げんしけん: 二代目
Genshiken Nidaime Manga Chapter 76

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Kaminaga asks a flustered Kuchiki if he called her “Hato,” as Hato panics.  Madarame points out to Konno and Fuji the female-dressed Hato, which causes them to be stunned and Kaminaga to look. Madarame wonders if he did something wrong, but as Konno and Fuji try to make a determination on whether this “girl” is Hato, Hato decides to speak as a girl and play dumb to throw them off the scent. Unfortunately for him, Kaminaga removes Hato’s wig, and greets him as Kenjirou. Ogiue takes charge and escorts the parties involved outside to discuss things further as Hato puts his wig back on.

Back in high school, Hato was in the art club and often sat off by himself doing canvas sketches and the like. The girls in the club would often ogle at Kaminaga’s boy’s love artwork. Hato would be mildly teased about it and the fact that his own manga-styled art sucked.

One day after school, it is raining heavily, so Hato is picked up by his older brother Yuuichirou, and offers Kaminaga a ride as well. In the car, the discussion is about her love of gay manga and how she enjoyed pairing guys together as a fantasy, even if said guys were straight. Because “Hato” is a family name, Kaminaga addresses him by his given name, Kenjirou, even though it startles him that she does so. The discussion moves to judo, since Kenjirou’s older brother had been captain of the judo club in high school.  His brother mentions that Kenji stopped judo after middle school, but thinks that Kenji is better than him just the same. That causes Kaminaga to turn the conversation back to how things then become a gay fantasy.

Sometime later back in the art club room, Kenji finds himself alone, and Kaminaga’s bag of her drawn gay porn left behind. He goes to the bathroom to look at it, but when he returns, Konno is in the art room, looking for the art. When she learns that he had them in the bathroom and that he’s like BL work since middle school, he realizes how bad this sounds and tries to explain. However, the incident caused a bad atmosphere in the art club, so Kenji stopped going and eventually, Kaminaga graduated. By the time Kenji was in his 3rd year of high school, it was widely believed that he was gay and looked at gay porn in the bathroom.

Back in the present, Konno blames herself for turning Kenji into a transvestite.  Kenji again explains that he’s not gay or anything, but dresses the way he does to mix with fujoshi fans. This amuses Kaminaga, but she wants to know why she was mistaken for Kenji.

Thoughts/Review:

Man, it is very hard to see Kaminaga and not see Hato, or as I’m going to try to call him from now on, “Kenji.”  His backstory wasn’t nearly as messed up as I thought it might be. Then again, after reading Ogiue’s and how she tried to commit suicide because of her fujoshi art, what Kenji went through, while tough, wasn’t as bad.

The bigger question still remains — why is Kenji dressing as Kaminaga?  It is clear that he liked her art style, enough so that he imitated it. But why dress as her?  I never got the feeling that Kenji was in love with her, though Konno seemed to think that there might possibly be more based on Kenji’s professed admiration (despite having gone to the bathroom to look at Kaminaga’s BL work). It does seem that Kenji’s brother and Kaminaga might have hooked up though since Kenji saw them together in his brother’s car.  Again, I didn’t see any signs of jealousy over it.

Still, Kaminaga seems to take everything in stride.  Upon hearing the tale of how Kenji had wanted to look at her art, she would have been fine with it. I suspect that no matter what, she’ll be fine with whatever the reason is that Kenji dresses as her. I guess we’ll find out more next chapter.

I liked how Ogiue took control of the situation once Kenji had been outed in public. She really has matured, hasn’t she? ^_^

In the meantime, the final panel of the chapter, featuring Sue eying Madarame from the back, suggests wicked delights to come. *lol*

So, an interesting chapter that helps further flesh out Kenji as a character. I’d like to see this be the start of him stop dressing as a trap and moving forward as a man, even if he’s into BL porn.