不可解なぼくのすべてを・FukaBoku Vol. 5 ♀♂

Volume 5 Discussion Thread :female_sign::male_sign:

Start Date: July 31st
Previous: Volume 4
Home Thread : Home Thread

Reading Schedule

Week Start Date Chapter
Week 1 July 31st Chapters 23-24
Week 2 August 7th Chapters 25-26
Week 3 August 14th Chapters 27-28(最終)
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Week 1 - Chapters 23-24

Start Date: July 31st
Previous Week: Volume 4 Week 3 - Chapters 21-22
Next: Volume 5 Week 2 - Chapters 25-26
Home Thread: Link

Participation Status Poll
If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m dropping out

0 voters

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Two very emotional chapters this week!

Though I’m kind of amused at how quickly the last volumes cliffhanger was resolved :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I thought that the second chapter was going to be all fun and costumes to balance out the sadness of the first chapter, but I was wrong!
Mogumo’s attempt at the Darukuma picture made me chuckle though.

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Week 2 - Chapters 25-26

Start Date: August 7th
Previous Week: Chapters 23-24
Next: Chapters 27-28
Home Thread: Link

Participation Status Poll
If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m dropping out

0 voters

We are slowly but surely reaching the end and I have to really exert my willpower to not read on!

This weeks chapters gave us a lot of backstory on the dad and how he came to be the person he is and what his motivations are. It is nice that the author gave us that perspective.

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The beginning of chapter 26 had me a bit confused - at first I thought someone was watching a romance drama on TV. Then the name Mogumo came up and I thought “oh, did Mogumo choose their name because of that character on TV?”…took me a few more pages to realise that Mogumo is actually their last name and those two getting engaged were their parents :sweat_smile: :see_no_evil:

Speaking of names, does the name 龍之助 have any particularly masculine connotations? Just based on everything we learned about their dad in this chapter, I feel like he would choose a more masculine name for his child. But I have absolutely no intuition about these things in Japanese yet so I’m just speculating :sweat_smile:

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I’d say it’s very masculine! 助 and 之助 are common (even generic) masculine name endings, and 龍 means dragon in a way I’ve generally only seen associated with people in extremely masculine circumstances (e.g. pro wrestling, the yakuza series 龍が如く).
Fun fact - apparently it’s also (spelled a little differently) the name of the famous writer Akutagawa (芥川 龍之介), of the eponymous literary prize.

I think 之助/之介 may have originally been a samurai thing also, at least based on a brief wikipedia source here - so anyway, dragons and samurai and famous authors! Those would be the connotations that caused the concern “立派すぎません?名前負けしないかしら?” ~ “is it too grand? I wonder if he’ll feel overshadowed by his name?”

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I’m reading through chapter 25 right now, and omg, this is where I needed a trigger warning. It’s so hard for me, I need to stop all the time to calm down. (I just decided to make my contact with my parents even more restricted - and it was pretty restricted already - and it’s so hard for me to convince myself that I have that right.) So, this sort of reconciliation story is very bad suited for me. I honestly hoped Mogumo would just take Sakura along and they will live happily ever after. Or something.
Also I promised myself that if I would really need to talk to my parents, because of some legal issues and such, I would not do it without a witness. And speaking of witnesses, didn’t Tetsu offer Mogumo that he will come along with her? Did Mogumo turn that offer down? That moment was a little unclear for me.

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Oof yeah, sorry about that… :slightly_frowning_face: the particular tidy storybook waythings end up definitely suffers pretty heavily from being unrealistically positive in a lot of ways, especially crammed into one volume like this. Totally understandable to find that difficult!!

I think he shows up later. I guess Mogumo just decided to take point first.

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Phew, half of a 梅酒 bottle later, I finished this week’s portion. (And after a lot of emo songs.)
I hope nobody has an alcohol trigger here
I’m considering reading further to not waste my drunkenness.

Yes, he did show now. But I have absolutely no idea when exactly they made these exact arrangements. Oh well, whatever. :woman_shrugging:t2:

Yeah. :confused:
I usually react fine to bad dramatic traumatic plots (or I am even charmed by them), but I take it bad when characters heal their broken relationships so easily, eh. Or when everybody turns out to be a good guy underneath. Or heck, sometimes the other person even may have the best intentions and it still isn’t possible to mend your relationship, because one part isn’t capable to see that others’ needs may be something completely different from what they are willing to give.
Oh, and I don’t like when children grew up and then say they finally understand their parents. (Mogumo’s father said that.) This myth cost me many bad decisions in my life, because I didn’t trust myself in my younger years, and then I grew up, passed 30, and I still think my parents were unwise and cruel.
At least Tetsu’s parents got a “realistic” ending. …I think. There are still 2 chapters after all. But I like this thread so far. They didn’t manage to sort it out, there was a divorce, and there is potentially an ever-lasting feeling of guilt Tetsu’s sister may feel, because if not for her, this marriage may have lasted until their deathbed - we don’t know about any other problems in their relationship after all. …now I want a spin-off about that.

EDIT: I mean it’s fine that this series has optimistic stuff, but I don’t like how everything gets sorted out nicely.

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I’m just a near-stranger on the internet, but please take my assurance that you absolutely have that right.

I agree that everything is currently wrapping up a little too neatly, but with only two chapters left I suppose there isn’t really time to do much else. I feel like we could do with a few more volumes because there is so much more I want to hear more about everybody!

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Thank you :pleading_face:

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Wait, this volume is the last one? Now I really wonder how they’re gonna wrap this up in the 2 remaining chapters.

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Final Week - Chapters 27-28(最終)

Start Date: August 14th
Previous Week: Chapters 25-26
Home Thread: Link

Participation Status Poll
If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m dropping out
  • I finished

0 voters

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So, I finished both the volume and the 梅酒 bottle on August 10, but waited with posting the rest of my impressions until the proper date.

I also want to thank once more everyone who supported me last time, I honestly appreciate that, likes included :heartbeat:

So, the last two chapters were just as I predicted, very sweet and very happy.
Somehow Mogumo reminds me of the type of character who makes every enemy join their ranks. I really would appreciate it more if the story would have a general optimistic vibe, but there would be some unsolvable problems. Looking at how everything’s going on smoothly, I really wonder why there still aren’t same-gender marriages in Japan. I think Mogumo should just go to Japan’s government people and talk to them :roll_eyes:

But, as for it not to be 100% rant, I’ll also want to list things I liked in this series.

  • a non-binary main character, which is clearly stated (as in, not a fan theory, not a piece of info from the interview with the creator) and who isn’t a villain
  • art. I mentioned before that I liked Sakura’s upset eyes and the expressions of anguish were my favorite panels in general, but I liked the art style overall, the cute and fluffy parts too
  • how it managed to tell its story without being text heavy. I really appreciate when manga is able to do this and doesn’t go into long convoluted bubbles. It is a visual medium after all, I want my manga to be lighter than (light) novels :confounded: And I think it was very good as a beginner book club pick in that regard.
4 Likes

I agree with what @Aislin said, I guess I could overlook these shortcomings a bit more. I very much enjoyed this series from start to end. At the very start I was a bit put off by the very cutesy cover art, but decided to give it a shot and did not regret that for a second.

Those 2 points are super important to me aswell. Obviously art is a very subjective thing but I have a very specific taste in manga art and this hit the nail on the head!

My favorite panel of this week

Now I want to thank you guys for reading and discussing this series and especially @Aislin for organizing the book club for the last few months! It was a blast to see what everyone thought. I hope to see you guys in other book clubs aswell!

4 Likes

I also think that everything went a bit too smoothly to be fully believable, maybe another volume would’ve been nice two wrap things up more slowly. Chapter 27 felt a bit odd story-wise but I feel like it was intended as a general guide to coming out to your parents - and looking at it from that angle I feel like it was necessary to have a positive outcome, and I think the author did a good job with it. I was really happy to see the word 性別違和 right after 性同一性障害 instead of just leaving it at that. Still, it felt a bit off story-wise, but it might work well as a standalone how-to chapter.

I was really happy to see Tetsu’s school friends again in the last chapter!! I honestly wish we had seen them a bit more, they were fun characters :smiley:

My favourite panel of this week

Well, two panels. Honestly made me laugh out loud :joy:

Thanks everyone for reading along, I really enjoyed this series and our discussions around it! And big thanks to @Aislin for organising everything! :grin:

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I’m finished, but I’m really sad that it’s over!

As others have said I feel like it all wrapped up too neatly, and it seemed a bit rushed to me, but regardless, I really enjoyed this whole series. I just wish there was more!

Thanks to everybody who participated and made this such a fun experience, especially Aislin for organising!

5 Likes

They wrapped it up better than I thought but imo this should have gotten another volume. It felt somewhat like they prematurely ended it because of bad sales or something.
Nevertheless it was an enjoyable read. :slight_smile:

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