January 18th, 2016 
AstroNerdBoy げんしけん: 二代目Chapter 119 Manga Review
Genshiken Nidaime chapter 119 Manga Review
SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:
Hato and Madarame make their way around the temple ground, suspecting their are being tailed by the others. Madarame suggests they could hold hands since Hato looks like a girl. Hato doesn’t think that’s a good idea, but since Madarame is used to this with the actions of the other girls, he figures they should give it a try. Hato agrees to give it a try, and as they hold hands, both feel something is not good (taboo) about this.
They are discovered by the group as Sue and Keiko shoot Madarame daggers. After the group leaves, Angela remarks that Hato is the one in Madarame’s heart.
Madarame and Hato are discussing things and how the aspect that they are doing something they shouldn’t is adding kick to things. Hato spells out exactly why they should not get into a relationship. With that, Hato departs. Ogiue, having left the group and overheard the conversation between Hato and Madarame, says that Hato is in the same place she was years ago and in that situation, Sasahara had to come after her. As such, she tells Madarame to go after Hato.
Thoughts/Review:
Ugh. Kio-sensei is toying this Hato route, but I’m not believing it yet. Sue and Keiko pretty much summed up my feelings. 😉
You know, I just don’t understand Madarame. Yeah, I’ve said this a few times before, but it bears saying again. Throughout the original Genshiken manga, he was depicted as into 2D, loli girls, but he fell in love with Saki, the only “normal” within his circle of friends. There was never any indication that he could go “butter side down” when it comes to relationships, yet here, he has three real girls interested in him and one trap. If it is just about sex, for me, any of the three girls wins over a dude who’s dressed as a girl. This doesn’t seem to be just about sex though.
That leaves a real relationship. Why is Madarame giving Hato a chance? As mentioned before, he fell in love with Saki. One could argue that he fell for her because he knew he couldn’t have her, but I don’t think it was that shallow. However, I believed his feelings for Saki as they grew over time. Although she wasn’t an otaku, Saki embodied the perfect girl for Madarame. Although she was beautiful and normal, she tolerated the otaku way of life. With Saki, he could be himself and not feel ashamed nor that he had to put on airs to impress her. That’s why even though I ship Madarame x Sue, the Madarame x Saki ship is one I wouldn’t mind seeing.
You know, when Rika talked to Madarame about the harem early on, her feeling was that Keiko was best suited for Madarame, simply because he was most at ease around her. So maybe his past experiences with Keiko put him off her. Fine.
With Angela, she was the scary gaijin he didn’t get. If it were only about sex, I could see Madarame going down that road, but I guess she’s still the scary gaijin.
With Sue, I’m not sure what the problem is, other than she doesn’t talk normal. But if anything, their time together here showed that they could be good together.
Finally, there’s Hato, and I cannot wrap my head around that. Kio-sensei keeps pushing this angle, having Angela say that Hato is the one in Madarame’s hear. Why? The only thing that seems to come out to me is that this is forbidden love, therefore exciting, therefore Madarame wants to do it because hey, otaku don’t do what society expects. (Or something stupid like that.) I don’t sense anything deeper like I did with Madarame’s feelings with Saki. If anything, this whole Hato thing feels forced.
Oddly enough, Hato was the sane voice here. Madarame is just (in a hick voice), “Duh, this exciting ’cause it wrong. I like wrong. Only thing that would make this more excitin’ would be if Hato was my first cousin. Duhhhhh.” Hato points out all the reasons they should not get together, and he’s 100% right.
Things seemed resolved, but then Kio-sensei has Ogiue come in and insist that Madarame chase Hato down since that’s what Sasahara had to do to her. I rolled my eyes.
Frankly at this point, I’m hoping that a newly single Saki just happens to show up by coincidence and throws Madarame into a tailspin. That way, we could at least have Genshiken Nidaime still on course for Spotted Flower.
In the end, this was a disappointing chapter for me. At least Hato became sane in this one.
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I agree that the whole “forbidden fruit” angle doesn’t fit Madarame, but I don’t think it needs to.
This one makes me feel more than a bit weird. I’ve been in relationships before (or had the opportunity), and didn’t realize until afterward that although I consciously thought I wanted it… subconsciously, I did everything I could to sabotage it. I haven’t always figured out whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, and even when I have figured it out it’s been a mixed bag.
Given his history: Could it be that subconsciously, Madarame doesn’t want to succeed in a relationship with a person who has real, unpredictable feelings? Perhaps even “ever”?
We can only speculate about her history, but he might be an even better* fit for Sue than I thought… if she doesn’t succumb to her own fears of rejection first.
* – Or worse, depending on your theories about relationships.
That’s certainly possible.
Are you uncomfortable with the idea of two men being in a romantic/sexual relationship? Because honestly, that’s all that I got from your review of this chapter, that you don’t like the idea of Madarame loving a man. Madarame is doing all of this because he fell in love with Hato. When you love someone, you can’t help but focus on that person, even if there are other people that are interested in you, like in Madarame’s case. A large chunk of Nidaime has focused on developing the relationship between the two, and showing how their feelings grew from that of friendship to something more. Most people wrote it off though solely because Hato is a man, and that nothing would come of it. I felt this way as well at one point, due to how rare it is for a non-BL manga to feature a same sex relationship between main characters. Many authors toe that line, but never go all the way since it’s safer to just leave it as “fanservice” for fujoshi and the like. However it became apparent that that’s not the kind of story Kio wants to tell.
What I’m trying to say is, this development didn’t come out of nowhere. From Hato developing a friendship with Madarame from using his apartment to change, Hato developing feelings for him, and Madarame in turn doing the same, it’s all been in Nidaime from the beginning. I feel like people are upset not because this development wasn’t foreshadowed, it’s more that people didn’t want to see the possibility of this happening because the idea of Madarame not being completely heterosexual makes them uncomfortable. Both Madarame and Hato have loved and been attracted to women as well, so it’s not even fair to call them both gay. I believe people’s sexuality are more complex than being either straight or gay, and I feel that Kio has been exploring this in Nidaime with Madarame, Hato and their relationship.
According to your theory, Madarame, who’d been 100% heto, sudden said, “You know, I want to bang a dude, but only because said dude looks like a lady.”
Hato was shown to be attracted to males by being into BL. If this were a mere curiosity or fascination, he wouldn’t be so hardcore into it. And yes, Hato had been shown to be interested in his female senpai, who hooked up with his older brother. So you can say Hato is bi.
My problem is that with this apparent direction for Madarame, he was a lolicon who loved a girl he couldn’t have. He had no homosexual tendencies. Now, suddenly he’s like, “Anything goes — if it moves, I’ll boff it, providing it LOOKS like a girl. However, it can’t be a REAL girl ’cause “reasons” so fake girls rule.” *_*
“”Now, suddenly he’s like, “Anything goes — if it moves, I’ll boff it, providing it LOOKS like a girl. However, it can’t be a REAL girl ’cause “reasons” so fake girls rule.” *_*””
Hold that thot !!! I know I do wayyyy too much theory stuff, but in the history of Otaku, as a Japanese social phenom, the first big use of the term for fan, male fans of manga etc, was a highly snide dis of them, written as a troll/ provocation in a fan publiction. The big accusation: ” Otaku can’t handle real girls, they can only handle imaginary ones”. I have long wondered if otokonoko Hato was Kio Shimoku’s response. Sheeeeeee.. I wish I could dig up the link right now. Anyway, awaiting your comments on ch120 as well.
I’ve heard rumors about it, but I haven’t read it yet.
I think the Harem arc has been running long enough and hope it will come to an end soon.
(I also don’t think that Spotted Flower is the canon future, but we’ll see.)
I’ve been a Sue shipper, but I knew Kio-sensei wanted Saki and Madarame to hook up, hence the Spotted Flower stuff. So I actually began to like the idea of Madarame and Saki hooking up in Genshiken Nidaime because we’d see just how it was that Saki and Madarame hooked up. That would be an interesting tale (at least, I think it would be).
But yeah, I agree with you on this harem arc.
Hello, long time not visiting your blog, because of “reasons”, but I’m glad it is still going strong!
Finally made the time to read Genshiken nidaime. At this point I have to say that I was skipping your reviews. But I’m here now haha.
I’m really surprised to see that you have the same nostalgic feeling of wanting to see Saki and Madarame together.
copy&paste something I commented on other site:
Well…. I don’t know how it will end, but I only see the doubt in Madarame’s feelings as a trauma caused by the whole thing with Saki. Saki was the girl he loved, and she was the “perfect -3d- girl” to him… As he goes evading the trauma, he is considering going for the antithesis of that: a man. And I’m seeing the whole stage too forced. To me Ougi made the wrong call here (It’s not the same situation as she and Sasahara before). And Yajima deserves a chance with Hato.
Keiko was dumped because of that too. Angela was never a real option as means of developing relationships (the language and the long distance play a lot on this).
The thing with Sue is that she is the most different woman compared to Saki (and also the most innocent). And I think that she is the most “compatible” with Madarame.
Lastly, I really don’t like Yoshitake, but she serves the purpose of the necessary evil.
As I see it, everything still moves around Saki, even if she isn’t there.
Heh!heh! “Reasons.” 😉 Glad to have your back.
I agree completely.
I tend to agree here too.
Yes. Rika sometimes really irritates me, but as you say, she serves her purpose for the story.
At this point, I’m hoping a single Saki shows up to salvage things. I doubt it happens, but one can hope.