Sazanami Cherry

It's nice to see one of these guy-drawn-as-fanservice-girl otoko-no-"ko" gigs that actually has some heart to it instead of being just a vapid fetish-fest of the type that I keep seeing lately.

 

Except maybe that's just because these scans are three years old. I don't know, as someone who enjoys seeing gender roles knocked down I find most gender-bender stuff attractive but I don't know what to feel about most of the ecchi "trap" stuff kids seem to be reading these days.

chronodekar--Yeah, you not beginning is probably a good thing.
Metrosio--"Should we always default to "person is cis" if not explicitly stated though?" Well, that's a good question. I'm not committed to an answer, but one point that comes to mind is simply numeric. Most people are cis. Very few are trans. Even among people who at one time were male (and may or may not still be) and who currently dress as women a lot, I think the majority would still not be trans. So, I mean . . . there are albino crows, but we still assume crows are black. Kind of marginalizing for the albino ones, but it would be awful cumbersome to ditch the whole crow=black thing as a working assumption.

Does it make me a shallow person for being able to stomach shounen ai only in situations where one of the characters is a complete trap?

Great ending, thanks Hachimitsu Scans!!

A nice little romance manga. Short but sweet.

They both know that they are both guy.
So yes, it's shounen ai.

And, i highly recommended Reversible! and Prunus Girl if you like this one.

There are so many things I find morally objectionable to this story, that I don't know WHERE to begin.

-chronodekar

This could be a very cute and relatively positive portrayal of a trans girl, something that is staggeringly rare otherwise.

Yeah, I would like to see more stories that deal with this sort of thing (positively). I think I saw one that dealt with the subject somewhat, but I can’t remember the name :/ I also recall a manga that dealt with the issues of people who were intersex. But I digress.

I’ll use a spoiler tag since I wrote a wall of text…

A character using "boku" is a pretty weak argument for them self-identifying as a boy. It's not uncommon for it to be used by girls, particularly younger girls. I suppose there is the far off possibility that Ren identifies as a boy and just enjoys wearing feminine clothing all the time as well as being treated like a girl. The manga never outright states it though, and for that matter doesn't outright state that Ren identifies as a girl either. Should we always default to "person is cis" if not explicitly stated though? This could be a very cute and relatively positive portrayal of a trans girl, something that is staggeringly rare otherwise.

Actually, Ren self-identifies as a boy, making him a cross-dresser, not trans. It doesn’t translate over very well, but in the original Japanese Ren uses “boku” as his personal pronoun, which is a masculine pronoun used by boys and young men.

He also said that he dresses and acts like a girl because he wants to. It leans more towards gender expression than gender identity (Ren also refers to wearing girl clothes as cross-dressing; a transgender individual would never call themselves a cross-dresser, because they aren’t). Yes, Ren is most comfortable expressing himself as a girl, and even being treated as a girl, but he never actually identifies as one.

So, as far as we are shown, Ren is a cross-dressing boy, so it is shounen ai, and is actually a part of the otokonoko genre. In fact, I’ll say that this is probably one of the best examples of otokonoko shounen ai.

This is not shounen ai. A romance between a girl and a guy is not homosexual, no matter if they are cis or trans.

Oh! This is actually pretty good~
And it sure hit the right spot for me ( shounen ai and trap fanboy )

Well, sure, someone who crossdresses isn't the same as someone who wants to change their gender identity. But Ren's been more comfortable presenting as female for basically her whole life; being identified as a girl consistently makes her happy, and in every scene where someone tells her that she's a boy, it's treated like something deeply hurtful. The word is never used in the manga (the mangaka seems to be barely aware that's it's a legitimate life choice that someone can make) but as it is, Ren's a classic trans girl. And since that's the case, Metrosio was right. It's a straight relationship. Regardless of the state of her body, Ren's a girl. Tagging it as shounen-ai is flat wrong.

In any case, even though it's kinda problematic how there's nobody in the manga who seems to have the faintest idea that there are, in fact, hormone treatments that would help Ren's body develop as she wishes - I guess that's a problem with Japan, more than anything - I'm super happy to find a cute little love story involving a trans girl where the ultimate message isn't "playing around with gender is fine for kids, but eventually, you've got to grow up and stop messing around". It's not perfect, but even this much acceptance in a relatively easygoing manga is really nice to see.

And I love that Kazuhiro doesn't spend the whole story stressing about what gender Ren really is, or if he's alright with dating a trans girl, or whether this makes him gay or not. It doesn't take him long to get used to the idea, and he ends up championing Ren's right to be herself more than anyone else. Sure, it's common for people to have some problems with trans people, but I really appreciate the fact that the story isn't primarily about the feelings of the straight guy, for once.

What? This is not a straight relationship at all. Even if you crossdress, you are never considered a girl. That's common sense.

Why is this listed as shounen ai? It's a straight relationship after all...

He began reading AKB-49 and since then I've been interested in the genre "Gender Bender"

I really liked this story, it would be great to see a continuation!

Besides the story, another reason why I like this genre, is because in general most have a very attractive art work.

I usually don't even stop to read the description for this genre, but this manga is fairly tame and short. It was interesting to read something like this for once.