I love how seriously this takes genderfeels of all sorts. I definitely feel empathy for both Mei and Mogu, and the other characters are great too. Given the way Childhood Friend has acted, I'm actually optimistic--everyone at the cafe is accepting and supportive, if confused (but acting in good faith). So I feel like what's going to happen is the conflict between inclusive supportive thinking and reactionary cishet-normative thinking.
PS - Local trans pal here. Maybe I can clear up some of the confusion some people have regarding Mogu's relationship with gender.
Part of the agender experience is not wanting to be assigned, which makes it really difficult because society is so binary. That's actually something I'm loving from this series: Mogu doesn't dress femininely because they want to be perceived as female, it's because they're distancing themself from masculinity. And when they got Ten to design an outfit that's androgynous it made them really happy, and that's hard to find for AMAB NBs.
Another thing is with gender roles is that they're cultural. Japan has an interesting history with its relationship to gender and sexuality, but putting that aside, it's hard to declare yourself NB because the binary roles of male and female are so strict (not that its easy in other places). Like a lot of collectivist societies, Japan values categories, often to the detriment of people who are outliers (and all the people who would be outliers but are scared of marginalization).
And lastly, being agender doesn't mean "not caring about gender", it means refusal to be assigned with one. So, an agender person could very much care more about being assigned than a cis person. Of course, some agender people genuinely don't care what other people think, but humans are social creatures, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that many of them do care. It's especially a big deal when there is social pressure to behave one way or another.
last edited at Dec 28, 2018 1:12PM