As much as I appreciate the translator's notes, I'm still not sure whether what I read was intentionally wholesome, or a mean spirited "parody" by somebody with such horribly bad takes they ended up proving what they disagree with on accident.

I thought about this ambiguity over the day, because there's the usual narrative of "transfems are delusional, look at how (physical traits nobody has any control over and carry no moral value), they look pathetic and disgusting trying to be cute", but what imo makes it different from plain, undeniable transmisogyny is that there's also a self-harm aspect to it due to dysphoria, but the sort that hits others inevitably, similar to the drawings of a manmoder you'd see from /tttt/ and similar spaces (if you haven't seen those it's probably best not to look for them, since it is a form of self-harm and may hit a little hard those who are currently dysphoric).

This work is the fruit of a fetish, but there's a reason this fetish came to be, and often it's a very depressing one. "This man is trying to cross the impenetrable barrier that separates him from a woman, and deserves to be ridiculed for being a freak." so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the author is trans and repressing... even if transmisogynistic self-hatred isn't something that should be incentivized. Dysphoria and shame destroys the mind and you can't blame anyone for coping like this.

Let's not pretend none of us old men here reading yuri wouldn't switch in a heart beat if it was real possibility haha

Every "man" should try estrogen at least once. If you want to be a girl you can be one, it's never too late to live as yourself.

last edited at Aug 18, 2025 4:13AM

Also, interesting ambiguity in the last panel, where it's not clear whether people subscribe or unsubscribe. (Tbh, probably both.)

I think it's people subscribing. If you look at page 12 when the vtuber starts streaming in the bottom left, there's the click effect and the button says "Start Streaming". Normally after you click it, the button text should change to something like "Stop Streaming", so in this case, the panel is showing what everything looks like right before the click.

if page 20 is consistent with page 12, then "Subscribe" is what the button says right before the click whereas if the viewers were trying to unsubscribe, the button should say "Unsubscribe" instead.

I think it's people subscribing. If you look at page 12 when the vtuber starts streaming in the bottom left, there's the click effect and the button says "Start Streaming". Normally after you click it, the button text should change to something like "Stop Streaming", so in this case, the panel is showing what everything looks like right before the click.

if page 20 is consistent with page 12, then "Subscribe" is what the button says right before the click whereas if the viewers were trying to unsubscribe, the button should say "Unsubscribe" instead.

The text in the original is 登録済 so it should be "subscribed". I think what matters is if the clicking is coming first or after. If first, they're subscribing, if after, they're unsubscribing. I agree with you though, I believe they're subscribing to her.

My own personal read on this is that it's less about gender dysphoria (Though that does play a role) and is more about mental health in general. For instance, Akumu clearly sees herself as 'Akumu' and that's not just a mental image but her own personal reality. She does not recognise that the clothes she's buying are several sizes too large, she does not recognise the deepness of her own voice, she looks in a mirror and does not see herself.

It's only when she begins to hear the chatter from her viewers that her reality begins to crumble, we visibly see Akumu's face morph away to be replaced with her actual face. In my mind, this shows that she's actually suffering from schizophrenia or perhaps DPD and is trapped in a delusion that is perhaps being influenced by her gender dysphoria.

I could quite easily see this as a story of someone who started streaming not even realizing they had underlying mental health issues, perhaps picking a female avatar to help boost viewership only to find themselves knee deep in a delusion without even realizing it. In my mind, this makes the ending somewhat happy because she's broken free of the delusion she was trapped in, seems to have reconciled her body image with herself and in general seems to be in a better place mentally.

You can do a lot of interpretation and analysis but ultimately the oneshot is beat-for-beat common transmisogynistic tropes. Just a very nasty-feeling piece of manga if you're anywhere near the affected groups. MilesVelocity was right

last edited at Aug 18, 2025 10:58AM

Agreed, I don't really know where the positive interpretation of this is coming, or even why it was uploaded here, because in the end it's still a transmisogynistic caricature (I later looked through the author's social and I don't really think this is a self-harm case like I thought it was before, and even if it was, it's not really something you shove on the people who are going to be incredibly affected by it with NO warning!) where the joke is that she's bald, fat, old and acting feminine and everyone thinks she's crazy... which is all the author draws (おじさんのTSFと女装男子ばっかり描いています。). I'm not even transfem and it made me feel unwell to read it.

I don't know, there's nothing "wholesome" about it.

This reminded me of Perfect Blue

Agreed, I don't really know where the positive interpretation of this is coming, or even why it was uploaded here, because in the end it's still a transmisogynistic caricature (I later looked through the author's social and I don't really think this is a self-harm case like I thought it was before, and even if it was, it's not really something you shove on the people who are going to be incredibly affected by it with NO warning!) where the joke is that she's bald, fat, old and acting feminine and everyone thinks she's crazy... which is all the author draws (おじさんのTSFと女装男子ばっかり描いています。). I'm not even transfem and it made me feel unwell to read it.

I don't know, there's nothing "wholesome" about it.

Well that's disappointing to hear, I haven't seen any of the authors other works, I thought this work offered a decent portrayal of schizophrenia/DPD at some level. I still think it does honestly, but it hardly means much if the authors intent was just to make mean-spirited jabs at people they don't like.

Calling transfems delusional is a very common form of transmisogyny, but it's not that you're wrong about it exactly, because it is about a trans woman whose mind was so destroyed by dysphoria reality is completely beyond her. I said it wasn't in my other post, but idk, could very well be transphobic self-harm still, it often is, just that, no matter what, it's still a transphobic depiction, very depressing and I believe it needed a proper warning.

I can already see certain people posting this comment section later to some social media site to be transphobic against trans people for daring to feel uncomfortable over something that the more I look at it the more it's just obviously meant to be transphobic garbage full of hate.
I really don't know why the fuck this was uploaded here of all sites and even if I get made fun of for this I don't think it should be here.

god this is brutal to read if youre transfem

Yeah, I'm trans but not transfem, and this oneshot was so sad and brutal that I needed to take a breath of air after reading it.

Let's not pretend none of us old men here reading yuri wouldn't switch in a heart beat if it was real possibility haha

Literally I will mail you estrogen, no! This was me on this website for like 7 years before I figured it out!

last edited at Aug 18, 2025 10:24PM

I can kind of see from a certain perspective why the translator read this in a positive way, but I find it very hard to believe that was the intent. At best, this is about a disgusting caricature of transfemininity finding people who will embrace her cringe. I guess you could say it's better than God killing her or whatever, but the trans effigy remains the butt of the joke from start to finish.

perfect blue vibes
i'm depressed now, and I don't even have skin in the game. wtf

I bet if this was adapted to a movie in Hollywood it would sweep at the Oscars

god this is brutal to read if youre transfem

as a fellow transfem, yeah this definitely was brutal. exacerbated my dysphoria for a day after. definitely not something to read on a whim that's for sure.

I can already see certain people posting this comment section later to some social media site to be transphobic against trans people for daring to feel uncomfortable over something that the more I look at it the more it's just obviously meant to be transphobic garbage full of hate.
I really don't know why the fuck this was uploaded here of all sites and even if I get made fun of for this I don't think it should be here.

I'm with you, this needs to be deleted from the site!

last edited at Aug 19, 2025 4:53PM

I can already see certain people posting this comment section later to some social media site to be transphobic against trans people for daring to feel uncomfortable over something that the more I look at it the more it's just obviously meant to be transphobic garbage full of hate.
I really don't know why the fuck this was uploaded here of all sites and even if I get made fun of for this I don't think it should be here.

I second this

jesus christ why would someone draw this and why would anyone translate it and put it on dynasty of all sites. this sucks

I'm inclined to agree with the commenters here at this point. The final page really cements the fact that any ambiguity about the protagonist is unintentional, and the purpose of the story is to laugh at the transphobic caricature.

if you wanna draw a series about a fat old trans woman you can do that, but this isn't it. Theres something to be said about stories with non-passing characters, but this is more of "haha isnt this mental illness funny" type story. Theres no attempt to make it a reality even when the mc dresses up. No shaving or wig or anything that might make it seem remotely possible for someone to actually transition.

Its entirely "man in dress is funny" and not "old fat trans woman learns how to express herself".

Yeah this story is super fuckin' bigoted.

This story is quite unambiguously positive about her appearance. People are so used to irony that they can’t accept that something might be exactly what it seems on the surface, and not part of some elaborate plan that actually the main character being presented as the bad guy.

Sigh. Would be a terrible shame if we started erasing trans-adjacent stories because they show the slightest hint of problematic elements. Can we not do that please?

I've cooled down since my initial comment and while I don't agree on its removal (more like, it wasn't tagged properly and it's not something to read when you're not feeling well) I read it as focused on the humiliation that comes from trying to act feminine while considered the complete opposite of, which is fine, this sort of thing is going to pop up in certain trans spaces especially when people are trying to make fun of themselves, so I wouldn't say it's unambiguously positive, but it's likely I'm misunderstanding what you mean.

last edited at Aug 20, 2025 11:18AM

This story is quite unambiguously positive about her appearance. People are so used to irony that they can’t accept that something might be exactly what it seems on the surface, and not part of some elaborate plan that actually the main character being presented as the bad guy.

Sigh. Would be a terrible shame if we started erasing trans-adjacent stories because they show the slightest hint of problematic elements. Can we not do that please?

I don't think it needs to be removed but I don't know what you mean by people being overly suspicious. Like this oneshot looks pretty bad if taken at face value. I don't think anybody mentioned the main character being a bad guy, the manga just makes him look insane and pitiful. "Crazy but in a pitiful way" is a popular type of transmisogynistic caricature.

This story is quite unambiguously positive about her appearance. People are so used to irony that they can’t accept that something might be exactly what it seems on the surface, and not part of some elaborate plan that actually the main character being presented as the bad guy.

Sigh. Would be a terrible shame if we started erasing trans-adjacent stories because they show the slightest hint of problematic elements. Can we not do that please?

idk, if it were "unambiguously" positive, there wouldn't be this much argument around it. i would say it's very much ambiguous and up to the reader's interpretation. i also have strong doubts that the author even intended to write a trans story so much as a "weird delusional old man" one. even taking the charitable angle of it being self-referential, it's clearly setting up the main character to be mocked (both within the story and by the reader).

i poked around the replies to the original work, and they were all along the lines of "ew creepy" or "that was hilarious". i think there's a tendency for eng speakers (including translators) to put japanese works on a kind of pedestal. like, they're inherently more meaningful or deep or whatever. but this is just garden variety transphobia. you can analyze it all day if you like, but the creator only intended it as an elaborate bigoted joke.

i'm a cis girl so i have no skin in this one. i also can competently understand japanese. this is plainly clear to me. i won't argue for or against removal, but i will say that if it stays, it should have some kind of warning tag for the transphobia. this is dynasty, we have warning tags for penises on specific page numbers. we can afford a bigotry content warning tag too