The direct connection between "I got cancer" and "I gonna live as a woman" is not yet established within the manga, but it's quite easy to deduce the possible reason: it's the "oh god I don't wanna die as a man" dysphoric thought.

While you as a reader are absolutely free to pencil in whatever impressions and implications you want into the story, I still think it is utterly pointless to do so in these cases, imposing an interpretation upon a work that was never intended or likely even thought about by the author.

I find the combination of the above rant with the nickname of the person who made it ("UranusAndNeptuneAreJustCousins") extremely ironic.

tbh, i kinda thought this was a last chapter cause of the way it looked. hoping for more, trans mangas are very rare after all uwu

There's 13 "main" chapters and 2 volume extras. We've just reached the end of volume 1.

Here, the guy is probably thinking that he likes Rika as a girl and that's what makes him conflicted, because it's really important for Rika to be seen as a boy by someone, so it's a form of betrayal.

Yes, this is clearly indicated with the line "It'd be nice if she was really my girlfriend." with my emphasis on the word girlfriend. It confuses absolutely no one that Satsuki had a fleeting thought of Rika as his girlfriend and Satsuki is perfectly aware this is a betrayal to him.

I would like you to drop the alarmist attitude in the future. Our conversation in Discord was way better than that.

last edited at Oct 25, 2022 3:11AM

I also happen to be a translator, but for a different series. I only typeset here, but I do observe both the japanese and translated english and I talk with the TL in case I notice something is off.

It's just that it's something invented by the translator for the western readers.

For your info: inventing stuff is actually a major part of your job as a translator. If the pun used in the original relies on specifics on how language works, you replace it with a different pun that both makes sense in the context and evokes the same reaction in the target audience. If a japanese reader reads a pun in japanese and has a chuckle, but the english reader reads a "literally translated pun" and then a TL note explaining how the pun works then the english reader will get a "aha". This means you failed as a translator.

A random anecdote: I have translated "maou shoujo" as a "maniacal girl" (which is, yet again, something I invented as a translator) before and a bunch of people asked me why couldn't I keep it as "maou shoujo." Turns out that "maou shoujo" is a compromise between "conveying the pun in english (with regards to magical girl/mahou shoujo)" and "conveying the meaning in english" by achieving none of these goals.

You yourself admitted that typical usage of japanese genders people less often than english, so here we're doing the most natural thing to make the english fluent and idiomatic, and we create the pronouns basing off the context, with the most obvious example being Uncle Kengo who first used "-chan", until Rika came out to him and he started using "-kun" (which you also yourself admitted is gendered), which means he assumed Rika was a girl, but later on he corrected himself. Therefore it makes perfect sense for him to use "she/her" before and "he/him"/that guy afterwards, as this is what would have happened if they spoke english.

I'm smelling some bad faith argument here, but I'm not going to address it, and instead I'll go with "I see what you're doing here."

As for using "they/them": would not work here as "using they/them until we learn other people's gender" is a progressive stance, and it's not that common. And using they/them some contexts can be weaponized - when a person doesn't respect someone else's gender, but would get trouble for misgendering they instead resort to using "they/them" on purpose even when that person doesn't use these pronouns. Neither of these cases apply.

And also would not evoke the equivalent reaction in japanese and english reader.

last edited at Oct 17, 2022 1:10PM