She's a female. She's considered female by Japanese players. But apparently the English version is trying to pass her off as non binary. And they are taking advantage of the lack of pronouns in the Japanese language from what i heard. This is a few comments i read about it
Yes. Technically in the Japanese version she's never addressed in a gendered way. But in reality nobody really is addressed that way in the game and Japanese itself hardly has gendered addresses, since pronouns don't exist. As another user here posted (Okabe__Rintarou) the entire script of the game only uses 彼女 (girl) four or five times in the entire story so the point is moot. In Japan you just wouldn't address her as "she" or "woman", you'd simply use her name. In addition, other characters use the suffix -chan when speaking to her. "chan" isn't woman exclusive but it's very feminine. You'd only use it for guys when he's a lot younger than you. My Japanese friends obviously recognise her as a girl, while somebody online are a bit puzzled, but the majority still sees her as a woman
Another comment:
The thing is, in Japanese they are super rarely using she/he etc to describe other people. It's evident if you search for 彼女 in game files. It's used only 4 or 5 times in entire script. This is how this language works. If you translate a foreign work that is so linguistically different, you have to take other facts into account, not just one particular dialogue. Following this pattern, Eunie should be nonbinary too because no one calls her "she".You have to take other factors into account, put them together and unambiguously deduce what is what. Yuzuriha(Juniper's Japanese name) is a girl's name. I have never encountered that any character in an anime, manga, Japanese game or TV series is a boy and named Yuzuriha. The suffix chan is mainly used for girls. Possibly as an irony towards a boy if you are close to someone. Yuzuriha uses "watashi." Not even "boku" like other heroines with similar characters. "watashi" is used exclusively by women (and people from abroad) All Japanese posts on pixiv/2chan if they use any gender in relation to her, they call her a girl.The aforementioned one of the major portals on the subject (Dengeki online, owned by Kadokawa) also used kanojo. She even look like a girl. Look at her eyes and compare them with other girls in this game
I also read some other comment about a person telling their Japanese friends about it and apparently the Japanese friends are pretty shocked at the English version. Yet articles and woketards in the West consider it a "fact' that she's non binary and there's been EXTREMELY obnoxious articles on The Gamer insulting anyone that complains about the narrative they try to push and essentially saying "its just a fact that Juniper is non binary and they've already won the future of gaming"
Good post, but I think "watashi is exclusively used by women" is a bit of an oversimplification.
You are correct that many English-speaking students of the language learn it early and use it too much, because it usually isn't emphasized enough that it's often most polite not to refer to yourself with any word at all if context makes it clear that you're the subject of the sentence.
(Example: you make a surprise visit to a friend's house but find a message taped to the door - "Gone fishin'" No pronoun needed to understand who went fishing)
Assuming you need it, watashi is the default for everyone in polite contexts like introductions, professional interviews, etc...but again you'd only use it in certain situations like replying to "what about you?" or "what do you think?" questions.
(And in those situations even people of superior station would most likely address you as [family name]-san rather than anata (you) or anything like that.)
The "lack of pronouns in Japanese" is a real thing like you heard, but rather than delving into that, I'll just refer everyone to chapter 1 of Jay Rubin's Making Sense of Japanese.
Bit of an effort post, but I'm a very committed weeb when it comes to wokie junk infecting my precious Japanese media. So I'd rather everyone here be as informed as possible.
I mean, there's also the "Boku" girls, you can't just infer from someone's way of saying I what their sex is.
Oh for sure, and I do love me a tomboy waifu. And there's many an anime where the tomboy even refers to herself as ore or kono ore-sama, etc...right to a teacher's face...great fun, love to see it - but that'll land you in hot water IRL, heh.
My anti-wokie point was that watashi isn't inherently feminine (more feminine than boku? Sure.)
Imagine an up-and-coming dude with a deep voice in a three-piece suit going to some fancy corporate interview with a whole board of big-shots. In that situation, if he refers to himself as watashi, it's definitely more about humility and respect than anything else.
OP's original statement about it opens the door for wokies to claim that he's 0bviously n0n-b1n4ry since he used "feminine" watashi, which is exactly the kind of thing we can all agree is bullshit. Odds are he'll switch right back to boku with his friends at the izakaya after the interview is done.
Bottom line: your average degenerate Discord troon projecting their mental disfunction and political biases onto Japanese media, culture and language doesn't actually know anything.
Oh, I am aware. I am trying to learn some Japanese(semi-successfully) and already learned a bit about their personal pronouns, someone said Watashi's like the swiss army knife, if you are unsure just use watashi.
I like that analogy - especially because in many situations you don't need a knife (or a corkscrew or a nail-file, etc...) at all.
By which I mean - starting too many of your sentences with watashi wa is the classic noob move. Just the verb (politely conjugated according to the context) is very often a complete sentence.
Best of luck in your efforts. 頑張ってね～