the school might cause shit to go bad.

That or she can join the secret forces and still be lady Claire’s maid as a cover or smthn