#ocelotrambles

[ocelotlesbian]

i went down a rabbit hole of japanese tbhk artists on twitter and my mitsuba folder is so well fed rn... i'm actually shaking like my heart is beating so fucking fast I LOVE FINDING MITSUBA FANART <333 aaaaaaaagh

they weren't lying when they gave me that autism diagnosis

[ocelotlesbian]

technically it's not just nene!! he's portrayed as a dog in a chapter of ashk too when he's begging sakura to help him make friends. so it seems the most "correct" answer is that he's a small dog, but yeah rabbits and cats fit him too!! he's just a cute little critter, simple as that

(also if i can inject my own opinion, he reminds me most of a chihuahua. they have loud and high-pitched yaps which fits with his original jp voice in the anime, chihuahuas are a toy breed which fits with his desire to be cared for, and they're really really tiny which fits with his general inability to keep himself from danger. also i'm just rlly rlly biased towards chihuahuas i fucking love chihuahuas)

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It seems that the fandom has firmly decided that Mitsuba is a pooch.

However. There are a few interesting points to be made about this.

Almost every time Mitsuba is drawn as a dog it is from Nene's perspective

So basically Nene views Mitsuba as a puppy

But more importantly, Mitsuba views himself as a bunny:

"Pyon" is the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound rabbits make.

Also Mitsuba just loves bunnys

On the complete opposite side; Mitsuba also exhibits cat-like behaviour every now and then

Natsuhiko seems very aware of this

He mimir

Nene views Mitsuba as a dog, Natsuhiko sees him as a cat, Tsukasa probably sees him as a bird of sorts, and Mitsuba himself thinks he's a bunny.

The moral of the story is no Mitsuba fan is "incorrect" for saying he's any animal, because at the end of the day he's just a cute little abomination of dying supernatural parts.

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[ocelotlesbian]

he's always staring at mitsuba like his life depends on it what's his fucking deal. never beating those allegations i swear to god

can you quit ogling him for one fucking minute oh my god i'm so sick of you faggots. go to hell

[ocelotlesbian]

hi guyssss!!! so we all read that new chapter yeah?

fun fact!!! even though kou got exorcised, mitsuba did not!! he's still in the red house somewhere!!! alone!!!! just so you guys know ^_^

[ocelotlesbian]

every character can be a lesbian if you try hard enough

[ocelotlesbian]

genuinely so funny to me that even after getting hit with the gender reassignment surgery beam he still had absolutely no clue what was going on. he's just immune to the genderswap episode, he transcends that shit. good for him!!! banger episode

[ocelotlesbian]

i don't think people talk enough about how the first time kou actually exorcised a supernatural was for mitsuba's sake. like come on now

[ocelotlesbian]

i've been thinking over this aspect of his character for a while now and i think i have enough material to make a post about it, so...

> genderqueer mitsuba!!

an analysis on mitsuba's peculiar gender expression and queercoding! ( ´∀ ` )

full post under the cut!!

before i begin, a disclaimer: mitsuba is canonically a boy, and i'm not trying to say he isn't!! he can be a boy and also genderqueer. genderqueer folks can still identify with the "binary" labels of girl or boy, since being genderqueer doesn't require anything aside from having a queer experience with gender. and as i'll explain in this post, his gender is pretty damn queer!!!

also for the record i myself am genderqueer. lesbian flavor

now, to start off: the immediately obvious.

it's pretty obvious that mitsuba is the most gender non-conforming character in the entire manga. from his medium length pink hair neatly tied up in a little ponytail, to more subtle details like his hands being drawn similarly to that of the female characters & his occasionally drawn bottom lashes, which no other male characters seem to have.

along with his general "you should not ask me to lift heavy objects" demeanor, all these more feminine details serve to make him distinct from all the other male characters in the manga, putting him in a kind of seperate category consisting solely of him.

and this idea of him being in his own seperate category ties in with other important aspects of his character as well!

for sousuke, it ties into how he was ostracized from his peers for standing out too much, and for no.3tsuba, it ties into how he feels alienated from humans & other supernaturals and feels as though he doesn't belong anywhere. if you think about it, it's all pretty analogous with the queer experience!

and going further with sousuke specifically, the turning point of his character arc was his conversation with kou on the stairs, where kou essentially tells him that he didn't have to try and fit into a polite box to make himself more likeable, and he can just express himself the way he wants to. ...i don't think i need to explain how this sentiment could easily be tied in with his queerness and gender expression lol

now i could go even deeper into how queercoded mitsuba's character arc is, but i think i'll leave it here for now.

another thing i wanna go over is the genderswap episode of the after school hanako-kun anime. now, the events of this episode including him didn't actually happen in the manga, so the canonicity is rather dubious. but i still think it's worth going over!!

this episode deviates from the manga by having mitsuba join hanako & sakura in the genderswap shenanigans. in the episode, mitsuba gets hit with the gender reassignment surgery beam and... well, basically nothing happens.

the joke here is obviously the fact he already looks like a girl, so you wouldn't really have to change anything in a genderswap, but the part i find the most interesting is how he himself didn't notice a change whatsoever.

i'm not sure how the specifics of the genderswap robot work, but i'd imagine he'd notice something was up, right? so to me, this scene just hammers in the fact that he's just kind of unnaffected by / outside of most things relating to gender. he's in his own gay little corner, he's immune to this shit!!

so in conclusion, mitsuba's gender is in fact very queered!! his queerness & gender expression is extremely interlinked with his character arc and motivations of feeling othered from the rest of the world, and i just felt like this needed to be discussed. and also i love him lots. <3

end of post!!! thank you for reading my autistic ramblings ^_^

[ocelotlesbian]

here's something interesting regarding mitsuba's name in jshk that a lot of people in the english fandom probably don't notice due to language differences!!

kanji vs katakana, 三葉 vs ミツバ !

it's very easy to miss this detail just reading the translated chapters, since english only has one script. however, japanese has multiple!! and in the original japanese text, his name is written differently depending on which mitsuba is being discussed ^_^

for the human mitsuba, his name is written in the kanji writing system, as "三葉惣助," or "mitsuba sousuke"

and for the supernatural mitsuba, his name is written in the katakana writing system, as simply "ミツバ," or "mitsuba"

(for reference, other characters in the manga typically have their names written in kanji or (sometimes) hiragana. the only other character with their name written in katakana is shijima, as mentioned later)

this is obviously important simply to differentiate the two mitsubas, however it gets very interesting once you take into consideration how these different systems are used within the language!!

kanji, within the japanese language, is basically the standard script, and is what's most often used for writing names, specifically surnames, as well as most other words. makes sense!! not much to comment on here.

katakana, on the other hand, is pretty interesting, having much more specific uses!! unlike kanji, katakana represents specific syllables/sounds instead of whole words / concepts, and as such, is often used to transcribe foreign words / loanwords, like the english "ice cream" being written as "アイスクリーム" (aisukurīmu). katakana can also be used for other things, like to spell out sound effects with no kanji available, to differentiate company names from regular family names, or to show that a character is speaking with a foreign / strange accent. so in general, katakana indicates "this isn't a normal word"

so with that in mind, it makes it pretty damn interesting that as a supernatural, mitsuba's name is deliberately spelled with katakana, the script most commonly used for foreign words / words with no kanji available, rather than the kanji that already exists for his name

it emphasizes the fact that this mitsuba isn't the "real" one, he doesn't even have a "real" name, just syllables. he isn't a human. he's a wholly unnatural entity, so it makes sense his name reflects this

(another thing worth mentioning is how no.4 / shijima also has her name written in katakana (シジマ), likely due to the same reason of her not being the "real" shijima mei. she also spells the "watashi" personal pronoun in katakana while the original mei spells it in hiragana, which is interesting too!! this post is mostly about mitsuba, but i figured i'd mention her as well. she deserves more recognition lol)

anyway, that's all!! just another cool detail in this series to take into consideration :3

[ocelotlesbian]

had to unblock you to make this post lol (couldn't tell you why i had you blocked in the first place, but probably for similar reasons to the nonsense in this post.)

as a licensed Woman Lover it is my duty to call it out when female characters get devalued in fandom spaces in favor of male characters, so here we go!!!!

NENE IS THE PROTAGONIST

from wikipedia: "The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience..." yes i used wikipedia, fuck off LOL.

as we all know, nene is the one who the story follows. we hear *her* thoughts all throughout the manga, with one or two exceptions here or there (like kou in the nightlife arc). she's the one who started the entire plot of the manga by summoning hanako. without her, there would be no manga.

it's true that the title has hanako in it, but being the titular character doesn't necessarily make you the protagonist. we *never* hear hanako's thoughts, we *never* see him outside of the context of nene interacting with him. he would fail as a protagonist in every single way.

let me make an analogy: say you have a series called "the bakery" or whatever. the story is told by a girl who frequents a bakery and focuses on the bakery's development as she keeps visiting. in this story, she would be the protagonist, not the bakery. even though the title and plot focus on the bakery, the story is only propelled forward by the protagonist, the girl, thru her visiting. she is the protagonist.

not to mention, the damn manga itself refers to nene as the heroine!!!

and if you need me to spell it out for you further, heroine is another word for "female protagonist."

so while it may be true that hanako and his brother are the focus for much of the story's plot and mystery, *nene* is the one who propells all this forward and whom the story follows in her quest.

diminishing female characters in favor of your beloved male ones isn't cool. it already happens enough in every other work of fiction, and we don't need it more, *especially* not in a story that follows a frankly amazing female lead. i hope you know that

nene isn't real protagonist

nene isn't protagonist just because she appears all the time. The plot mainly focuses on AMANE and TSUKASA. They are the real protagonists.nene has so much time because she is the narrator of this story. She is the one telling this story so the time is focused on her because we are reading what she is telling us. It is obvious that she does not know what is happening with Amane now, we will only find out when they are in the red house.

in Akatsuki no Yona, Haku who I can easily compare to nene took over the role of the the title character where Yona is the most main character, but for a while he became the most main character to such an extent that the fandom started calling this series "Akatsuki no Hak"

the reader with nene is to slowly discover various secrets and learn about the twins, and she may seem important than twins,but she will never be as important as them. They are the most important here, the main storyline and the most important part and axis always lead to Yugi twins like in the current arc. and that's why she will not be as important as Amane and Tsukasa are.

If AR really wanted her as the main protagonist then this series shouldn't focus on the twins plot wise and should have a different name then.

But Hanako-KUN is in the title and no matter how much time she has Amane and his brother will always be more important than her.

[ocelotlesbian]

[ocelotlesbian]

i'm always so astonished by how utterly gorgeous aida's artwork is

the way you can sense so much motion from a scene like this that isn't outright portraying movement in the characters is so impressive to me. it's in the subtle details, like the swaying of mitsuba's scarf & the hanging pieces on kou's staff, and the way the illustration is slightly tilted to make the scene just that much more dramatic...

and the background as well!! i love the way adia's backgrounds fit so seamlessly with the characters. both the characters & the environment they exist in follow the same stylistic rules and it's so wonderful and immersive. everything has such a defined texture and it feels like you could just reach out and touch anything in the page

speaking of texture, aida's textures are fucking insane... the hatching, the little scratches on certain objects, the intricacy of how the hair is constructed & drawn... just look at mitsuba's scarf!!! it's so fucking impressive how well aida can convey the knitting just from black & white linework alone

honestly i could go on, but this post is already kinda long... there's just so much love and care and detail in the artwork of this series and it's so amazing and it inspires me so fucking much <3

okay fangirl ramblings over i <3 adiairo

[ocelotlesbian]

i think people don't talk NEARLY enough about mitsuba's name. "mitsuba" means three-leaved, like a three-leaved clover. people don't notice three-leaved clovers, they instead look for the more interesting four-leaved clovers. nobody pays attention to any individual three-leaved clover, they end up fading into the background. guys. it symbolizes how he sanded down his personality to be more passive and it caused everyone to forget about him.

and this symbolism can even apply to no.3tsuba if you want it to because he's still friendless with nobody to remember him because he's just a supernatural. either way he's still just in the background with nobody paying attention to or caring about him. like a three-leaved clover. guys. are you listening guys. are you listening

[ocelotlesbian]

FINALLY started coloring this holy shit. anyway i love coloring so it should go pretty smoothly i'd say

it's that time of the fucking year again

mitsukou christmas special coming. soon

[ocelotlesbian]

traditional art is so annoying like wdym i can't select this and move the position of it???? wtf is wrong with you

[ocelotlesbian]

hoo boy.