Moonchild's Topics (241)

Have you heard of analogies?

The point of this series is to explore feminist issues through the genre of yaoi. It's speculative fiction. Omegas only exist on paper, but the narratives behind omegaverse are formed by patriarchal thinking.

I can understand that perspective because a lot of the times I also feel that way towards A/B/O stories that repackage women's struggles with little to no nuance. But in this case, I would have to disagree because this manga's A/B/O premise is centered on the world's declining female population (as opposed to stories where women exist in the background while men/male omegas are centered when exploring patriarchal violence/discrimination). The patriarchy was never dismantled with women's disappearance, but reinforced once half(?) of the male population developed the ability to get pregnant.

It's an interesting concept imo!

^ This, plus the author said on twitlonger that she felt the media already uses the grief and struggle of women to get off on womens suffering and thus trivializing it for the sake of entertainment. Meanwhile men's struggles andsuffering is taken as serious when compared to women. So she wanted to flip it and have men struggling and suffering due to issues that women face.

She also mentioned she was tired of the uptick of media in Japan having plot lines with women being abused, assaulted, killed, ect for the sexual gratification of the viewers, tragedy porn, and or woman in the fridge type purposes, and didn't want to add more of that to the world. She also said she'd rather see men suffer.

I love her so much

No wonder I find this manga so comforting to me, the author thinks just like me lol

And yeah the way she portrays it isn’t to replace women and center men, it’s def meant to show different issues that women go through, yet are constantly downplayed just cause they’re women.

And for omegaverse (which usually have female dominated fandoms), she even addresses internalized misogyny in that aspect. I def could be reading too into this, but that’s probably one of the messages she’s tryna portray

Ur looking at it in an extremely shallow way. We do have a looot of media that potrays women suffering and some people gets tired of it and find it somewhat disturbing, me included. It hits to close to home, and make us feel miserable instead of being comforted. Changing the gender not only makes us feel the barrier between the fictional and reality, it also lets us see the struggle we faced everyday in an outsider's perspective so we can judge it without bias or prejudice.

Saying omega aturggles feels redundant when you read takatora and the omegas is kind of weird in a way

Highkey yeah lmaoooo. Love the story, but I do laugh sometimes cause I’m like every time there’s a female character in a story ppl typically hate that character because of misogyny and you here we are indulging in BL that’s basically just taking women and their problems and just plastering a male face on it lol. Ridiculous and not worth the time when it’s a woman but makes a great and amazing story when it’s a man. But i’ll still eat it up anyway cause whatever make believe n stuff Plus, it’s interesting so

wait til bro finds out abt allegories

The way I see it, it's less of the author trying to take the spotlight away from women and put a male face to female suffering/women's problems, and more like the author is trying to show how ridiculous some of the stuff women go through is by showing how jarring it is to see men go through it.


It reminds me of a stand up snippet I saw once, where the male comedian was joking about how he felt disturbed by how a man was being treated in a gangbang & felt bad for the dude (he was watching gay porn just to see what it was like as a straight man) & how the mistreatment & degrading talk felt more "real" to him. But watching a woman in a gangbang where she was going through pretty much the same stuff didn't activate his brain's panic response as much, & he just thought it was hot. I got irritated watching the clip since I know the same principle is behind a lot the world's problems, but it's relevant here. I think that Asada Nemui knows this and is using the same concept in this manga.


I know that men don't typically read BL so the audience that this analogy (the entire manga) would best work on isn't reached by Nemui, but it's still re-affirming to read this as women.


If anything, in most BL I read women are almost non-existent, and if the BL has themes of omegaverse, the mention of mistreatment isn't typically an allegory for women, it's usually omega-MALE specific problems/mistreatment, and how the MC feels depressed about how being an omega makes him feel as a man. In some omegaverse BL it's clear that the author is sort of using the omega MC as a parallel to women, but the allegory typically falls short or is just not done well and the story overall doesn't really connect itself to feminism. When BL manga/manhwa bring up discrimination against the Uke or Seme, it typically ends up being about the unpleasantness that gay MEN have to deal with IRL (which is fine in it's own right). Takatora-kun to Omegatachi is actually the most female centric BL manga I have ever read (and I've been on this site for a looooong time) because the author makes it pretty clear (without ever explicitly saying it) that the omega character's experiences and discrimination is a bang-on reflection of what WOMEN go through IRL, not the IRL experiences of gay men.

The irony of this manga is that it's actually more about women than it is about men, despite being a BL and there being almost no female characters (even in the background) so far.

People are desensitized to female mistreatment, or just ignorant of what women go through in terms of microaggressions (like a woman saying an idea at a company meeting but it gets attributed to a male coworker; re-read panels where Takatora is at work for moments with a similar vibe) or the type of messaging we receive that starts from a young age about our self worth or how people value us (Suzume looking at the magazines). So the author puts a man (or multiple men) as a stand in for women to "shock" desensitized people into seeing how it off-putting it is.

The author is so fucking goated, no wonder she writes the way she does.

As others here have stated, first and foremost, it's an analogy, it's not supposed to take away from real suffering women/fem presenting people experience, and secondly, imo, the fact these struggles are flipped and put onto men/male presenting characters makes the analogy even more powerful as it exposes how ridiculous and dehumanizing, yet normalized that behavior is towards women, so having men experience that feels dystopian and uncomfortable. It sensitizes us again to the horror of the female experience, of girlhood, of absurd, damaging gender roles, etc. This manga does that beautifully and I think many feel seen and heard rather than ostracized by it, regardless of their gender.

Brilliant analysis, couldn't have said it better. Agree a 100 percent

Also a good point now that you mention the world building here and that btw is proof of the existence of male hegemony - as long as female traits exist in certain groups, even if they're male like male omegas, on that basis, as masculinity in male hegemony is everything that isn't feminine and is equated to strength, having control, and power, male omegas with their uterus, heats (that weaken them) and a tendency to be physically smaller do not fulfill that masculine standard. So they're (mis)treated accordingly, just like women.

The interesting thing about omegaverse and yaoi in general is that it was infact made to mimic the struggles of women. The creation of yaoi came at a time where womens sexuality was monitored (esp in a conservative country like japan) and often any sort of hentai was catered to the male gaze. Thus yaoi was created as a way of removing the woman from the often violent acts, and instead allowing them to be an observer. (Obv there are some problems w this, esp when it comes to fetishising queer relationship and the real Homophobia that comes with jt).

They’re barely noticeable when he’s dressed.. and there’s not that many to be considered when he’s naked. I’m confusedddd

I just didn’t like the style of them(●￣(ｴ)￣●)

I mean everyone has their opinion have a great day queen

You too

I think you missed the artist comments which clearly stated she wanted a character with tattoos as she finds them cool. But the tattoos are hard to draw, so she drew simple ones even thought she herself doesnt like the designs. PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING

this!! discussing it makes everything so much easier.

i dont like that he basically guilt tripped him into bottoming tho like bruh