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It's kind of really hard to articulate just how cruel this manga is to trans people to its target audience, teenage boys and those who have never advanced past that level of maturity. Necessarily, that's your company if you are going to whinge about that criticism.

To preface this, I first read this manga in december of 2015 as a closeted bi guy/thing... in deep denial about her own gender. At the time, I had simply tagged it as "hilarious, great ending". Certainly, I was a naive little shit, as I've attempted to re-read this. 90% of the humor is derived from sexual assault. The other ... is very cishet-normative knife-twisting for anyone here for the "accidentally" queer and trans main character the author created. Now to back up to the cruelty. Look no further than Nanatarou Yamada's character and backstory. I don't mind spoiling yet another cruel punchline, but the Yamada family's recurring "joke" is essentially "a penis in women's underwear is disgusting, right?". Never mind the fact that Yamada Sr. is a textbook "transvestite groomer" that would have the likes of the Daily Wire frothing at the mouth. The character's role in the story is simply to remind the young boys reading that it would be disgusting and perverted for a male to wear lingerie, though since our protagonist has magically been made not into a boy, it's ok. If it appears contradictory... don't worry, they'll be plenty more punchline at Nanatarou's expense to remind you of the foolishness and depravity of cross-dressing running parallel to the bio-essentialist justifications that exempt the protagonist for doing much of the same.

When the other "pervert" chimes in with a "love transcends gender" after the first 25 odd chapters, you're meant to find it a ridiculous notion, Especially, as he has only been sexually assaulting/harassing the protagonist. At every turn the manga is attempting this kind of thing. Whether it's the crush asserting it is impossible for people to change sex, or casual dismissal of lesbian/gay romance, or in case of the latter, contemptuous dismissal. There isn't so much a butt of the joke here, as much as it's "This is gross, don't you think, laugh if you agree." Much like any south park or what have you, it's cruelty for the sake of cruelty. There was a limit to how much I could really stomach, and so I cut my morbidly curious reread short. I skipped to the end, where in some miraculous fashion the main character really was trans the whole time, given the choice to choose whether to go back again, she chose not to.

It does little to ingratiate me to its defenders or lessen the cruelty exacted previously, the level of sexual assault heaped onto our canonically trans main character (i don't particularly mind an unrealistic transition) as a comedic punishment for being the way she is. Which, is essentially the dynamic between her and the childhood friend the entire run. "He's sexually assaulting this person now because haha they changed sex. This is all happening because she is really a he and he is really a she, laugh along while her suffering titillates you, now." Reading this over again was really an exercise in self harm. Trans people, stay away from this one, please, I beg you. Screw any kind of reddit-tier suggestion to this. By god. I don't think I could ever calculate the extent of what reading this through as a teen did to me, as this was one of many sources of radiation poisoning at the time, but all I can say is stay the hell away.

Looking back on this series from when I first read it in high school, as a "boy" I gave it a then harsh score of five. I can't quite pin exactly what drew my ire. I think it mostly boiled down to feeling as though the "wrong" choice was made, or yet a deep seeded envy over how easily a trans girl was loved by her parents, and a lack of overt admission that even before, Hazuma was always a girl. It's left to subtext, which much like Class S of yore is a product of its time perhaps?? I'm not so sure, though, ... given how like nearly a decade and a half later we haven't had like a trans female lead in a serialized GL of this length like at all. In any case, my re-read was brought these to a head.

I definitely could feel the weight of an unspoken transness sort of suffocate and crowd out where this could have gone. There's a small glimmer of like, oh this major character finally stopped misgendering her, will everything else follow suit? Nope! Ok, will she assert herself? Nope! Does she have those happy moments of "holy shit im a girl now" Absolutely. but that's about it. On the flipside, everything about the narrative seemed to build towards a daring gamble, a divergent, third option, that even alien-san seemed to subtextually acknowledge. That being polyamory. The two interests were happy to form an alliance with one another, and the text, in my opinion at least indicated that their shared love of Hazuma could bring them close enough together. Just a sorely missed opportunity. Chapter after chapter of "I feel the same for each of them" and "If she's happy, that's what matters most" from Yasuna/Tomari. There wasn't really a rationalization of one person over another.

It was really disappointing. I hope the future brings us something better for the transbians out here. A not insignificant portion of us are polyam and/or find it hard to turn the envy off and sink into the fantasy it provides (an instant smooth transition that is socially accepted by all... minus egregious misgendering lol) to the point where I can't say too many will find what they're looking for here.