#theres some other ships too
Queer Coding in JSHK
Happy pride everyone!! Here’s some gay moments in jshk.
Disclaimer: I’m not here to start ship wars and it’s fine if you don’t interpret these scenes the same as me. Also, I’m gay.
Hanako-kun
He flirted with Kou because he wanted to do things that only girls could.
…and then he hurt over being rejected. Thing is, in the same chapter, he suggested peeping on girls, so it’s not like the gender change moved his sexual preferences.
Nene
Clearly Nene is boy crazy but she’s also gotten flustered by girls.
Nene gets flustered over Aoi. Even Akane is touched.
A Kabedon is romantic trope in Japanese media where one person “traps” the other, for context. I usually see it in shoujo manga.
Nene blushed over how beautiful Sakura is and admitted to letting her guard down because she was a babe.
Kou and Mitsuba
There’s plenty of posts on how and why Mitsuba and Kou are an implied romance and not queer baiting. I’m just focusing on a few points I rarely see brought up.
They’re associated with rainbows. Yes, rainbows are a symbol of pride in Japan too.
In case you don’t recognize it, this one is from the end of the Valentine’s event this year, which was MitsuKou centric.
Every main couple in the series shares the first letter of their surname
Akane x Aoi
Yashiro x Yugi
Sumire x Shinigami
Mitsuba x Minamoto
Hanako and Nene sat next to one another in PP, as did Mitsuba and Kou so it probably means something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even lil Tsukasa thinks Kou has a crush. I really like this twitter thread on Hananene and Mitsukou parallels.
Now for gender
Sakura
Sakura doesn’t care about her gender presentation or identity. In fact, Natsuhiko is the only one in the group that does care.
Hanako
Hanako identifies as a boy but he’s fine with feminine presentation. I don’t think this implies Hanako is queer as much as it show AidaIro normalising different gender expressions :)
He didn’t mind at all that he was turned into a girl and happily changed his clothes/hair for the day.
He’s worn feminine clothing in a few official arts and doesn’t seem distressed about it, whereas Kou definitely is.
He wanted Nene to paint his nails along with the hands.
Lastly, Hanako is ok with being called “Hanako.” The name “Hanako” in Japan means “flower” and is pretty exclusively a girls name.
That’s all I have. I’m sure there’s more, so feel free to add!
