Thank you Old man

I love them so freaking much... they do have big Sakura and Shaolan vibes, don't they?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LARA MAGICAL CAT CARNIVORAN

someone's birthday is comin!

Pao-Lin: Lara's gonna be okay. I made her a PB&J.

Pao-Lin: She said she didn't want it, so I ate it.

Pao-Lin: She was still sad, so I made her another PB&J.

Pao-Lin: She didn't want that one either, so I ate it.

t&b stuff (ft them as that scene from cherry magic . because obviously

Pao-Lin: I’ve become a bread crumb dealer to four crows at the lake. They pay me with a bit of everything. Like shiny things, fabric, or pens. But recently they paid me with a 20 dollar bill they found somewhere. So I decided to buy them some more expensive bread. They loved it. So they understand what to do. Give me money. I’ve probably racked up about 200 dollars at this point. Is it morally wrong though? I mean. They’re the ones who steal the money from others. Or perhaps they just have a big pile laying somewhere. Should I keep on doing this?

Ivan: You sound like the start of a Batman villain.

It's Dragon Kid's birthday, so I'm posting this art I never posted. A powerful summer BBQ look I call 'LET ME AT THE GRILL, COWARDS' or maybe 'outfits I wore as a teen of indeterminate gender'. Maybe I should post the other art I did on the theme of HeroTV summer BBQ?

Looks like I got the episode 9 screencap redraw done in time for Pao-lin's birthday! :3

Justice Day memories!

Ran out of time and energy to do photos of everyone, sorry origami rock and the newbies 😔

date

beach episode when?

Pao-lin’s Gender Presentation, Gender Identity, & Sexual Orientation

First, I want to give a big thank you to @isleofair for providing me with this scan! Now, let’s get going. :)

Along with Nathan, who I also did a write up on the other day for both gender identity and sexual orientation, Pao-lin is another character who a lot of fans perceive as being queer. This is due to a variety of things, such the mention of her experiencing “amour” (read: a crush) on Karina in the S1 Drama CD #5 (I will link to the full translation in the comments, but here is the segment that mentions Pao-lin’s crush) :

There are other small things in the series as well, like how Karina was angry with the old man for what he said about Nathan, but Pao-lin was definitely hit harder and was the one that actively spoke out, likely because she can probably relate a bit to what Nathan has experienced. There is also that scene where the girls are all talking (Nathan, Pao-lin, and Karina). Karina makes a (rather transphobic) joke about one of them “not belonging” and Pao-lin immediately thinks Karina is talking about her, rather than Nathan. 

This was meant to be a “comedic” moment, but after The Rising and how they basically had Karina stop making transphobic “jokes” like that in S2 and such, I think we can safely say that this scene isn’t just a throwaway joke, but a serious aspect of Pao-lin’s character. Something that is also touched upon in S1 Ep 9, with the whole baby thing and the barrette, etc.

So, let’s break down the above Hero TV Vol. 2 page on Pao-lin and see what it tells us about her gender presentation and sense of gender identity. We are going to start with the title:

Translation: A unisex girl who uses the “boku” pronoun. 

Okay. So, we want to take a look at three things:

1. The word ユニセックス or “unisex,” checking the Japanese Wikipedia on the word shows that both English and Japanese have the same definition for this word (you need to be careful of that, because English loan words in Japan don’t always share the same meanings). That definition is: a word used to describe something that has a lack of distinct between masculine and feminine. For example, a skirt isn’t considered unisex, because it is still heavily associated with feminine presentation, but something like Pao-lin’s track/body suit from S1 would be. Because that is a style, especially back in the 60s and 70s, that was worn by both men and women and didn’t lean too much in either direction. The same goes for Pao-lin’s haircut in S1, which is at a length that isn’t perceived as being overtly masculine or feminine. 

2. The word 少女 (shoujo) or “girl.” This term is very straight forward. It means girl, doesn’t have any other secondary meaning, outside of like “young lady” or something similar to that. When someone uses this term, especially in regards to marketing for anime and manga, the age range is 7 - 17 years old. What this is telling us though is that the creators (at least at this point in time, about two months post the end of S1) view Pao-lin as a girl. So, her gender identity by the writers and creators is of a cis girl. 

3. Last, we have the fact that she uses “boku,” which is a masculine way to say “I.” However, it should be noted that girls using “boku” isn’t super uncommon and “ore” is perceived as even more masculine, but you can still find some women who might use it. When I lived and worked in Toyama City, the secretary at my junior high school was a lovely old lady who used “ore.” I loved it! T0T

Bringing this back to Pao-lin though, we have to take into consideration that she is an anime character. And a bokukko (literally just a combination of the word “boku” + “ko,” which means “child” but is also often commonly associated with girls) is a very common anime trope. It even has its own TV Tropes page, where it mentions how often these characters are meant to be tomboys. Some other things mentioned in the TV Tropes page are:

Even with Japanese speech patterns becoming more gender-neutral over the years, this would be considered unusual in real life

And:

However, this is not something that is totally exclusive to anime and manga. You can find real life Japanese women and girls who use “boku,” and a native Japanese nonbinary (they/them) Twitter user, who lives abroad now, called MishimaKitan wrote about this for one of their Ko-fi posts. I will be linking to their website in the comments. Here is what they had to say about minors (girls) using “boku” in real life and how that is often perceived by cishet Japanese and Japanese society as a whole:

They then go on to mention the “bokukko” archetype that we talked about above, and also mentioned this in regards to adults who are perceived as women by others in society using boku:

So, now lets just recap and see where we might be with Pao-lin’s gender presentation, identity, and sexual orientation.

Gender Presentation: Unisex

Gender Identity (According to the Above Text and as of S1 of T&B): Girl (so likely Female)

Sexual Orientation: (Going Off of the Drama CD): Lesbian (or, at the very least, Not Straight)

Now, let’s continue with the actual text of Pao-lin’s character write-up:

Translation: Pao-lin’s forte is fighting, but she has little interesting in anything outside of that. And her boss tells her, “Be more ladylike!”…

This translation doesn’t tell us too much. But this is obviously talking about the struggle we see Pao-lin having in S1. The series does have her eventually put on a dress and present more feminine: 

But, the series does make it clear that 1. Pao-lin is uncomfortable presenting in this way, a way that is decidedly not unisex, and is very clearly feminine. And 2. Pao-lin is very strictly doing this for her parents. 

Still, I remember when this episode first aired - it left a really bad taste in a lot of the fans’ mouths, mine included. A lot of fans wished that Pao-lin’s story line had been handled differently. We could see Kotetsu’s advice and intentions, but we also hated the whole “make the gender non-conforming girl or unconventional girl look conventionally feminine” trope. 

Of course, then The Rising happened, and that really changed things. But, before we get into that, let’s take a look at the last bit of text:

Translation: She is still young and has an androgynous body. So she is mistaken for being a boy…!?

Here “androgynous” is being used as a descriptive marker (since it has the descriptive marker 的 added to the end of it 中性的 and is being used as an adjective with the inclusion of な + 身体 (body)). It should be noted that 中性 on its own does means (from Wikipedia’s X-gender Japanese page) :

Translation: A gender identity of an individual who identifies themself as being between male and female

And it falls under the X-gender umbrella term. All that being said, that specific term isn’t being used with Pao-lin here. 

However, I do think we are seeing Pao-lin existing in a queer space and identity, and not just in a “tomboy phase” or existing solely as “tomboy character archetype” that you often see in other anime and manga series. The reason for that being 1. how T&B chose to handle Nathan’s character in The Rising - that was a very raw and genuine deep dive look into gender identity issues and 2. how they’ve chosen to present Pao-lin in the continuing movie (The Rising) and Season 2. In both of these, they’ve gone harder in having Pao-lin present more masculine. 

Even though Pao-lin has gotten older (by S2 she is 16 or years old), and likely has developed a bit more in regards to her body’s development, we see her designs in The Rising and S2 placing less emphasis on her breasts and her hair cuts are also shorter (more in the masculine presenting shortness range, in a generally speaking “this is how that length is generally perceived” perspective) and styled more masculine-like as well.

That makes me think a lot in regards to Pao-lin’s gender identity, just as how the slight ship teasing between her and Lara makes me think a lot about that Drama CD and Pao-lin likely (possibly) being attracted to girls. But, as far as  official identity goes, we don’t have anything new beyond what we were given in that Hero TV Vol. 2 fanbook and Drama CD (as far as I know). Pao-lin is definitely GNC (Gender Non-Conforming) though, and I would love it if we could get a new Hero TV Volume fanbook soon, one that is updated to include The Rising and S2 content.

tnbuddyweek countdown dump! kotetsu and barnaby will be getting their own post tomorrow (i havent drawn them yet🧍) i also drew 2 things for day 4. take them