There's a whole lot here, and I'm not very familiar with any of these games. I'm more on the anime/manga side of things, but I'm glad you're keeping an eye on the situation over there.
My main question would be how much of the SJW ideology gets added on the English end in cases like this.
I ask because I think you should reconsider applying the word "troon" in this context. I had no idea about Mizuki, but looking around a bit I found exactly what I expected: in the source material she looks, acts, and sounds (enough) like a girl, and it's only the US fandom that's foaming at the mouth about her "gender identity" on the English wiki, etc...In the former case it's a fun narrative trope, in the latter it's a political sermon.
Basically, don't mistake just any case of gender-ambiguity in Japanese media for the Libstian cultural hegemony I mentioned. (Ranma, anyone?) They've been playing a much subtler game with the boy/girl conundrum over there for a very long time.
That game is nothing like a big fat 45-year-old with a beard and eye makeup yelling at a lesbian to have sex with "her" or else they're a bigot and deserve to be raped. That's a troon. There's other words for Mizuki.
the reason I'm convinced Mizuki leans more on the troon side than the trap side is that the JP version has already had a few events and an entire song dedicated to 'her' feeling conflicted about sharing a 'secret' about herself to the rest of the group
Couldn’t the secret just be that “she” is actually a boy? Seems like the obvious choice for creating a story and drama surrounding a trap character.
Of course the “localization” is going to do whatever they can to at least not piss off the trans lobby if not outright pander to them.
this would be the first trap I've seen played seriously/for drama rather than for comedy
I don't think it's very common in popular media, but there is precedent in the genre even with Ryo Akizuki from THE iDOLM@STER first appearing in 2009 (when it definitely wasn't a woke thing) and keeping the fact he's a boy secret. Though in that case, it's also clear from the beginning to the player that he's a boy.
I can't say for sure that they aren't trying to do a "trans" plotline with Mizuki, but I don't think we can make that conclusion with what we have. Japan seems much better at keeping their entertainment and their politics separate, and often things like this are just as fantastical as a titan or alchemy.
We've really opened up a can of worms with your first paragraph. I do have the time, and it's a subject I really like to talk about. But it'll take a lot longer than tonight, and it's getting late over in these parts, so I hope that we can continue this conversation later.
If you'd be willing to slide into my DMs then maybe I can give the topic of gender spoken in Japanese due diligence given enough time. (I can send my Discord; that would be ideal)
For now I can at least try to address paragraph 2 in a minimal fashion: The key difference between Mizuki and a troon is that Mizuki honestly struggles to create who she wants to be and puts in effort to become that person, whereas the troon simply announces to the world what kind of person they would like to be treated as, and if you don't comply they accuse you of "erasing their existence." Totally different.
I had grandiose ideas of a whole essay last night, but now I think we should take things one step at a time. You did convince me to stay in this thread and go on record. I'd like to be a helpful weeb on here moving forward.
I share your disgust with the untested hormone treatments, the mutilating surgeries and the perpetual maintenance of what the body naturally treats as a gaping wound. Not to mention the narcissism, melodrama and constant attention-seeking regularly displayed by...I'll call them WTs (Western Ts).
Let's start with just one data point illustrating that not all gender-bending has to be like that. What do you think about this clip? (from Komi can't communicate, finished airing in January)
I'll play along with pronouns since she isn't being a dick about it (heh). Her name (Osana Najimi) is a play-on-words referring to osanajimi=幼なじみ. Part of the joke is that maybe she's able to make so many friends because she's not exactly a he or she. It's critical not to invoke the term "non-binary" here, which drags in loads of politicized garbage from the US. This is an example of Japan doing it's own gender thing like I said, and it's only projection when redditors hop on it with their vocabulary.
The term the narrator uses to describe Najimi's schtick is seibetsu-fumei= 性別不明, which one could render as "gender-ambiguous/unkown" or something like that.
Anyways how about that good mood? Strikes me as a rather more pleasant and functional individual than your average WT, amirite? She did the work to make friends. She didn't demand love and acceptance on the basis of some abstract theory of her human rights.
There's a whole lot here, and I'm not very familiar with any of these games. I'm more on the anime/manga side of things, but I'm glad you're keeping an eye on the situation over there.
My main question would be how much of the SJW ideology gets added on the English end in cases like this.
I ask because I think you should reconsider applying the word "troon" in this context. I had no idea about Mizuki, but looking around a bit I found exactly what I expected: in the source material she looks, acts, and sounds (enough) like a girl, and it's only the US fandom that's foaming at the mouth about her "gender identity" on the English wiki, etc...In the former case it's a fun narrative trope, in the latter it's a political sermon.
Basically, don't mistake just any case of gender-ambiguity in Japanese media for the Libstian cultural hegemony I mentioned. (Ranma, anyone?) They've been playing a much subtler game with the boy/girl conundrum over there for a very long time.
That game is nothing like a big fat 45-year-old with a beard and eye makeup yelling at a lesbian to have sex with "her" or else they're a bigot and deserve to be raped. That's a troon. There's other words for Mizuki.
Couldn’t the secret just be that “she” is actually a boy? Seems like the obvious choice for creating a story and drama surrounding a trap character.
Of course the “localization” is going to do whatever they can to at least not piss off the trans lobby if not outright pander to them.
I don't think it's very common in popular media, but there is precedent in the genre even with Ryo Akizuki from THE iDOLM@STER first appearing in 2009 (when it definitely wasn't a woke thing) and keeping the fact he's a boy secret. Though in that case, it's also clear from the beginning to the player that he's a boy.
I can't say for sure that they aren't trying to do a "trans" plotline with Mizuki, but I don't think we can make that conclusion with what we have. Japan seems much better at keeping their entertainment and their politics separate, and often things like this are just as fantastical as a titan or alchemy.
We've really opened up a can of worms with your first paragraph. I do have the time, and it's a subject I really like to talk about. But it'll take a lot longer than tonight, and it's getting late over in these parts, so I hope that we can continue this conversation later.
If you'd be willing to slide into my DMs then maybe I can give the topic of gender spoken in Japanese due diligence given enough time. (I can send my Discord; that would be ideal)
For now I can at least try to address paragraph 2 in a minimal fashion: The key difference between Mizuki and a troon is that Mizuki honestly struggles to create who she wants to be and puts in effort to become that person, whereas the troon simply announces to the world what kind of person they would like to be treated as, and if you don't comply they accuse you of "erasing their existence." Totally different.
I had grandiose ideas of a whole essay last night, but now I think we should take things one step at a time. You did convince me to stay in this thread and go on record. I'd like to be a helpful weeb on here moving forward.
I share your disgust with the untested hormone treatments, the mutilating surgeries and the perpetual maintenance of what the body naturally treats as a gaping wound. Not to mention the narcissism, melodrama and constant attention-seeking regularly displayed by...I'll call them WTs (Western Ts).
Let's start with just one data point illustrating that not all gender-bending has to be like that. What do you think about this clip? (from Komi can't communicate, finished airing in January)
I'll play along with pronouns since she isn't being a dick about it (heh). Her name (Osana Najimi) is a play-on-words referring to osanajimi=幼なじみ. Part of the joke is that maybe she's able to make so many friends because she's not exactly a he or she. It's critical not to invoke the term "non-binary" here, which drags in loads of politicized garbage from the US. This is an example of Japan doing it's own gender thing like I said, and it's only projection when redditors hop on it with their vocabulary.
The term the narrator uses to describe Najimi's schtick is seibetsu-fumei= 性別不明, which one could render as "gender-ambiguous/unkown" or something like that.
Anyways how about that good mood? Strikes me as a rather more pleasant and functional individual than your average WT, amirite? She did the work to make friends. She didn't demand love and acceptance on the basis of some abstract theory of her human rights.