DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

MANGA HentaiKimi Dake no Ponytail

REVIEWS

• 

  vARIAble

  100/100
  A story about love, acceptance, and reconciliation.

  Review Summary

  *Note: This review was written on 2021/3/3, before chapter 28 was released*

  “Love me for who I am” follows the life of non-binary teenager Ryuunosuke Mogumo and their journey towards being accepted by the ones they love. It is a beautiful and touching story of love, acceptance, and reconciliation. Whether or not you are part of the LGBTQ community, Mogumo’s inner desire to be understood by those around them is something we can all relate to.

  Minor Spoilers Alert

  Short synopsis

  Ryuunosuke Mogumo is a teenager who identifies as non-binary. In short, they do not feel like they are either a boy or a girl. Finding Mogumo’s wish of “having friends who will understand them” at a wishing tree, their classmate Tetsu Iwaoka invites Mogumo to the cross-dressing maid cafe his brother owns. Once there, Mogumo meets many other cross-dressers, each doing so for their own reasons. However, Mogumo feels uncomfortable being seen as a girl by the others at the cafe and almost quits in the process. Reassuring Mogumo, Tetsu encourages Mogumo to just be themselves, even if he and the others do not understand it just yet. Their wish finally coming true, Mogumo now faces their biggest challenge yet; returning home and reconciling with their parents.

  Major Spoilers Alert

  Story 10/10

  The story is an interesting take on the LGBTQ topic, something not usually discussed in Japanese media. It immediately dives into the various issues and stigmas surrounding gender. How does gender affect love? What are the societal expectations that are bestowed upon us by our gender? Is it wrong to love someone regardless of their gender? These are all major themes the manga explores, and it answers these questions through the growth of Mogumo, and the experiences and hardships they must overcome. The story feels very realistic, and it is something you can especially relate to if you are part of the LGBTQ community. For the most part, this is a heartwarming slice of life manga that follows the life of a non-binary teenager. The story is very well-paced, with the growth and development of Mogumo and the challenges they face all building towards the final confrontation between them and their parents. Overall great execution on a topic not often covered but deserves more attention and awareness. 10/10

  Characters 10/10

  Mogumo and Tetsu are the first people we meet, and other characters are gradually introduced to us throughout the story as we explore more into the lives of Mogumo and Tetsu. Each character in the story serves a purpose, and they are all unique and distinguishable from each other. Tetsu is a high schooler that often helps out at his sister’s cross-dressing cafe. He first notices Mogumo when they write a wish on a wishing tree wishing for friends who will understand them. Noting how he has always seen Mogumo alone at school, he takes it upon himself to help them and introduces them to the cafe.
  Here we meet a wide array of characters core to the story each cross-dressing for their own reasons. Suzu cross-dressing because the person he loves is a boy, and his fear of rejection based on his gender led him to the cafe. Mei has always liked girly things and eventually realizes she would much rather live as a girl than be seen as a “girlyboy”. Finally, Tenmaru cross-dresses because he simply likes to cosplay. The characters feel connected and also special in their own regard. We also get a glimpse into the past of other side characters through their interactions with Mogumo, namely Sakura and Kotone. They were both a big part of Mogumo’s childhood but have since fallen out due to Mogumo’s new identity. Their struggles in coming to terms with Mogumo’s new identity and how they overcome them are what defines their characters. The diversity in characters is what really takes this story to the next level, and it is what makes the story so relatable for people within and outside of the LGBTQ community. Like players in an orchestra, together they form a harmonious melody to tell this heartwarming coming-of-age story.

  Art 10/10

  The art was nothing less than superb. It is has a very clean feel to it with a lot of attention to detail while remaining very simple and not overly cluttered. Compared to action mangas like Attack on Titan, it has a lot more detail mainly due to each page having a lot fewer panels. The faces of characters would often be simplified (think of UwU face) or exaggerated to lighten the mood. The expressions and emotions of the characters are carefully crafted and give another level of depth. Love, sorrow, hatred, regret, fear, anger. These emotions are what make us human, and it is what brings these characters to life.

  Personal Enjoyment 10/10

  Although I have not read many mangas, this was by far the manga I enjoyed the most (aside from AoT, but you cannot compare apples to oranges). The story felt real and the problems the characters had to face are relatable. Chapter 27 was the first time I have cried from a manga. The acceptance of Mogumo by their parents reflected my deepest desires, and while there are not always happy endings in real life, seeing the story and journey of Mogumo has given me a ray of hope for my life ahead. The final scene of Chapter 27 is undoubtedly the most powerful in the entire manga. Mogumo thanks their parents for giving birth to them the way they are, and it is because of that they were able to meet the people important to them; people who love them for who they are.

  Overall 10/10

  If you are looking for a slice of life and coming of age manga exploring the lives of LGBTQ people, in my opinion, this is one of, if not THE best mangas in existence. Even if you are not part of the LGBTQ community, there are some lessons and takeaways we could all learn from this, although I will admit my review is probably very biased due to how emotional I am and how much I related to the manga. So I say give it a try. Read the first few chapters and see if you like it, because you never know what you may find.

  Final thoughts

  As the quote goes, “Do not cry because it is over; smile because it happened”. Although I wished to see more of Mogumo, the manga is drawing to a conclusion as of March 2021. Maybe there will be a sequel, who knows. After all, this manga itself is the sequel to Kimi Dake no Ponytail (warning: hentai). I also hope to see this adapted into an anime someday. Modern animes have gradually featured more and more queer characters and with the success and popularity of the manga maybe one day my dream will come true. This is my first time writing a review, and it probably is not very good, but I hope I was able to at least do the manga some justice and convey its message. Thanks for reading till the end!

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• 

  sushiisawesome

  20/100
  A dumpster fire of a series filled with unlikable characters, non-stop melodrama and angst. Absolute garbage. Skip.

  Love Me for Who I am is a series that treats its characters as devices to the identities that they identify as rather than letting them breathe as characters with any level of independence from whatever point the story wants to make. All discussion surrounding gender and the various identities the character have are cloaked in a level of discourse more befitting the angst you'd find off people whining about non-issues on Twitter instead of given any level of nuance - any character that in any way likes another character for a reason the narrative sees as negative is portrayed in a shallow, stereotypical light with zero genuine depth. The series has the intelligence and maturity of your average old tumblr poster in how to approach these themes, and instead immediately assumes a sympathetic perspective from the reader instead of attempting to portray its characters as being just that; people who want to live by and just want their identities accepted by people around them, and working hard to change the perspective of the reader.

  An absurd amount of the manga is split between characters bickering about clothing and melodramatically snapping at each other for not understanding each other. There's no attempt whatsoever from characters who identify as something that doesn't fall within the binary to settle down and explain who and what they are in a calm, rational manner; the series dives into angst-ridden garbage about characters not understanding each other instead of them sitting down and coming together to understand each other. Character conflict being at the heart of a work of fiction in and of itself is not only fine, but something I normally welcome - the problem is that there's no breathing space in-between arcs to let characters just breathe as people with lives of their own. Characters legitimately scream that people don't understand them, refuse to clarify then run off - one noteworthy and unintentionally funny example of this was a character breaking down crying in the middle of the street for inserting their expectations on someone being a woman when they weren't.

  The characters are unlikable, insufferable asswipes with no genuine personality beyond screaming at one another for the most part. Mugomo is an absolute idiot who repeats the EXACT same mistakes all manga long over refusing to explain or clarify their emotions to other people, somehow gets surprised when there's a backlash, runs into a corner and only is dragged out - kicking and screaming - by Tetsu, who is more patient with them than any normal person ever can or should be. While it takes time for a person to break out of a certain pattern of behavior, and especially if all they've encountered is rejection, there's very little that I can actually mention about Mugomo that doesn't fall into them being non-binary or isn't defined by that in some way. What little there is for a character arc is defined by Mugomo somewhat becoming more confident in expressing themselves and confronting people who are portrayed as idiots for inserting expectations onto them, but...why should I care? Why should any reader not already invested in the wider meta-narrative over gender issues care? I have no answer to this question and neither does the series, which continues with this rushed pacing unabated from beginning to end. Mugomo is never genuinely called out for running away from people, and constantly assumes the worst in other people from beginning to end, making an infuriating as shit read from a lead who is little more than a poorly explored self-insert that some people may be able to identify with. There's very little to their character and whatever is there is neither compelling nor interesting.

  Tetsu is a generic, stereotypical male lead whose acceptance of others and unique perspective on gender is the only worthwhile personality trait he has. There's no depth to him falling for Mugomo, and he exists as the angst control machine to Mugomo (and other characters in the cafe). His attraction towards Mugomo for being in his eyes an effeminate man is called out but while fades away as the center of attention that the narrative places under, never stops being the center of attraction he has; this means that in a weird way, the series turns in circles over this subject and basically arrives nowhere. This is only exacerbated by the absurd amount of attention that the series places on clothing as a marker for characterization; while this is true even for many LGBTQ+ people in real life - who use clothing to identify themselves in different ways - when that is the most memorable thing about the characters instead of some other defining traits, that becomes a problem due to the lack of effort put into, you know, humanizing them in ways that aren't tied to their identities.

  All the other characters are barely characters so much as they exist as angst-ridden devices to force outrage out of the audience. Mugomo's backstory made me despise them even more than I already did, the excessive and often senseless use of violence to emphasize a point and use more angst is tasteless at best and is just an attempt to garner sympathy from the audience - with absolutely no effort as to why I should care about any of the victims. All sorts of series have used abuse and violence in more interesting and genuinely terrifying ways - Chi no Wadachi, The Gods Lie or Boy's Abyss coming to mind. So then, at the end of the road, when a cast of characters have little to no characterization that humanizes them or informs the reader of anything genuinely thematically meaningful, what's left?

  There's some merit to Love Me for Who I am. Mugomo does undergo minimal character growth near the end of the manga. The artwork is fairly nice to look at, and the paneling is nicely done. Suzumi is a likable - if still shallow - character, and what little enjoyment I found in this travesty was when he was in a scene in question. It's kind of a shame that he and another character star in an abysmal hentai doujin...wait, maybe that really does explain it all. A lot of the writing being overly obsessed with clothing, the hypocrisy in the two leads falling for each other which is never genuinely addressed and the writing being centered on the characters physical traits instead of their personalities come off as fetishistic - which isn't unusual for works in Japan depicting LGBTQ+ people. Normally I'm fine with this to an extent, I can laugh at politically incorrect jokes - but this is something aiming at being higher than a mid-2000s romcom, and as such fails miserably at anything it does. Maybe that's the reason the writing is so poor, the theming is so hamfisted and the characters have zero chemistry...because they're written as though they're hentai characters when in reality they're in, well, a serialized manga.

  I recommend this to absolutely no one, stay as far away as humanly possible from this.

  Thank you for reading my review. Any and all feedback would be appreciated.

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• 

  Juliko25

  77/100
  Well-intentioned, but doesn't always stick the landing at times. It has its heart in the right place, though.

  Just like how LGBT-themed books are becoming more and more common, manga centered on the subject have started popping up in the anime/manga industry, with varying degrees of success in regards to how they portray LGBT themes and issues. Some, such as Yuhki Kamatani's Shimanami Tasogare: Our Dreams At Dusk, drawn by an actual non-binary mangaka, explore every possible facet of what it means to be a part of the LGBT spectrum, from finding accepting communities to dealing with the various types of homophobia with nuance and sensitivity. Others, like Kaito's Blue Flag, while well-meaning in its own way, tend to miss the mark on certain things with their superficial treatment of the issues they try to address. I first heard about Love Me For Who I Am, aka Fukakai na Boku no Subete o, through someone mentioning it in passing on TVTropes (For clarification, I don't have an account there. I just lurk whenever I feel like it). Curious, I decided to check it out, and as of this writing, all five volumes have been scanlated, and I've read the entire thing, with intent to buy the rest of the volumes that Seven Seas hasn't put out yet. So what do I think of the manga? Well, I do like it, but there are some things that prevent it from being truly great. And for any trolls wondering, no, it is absolutely NOT the fact that it actually tries to seriously tackle LGBT issues and take its premise seriously. I don't know why people consider that to be a problem, as I'm going to clear the air right now: This isn't a fetishy trap manga meant to titillate people. It's an actual manga that makes it very clear that it's going to explore LGBT issues, and anyone who tries to claim that the manga is somehow "pushing an SJW agenda" or is claiming stuff like this should never be in a manga or are pissy about not having their fetishy trap hentai can go piss off.

  If that's the case, what is Love Me For Who I Am about? The story begins when a young boy, Tetsu Iwaoka, accidentally sees a classmate of his, Ryuunosuke Mogumo, tying a wishing tag to a tree. He happens to see the tag's contents and finds that Mogumo, who dresses effeminately for reasons Tetsu doesn't know, wishes for friends who accept them for who they are. Tetsu thinks he has just the thing, and invites Mogumo to work at a cafe that his sister runs. But when Mogumo gets to the cafe, a problem arises. The cafe in question is a crossdressing maid cafe, where boys wear maid outfits, and Mogumo doesn't identify as either male or female. Through trial and error, Mogumo gets to know and befriend everyone at the cafe, eventually carving out a place for themselves there, maybe finally finding the acceptance they've always wanted. But the world isn't very understanding towards people like Mogumo, and when certain people from Mogumo's past threaten to uproot everything they worked so hard for, the people at the cafe intend to do all they can to support their friend.

  Now, a little background: Kata Konayama started off as a hentai doujin artist, which isn't particularly uncommon among up and coming mangaka, and one of the doujinshi he penned, Kimi Dake no Ponytail, was conceived as a prequel to this. So technically, this is Konayama's official debut as a mainstream mangaka and a sequel to one of his early doujinshi. On a technical level, Konayama's art is fine. Backgrounds are reasonably detailed but not overly so, the linework is clean, the panel layout is good, and I gotta say, Konayama has a real knack for facial expressions. But one thing I can see people having a problem with is that the character designs lean very heavily towards the moe aesthetic, with the employees at the cafe looking like cute little ten-year-old girls even though many of them are boys (With two exceptions, Mei and Mogumo) and are teenagers at the oldest. Most anime/manga fans I know aren't too big on cutesy moe character designs because of their somewhat fetishistic nature, which is fine, but in case anyone is wondering, there's no fanservice or characters being sexualized or put in compromising positions here (Thank God!), so you can rest assured on that one.

  The characters, I admit, I'm conflicted on. On one hand, the author does try to give Tetsu, Mogumo, Kotone, and others decent development throughout the manga, which is good. But a lot of their development is tied to their sexual orientations, and while we do get to see some tidbits of their personalities on occasion, a good chunk of the manga is spent with them dealing with their own issues related to their identities, which can make them feel like they came out of an after school special at times. What I mean is, after reading the manga, ask yourself these questions: Who are they? What drives them? What are their interests outside of wearing their favorite outfits and learning about their sexual orientations/identities? Much of the manga focuses on the characters trying to come to terms with themselves, which is fine, but other than a few small things, it feels like the characters are solely defined by their orientation. Plus, other characters, such as Suzu and Ten-chan, don't get much in the way of development at all, and mostly have one or two personality traits at most. They're not bad or anything, but this cast of characters feels rather bland like wheat toast. It doesn't help that they don't exactly leave a good first impression at the start. I've seen a lot of people take issue over Mogumo getting upset over being misgendered by people who didn't know them and their circumstances right away, decrying them and their struggles as just being a whiny, entitled brat throwing a tantrum. I personally didn't mind Mogumo reacting the way they did in the first chapter, as I assumed it was the culmination of them just getting sick and tired of being misgendered but not knowing how to really explain it in a calmer manner. I mean, they're teenagers. Would you really expect teenagers to talk to each other calmly about these kinds of issues? Plus, Tetsu doesn't have much character other than being nice and an ally to others on the LGBT spectrum, and I really didn't like Kotone. I hate it when characters fall into the "I'm jealous of this random person and bully them because they have the nerve to talk to my friend/crush/whatever" trope, as it's old, boring, and really needs to die, though the manga does give her reasons for being that way.

  Plus, there's something else I find myself confused about as well. Seven Seas constantly mentions Mogumo being non-binary in their blurbs for the manga, and Mogumo doesn't identify as either male or female. I have to ask: Does Mogumo even know that the term non-binary even exists? There's no indication that Mogumo knows that there's even a word for what they are. I think the manga really could have benefited from Mogumo learning more about what it means to be non-binary and finding others like them. Furthermore, the manga doesn't always nail the occasional mood shifts between its various chapters. Some chapters can go from happy-go-lucky to piling on angst and drama at the flip of a coin, and it can feel rather jarring. Mogumo is also given a needlessly heavy-handed, angsty backstory—though it may be true to life for some who actually experienced something similar IRL—but Konayama really could have tried to put in more effort to make the drama more subtle. Also, the manga is weirdly short too, only clocking in at five volumes and ending rather abruptly. I don't know if this is because Konayama wasn't allowed to do more with it or if they chose to end it on their own terms or what have you. I would have liked to have read more. But for the most part, other than some needless angst, the manga does make an earnest effort to tackle LGBT issues in a sensitive, tasteful light and promote understanding and acceptance, even if the ending is cheesy as all hell.

  While not the absolute best LGBT manga out there, Love Me For Who I Am is still one of the better ones out there, even if it stumbles along the way.

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