
^
So Mizuki is canonically trans but Project Sekai hasn't used almost any explicit labeling language, however it has been pretty much confirmed since Mizuki's 5th focus event. I think of the level of confirmation as equivalent to the confirmation of Haruka and Michiru being a couple was in the original Sailor Moon anime (not the English dub). The main elements of Mizuki's story are about their struggles with society's perception of folks that are gender non-conforming and the othering that is associated with that. Their story is absolutely written to tell about a queer experience.
General overview of the story events, spoilers for Mizuki's story:
* As a young kid they preferred to dress in "cute", more traditionally feminine attire. However other students would bully them and make comments that their clothes were "weird". (The quoted words are words that Project Sekai uses to frame the narrative.)
* They entered an all boys school for middle school, no longer choosing to present with "cute" clothes. They had an extremely isolating experience there, their only friend being the other loner, Rui.
* Towards the end of their middle school time they found an online group of friends, 25 o'clock at Nightcord, and with the encouragement of their older sister she decided to go back to presenting in the way they felt most comfortable which was by dressing "cutely" and with their signature ribbon. Also growing her hair out past this point.
* In high school Mizuki is treated like a "zoo creature", where students talk about them behind their back. Students still commenting on Mizuki's choice of clothing. This is why she chooses to skip school as much as possible.
* Most of her focus story events are about their concerns about wanting to come out to their friends with their "secret" and/or being outed by students from their school before they get the chance. However they worry about how her friends will perceive her once they come out.
* Mizuki mainly wants to be accepted for being themself.
* Mizuki was outed as trans during the events of Mizuki 5 when Ena got stopped and asked by a group of students from their school about whether Ena knew Mizuki. Then the students started making a "joke", asking Ena if she was "also a guy". Those students also then say Ena is a "normal girl" where as it is implied then that they don't see Mizuki as such.
* During the end of the events of Ena 5, Mizuki came out to the rest of her nightcord group.
Since Non-binary
is very often considered under the umbrella of Transgender
and especially since the current Mizuki's story so far would lead me to read Mizuki as trans fem and nb, those are the reasons I would guess on why both tags have been used.
There's a Japanese blog post I read about the Mizuki 5 focus story event and the focus events before that has a good in-depth explanation of why one should read Mizuki as trans fem and/or nb. It has a better Japanese language/media context than I can provide: https://note.com/nebou_june/n/n37fe1265a179#049ff682-479e-4980-9730-97204971e24d .
last edited at Apr 8, 2025 11:47AM