Senpai is an Otokonoko: Senpai is an otokonoko

July 15, 2024 12:48 PM - Season 1, Episode 1

Horny bisexual disaster girl Aoi Saki confesses her feelings for Hanaoka Makoto. He reveals that he is actually a cross-dressing boy. This does not dampen her ardor, but he rejects her out of worry that his reputation will affect hers. Makoto's childhood friend, Taiga Ryuji, is suspicious of Saki's motives, but he has a secret of his own.

I'm planning to post episodes as I get around to watching them, but if someone else gets to it first, I don't mind.

posted by eruonna (5 comments total)

So I came into this knowing basically nothing. I saw some Saki posts on Mastodon and had to track down the source.

As a trans woman, I definitely related to Makoto. I worry that this will be interpreted as saying that Makoto is trans, which is not what I mean. As far as I can tell from the series so far (and the translation, which adds its own layer), he understands himself to be a boy who prefers a femme presentation. Still there are many experiences in common. The ending scene where he says goodbye to his real self was especially moving to me.
posted by eruonna at 1:00 PM on July 15

Oh, and not to double post, but one other thing I thought was interesting was the choice to leave otokonoko untranslated in the title and at one point in the subtitles. They certainly translated onnanoko as girl and may have translated otokonoko as boy at one point. I'm not sure what that might indicate.
posted by eruonna at 1:03 PM on July 15

Boy in Japanese is 男の子, pronounced otoko-no-ko, written with the characters 男 (male) and 子 (child).

The word in the title is 男の娘, also pronounced otoko-no-ko, but written with 娘 (daughter) instead of 子.

This is a common phenomenon in Japanese where changing how a word is written, without changing the sound, can add different meaning or nuance. 男の娘 originated as internet slang in the 2000s and still might not be found in common Japanese dictionaries.

男の娘 is often translated with terms like “cross dresser” but it encompasses various types of femme-presenting AMAB people, so there is certainly some overlap with trans women (similar to how transgender people in the West may have lumped into categories like “transvestite” at various places and times in the past).
posted by mbrubeck at 3:26 PM on July 15 [8 favorites]

(Actually, for even more nuance, otokonoko in the title is written phonetically おとこのこ, so it can be interpreted either way.)
posted by mbrubeck at 4:00 PM on July 15 [3 favorites]

Thanks for the explanation! I guess that highlights the difficulty of conveying the cultural context. I've been thinking about how much of what I am getting is from the original or is a decision made by the translators.
posted by eruonna at 7:27 PM on July 15