げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 117 Manga Review
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 117 Manga Review

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Hato and Yajima have a chat about the fact that Yajima has feelings for Hato, who’d never noticed it and hadn’t wanted Yajima to see him as a man, but as a fellow fujoshi. Yajima takes this as a slam on her being overweight and disgusting, which Hato rejects. He states he envies Yajima since he sees her as the embodiment of womanhood, not fake like his. Yajima gets angry, citing her fatness and generally unattractive features. Hato pleads his case, saying Yajima will never be seen as anything but a woman while he has to always be on guard, lest folks discover Hato is a man in drag. As such, Hato sees Yajima as perfect in addition to being a fujoshi.

Yajima decides Hato’s attempts to praise her are to push her away. As such, Yajima feels Hato could never love her. Yajima is suddenly embarrassed by hat she said, but as they stand there in silence, Ogiue leads the rest of the group, sans Madarame and Sue, to Yajima and Hato. After hearing the plan is to have Hato paired with Madarame next, Hato turns down the opportunity to spend time with the group until his turn comes up, saying he is in the middle of a conversation with Yajima.

After the group leaves, Hato says that he never planned to become romantically involved with any Genshiken girl since he went there to make friends, thus he felt trying to get a girlfriend from the club would not be a good thing. Hato then cites how Yajima encouraged him to let go of such thoughts. As such, Hato feels that it is possible for him to love her. Yajima can’t wrap her head around this and doesn’t want to believe it, but Hato again says that its because Yajima is a fujoshi, so dating one would be the best.

Yajima asks if any fujoshi will do for Hato, such as Rika. Hato says that wouldn’t work since they don’t fit together personality wise. Hato says that Yajima has a number of other qualities he likes and thus he finds her to be attractive. Yajima confesses she could never see Hato as anything but a guy, especially since she’s seen his goods twice. She wants to tell Hato that as a man, he should be with a woman, but she decides not to say this until after Hato has had a turn with Madarame. As such, she decides to encourage Hato to be with Madarame. To herself, Yajima knows how to make Hato look at her if Madarame turns him down.

Elsewhere, the rest of the group watches Sue failing at a ring toss game.

Thoughts/Review:

Well, what an excellent chapter.

I have never and will never be in favor of a Hato x Madarame pairing. It never made sense to me, and Madarame even considering it doesn’t jive with him being attracted to 2D women/girls and one very special real life woman from the original Genshiken run.

Having said that, I could buy into the Hato x Yajima pairing. This has been building for quite a long time. Yajima has been the “ugly girl” with no self confidence. So I can see how she’d become attracted to Hato, who’s not a normal guy in any aspect. Yajima figures that someone out of the mainstream like Hato is her only chance at a guy. And since she’s seen Hato’s guy parts twice, she can only see Hato as a guy, even when he’s dressed as a girl. I found that to be quite interesting.

And yet, Hato dressed as a girl comes off as the ideal girl that turns any man’s head (save maybe Ataru from Urusei Yatsura, but that’s another story 😉 ) is a problem for Yajima.  This has long angered her, whom as I said before, has self esteem problems. In many ways, it is amazing that Yajima is attracted to Hato, but there you go.  In the end, Hato said and did all the right things to make Yajima believe that she could end up with Hato, and I loved that.

For story purposes (Hato pairing off with Madarame), I understand why Yajima did what she did. Her actions in sending Hato to Madarame still felt real to me. I think she suspects that at the end of the day, Madarame isn’t hooking up with Hato, after which she’ll get her chance.

As for Hato, he’d never looked at Yajima in that light before, but once he understood Yajima’s feelings for him, it felt very believable that he’d have the positive reaction he had to the knowledge. I loved how he turned down Ogiue’s offer to join the group for more sight seeing in order to continue his conversation with Yajima. I liked how he saw Yajima as a woman, and for him, an attractive one as well as an ideal woman.

I suppose the biggest thing I loved about this Yajima x Hato chapter is that it ties in so nicely with the !Hato x !Yajima chapters in Spotted Flower. Yajima thinking of losing weight in the final frame of this Genshiken chapter was the icing on that cake.

In the end, I really enjoyed seeing the Hato x Yajima ship sail. Next up is my favorite ship. 😉