げんしけん: 二代目
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 86

Kenji, as Hato-chan, allows Sue into his apartment, and she immediately wants to see the Hato x Mada stuff. Kenji gives her his entire stash of drawn materials, which Sue sorts by pairing. Sue keeps harping on Hato x Mada, leading Kenji to understand that Sue wants Kenji to hook up with Madarame. Kenji protests, but Sue says he should go for the back of the neck and smooch big time.

Kenji asks if Sue is in love with Madarame.  Sue gets embarrassed, but denies it. When Kenji points out that Sue kissed Madarame on the cheek, Sue says that was to get Madarame moving. However, Saki saw her do this. Sue refuses to talk further about this, returning the conversation to Hato x Mada. Kenji begins to see places where Sue tried to get himself and Madarame together, but he tells Sue that those drawings are just fantasies and should be confused with reality, nor should one try to force a change onto another’s sexuality.

The hovering presence of Kaminaga questions Kenji on this as Kenji accidentally causes a large envelope of images to fall behind the bookcase. Sue is suspicious, more so since Kenji is downplaying it. Sue tells Kenji to get up so she can get it. He gets up and she lunges at him. Instinctively, Kenji grabs her for a judo hold, but Sue deftly ends up turtled on his back, kissing the nap of his neck and sending him to the ground, realizing for the first time how his weak spot is that part of his neck.

Sue retrieves the envelope, only to discover that it is a new kind of drawing. While still Hato x Mada, Kenji is dressed as a girl in these drawings. She’s surprised by this as Kenji returns to his normal, male voice, explaining how he feels like he’s losing control over his actions, almost as if he’s being controlled. He takes off his wig, saying that it is time to end his cross-dressing and BL lifestyle.  Kenji goes on further to state that subconsciously, he wanted Sue to see those drawings so that someone would stop him.

The following day, Yajima and Rika head to the club room, going over what they’d decided on the previous evening at the family restaurant. They are stunned to see Kenji dressed normally as a man, playing PSP with Madarame. He explains that dressing normally, he won’t be imposing on Madarame any more. Further, he cites the weirdness of a guy into BL. Neither Yajima nor Rika know what to say. Elsewhere, Sue crashes at Ogiue’s place, trying to deal with this changing development.

Bwah!ha!ha!ha!ha! I, AstroNerdBoy, would celebrate the end of Kenji cross-dressing if I actually believed Kio-sensei was bringing it to an end.

Seriously, Kenji is a mental case at the moment. At least he finally had the good sense to say, “Man, I’m in a car with the pedal to the metal that’s about to go off a cliff. I’ve got to get out of this ride now!”

So, the question is, is he out of the car for good, or is this BL reading combined with his cross-dressing an addiction that he won’t be able to shake for long?  Time will tell.

As for Sue, while I do believe she has been trying to set up Kenji and Madarame, I also think she doth protest too much when it comes to her own feelings for Madarame. I think she has feelings of some kind for Madarame, otherwise she wouldn’t blush so much at the thought of him or sight of him outside of the BL context. Seeing that much BL stuff with Madarame as a character is bound to influence a person. Plus, she’s known Madarame longer than she’s known Kenji.  It would be nice to see her accept her feelings for him and move in that direction.

As an aside, I’ll be reviewing the next Genshiken manga volume from Kodansha Comics in the near future, where Kio-sensei has an interesting image of Sue drawn as an omake.

Anyway, one wonders what Yajima will ultimately say to Kenji about him going back to his normal, male form. She’s often had problems with him cross-dressing, but she might have a problem with him as a guy, since she’s seen his goods. ^_^;

In the end, this was a pretty interesting chapter that made an interesting twist in the Kenji storyline. Hopefully, I can keep on reading this on a chapter basis to see how this all goes.