げんしけん: 二代目
Genshiken Nidaime Manga Chapter 71

With Yajima and Rika having a falling out over their contribution to the Mebaetame Magazine, combined with Hato’s informing Genshiken that he cannot do the manga, Ohno decides to propose a cosplay festival event instead, which Ogiue rejects. Hato reveals his problems drawing as a guy vs. as a girl, which Yajima finds hard to believe. Ogiue has never heard of someone having two radically different drawing styles before, leading Ohno to theorize that this is an extension of Hato’s cross dressing, where he perfectly emulates a female.  Thus as a female, Hato draws perfectly as a fujoshi-type. As a male, he can’t draw worth crap.

With things seeming hopeless, Rika suggests doing the cosplay event, which Ohno agrees with. However, Sue has heard enough and appoints Ogiue to do the rough draft of the manga and Hato the finished product since he’d proven he could handle this from when they were part of Ogiue’s professional staff.

Later, at Yajima’s place (?), Yajima and Rika discuss Hato’s drawing issue and how Ogiue and Hato are working together. Rika confesses how writing a novel turned out to be harder than she expected and thus, she wanted to give up on it. However, she notes how that despite Yajima’s art not being that great, Yajima continues to produce it and even publish them in the Mebaetame issue. Yajima quietly ponders if Hato’s drawing issue is even real, while Rika wonders aloud if Ogiue will actually do the collaboration with Hato, since something seems to be weighing on Ogiue’s mind.

Ogiue sits at her apartment attempting to work on the manga and wonders if Sue did this to get her out of a rut. As she ponders what to do, she decides to do a simple love story between a guy and a girl in high school, something she’s never done before.

Meanwhile, Hato heads to Madarame’s apartment to change from male to female, and worries about this whole collaboration deal with Ogiue. He has a discussion with the floating “Hato-chan,” who kids him about how Hato always cleans Madarame’s place and even arranges the porn. Hato is cleaning again when he spies the game Kousaka was handing out fliers for, seeing that Kousaka was apparently the model for the “trap” character, even going so far as to name the character after Kousaka.  This leads to Hato fantasizing about Madarame and Kousaka acting out the trap scenes from the game, leading “Hato-chan” to prompt Hato to say that he’d take care of Madarame is Madarame is interested in “traps.”

Hato is frustrated by “Hato-chan,” and decides to change into a woman to make “Hato-chan” disappear, since she only appears as a separate entity whenever Hato is dressed normally. Madarame coming in causes Hato to panic and tell Madarame he’s changing, so Madarame takes a stroll and requests Hato text him when done.  Madarame takes a stroll and reflects on how he’s getting home from work earlier and earlier before Hato sends him a text.  Madarame returns to find Hato dressed as a woman, and he wants to talk with Madarame. Madarame has to remind himself that Hato is a guy as Hato apologizes for the Kuchiki incident.  As such, Madarame invites Hato back in.

Back at Genshiken, Rika and Yajima are hard at work, but Ogiue is missing Hato since she wants to discuss some things with him.

While I still like Genshiken, it is getting weirder.  Hato’s cross dressing has now become an apparent psychological issue since he now has conversations with “Hato-chan,” the nude, female version of himself that floats around him when Hato is dressed as a guy.  Then again, Hato probably already had issues of some kind to be the way he is. ^_^;;;

I’m not liking Kio-sensei’s seemingly pushing Madarame in a yaoi direction. Just having the “trap” game isn’t enough to suggest this, since Kousaka could have just given Madarame a copy.  However, I believe this is the second or third time Madarame has found himself showing signs of attraction to cross dressing males.

Then again, Kio-sensei really appears to be muddying the waters regarding romantic pairings.  In the first incarnation of Genshiken, Saki clearly had feelings for Kousaka from day 1, so nothing unusual there.  One could see some chemistry between Ohno and Tanaka, so no surprises there.  Ogiue and Sasahara came out of left field for me, though I approved it.  Now, with people looking for pairings (myself included), Kio-sensei seems to be throwing everything out there on who likes who, with a stronger emphasis on yaoi or yuri pairings.  So, there’s this whole Hato/Madarame pairing in the air as well as a Sue/Ogiue pairing in the air.  Then, there’s a possibility of Yajima/Hato and possibly a Sue/Madarame pairing. Its all muddy to be sure.

Leave it to Sue, looking more feminine than ever, to come up with a solution to Hato’s drawing problem. However, I do wonder how this will play out for both Ogiue and Hato, since both will be doing things they’ve never done before.

Now that Kio-sensei is apparently in this for the long haul again, I get the sense that he’s really planned out his manga story.  So, I’ll follow this thing and see where it goes.