Discussion History Franchise / PowerRangers

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'\\\'does not\\\'\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble.

Besides which I think it is an unclear and unappealing synopsis that trips all over itself in its efforts to be PC (and then has to explain why it\\\'s being PC in a way that the series itself isn\\\'t).

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'\\\'does not\\\'\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it is an unclear and unappealing synopsis that trips all over itself in its efforts to be PC (and then has to explain why it\\\'s being PC in a way that the series itself isn\\\'t).

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'\\\'does not\\\'\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it is an unclear and unappealing synopsis that trips all over itself in its efforts to be PC (and then has to explain why it\\\'s being so PC).

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'\\\'does not\\\'\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it an unclear and unappealing synopsis that is tripping all over itself in its efforts to be more PC than the series and then explain why it\\\'s doing that.

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'\\\'does not\\\'\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself. And, politics aside, this page is about Wandering Son, not about the wider cultural implications thereof.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it an unclear and unappealing synopsis that is tripping all over itself in its efforts to be more PC than the series and then explain why it\\\'s doing that.

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'\\\'actually\\\'\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'does not\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'\\\'not how the story starts\\\'\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself. And, politics aside, this page is about Wandering Son, not about the wider cultural implications thereof.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it an unclear and unappealing synopsis that is tripping all over itself in its efforts to be more PC than the series and then explain why it\\\'s doing that.

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.

Especially because the current framing of the synopsis is... not how the story plays out. And it\\\'s confusing. To go for an entire paragraph describing Nitori as female and Takatsuki as male and then say that they are biologically the wrong genders in the second paragraph both confuses and delays the main conflict at work in the story: that of wanting to be a different gender than your biological one. I would actually say that, at least for as much of the series as I have seen (which is not nearly everything, but does cover the first 3 volumes and the anime, and so reasonably could be considered \\\"the start of\\\" the series), neither of them is confident enough to \\\'actually\\\' identify as a gender different from their biological one, but remain in an in-between state of being \\\"a boy who wants to be a girl\\\" or vice versa. Saying that Nitori identifies as female strongly enough to use female pronouns exclusively ignores the fact that the series\\\' drama is as much about what goes on in Nitori and Takatsuki\\\'s heads as it is about what other people think of them. The series \\\'does not\\\' frame things as \\\"Nitori is different from other girls\\\" and \\\"Takatsuki is made fun of for things he cannot help.\\\" Rather, the main thrust of the series is that both Nitori and Takatsuki are capable of \\\"passing\\\" as their biological genders, but are balancing the desire to express who they are against pressure to be \\\"normal\\\". The way that the synopsis phrases it, it sounds like they\\\'ve already reached a decision to live as a girl (for Nitori) and a boy (for Takatsuki), which is \\\'not how the story starts\\\'.

I also think that our attempt to be PC inevitably frames things from a Western perspective, ignoring some important cultural distinctions. Japanese barely uses gendered pronouns to begin with (they exist, but you can get around using them pretty easily), except for the word \\\"I,\\\" which the person using it obviously has some control over. There\\\'s gendered honorifics but even those are kind of fluid (there are situations where it\\\'s appropriate, or at least not particularly strange, to use \\\"chan\\\" for a boy or \\\"kun\\\" for a girl). The point being that our insistence on using he or she for these characters, and calling attention to the fact that we\\\'re doing something different from what the story is doing, kind of puts a lot of disproportionate focus on a thing that, as far as I can tell, is really a pretty minor facet of the story itself. And, politics aside, this page is about Wandering Son, not about the wider cultural implications thereof.

I\\\'m all for respecting people\\\'s gender identities, but I think that contradicting how the story itself handles things imposes our notions of political correctness onto a work from another culture, and drags our ideas of pronoun trouble into a culture that has fewer, or at least different kinds of pronoun trouble (for instance, if I recall, Takatsuki uses \\\"boku\\\" for \\\"I\\\", which is an expression of her desire to be male, but is also common a common enough affectation for girls [[{{Bokukko}} that it has its own trope]]).

Besides which I think it an unclear and unappealing synopsis that is tripping all over itself in its efforts to be more PC than the series and then explain why it\\\'s doing that.

Is there some way to get consensus on whether we could fix the synopsis somehow, and keep pronouns consistent across the page? I don\\\'t really want to edit everything myself. Spoilers notwithstanding that seems like kind of a big decision to make unilaterally.