I hope it becomes a wonderful spiritual successor to Ai☆biki.

Condolences to the late Mr. Peterson's daughter.

last edited at Aug 26, 2020 5:14PM

Why is there yaoi in my yuri?

Not this crap again. This site is not exclusively yuri.

No, it is. The definition of yuri changes to fit what is posted here regardless of content.

Oh yes.

Secret sunday
Secret skin

You dismiss my experience (I am nonbinary), I dismiss yours, right?

I have done nothing to dismiss your experience. I am just saying that projecting it into media where the author is depicting their own experience and expecting them to act in accordance with that is absurd.

Re zero is one example in a long list of media where that is the case, and I stated as such.

Not only did I say this was unsubstantiated, and that these themes you are taking umbrage at are not harmful to trans people when they are applied to GNC cis men and actually representative of many of their experiences (although I am making some assumption that this is in relation to tropes you mentioned elsewhere), but that even were it true it would not substantiate this extrapolation. I stand by that,

Nothing in the manga says "I am GNC gay guy/teenager"

The manga is called "I'm the Only One Not Crossdressing!?" and the chapter ends with MC reacting awkwardly to another person stated to be a crossdresser. While it is possible any of the characters could be transgender to have that be the default assumption, given the context, that must be carefully backed away from in order to be afforded its own central thesis is unreasonable.

I can only extrapolate from years of this type of content that made me feel shitty/I used to beat myself up with in the ol gender closet where the manga (h-manga or not) asserts that no matter what you do to look like your gender, if you've got a dick or there's the authorial injection of "I'm a boy though" the media communicates that gender is an impossible barrier to cross.

This is also the result of projecting your expectations on characters who are not representative of your identity. That characters who are cis reaffirm or have reaffirmed their identity does not imply such a statement about gender. I'm sorry you didn't have media you could identify with before, and that you identified with this kind of content and regret it. It's clear that what you took away from this kind of content was harmful to you, but to a lot of other people it can be reaffirming and positive. This doesn't mean it's transphobic, just that it doesn't represent your identity.

These characters are still bound by masculinity. Do you not see how that hurts for someone who still gets treated as a guy when they aren't that.

Yes, I can see that it could be hurtful based on your experience, but my main thesis in this is that it is not transphobic or even hurtful to trans people in general just because it hurts you. This is quite explicitly why trigger warnings (in our case tags) exist, to allow you to cultivate out things that would be harmful to someone with your experience. The things in this manga that would be harmful if applied to you, or trans people in general, aren't being applied in that way. To extrapolate them into another context and then say that people are being uncritical and the author being transphobic because of this new context which does not fit is not an honest critique.

Good for fuckin you if your experiences aren't shit on by the subculture, I wish mine weren't, I wish things were better represented, but in not gonna naively pretend that this author is actually woke for some highly implausible reason and wants to portray the nuance of gender identity vs gender expression.

Bullshit my experiences aren't shit on by the subculture, there is an absolutely never-ending stream of works that are invalidating and unrepresentative if I think about them relating to me, which is why I don't engage in the kind of content that doesn't represent me as an agent being represented by it.
There is a lot of space in between "transphobic shit" and that kind of nuanced documentarian analysis of gender. There is room for stories, like this and most otokonoko manga, where that nuance is not required as it falls clearly and explicitly on one side of that line, and not having discussion of that boundary be part of every does not make those authors and works transphobic or un-"woke".

The language and portrayal just doesn't match that at all, and if anything is absurd here, it's that ideation. It's not comedy surrounding gnc people, its comedy BECAUSE there are GNC people, it's literally the premise.

I'll have to disagree with your analysis here, the comedy I see in this is very much not the existence of the GNC characters, but their interactions with each other and the MC. The masculinity of several of them is not in itself the joke, but how that plays against the MC who defines his self worth by machismo and is hung up on the fact that his classmates despite being more worthy by his measure have participated in something he sees as emasculating. While this requires there be GNC men, masculine ones even, the humor is very much not just there being masculine GNC characters.

I've never denied that this isn't (assuming this was meant to be is) relatable to GNC gay men, but that can be true at the same time as it being transphobic.

I don't disagree that both can be true, I just disagree that from the context and what exists of the story so far they are both true here. Certainly there are some works (Prunus Girl comes to mind) where much of the plot is based on the line between whether a character is a trans girl or a GNC male, which can be very transphobic if not handled carefully (i.e. Prunus Girl's recurring theme of the main love interest's gender being a choice for the MC, and thus the reader, to make), but it is much harder for something as explicit as this manga to be unintentionally transphobic like that. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the author could include some sort of authorial voice transphobic tirade, but I would not call my jockey on that.

That's a pretty harsh thing to say about people who just want to read a manga that is not in any way transphobic just because you personally don't like it. You can just not like something that is representative of a lot of gay people's experience without contriving reasons to say that the existence of stories about GNC and gay men is transphobic. It's one thing to dislike a trope or believe it would be transphobic in the context of relating to trans people which here it isn't, it is a wholly other level of inappropriate conjecture to say that an author is transphobic because they create otokonoko media which as a genre and subculture in and of itself is transphobic entirely because the author of Re:Zero is transphobic. Consuming work uncritically can certainly be harmful, but to say someone's personal experience is invalid and that they are a bad person whose work other should avoid because it does not allign with your personal experience is a far more harmful idea. Your expectations and interpretation of this, and especially of the surrounding culture which you have flatly dismissed the experiences of members of, are absurd.

last edited at Aug 21, 2020 11:33PM

Just checked out this artist, wow, this was not what I was expecting, lol it's surprising but cool.

Surprise it's 2hu

It has only fallen out of favor with a small portion of the western fanbase, see how r/animemes mods were doxxed and swatted over the ban of the word. Hell, it was controversial when it was banned here.

I don't believe a website only notable for MRA activisim, and publicly banning several trangender welcoming spaces to appear neutral in reaction to banning a fascist and a TERF space, to be a representative sample of the western fanbase. As far as the majority of fans, translators, and western authors I have seen it has almost entirely been swapped out.

Otokonoko is just as porn-y and fetishistic as sh*male as tons of otokonoko stuff gets labeled as yaoi regardless of what that character identifies as.

I'm not sure I understand what your point here is, otokonoko would generally imply that the character identifies as male, which would imply that a gay relationship with them is indeed yaoi/BL? If they don't identify as a male it would indeed be an insulting miscategorization to say a character is an otokonoko or describe their relationship with someone else who identifies as male as yaoi or BL, but that doesn't make the term less useful or appropriate in context very similarly to "femboy" (They're even strikingly etymologically similar with both "boy" and "ko" implying youth or childhood status).

Tr*p and otokonoko which essentially is sh*male. Dont be dense.

The former has fallen out of favor pretty universally in favor of the aforementioned "femboy" on account of it being less offensive and simply more accurate. The latter is not equivalent to what you are saying here. It's much more accurate to "femboy" as it is similarly self-ascribed to GNC males but can be offensive in the context of misapplying it to trans people, very much unlike that third term which exists primarily as slang for a trans woman (It would be more accurate to say that Newhalf is more analogous to said slur, particularly in real life, but that is generally not present on Otokonoko manga.There is also Okama, closely equivalent to "Drag Queen", which again can be offensive to trans people but is not inherently so in its intended context ).

If you cant understand how often an author injects their beliefs about people into their works especially when it's been proven about the topic at hand with Re:zero, which makes some of the same jokes, then I dont think you have a leg to stand on here. It isnt a leap at all, the whole history of crossdressing jp media has been super transphobic and this series so far has learned into that.

While that author being transphobic is unfortunate it is far from proof that Japanese GNC media is transphobic, or even that their transphobia manifested in those jokes in Re:Zero (which I also contest the validity of saying they are "the same" as the ones in this work). Someone can have a positive opinion of GNC experience and a negative opinion of trans experience but that does not mean their experience with gender non-conformance is invalid, it just means that they're an asshole. The thought that the history of crossdressing Japanese media is transphobic is pretty strong conjecture, it may not be representative of trans people or their experience but that is also not what it is based on or aimed towards. While many of the tropes there would be transphobic if applied to transgender people (much in the same way as the femboy/tomboy labels) the fact that they are not, outside a few actually transphobic works, and that they are representative of many GNC people's experience or fantasy is the far more important context. Even so the one chapter of this manga out so far has been pretty subversive of those tropes.

Tomboy gets used IRL in the west to be invalidating, but it's not at all the case in manga, where it's a popular archetype of romance/harem anime.
We're using femboy particularly because the actual words used by fans/creators of this media both in english and Japanese are slurs. Like it should be painfully obvious.

These statements are directly at odds with one another, if one slur is valid because there is a context in which it is appropriate then the other context is not invalidated because it uses slurs (otokonoko? crossdresser? these aren't really slurs in that context).

When they are the butt of the joke, it is easy to extrapolate that the author doesnt respect trans people, it's that simple. Whether it's the "tricked you" deal, or saying "haha look how garish and obvious these guys in drag are", comedies run jokes through the whole chapterand that particular part of it is one. No one in this manga's world acts like being gay is no big deal or is there to make that clear to the audience. You're left with him being gay as the punchline. If you think crossdressing is funny, sorry that just isnt it. The author isnt going ha I'd love to put the world in drag so maybe they'd get a clue, the author uses a world in drag to laugh at the people that don't fit, don't "pass" and to mock men that are attracted to those that do.

That's some pretty wild speculation into authorial intent based mostly on your personal sense of humor and reading very deeply into context that I don't think tracks. I agree that "garish and obvious guys in drag" is not inherently funny as the punchline of the joke (i.e. the scene in the Boku no Pico manga), but it is also not disrespectful to depict characters who do not pass as agents of a comedic interaction even if them not passing is part of what makes that comedic. In this case that being the MC and his machismo leading to him being unable to accept the others despite the fact that they're clearly having a better experience without those hangups. In much the same way the MC having a gay attraction isn't the joke as much as his own hangups keeping him from accepting that when clearly Ueda is having a much better time not having these qualms. Whether that specifically is funny or dramatic depends on how it is depicted, however it isn't disrespectful to make fun of someone who is having a bad time simply for tripping over themselves. As far as the author creating a world to laugh at people that don't fit the only person here who doesn't fit is the MC and, while it is early, I doubt that his view of the world is the one meant to resonate with the reader.

My point on the tomboy things, is they are in a completely different universe than femboys, because of how gender works and how one is tied to a shit ton of transphobia and the other isn't.

Which one? I have personally seen "tomboy" used to invalidate trans men a lot more than I have seen "femboy" in that context. Neither are specifically transphobic, especially when self-described, when used as intended to describe cis people. While calling a trans person either of those can be transphobic when misapplied that is not the intended subject unlike certain other, more offensive terms, it should not be policed generally especually when used towards people who self identify as such.

Dude I am totally inclusive, but Japanese manga does not afford nuanced portrayal of trans and GNC cis people in any way, so what ideas do they intend to promote. Like just try and use your head to imagine what itd be like to be a trans woman in japan when all the old people hate you cause duh and all the young people hate you because the hoard of media presents you as this fetishistic fraudster. The
manga out there simply doesn't afford the nuance. It's well known Re:Zero's author is a transphobe and he pulled all the same shit with Ferris that has been the classic depiction of femboy.

I think there is plenty of room for trans and GNC cis stories that are nuanced or at least not explicitly educational or positive. The author's personal experience and fantasies can be worth telling without having an explicit positive message. There is a fair amount of manga that is educational in this vein but that being the only representation is not materially beneficial to the lives of complex real people. While that kind of story can be a conversation starter people's prejudices cannot be overcome simply by volume of positive or negative representation in media, only by choosing on their own to empathize with other people.

These characters aren't real people, but the author's imagining of them so yes while its rude to assume and project the whole egg deal on real people, that's off the table when its fictional people and you're weighing whether the author is transphobic or relates to the character in some way regardless of their identity, theres speculaction Hemingway was trans based on correspondence and how he had his wife refer to him in the bedroom, he's long dead and lived in a time where trans people were not allowed to exist, so this speculation isnt directly harmful to anyone. Its all done in context and we ultimately afford his identity to how he's been largely referred to. When you look at the context here in manga it's hard not to see them as trans or relatable to the trans experience.

There is no single trans experience and there is no single GNC experience, the fact that someone's experience with one may be relatable to the other does not make their identity invalid. While it is fine to project your experience onto fictional characters, to make claims about the author being transphobic or have expectations of how their story must go because of that projection, without taking into consideration their experience or identity, is harmful. This same kind of projection and expectation from the other direction is where the transphobic idea of AGP comes from. I personally think the characters are relatable to my experience with GNC cis gay men, that does not mean they are not or cannot be trans nor that you are wrong for relating trans experience to them, only that it seems like quite a leap to say that because of that the author's depiction of people stated to be GNC cis males which tracks with common experiences with GNC cis males is transphobic.

Yep, because all crossdressers are either gay, or trans.

When the author doesnt believe trans people are real, then to the author all trans people are simply "cross dressers". Acknowledge trans people and sure they can and do exist. The thing is, these characters tend to "cross dress" all the time, which falls out of the realm of what someone cis would do. Then that presentation becomes how you want other people to know you. Whether that's woman or apparent woman but also man (Genderfluid/NB) it's still a trans identity.

None of this logically tracks, the author depicting GNC cis people doesn’t mean they don’t support trans people, GNC cis people existing is not "out of the realm of what someone cis would do". How someone presents themselves does not have any bearing on whether or not they are valid as a trans or cis person, GNC cis people and their depiction is not replacing or taking away from trans people regardless of whether they are an "apparent woman" or not. The idea that other identities and experiences are invalid because they do not match your experience is exclusionist bullshit. Self identification is what matters and speculating about people who ID as cis/"egg breaking" is inappropriate even if they do come to ID as trans later.

It's that the MC is confused because a dude is giving him a boner.

That gag is homophobic and transphobic, though. Like why is his despair of potentially being gay a funny situation? The character is presented as a trick, the whole reason tr*p is a slur.

Highschoolers having sexual awakening, regardless of orientation or identity, is awkward which is one of the reasons why anything is funny at all. While it can be offensive to imply someone was trying to "trick" another into being gay by dressing cute/crossdressing (especially against trans people), depicting someone being confused about their own sexuality in the face of a crossdresser or trans person is not the same thing at all and is actually representative of people's experience. The idea of that first trope is entirely born out of transphobic or homophobic who have (or believe other, straw-based people, have) experienced the second and want to push the blame for their unwanted sexual/romantic feelings onto someone else. More of the comedy in this however comes from the MC's reaction and the opposite lead teasing him, as the confusion about the opposing lead's gender lasts all of half a page, in pretty stark parallel with the introduction of the female lead of every het romantic comedy manga ever written.

last edited at Aug 21, 2020 2:54AM

Adressing passable femboys by he/him is pretty cringe, ngl.

Respect cis people's pronouns too.

Is it really the same person who have done the yaoi shotacon rape doujins of Touhou ?

That's right, a beacon of hope for the future of this series.

All US comics are about how bad Saddam Hussein is and why we need to balance the deficit. All manga is about fucking lolis. The two can coexist.

The agreed upon term for American comics is "funny pages".

Whats Up with the "its delicious!" Cliche?

"This shit is fucking gross" doesn't exactly make for tantilising yuri. (except maybe for Kitanai Kimi)

Now it makes sense why she hasn't trimmed her nails.

Cash 4 Smash

early Yuru-Camp but with perfect english and some in-tents fucking!

This is not inferior Yuru-Camp.
This is glorious Yama no Susume!

What are you talking about, it's perfect.

"Fix" the Onee-san? How exactly?

Like you "fix" your dog.

Resolution of this drama is easy: FBI Open Up!

FBI ain't gonna do shit.
New guy is a Barr loyalist, and that guy and his OSS dad are decidedly pro-pedophilia (Epstein NPA, mysteriously hiring unqualified Epstein as a prestigious highschool teacher).

last edited at Aug 3, 2020 2:12PM

https://twitter.com/itou8/status/1286651367461777408