げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 89 Manga Review

Rika confronts Yajima about her BL doujinshi purchases since she sees Yajima purchased the ones Kenji (Hato) would like. Further to that, Rika states that Yajima liked Kenji. Yajima calmly denies this, citing her getting into doujinshi of a certain series because of Kenji, nothing more. Rika is thrown off by Yajima’s unexpected defense, but Yajima makes a mistake by slamming Kenji for trying to be a guy and a girl. Rika interprets this “hate” as “love” and teases Yajima a tiny bit about it.

Rika is further surprised that Yajima carries the conversation into the reasons Kenji stopped cross-dressing, likely to be because of his feelings for Madarame. Rika concludes that Kenji is fighting with himself over this.

Kuchiki sees Kenji not enjoying ComiFes, so he takes it upon himself to help. As such, he lovingly embraces Madarame from behind, shocking Kenji and leaving Madarame defenseless. When Kenji asks Kuchiki about what he’s doing, Kuchiki goes on a speech about otaku, and how despite the claim that otaku are more accepted, in reality, they are still looked down upon. A cross-dresser would be an even more dangerous choice, but Kuchiki doesn’t think Kenji being a fudanshi into BL is a bad thing. So, for Kenji to be happy, Kuchiki tells Kenji to go to the BL booths.

Kenji considers Kuchiki’s words, afraid his sexual orientation will change if he keeps reading BL, then he realizes that he doesn’t like men, just Madarame. So, he has a plan to give up on Madarame and asks Kuchiki if he visited the BL booths on one condition.

Meanwhile, Yajima is becoming annoyed with Rika when they spot Kenji and Madarame, who’s trapped by Kuchiki, talking with Angela and Ohno. Much to Yajima’s and Rika’s shock, Kenji asks Angela to go out with Madarame. Madarame is shocked by this, but Kenji points out that if Madarame had a girlfriend, the fujoshi members of Genshiken would stop fantasizing about Madarame as a sou–uke. Kuchiki backs him up and tells the “traitor” Madarame to go ahead and lose his virginity. Madarame is annoyed by Kenji using words Saki said to support the notion of him going out with Angela.

Angela figures a lot has happened since the summer ComiFes, but while she’s tempted, she doesn’t know what to do since Sue isn’t there (Sue doing shopping with Ogiue).

Man, am I glad to see this chapter finally come out on the unofficial circuit. Granted, I’m going to be buying the volume this is published in from Kodansha Comics, but this is a story I like to keep current with, more so now than ever.

While Kenji mostly wearies me, I did like his line of thought here. I’ve long believed that he’s been in love with his brother’s girlfriend from his high school days, which is a way of showing he doesn’t have like his bread butter-side down even if he likes seeing it in BL doujinshi. For whatever reason, Madarame is the exception to that rule (likely because of a false feeling of intimacy due to using Madarame’s place to change).  So, get Madarame hooked up with Angela, Kenji is “off the hook” so to speak and goes back to doing what he likes.

I already know what Angela does, due to having seen the raps for chapter 91.  There’s a “B” point in between, so I don’t know all the details, but I do look forward to discovering how this comes about.

Regardless, I like how Angela, knowing Sue has feelings for Madarame, is loathe to make a decision. She does want Madarame, but Sue is her longtime friend, so I respect Angela for considering Sue in all this.

And speaking of Sue…heh!heh!heh!  Man, I know a lot of folks poo-pooed the notion that Sue had feelings for Madarame, but I’d suspected it for a long time and even cheered for a Madarame x Sue pairing. So it will be good getting Sue actively into the mix here.

As for Yajima, I had heard some speculate that she had feelings for Kenji, and that element came to play here. I have no problems with that notion.  Indeed, if Rika’s little sister comes to this university and joins Genshiken, then that would make for some interesting stuff. ^_^

Finally, there’s Kuchiki. I’ve never liked him as a character, but here, he gets a rare chance to show he isn’t quite the brainless moron he appears.  OK, he’s done a couple of helpful things in the past, but his dialog on otaku was really quite good, more so because I think Kio-sensei wanted that message about otaku still not being accepted to go out.  The Genshiken franchise is one that may make it seem like being an otaku is kinda cool, but in reality, otaku are still not cool in Japanese society.

So, we have a really good chapter here that is starting to bring the Madarame “harem” arc to a head.