That was cute! Was struck by how it wouldn't take more then some little changes and it would be a really cute and sweet story about a trans girl and her friend/girlfriend.

I mean, you're saying if Hiromu was dmab, yeah? Either way, they're both pretty trans coded characters.

I was hoping for something a little more original than a battle royal knockoff, tbh.

All this drama aside, speaking as a dmab trans person myself, This Is a Good Manga. It has great character development and many concepts of gender are explored in engaging, realistic, and meaningful ways. The characters' transness is never mocked by the author, its always taken very seriously (and yes it gets dark but hey, gender can be pretty fucked up and scary sometimes) and there is even discussion of puberty blockers and HRT for Marika. Also, I'm sure I wasn't the only one of audibly squeed when Marika said "I want to be - No. I am a girl." If you're looking for another series like Hourou Musuko, this is it. And I'm going to say its probably better.

This is trans girl Honoka and no one will be able to convince me otherwise!! Her facial features read verrrrry much like a dmab person on estradiol. As well as the lack of curve in her hips and her somewhat flatter butt make undeniable (!!) cause for this being a fairly wonderful, depiction of real-to-life sex with a trans person!!! Sorry, I just get worked up about any potential healthy trans representation, esp in manga as it is just so rare...

That! Was! So! Adorable! Every story was so on point and gave me wonderful, oh-so-light-hearted summery butterflies, it was great. There was a pinch of drama in (almost) every story that gave it jussssst the right amount of impact to give the story more depth while still maintaining the fun, summery theme of the collection. What a pleasant experience!

Hey yooooo this manga has an actually decent portrayal of a trans character??? What a refreshing discovery! As Meikakuna above me mentioned, I also can't be sure if its just a transnational choice but I'm inclined to believe its not. The way the character speaks about himself is very definitive of his gender, not leaving much room for "accidental" misgendering - which the other characters quickly pick up on.

Just as a warning though, there is a physical outing of the trans character (my only real gripe with the story), which sucks, but the character seems to take it alright and doesn't get too upset about it. Not that it really makes it much better.

Other than that though this manga is super sweet and really enjoyable!

I can't quite make up my mind whether this was a well executed story or not. All of the plot devices were adequately executed, the foreshadowing properly came to fruition, and the characters were developed well enough. But. Something still feels lacking. It might be that it was simply too cliche? Like the author was going through the motions of writing a tragedy piece. Nothing was very surprising and the emotional pay-off - that cathartic heart-dropping feeling we all look for in sad stories - just wasn't there. Okay, it was almost there. There were a few instances that were truly interesting and emotionally gripping i.e. when mokuzu attacks kanajima, and when nagisa's brother finally left the house to help her search for mokuzu's body. But overall, the fallout from the event at the end just seemed slightly underdeveloped. Missing something. Maybe if the "bullets" metaphor had made more sense then it would have been enough for me to be satisfied with the story. But from the very beginning it felt very forced and out of place in the school life setting. Its quite possible that its intricacies of meaning were lost in translation and if so maybe I would change my opinion of this story. But as it stands, the story reads more like a tragedy for tragedy's sake narrative rather than a story that fully utilizes tragedy to catalyze character development and more-than-surface-level emotional responses.

last edited at Nov 2, 2015 2:16AM

Also, we never once saw mister BF calling Emi when she was staying out all night or her calling him to inform him that she will be staying somewhere else. Sure, it could just not be shown, but I'm pretty sure they are just at the point where they don't care about each other private life. Emi doesn't strike my as someone manipulative and deceiving, so I really doubt she was leading double life all this time, and simply kept her bf in the dark.

Yeah, I really am not expecting too much drama from this actually. This series has been written fairly ~miscommunication free~ and it seems mature enough to not have to rely on that crutch for entertainment. Emi has never shown guilt about her relationship with Kei, so I realllllly doubt that there is any emotional attachment left in her previous relationship. She just doesn't seem the type of person that would take cheating so flippantly. And I also wouldn't expect Kei to take Emi's situation personally, she seems like she would be pretty understanding of it, actually. Unless of course Emi goes back to her place and completely screws up explaining things because she's plastered... which wouldn't surprise me either tbh, she's not the most coherent drunk >.<

pls everyone listen to the Justice vs Simian song We Are Your Friends that Kei plays in chapter 3 (it's listed in the credits) its really, really good and it makes Emi's ~sparkly eyes~ reaction to the music make so much more sense because the chorus is literally "because we are your friends, and you'll never be alone again." And Kei is just introducing Emi to her world of DJing and all her DJ friends and is basically putting words to the feelings she hopes to convey to Emi through the music she is playing. And I'm just. So enraptured by this manga its such quality story telling and yeah if anyone needs me I'll be in hell waiting for this to update ...

wow i am so incredibly into this manga. its cute, beautifully drawn, well written and very real. this is everything that i was looking for and im so happy i stumbled upon it. i am already totally sucked into these characters in just 3 chapters and i so so so hope to see much more of this series c: