#kiruko trans

[hachinanakomatsu]

Kiruko/Haruki Heavenly Delusion's complex trans character

Thread explaining Kiruko/Haruki's character as of Chapter 54 of Heavenly Delusion.

I’ve seen many be confused over the intended way to view Kiruko’s character because of the many complexities of her arc. One of the biggest important aspects of her character and the narrative as a whole is identity and how our desires shape us.

To start with simplifying her ‘love’ for her sister as ‘siscon love’ is heavily missing the point and intention of her character. Yes, Haruki does have an unhealthy complex for Kiriko but it’s less of sexual/romantic love and more a deep pining and desire to be her body and all.

This is shown further when she outright does wake up in Kiriko's body post surgery. Her first thought after the sadness of losing her sister was a dark pleasure over having the body of her sister. She feels heavy guilt over liking the situation which is a big part of her complex.

Another aspect of Kiruko's character people overlook is the extreme admiration/idolization and possible love she has over Robin. This extends to Kiruko when she was still Haruki as shown by her overreliance in needing Robin to save her, needing to be useful to Robin and so on.

Her perfect image of Robin is shattered however when they reunite after 5 years and he takes advantage of her and sexually assaults her. With the way her identity is heavily formed around others Haruki (Robin), Kiriko (Kiruko) this completely shatters her self image.

The way she dissociated her mind (Haruki) from her body (Kiruko) during the assault plus the feeling of being trapped in the mirror implies a deeper desire of Haruki's from before the accident. Which is that she wanted to swap places with Kiriko while she and Robin were together.

Her love/admiration for Robin is as vital to her identity as her attachment with Kiriko as it shapes her identity as much as Kiriko does. This is shown by how she carries on wearing the jacket Robin handed to her all this time since she lost Kiriko and started her life as Kiruko.

It isn't until her talk with Maru after the assault she can finally let go of her past identity of Haruki and move on from her lingering attachments. From here on she's accepted herself as a woman as Kiruko and is trying to find worth and a goal in the aimless world with Maru.

Her feelings for Maru and her gender identity also go hand in hand. She first confesses to Maru she used to be a guy 'Haruki' when he first confesses to her on the boat because she feels guilty about idea of him liking her as she used to be a guy but she trusts him enough by then.

The scene where she asks Maru if he's fine with him touching her breasts after the promise he could do so is important in mentioning since she's fine with him doing that as long as he's fine with the fact she used to be a boy and her past identity of Haruki.

Her feelings for Maru primarily start to come to surface more outright when she started moving on from Robin. She's also a lot softer and more comfortable in her skin in more recent chapters.

In summary Haruki likely had gender identity issues and envy for his sister which was rationalized in his head as a sort of twisted love. And her identity is shackled around others too strongly due to her low self worth and self deprecation.

I think it's vital to understanding her character and while she's heavily flawed it's very realistic. I think this quote from Masakazu Ishiguro explains the idea behind her character well, the extreme end of a love a brother has for his sister to the point he wants to become her.

There's also this interview where instead of using the manga genderbending genre tags TS or TSF, the full katakana "トランスセクシュアル" , the official term for Transsexual/Transgender people, is used instead.

I'll update this thread whenever new chapters drop or i notice more. Kiruko is a deeply personal character for me so wanted more to be able to understand her mindset and struggles.

#heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #kiruko #transgender #trans women #transfem #transsexual #Haruki Takehaya

[zincbot]

kiruko heavenly delusion is so transgender to me

#heavenly delusion #(points) you are trans #kiruko i am obsessed with her basically. her SCARS?! HELLO #also maru is so funny he talks like such a teenager. 15 year old of all time #their dynamic is really compelling i like how maru calls her sis and dude and stuff. (dub watcher) #also kiruko is so like. she acts so casually with maru and it's clear they've been travelling for a while #and she tries her best to take care of him and protect him #but she still hides behind that wall of 'its just a job'. when maru clearly wants an older sister #but she doesn't even get it. even as she reassures him she won't leave. she just tries to keep things light always and never takes time to #like #examine their dynamic #cause i think if she did that she'd realize that she wants a brother too #(i am one episode in disclaimer) #also when i say transgender i am leaning transmasc but who knows

[daisukekambehateaccount]

i just caught up to the latest translated ch of heavenly delusion and i'm so confused rn

how is dr sakota/sawatari the same guy as doctor from kiruko's past when we just saw him raising michika, ohma and kuku (children) but now

nvm i get it

so let's get this straight

tokio (14) storyline is shown at the same time as maru and kiruko's storyline but that doesn't mean they're in the same timeframe

michika (originally 10 when the bombing happened) is now 25, making it 15 years since the bombing meaning the academy kids are no longer kids and are around the same age or older than kiruko

if it's been abt 15 years, this also means tokio is significantly older than maru (approx. 29)

oook i get it. it is 4:25 i need sleep

#heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #can we stop tricking ppl into thinking kiruko is trans to get them to read this

[xbuster]

#tengoku daimakyou #heavenly delusion #maru #kiruko #this is so trans

[rh3maji]

One moment

[Heavenly Delusion anime spoilers]

There was a moment between Heavenly Delusion episodes 2 & 3 where I genuinely thought Kiruko was a straightforward depiction of a nonpassing transguy. And as those end credits played a billion ideas came to mind.

'Will Maru see Kiruko as a guy?'

'/j or /srs?'

'What is it like surviving in the apocalypse knowing medical transition isn't likely possible?'

'is it safer to stay in the closet?'

'Do people in this society even know about trans people?'

'Is Kiruko unhappy?'

and then finally:

'huh it's weird no one online has blown this character up yet or watered the show down to being "the trans guy show" or whatever, it's definitely a neat change of pace'

🤡🤡🤡🤡

#heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #womp womp #kiruko #trans guy #Kaoru Kurita you will always be famous #useless blivits

[randomidiocyncrazies]

Heavenly Delusion is gonna piss people off no matter what re: Kiruko

#heavenly delusion #ok. so. i personally do not think the author cares about actual trans issues #it's just a thought experiment/interesting plot to him #but i don't think the author is necessarily unfriendly either #(tho i did drop the manga after the robin arc bc of what happened to Kiruko)

[gabeothyinreal]

NEW VIDEO!!!!!!!!!! Today, we talk about the new anime adaptation of Heavenly Delusion, and maybe have a few laughs along the way!

#Youtube #Heavenly Delusion #tengoku daimakyou #Maru #Kiruko #Trans Representation #Review #Anime

[saccharinescorpion]

messaging you here because I’m too shy to respond to your tweets publicly, but fwiw, tengoku daimakyou has a ton of intersex characters and makes a point of exploring the dysphoric disconnect between how kiruko feels and is perceived by others, so I think it’s an intentional attempt at narrative genderfuckery akin to like, that fujimoto story about a character magically waking up as a girl but still wanting to be seen as a man, which very much reads to me as a trans narrative as well

"adding on to my last message about tengoku, the intersex characters were raised in an environment that wasn’t particularly concerned about gender distinctions, so that’s why I mentioned them - I think the manga is making intentional commentary on the subjectivity of gender socialization and not just pulling a clueless cis person move"

i get that, more than anything i just feel bad for viewers who are definitely expecting something very different from that explanation

#i might delete this later i probably shouldn't have brought it up to begin with #in general i just didn't really like the manga lol #for a few reasons #i understand the importance of messy narratives about gender it's just #it's very awkard seeing people say stuff like 'wow two anime with trans characters!' #when StL is so careful and caring about Nao #and HD is... #well some of the revelations about Kiruko are part of what put me off the manga let's just say

[originaljiraiyan]

Heavenly Delusion Season 1 Episode 2: Welcome to Tomato Heaven

View On WordPress

#Anime #Anime and Manga #Anime Recap & Review #Anime Review #heavenly delusion episode 1 #heavenly delusion episode 2 #Heavenly Delusion Kiruko #Heavenly Delusion romance #heavenly delusion trans #Review

[nyahuaisang]

@reidhershel put this accurate af take in the tags of my post about heavenly delusion being a genderqueer series and I just wanted to further elaborate on it as the original post has a nsfw label because it does talk about topics such as intersex and the such so most people don’t see it. Please turn your nsfw filter off if you want to read it.

Anyways what you need to know is that a) there is a boy who’s consciousness was transplanted into a girl’s body and b) a group of children has been raised within a facility with no concept of gender their entire lives with at least half of them being biologically intersex and one of the children who has female features has been presented to the viewers by author as more male-presenting or androgynous and is referred to as “a young boy” in the manga’s synopsis.

Because of these more unorthodox executions of queer characters there is already a multitude of discourse from both anti-lgbt bigots as well as some of the lgbt+ community itself purely because of how unorthodox it is. Like Reid says, many people invalidates Kiruko(the boy who’s in a girl’s body)‘s queerness because of his unorthodox situation and a lack of explicitly statement that he is trans or queer I can imagine some people also invalidating Tokio in a similar way.

Cishet characters get to be cishet despite never once stating they are cishet. A male character kissing a female character is labeled hetero despite never saying they’re straight. A cis character is labeled as cis, again, despite never saying they are cis. So then why do queer characters have to explicitly state they are queer if they are already exhibiting queer traits?

A girl character should not have to explicitly be stated that she is gay or bi or pan if we see her kissing another female character. A gender neutral or non-binary character should not have to be explicitly stated as such if it is shown that they do not have a concept of gender. A character who has been presented as androgynous or masculine should not immediately be labeled a girl just because they have boobs. A trans boy should not have to be labeled as trans if he literally says he has a boy’s mind but within a girl’s body. A queer character should not need to state he is queer if he is professing his love to someone he knows is the same gender as him.

Cishet characters get to be as fantastical and magical and unorthodox and still be cishet so why are we trying so hard to strap queerness down to realism? Queerness has been discriminated against by almost every community and has had everything gatekeeped from it, please don’t gatekeep queerness itself from people and media you don’t deem as “queer enough” for you personally.

To be queer means to not conform to or being in line with what society’s expectations of gender or sexuality dictates you to and to then place expectations on that ideology itself, to place expectations on what being queer should be, goes against it entirely. It’s doing exactly what queer people are trying to break out of: having to fall in line with certain expectations to be seen as ‘valid’ in other people’s eyes.

Heavenly Delusion is a queer story, a really unique one where queer people gets to simply exist in a world instead of needing that world to be labeled as “queer” for them to be able to exist within in. It’s a chance for queerness to be normalized within media, don’t ruin this chance.

#heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #kiruko #Tokio #天国大魔境 #queer #lgbtqia

[ecivons]

Kiruko’s Gender Identity

Short rambles and hcs about Kiruko and their gender

Spoilers up until where the anime ends (Ibaraki Facility)

Everything below is my personal interpretation and not necessarily what the author is intending *thumbs up*

I find it interesting that no matter what lense you try to view it through, Kiruko is trans.

And before I go on, I’m gonna warn u in advance that I’ll be using he/she/they for Kiruko/Haruki no matter the interpretation because it seems like Kiruko themself doesn’t seem to care about what gender they are referred to as or outwardly seen as

For one Kiruko’s gender experience aligns w the experience of a trans man. Kiruko is a male (Haruki) stuck in a female’s (Kiriko’s) body. This interpretation is the most obvious bc Kiruko says it themself multiple times. The only reason why people might deny they’re trans is because Haruki actually gets to experience living a cis life as a boy.

And ig this is what makes it easy for ppl to accept the fact that Kiruko’s (Haruki’s) gender identity isn’t aligned with their body’s sex.

((Funniest thing about this is that I’ve seen homo/transphobic anime bros praising the brotherly bond between Kiruko and Maru whenever they have moments together that could be seen as romantic.))

My personal interpretation is that Haruki is actually a trans girl. It might be confusing to get, especially bc Kiruko tells Maru over and over again that she is a man on the inside. But to me, this seems more like something she says just because she acknowledges her original cis life and she doesn’t want to be the object of or doesn’t see herself as deserving of Maru’s affection

I interpret Kiruko as transfem because Haruki’s love and obsession with his sister could be seen as a form of gender envy, and I kinda see the feeling Haruki gets after inheriting Kiriko’s body as like,, gender euphoria even if he doesn’t realize it. ..umm ignoring the obvious implied romantic feelings Haruki has towards his sister lmfao.

It’s not an uncommon experience for trans people to want to become a person they love/admire/respect (who happens to be the opposite gender) and eventually realize that they are trans because of it.

Haruki tells Maru that he’s gotten more confused than ever about his identity. But the ending of this arc reads to me as Kiruko realizing and coming to terms with the fact that they want to let go of their past as Haruki— their old body and life, and enjoy living as they are now.. as Kiruko whether it be a girl, both or nothing at all.

#von insane ramble moment #this is just my thoughtless word vomit that I wanted to free #if anything I said seems out of touch u can lmk lol #uh yeah #ANYWAY #heavenly delusion #tengoku daimakyou #kiruko #haruki takehaya

[fathomx]

Tengoku Daimakyo is one of the most beautiful stories I've ever seen in anime. Mild spoilers in images

This scene of the doctor scrolling on a tablet & weeping underscored by the unbelievable "blue, blue sky" by Kensuke Ushio is art. It reminds me why stories are important. Tengoku Daimakyo is one of my favorite newer anime & I could go on about the trans representation of Kiruko or just the quality of its storytelling in general, but even the side stories explore humanity in deep, often devastating ways & this single moment has more to offer than most series do in their entirety.

#anime #tengoku daimakyou #heavenly delusion #anime and manga #anime art #kensuke ushio #art #trans artwork #Youtube

[ecoamerica]

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[canmom]

seasonal animes: tengoku daimakyou 05-07

caught up on Tengoku Daimakyou (to S01E07) and Oshi no Ko (S01E05).

Tengoku Daimakyou continues to be great, in all the ways it was at the outset. It’s kind of crazy. Gorgeously animated, and full of life and character. Like, it wouldn’t look bad in a movie and they’re somehow pulling it off for a full cour of TV.

Not only have Production I.G. still got it, but it even feels like an advancement - there’s none of the very reserved stiffness that I kind of associate with TV shows like GitS:SAC or Seirei no Moribito, it’s constantly lively. The lively way it moves, and the slightly rounded character design, puts me in mind of Dennou Coil, but with a strong dash of the old realist movement mixed in.

In many ways I have the same things to say about these three episodes as I did the first four. It’s beautiful. The background paintings wonderfully depict an overgrown post-apocalypse. The action is well-choreographed and weighty. The individual episode scenarios are strong, and the unfolding mystery is intriguing. Weilin Zhang’s OP is a treat.

Sexuality is a huge theme of this series, and it’s worth spending a minute on how they play it. I spoke previously about the MC who at first glance seems to be a trans man but is actually a wacky sci-fi brain transplant patient. They’re continuing to play up the sexual tension between the two MCs hard, mostly for antics and escapades (episode 6 in particular); this is in turn used as a symbol of Kiruko struggling to decide who to be, caught between male and female behaviour codes.

Which ends up being interesting; it’s not a 1:1 map to like, the Specific Trans Experience but it is full of resonances. You could read it as a trans guy thing (he’s literally a guy with a body that everyone reads as female) but there’s also aspects of a trans girl thing (renegotiating the whole complicated mess we call ‘socialisation’). A good scifi device is a probe to give us a different angle on the world... and while I don’t want to oversell it, it does lead a fun dynamic between the MCs once you calibrate yourself to what it’s going for. (The level of horniness is broadly comparable to Chainsaw Man - jokes about boners and boob touching, a few almost-sex scenes.)

And the portrayal of awkward intimacy generally feels quite warm and genuine - it’s a far cry from whatever the hell was happening in that one nurse scene in GitS:SAC S2. The current generation of animators at I.G. are really onto something. In general it does a very good job of conveying emotion - take for example the scene where Kiruko returns to the house and finds Maru missing in Episode 5, you can really feel her sense of rising panic.

It’s also delivering very well on the horror front. Episode 7, in which our MCs walk into a conflict between a group of primmies and a transhumanist cult, seamlessly slips into a hallucination sequence where Kiruko is bitten apart by monsters. At first I was wondering if they were really going to inflict a permanent injury on the MC, especially since the buildup had a lot of talk of prosthetic limbs. They didn’t go there in the end, but it’s good that they’re finding ways to still make the monsters threatening. It’s also very good at shifting registers; in episode 6 the MCs fight a bear, and it does a fine job of telling a small story arc within the battle, advancing the MCs’ relationship, and dancing between action and comedy (when it turns out not to be a bear monster but a regular bear).

Of course, there’s also the creepy school for psychic children, who are also dealing with the struggles of puberty and first relationships etc. This is mainly a B plot in the most recent episodes, although I’m sure the focus will swing back there soon. One thing I like about the approach taken here is that the adults running the facility appear to genuinely care for the children, and they don’t seem to know everything that’s going on either. When one of the children dies they’re hit with grief (and guilt!) as much as the kids; when they find a weird nonflammable organ inside them after cremation, they’re shocked, not going ‘all according to keikaku’. It feels like a situation that’s out of control despite all the fancy technology.

Evil experiments on children is a familiar subject for anime of course, and the parent-figure who does horrible experiments on their wards while still performing affection a familiar figure within that. But while the adults here are definitely up to no good, their attitudes and motivations seem a bit less out there than your average evil science dad. Even so, the storyboarding effectively accentuates the prison-like aspect of the school; particularly effective is a sequence (screenshotted above) where the dead child is solemnly wheeled away from the other children, and taken behind the doors where they are not allowed to go; the only one who can pass through that door is dead.

Of recent anime, Mappa’s Chainsaw Man seems like a relevant point of comparison, which also went for a constantly moving sense of cinematic realism, leaning on young webgen animators for the flashy scenes. I had a great time with Chainsaw Man but it was uneven - sometimes truly great, other times it felt like it was trying a little too hard to show off with technical flexes, and not every beat landed. Tengoku Daimakyou wasn’t so hyped, so it doesn’t have as much to live up to, but its style feels a bit better integrated overall.

I also have to praise the compositing! The colours are generally really well chosen, the right level of saturation and contrast, the digital effects (typically a subtle bloom) aren’t overbearing the way they were so often in the 2010s. (Incidentally, there seems to be minimal 3DCG in this show). The ‘look’ of 2020s anime is extremely varied of course, but in some ways it feels like a return of a lot of things I really liked in 90s anime.

All in all, this is really living up to the promise set when I first thought “damn that was a cool trailer”. I hope they get to continue it for more, but either way I think I’ll pick up the manga once the series is done, it’s got its hooks in me hehe

#tengoku daimakyou #tengoku daimakyou spoilers #anime #heavenly delusion #heavenly delusion spoilers #animation

[xbuster]

The best part about Kiruko is that he’s trans no matter what gender he decides to be. If he maintains he’s a man, then he’s trans for being a man in a woman’s body. If he decides he’s a woman, he’s identifying differently from his agab. If he decides he’s neither or both, he’s nonbinary. We can’t lose.

[myrfing]

tengoku daimakyou s1 finished errrr it's uhhhhh really good storytelling, animation, pacing, but i dunno. guess i'll have to wait for s2. general really fanservicey belongs-to-men treatment of kiruko's body and the way it sort of does the body makes your gender thing regardless of what you think or say -> arc where protestors are bad and misguided and stupid self-destructive mobs thinly veiled opinion alongside kind of corny valor tragedy story about sadman sickwife -> arc where there's that trope of a woman ruled colony full of evil lesbians who cut off the breasts of women (?) where they enslave men as breeding stock (LOL it keeps happening) but also at the same time the dude has to get revenge on another man who sold him out there as the Gritty truth thing AND the victim of misandry baby enacts karmic punishment on the wicked womenruled colony -> man and woman eden adam and eve girl pregnant immediately save the children plot -> the whole final bit where the ostensibly trans dude character gets repeatedly raped in front of a mirror to show her (??? they never use masc terms) who she really is or whatever and gets saved by the epic power of the boy she's been rejecting all this time so their romance can progress. i mean i try to keep an open mind for writers playing with gender and sex weirdness in a vastly different structure but the thing is is that it's not that it's weird, it's that it's way more fundamentalist at it's core past the alien and apocalypse cult stuff than what I expected lol

#definitely dont like the ideas floating below some things but ???? #of course my bad for going into it expecting a trans character but uhh dont watch it for that #maybe im just reading it in bad faith cus burned one too many times by misjudging an anime LOL #cw rape #tengoku daimakyou spoilers #so much I saved a girl woman and now she loves me shit

[greatwyrmgold]

Kiruko, end of episode 2: "I have the body of a woman, but the brain of a man."

Me: "Oh, so he's trans? Why was that treated as a big reveal?"

Episode 3: "Kiruko's brother's brain was transplanted into her skull."

Me: "...why did you phrase it like that then?"

#heavenly delusion #anime #transgender #or lack thereof #body swap #the comment section was (perhaps predictably) relieved that there aren't actually any trans people in this anime #that shit is why I post my anime thoughts on tumblr #anyways #I wonder where the body swap thing is going #(I kinda want it to be used to explore trans themed just to spite those comment section transphobes)

[ecoamerica]

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