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u/scylecs

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waitress more mizuki gender discourse please!

pride month isn't even over yet and i've already seen at least 3 posts arguing over mizuki's gender, with the exact same rehashed arguments of people explaining how mizuki in the story desperately wants to be seen as just a regular girl, and transphobes refusing any explanation because they ontologically reject transgender experiences. idk how anyone could still see the value in arguing against people who think children can't be trans and trans adults must've magically sprouted from the ground or something but this discourse continues to pop up all the time and the mods still refuse to do anything about it, so let me lay the groundwork on why this discourse needs to be banned already ‎

  1. there is absolutely no value in still arguing over mizuki's gender because the game and its dev team has already repeatedly and clearly stated that mizuki is a girl ‎

  2. misgendering or arguing against mizuki's gender is and always is transphobic

  3. i know the general consensus here is people hate seeing mizuki gender discourse showing up over and over

to expand on the first point, here are just a few of the instances i found where the original Japanese version of the game and the people directly involved with creating said original Japanese version of the game very clearly and unambiguously tell you what mizuki's gender is. this isn't even some reading or implication from the story (which itself is already very evident to anyone with the slightest idea what being trans actually is) but those people involved in building mizuki up as a character directly telling you mizuki is a girl ‎

‎1. the in-game achievement "ボーイズマスター" (literally "boys master" in english but spelled in japanese) has the requirement "男性メンバーのみで100回ライブする" (play 100 lives with only "男性" (male) "メンバー" (members)). obtaining this title very specifically requires that you not have mizuki in your team. having her on your team outright disqualifies you from earning this achievement, thus very explicitly stating that mizuki is not a "男性メンバー" (male member) ‎

  1. in a stream by mafumafu where he discusses his work composing n25's untitled song「Composing the Future」 and mizuena's 「Cellphone Love Story」, at around 9:25, he says "その、25時ナイトコードでっていうグループが、あの、女の子キャラのグループだったんだよ？ちょっとなんか、クールな感じの、ま、暗めな感じのというか。". here, he specifically introduces n25 as "女の子キャラのグループ" which translates directly to "a group made of girl characters", followed by "だったんだよ" which is a casual Japanese expression usually following a statement of fact used to put emphasis on that fact, so mafumafu's not just saying "n25 is a group of girls" he's more like saying "n25 is a group of girls you know!" which points to him definitely knowing n25's story (obviously he has to to write those songs) and is emphasizing this point ‎

  2. in a similar vein, in the interview with ena5's production team, n25 was emphasized as a girls group with the entirety of n25 referred to with "彼女たち" (those girls), a very formal way to specifically address a group of girls, instead of the gender neutral and much more commonly used and natural sounding "彼ら" (they) ‎

‎4. if you look at the bonus details tab of a gacha, it explicitly categorizes the clothing as "着用可能メンバー" meaning "着用" (wear/use) "可能" (possible) "メンバー" (member) followed by "ladies - all" or "mens - all" in english. pay close attention to the wording here. it doesn't say something like "女性服" (female clothing) or even feminine clothing, but specifically goes out of its way to state that only members who are ladies can wear these clothing, and mizuki falls under the ladies category, and not the mens category ‎

  1. mizuki's 4* card 「お先に失礼！」 comes with the outfit named 「爛漫娘花衣」 or "Luxuriant Girl Flowery Dress" in english. here "娘" unambiguously means "girl/lady/maiden". this outfit specifically made for mizuki and even comes with a unique accessory for mizuki refers to mizuki as a girl ‎

  2. in ena5's event aftertalk with mizuena's va satohina and minoringo, it is revealed at around 2:20 that the director specifically told minoringo to voice the dialogue as a "キャットファイト" (catfight), and that mizuena are to have a catfight. if you still want to act obtuse about the definition of "catfight", here's how Japanese people define it:キャットファイト（英語: catfight）は、女性同士の取っ組み合いの喧嘩またはそれを見せる興行のこと。 (catfight refers to a quarrel between women or the act of displaying such a quarrel) ‎

  3. in mysekai, couches are coded so that male and female characters cannot sit together on it at the same time (the stage must be colorful at all times). in this regard, mizuki is once again counted as a female character and can only sit with other female characters. also it's incredibly telling that colpal won't even let boys and girls sit on the same couch together but lets mizuki have a full-on sleepover with the other n25 girls before she even came out to them ‎

  4. sekai.best datamined this and the game's internal file names for the l2d files of the characters' middle school sprites end with jc or dc, with jc short for joshi chuugakusei (female middle school student) and dc short for danshi chuugakusei (male middle school student) (just like how you've probably heard of jk being used as joshi kousei or female high school student). for example, rui and tsukasa's middle school sprites are called 16rui_dc and 13tsukasa_dc, whereas ena and mafuyu's are called 19ena_jc and 18mafuyu_jc. mizuki's middle school sprite is called 20mizuki_jc. despite the sprite being mizuki boymoding with the male middle school student uniform wearing absolutely nothing feminine on her and literally presenting as much as a boy as she could, the team still took extra care to make sure that the file name states that this is a middle school girl, even if she doesn't look like one, even if she's wearing the wrong uniform, even if she's still in the closet, the file name still genders her correctly.

this community has a lot of misconceptions over this but mizuki's gender isn't ambiguous, it's censored. mizuki coming out to kanamafu is something that has been alluded to since mizuki's first focus and making that scene fade to black throws away years of buildup. in IDSMILE, mizuki even sings about how her identity is her very own that she will never yield to anyone. this is once again the writers telling you no one else should get to decide a different identity over hers. mainstream media has a decades-long history of censoring queer representation and there's mountains of documentations attesting to that. it shouldn't even be a surprise colpal that has already censored other parts of the story (such as n25 being suicidal) will also try to censor mizuki being trans. in spite of all that, the actual devs/writers/artists/composers are still trying their best to circumvent colpal's censorship by telling you mizuki's a girl in as much places as they can. at this point mizuki has been referred to as a girl more times than bridget has, yet the censorship is still effective enough to mislead much of the community. the writers made one of the best and most relatable trans stories, and the people who really need it right now deserve more than to have to constantly fend off transphobes just to have a space to discuss it with others

misgendering and arguing against mizuki's gender are undeniably transphobia, and a subreddit that allows bigotry is not a safe space for queer people. while the community may be able to downvote some of the bigoted comments and posts, just downvoting doesn't remove them, doesn't prevent further bigots from piping up, and doesn't prevent queer people from continuously being battered by harmful rhetoric. it's why no amount of downvotes have prevented mizuki's gender discourse from keep showing up. quite frankly, this sub has not been a safe space for queer people. the subreddit rules and report options don't even include a stance against bigotry. how can a community safeguard against bigotry if the rules aren't even against it? i'd really like for this subreddit to actually take a stand by finally implementing a rule against bigotry and banning transphobes misgendering or arguing against mizuki's gender, but if this place can't be a safe space for queer people, then there needs to be one that is. there needs to be a space where people can discuss mizuki's story without ever having to worry about arguing over mizuki's gender

u/scylecs — 7 days ago