The chapter opens up right where we left off with Madarame and Hato, with Hato asking to come inside Madarame’s apartment so that they can have a talk. Hato’s main goal is to apologize, as he believes his actions have led to Madarame not coming to the clubroom anymore. Situated right on his desk however is a copy of the game Kohsaka’s company was selling at ComiFest, inevitably drawing the discussion towards it. As they discuss its rather unique contents (though all the characters you romance are actually traps, you can also get them pregnant and marry them), they also begin touching upon the doubts and dilemmas that are currently bothering them. In the end, Madarame’s nonchalant attitude towards Hato being unable to draw anything but BL (his advice is essentially, “do what you want”) actually helps Hato resolve to work on the planned manga with Ogiue for the school festival.

At the club, both Ogiue and Hato independently decide to do something different and decidedly not BL, going with Sue’s proposed plan of Ogiue on script, Hato on art, with no crossover. Ogiue, looking to do a high school shoujo love story, asks the members of Genshiken if they have any stories of romance in their own high school experiences to share (also making the best face ever in the process). The chapter ends with a collection of dumbfounded stares, which shows that when it comes to teenage romance, no one in there can call themselves experienced.

During Madarame and Hato’s conversation, Madarame wonders aloud if it might be time for him to stop being so attached to his old college life. Hato thinks that he’s the cause for Madarame wanting to leave the club for good, but I think it’s clear that he’s probably one of the less significant factors, if really one at all. Madarame’s lingering feelings for Saki bleed through during their discussion of Kohsaka’s game, and it’s evident from his tone that the decision to move on is more tied to a rather more complex set of feelings. On the one hand, moving on means letting go of Kasukabe and deciding that it’s over. On the other hand, it can also mean that it’s time to “grow up” and stop being the otaku he was during college. Too many strong emotions are bundled together to not make this anything less than a growing concern for Madarame.

The fact that Madarame played a game centered around traps is both surprising and not. We already knew that his tastes could be pretty off-the-wall, and in terms of what’s out there, girl-boys aren’t anything special by comparison. However, this does further emphasize the idea that what one finds attractive in actual people may not be what they enjoy in their fictional characters, like with Madarame and Saki.

What is bizarre though is the whole thing about one of the characters being based on Kohsaka. Madarame mentions in the chapter that, not only is the character also named Kohsaka Makoto (with different kanji), not only does he look like Kohsaka, but his dialogue also closely resembles Kohsaka’s way of speaking. Now imagine you’re playing a visual novel, and you know for a fact that the character in front of you is based on a person you’ve known for years. It’s actually a step beyond finding out a friend of yours does porn now, and it’s one of the stranger kinds of familiarity that I can imagine.

Hato in this chapter is also revealing more about himself, particularly that his fantasies aren’t necessarily restricted to “just” BL. It may be about 95% of what’s going on there, but he begins to entertain the thought of Kasukabe turning to Madarame, though it ends up being aborted part-way through because of something that the old members of Genshiken determined back at the last graduation party in Volume 9: Saki isn’t moe, or more specifically, Saki’s personality and demeanor are such that it’s hard to turn her into a character type (“chara”) without significant changes. As Hato starts to try and think of something, he immediately remembers his first meeting with her, where she instantly saw through his disguise and called him a crossdresser.

Kasukabe’s too sharp, too real, which again emphasizes the contrast between Madarame as otaku and Madarame as a man of unrequited love. Have I ever said that Genshiken‘s really good at characters? Like fifty times? Okay, just so you know.

Going over to the Ogiue side of the chapter (which still involves Hato anyway, so I guess we could more call this a Hato chapter?), let’s talk about that face. Perhaps more than anything else I’ve seen, this expression is a sign that Ogiue’s changed deep inside, because I could not possibly imagine her making that face even up to the point where Hato, Yoshitake, and Yajima join the club. Even with her current problems, it just seems like a great weight has not only been lifted off her shoulders, but it’s also been tossed far away and mined for ore.

It’s also good to see that Ogiue and Hato have resolved to work together for the school festival, and that in doing so they’ve also resolved to work through their respective mental blocks. The fact that they’ve decided to go with a high school shoujo story is an interesting challenge, not only because it means new and unfamiliar territory, but because they’re otaku trying to write what is (probably) going to be a typical teenage romance. This is obviously where Ogiue’s last question in the chapter is coming from; as someone whose only pre-college romance ended in the worst trauma of her life, she can’t use her own experiences to fuel the story.

I think this chapter leaves with us wondering just who among the people in the club actually dated in high school? While Yoshitake might be the most obvious one given her personality, I’m basing my prediction on those last two panels of the clubroom.

Of all the people in there, only one is not shown to be reacting incredulously to Ogiue’s question.

That’s right. I get the feeling that we’re going to find out about the romantic life of Susanna Hopkins.

Whoo!

A couple of years ago when Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt was airing, the show would often be compared to American cartoons on account of its clearly influenced style. People even speculated as to whether or not Panty & Stocking would fit on Adult Swim. Since then, a show has emerged which I think is truly worthy of the moniker of “Adult Swim-esque anime.” That anime is gdgd Fairies.

gdgd (gudaguda) Fairies is ostensibly about three fairies living and playing in the Fairy Forest, but like Aqua Teen Hunger Force (which originally had Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad fighting crime), the premise is just an excuse for bizarre conversations and even more absurd misadventures. If the unusual nature of the production wasn’t clear enough by the end of an episode, each episode is initially titled “Title Pending.”

The main (read: only) characters are the naive pkpk (pikupiku, center), airheaded shrshr (shirushiru, right), and darkly humored krkr (korokoro, left). An episode is typical divided into three parts, where part 1 involves a conversation between the fairies that usually spirals out of control, Part 2 has them practicing magic in the “Room of Spirit and Time,” and Part 3 has the three fairies peering into a magical spring to see people in other worlds and then ad-libbing their dialogue.  During these sequences, a discussion about being late turns into one about the tragedy of time slips, the girls challenge each other to see “who can fly over the most old men,” and they even get to see this:

Part 3 (the “Magical Spring Dubbing Lake”) is where the show gets serious and pulls out the big guns. And if a bald man in his underwear farting through the sky or a fat woman in lingerie dancing as the city around her crumbles weren’t enough, after a couple of episodes it becomes very clear that, while the other parts of gdgd Fairies may play fast and loose with the show’s contents, in part 3 the actors themselves are entirely without scripts or preparation. Here, the show takes on a Space Ghost: Coast to Coast or Home Movies vibe, where the actors have to improv their lines on the spot. The actors will fall out of their voices without realizing it, unable to hold in their chuckles long enough to maintain character and will mention other anime roles they’ve done without even considering the 4th wall. These aren’t clever nudges and winks for the audience, but evidence that just as you’re seeing that farting man for the first time, so were they. You are literally hearing them joke around with only the thinnest of pretext, and it makes you laugh whether or not what they said was actually funny or a spectacular failure.

I had a conversation with Dave (of Astro Toy and Subatomic Brainfreeze) and we agreed that gdgd Fairies would actually work on Adult Swim. There’s no need to do anything to it, just put it on the air with subtitles at 2am and let the post-Family Guy and Squidbillies audience enjoy. If you don’t want to wait that long for it, you can actually catch all of the episodes on Crunchyroll.

Carl x Fusako 4ever.

For reference, Volume 11 covers the following chapters, which I have reviewed before.

Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67

Sue’s Ogiue collection: The first new thing is the inside cover, behind the dust jacket. Here we see Sue surrounded by Ogiue merchandise. While the PVC figure with its changeable clothing is real, I can tell you with the utmost confidence that the vast majority of the stuff in this room are “what-ifs” at best. You’ll note the Ogiue dolls hanging above, one for each of her “eras,” not counting junior high flashbacks or ComiFest disguises. Interestingly, the picture of Ogiue’s Lilith-esque demon cosplay on that wall scroll is the first time we ever get to see why exactly Ogiue was so intent on hiding her chest when Sasahara came into the room. Lilith-esque indeed.

Women and body hair: A 4-koma where Yoshitake talks about the fact that she has rather long arm-hair makes me realize just how much body hair is a thing in Genshiken, and how much this has to do with the mostly female cast. I think it’s no surprise that it wasn’t really an issue when the club was mostly men, but now we have Yajima talking about how she only shaves her pits when she has to, and Hato accidentally showing his ”smoothness.” While it’s not like you can see tufts of hair on their arms or mustaches, the fact that Genshiken has bothered to make this into an on-going topic shows that it’s not afraid to go some places. Then again, this is from the man who screen-toned veins onto breasts for Jigopuri.

Speaking of breasts: A good number of the 4-koma in Volume 11 are concerned with bust sizes, owing to the fact that Hato wore a large chest for his Yamada from Kujian cosplay. Of these, the ones that I think are most interesting are the one where Yajima points out that you can’t exactly say she’s “busty” when her figure resembles a sumo wrestler’s (her own self-disparaging words), and the one where Nakajima mentions that she’s smaller than Ogiue (which she begrudges). Upon reading Nakajima’s 4-koma, I realized that I did not notice this at all in any of her appearances, which is to say that Kio has drawn and characterized Nakajima well as someone who knows how to dress.

Hato’s ultimate cosplay: Hato dresses up as Charles from Infinite Stratos. In other words, a man cosplays as a woman disguising herself as a man.

Ogiue’s Sasa x Mada doujin is a big hit: The freshmen like Ogiue’s doujinshi so much that they all end up making copies of it. The fact that there are people in the club with whom she can really share it is a big step from where she was back when she drew it, and again I have to perhaps point to how different the new generation of club members has turned out to be. That said, it’s clear from just this one panel that it’s equal parts comforting and disconcerting for her.

Heroic Spirit Hopkins: I know a certain Hisui of the Reverse Thieves is going to get a kick out of this one. In the end-of-volume extra, the members of Genshiken discuss the endless enigma that is Sue, trying to figure out the source of her power, both physical and mental. In the end, Sue clarifies for everyone when she says, “I ask of you, are you my master?”

Totally off-topic but: There’s an insert in the volume for Kodansha’s line of light novels, and one of them is a continuation of the Ojamajo Doremi series with the characters now 16 years old! Aptly titled Ojamajo Doremi 16, it features artwork by the original character designer, Umakoshi Yoshihiko, who also did the designs for Heartcatch Precure! and whose art book you should purchase, because it’s totally awesome. As I haven’t finished the Doremi series, I won’t check it out just yet.

The Hato figure: While I own it (as well as the version from the latest issue of Afternoon), I don’t have it on me, so I can’t show it to everyone. Give me a few months.

The (very) basic story has Abobo going through various worlds, from Mario to Pro Wrestling, all in order to rescue his son, and the cut-scenes often make light of the fact that Abobo is an unlikely hero, being a boss character originally. In this regard, I find Abobo’s Big Adventure to be at its best when it fulfills more than just an itch for the Nintendo days of yore and actively makes you feel like you’re controlling a beefy “master” (remember when bosses were sometimes called masters?) whose normal job is to make a protagonist regret his path in life. The first stage, a remake of the original Mission 1 from the NES Double Dragon, has Abobo giving nasty overhead chops which take out giant chunks of health in a way a puny martial artist’s spin kicks never could. Stage 3 pits Abobo against one of the characters from rudimentary fighting game Urban Champion, only the situation is entirely unwinnable by the opponent. Try as he he might, the poor “Urban Champ’s” fists cannot make a dent in Abobo’s rock-hard abs. Obviously the difficulty in this section is absolutely zero, but NES homages don’t always have to be about “NES-difficulty,” and it provides a feeling similar to the Wario games, where Wario bowls over enemies where Mario would typically lose lives and in doing so shows how much tougher he is by comparison. The final stage may be the epitome of expressing the power of Abobo, as it literally sets you in the boss position against a good guy in a scenario I think many fans of video games have wondered about for years.

On the flip-side, the biggest shortcoming of Abobo’s Big Adventure is that in some stages it just feels like the original game with an Abobo skin on top. The Zelda and Mega Man sections are especially bad at this, as they do not even bother to give Abobo anything functionally special, other than increased health. Giving the massive Abobo the ability to walk through solid doors in the Zelda level for instance would’ve been a way to emphasize his power and girth. The Mega Man level brings in the infamous Quick Man lasers, and Abobo is just as vulnerable to them as anyone else (i.e. he dies instantly). While I understand something of a desire to be faithful to the originals, these examples could have used as much care as the other parts of the game.

Overall, I think the game is worth a shot, especially given that it’s absolutely free and can be put down at any time. It has a good deal of heart in it, and that shows more prominently in some parts than others.

Name: Fujoko (ふじょこ)
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: Single
Origin: Fujoshi no Hinkaku

Information:
Fujoko is a 24-year-old recent hire at her office who is experienced as a fujoshi, but significantly less so when it comes to managing her work along with her otaku lifestyle. Luckily for her, she befriends an older fujoshi at her office named Takayo, who takes Fujoko under her wing and guides her on the path to being a fujoshi capable of handling all tasks. Like Takayo, she is fond of the Shacho franchise, even owning a Shacho hug pillow.

Though Fujoko does not know as much as Takayo, she has a tendency to take Takayo’s advice to the next level. For instance, a simple anime character bentou by Takayo inspires Fujoko to make a full-out lunch shaped like two men in a loving embrace.

Fujoshi Level:
Fujoko’s fujoshi capacity is perhaps best expressed by her room, which is decked out in BL-related merchandise (notably Shacho fan items) on the surface but also hides even deeper, more hardcore items underneath, all specifically arranged so as to avoid suspicion from those who are obliviously unaware.

Take Redline for instance, which is touted by a number of people as a sort of magic bullet that has the potential to blast away years of anime-related stigma. Certainly it’s a fantastic film on a number of different levels, but I have a hard time believing that it qualifies as “broadly appealing,” unless your definition of “broadly appealing” is limited to geeks with a penchant for thrills and visual spectacle, or alternately, anime fans from previous decades, especially from when “anime” was closely tied to “science fiction” in their eyes. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to argue that the storytelling in Redline is excellent, and that it’s far more than just pretty explosions, but something like Redline will be not judged by a more general audience unfamiliar with anime based on the subtle nuance that exists in its otherwise extreme characters. It’s full of violence and has a sprinkling of nudity, and while that sells for some, it’s also an instant turn-off for others.

“Anime with broader appeal.”

“Anime that the average person will enjoy.”

I believe these to be obtainable goals, but I find that when people talk like this, they don’t necessarily want something for a wider audience, they want anime that is closer to what they enjoy most, that possess the qualities they think are most essential to great anime, or at least acceptable anime. Certainly, wanting more of what you enjoy only makes sense, but it results in conflating “broad appeal” with the tastes of the individual. Rather than something like Redline or Cowboy Bebop, maybe the answer will be the anime equivalent of The Big Bang Theory or Hannah Montana or something else far-removed from the aforementioned anime titles. Which is to say, if anime in whole or in part transformed itself to really aim for that bigger audience around the world, the result may not be what we might be expecting.

This somewhat reminds me of all of the manga creators that have been revisiting their older work. Even putting my beloved Genshiken aside, you have GTO: Shonan 14 Days and Rurouni Kenshin, among others. All of them have certain expectations associated with them because you have the original creators working on them, but when you think about it there’s no guarantee that the work will actually be all that similar. After all, artists can change given time and experience. Macross: The First is a retelling of the first series by the original character designer Mikimoto Haruhiko, who is praised especially by a certain generation of anime fans as being one of the best character designers ever. They might point to his work and say, “There, why can’t anime characters look more like that, instead of what we’re getting today?”

The only problem is, Mikimoto’s own artwork today doesn’t look like his work from the 1980s. For that matter, if you look at his stuff from between the original Macross and now, it also looks quite different.

Expectations shattered?

I’ve been thinking for a while now about how Gundam AGE shows that it’s an anime made with younger viewers in mind. There are the more youthful-looking characters, and the choice of colors used in the show, and the toy line which tries to diversify well beyond just “model kits,” but I realized that it also handles the younger characters in a particular manner that appeals to kids a lot more than adults.

Essentially, in the world of Gundam AGE, adult treat the opinions and ideas of children as seriously as they do the words of adults. Whenever Flit or Emily or anyone else has something to say, they’re willing to listen and not patronize them, as if the kids may know something that they don’t or may have simply forgotten in the process of becoming adults. It’s a feeling that I think most people can remember from when they were kids, that maybe the adults in our lives overlooked something that we knew to be absolutely right. Kids don’t want the adults around them telling them that they’ll “understand when they’re older” or that they need to wait a few years before they can say anything of value.

Heck, teenagers don’t want them from adults, and people in their 20s don’t want that from the people older than them either. It’s probably more relatable than I first realized.

So what’s really interesting about this, then, is the fact that Gundam AGE has that generational theme, that we’ll eventually be seeing the first arc’s children turn into adults, and then see how they handle their offspring and the new ideas they offer. I can’t say for sure, but it’s almost like the show was built for this.

The first is Largan Drace, the man who was originally meant to pilot the Gundam, but who ends up in a regular ol’ robot when Flit takes the Gundam as his own. With actual military training but no notable reputation, Largan is pretty much “just another soldier,” but the fact that he is aware of his skill level while being both humble/confident about it actually causes him to shine through at a fair level which says “I’m a side character, but I’m also important in my own way.” He’s even the person who, upon injury, suggests Flit take the Gundam in his stead in the first place. While Largan has no special abilities to speak of, nor any exceptional talents, his behavior and integrity make him an excellent representative of the average soldier.

The second is Adams Tinel, who sits in the bridge of the Diva as Navigation Officer. Loyal to the Federation and thus torn by the fact that the Diva’s captain, Grodek Ainoa, is very much a rogue and a man willing to use almost any means to achieve his goals, Adams has shown his character in contrast to Grodek on a few occasions now. From this, we know that if given a path of light or a path of darkness, he will always choose the former, such as when he informs the Federation of the Diva’s situation in fighting the enemy despite fact that Grodek is a man wanted for treason. However, his goal in doing so is not to tattle, or to show his loyalty, but because he honestly believed that trying to get the Federation’s support was the best course of action. Adams plays by the book and does so without being a wet blanket, and in a series full of characters so fully intent on achieving their goals, his sense of restraint is notable and admirable.

A common complaint with many anime characters is that they are too average and therefore too boring. Largan and Adams show however that playing by the rules and doing okay does not disqualify a character from being interesting. Instead, they show that there is a big difference between average and bland, and when it comes to both main and side characters, the approaches taken for them are valuable lessons.

When last we saw the club, everyone was getting ready for the campus festival, with the pièce de résistance being a special edition of the club newsletter Mebaetame featuring original stories by the members of Genshiken. As this chapter makes us aware from the very start however, things are not going as planned, as Ogiue is in a slump, Yoshitake and Yajima are finding teamwork to not be so simple, and Hato’s drawing style seems to change drastically depending on whether or not he’s crossdressing. As the club tries to figure out not only how they can get anything done in time for the festival but also why Hato would have such an unusual psychological block, Sue suggests that Ogiue and Hato should collaborate, with Ogiue providing the story and Hato the artwork.

This solution, still not agreed upon by the parties involved, seems to create new challenges as well. On top of the difficulties they were having already, Yoshitake and Yajima (with beers) now feel intimidated by the fact that a collaborative work between Ogiue and Hato would completely outclass them, and this frustrations even results in Yoshitake admitting that she finds Yajima’s drawings to be pretty bad where she would previously have sugarcoated it. Ogiue meanwhile is moving towards writing a shoujo-esque romance for Hato to draw, but is aware of the fact that shoujo is untested territory for herself.

Hato too is wondering about whether or not having Ogiue’s script as a guide would provide enough structure for him to not go offtrack while drawing, when he comes across the fact that Madarame bought the game being sold by Kohsaka’s company at Comic Festival. Touting a girl-boy as a significant feature, Hato begins to think about Kohsaka putting the moves on Madarame with the game as pretext, and finds that his “Stand” is going too far. He also realizes an odd fact about himself: “Stand” Hato seems more hardcore and extreme than Hato when crossdressing. Madarame comes home earlier than expected, which results in Madarame walking around for a while to let Hato finish changing. Once Hato is done, he (in women’s clothing) mentions to Madarame that they haven’t met in a while, and that he wants to apologize for all of the trouble he’s caused recently, like the whole incident with Kuchiki. Madarame, reminding himself that despite appearances Hato is definitely a guy, invites Hato back into his place to chat.

I think Chapter 71, possibly more than any other chapter, makes me aware of how different the new Genshiken (both club and title) is from the old one, at least compared to where it began. This in turn has me thinking about some of the comments I’ve read and heard from both friends and relative strangers about how unapproachable or how unrelatable the characters and stories are for them now. So, my intent is to think through how the sense of unfamiliarity plays out in Genshiken II, particularly because I find the changes to be especially pronounced with this chapter.

The first and least, shall we say, controversial point of difference is the fact that a good portion of the club seems to show a kind of creative energy, even if they might not have the talent to match up with it. While they are all having difficulties making their works, all of these are problems which occur after they’ve begun their creative processes. This is a stark contrast to the old club where the primary issue with putting out any sort of material was that it was difficult to get them moving in the first place. I think the best comparison might be Yajima now to Kugayama back when he drew that first Kujibiki Unbalance doujinshi. Both of them are lacking in confidence and don’t believe they have what it takes to be real manga-ka, but where Kugayama delayed things as much as he could, we’re made aware of the fact that Yajima has continued to include drawings in her entries for the club newsletter even though she thinks her own work isn’t good. The fact that Yajima appears to be less skilled as an artist compared to Kugayama anyway seems to suggest that it’s mostly a subtle matter of mentality separating the two, and by extension the mindset of the current club versus the old one.

The second point of difference is that the mostly female cast produces conversations concerning concepts like body image and, more generally, that the characters talk about their feelings regularly. I think this comes across even when the topic at hand is something otaku-related, like how Yoshitake and Yajima are frustrated trying to work on their story. A few harsh words are spoken, but the whole thing ends up coming across as therapeutic for them in a way; even if nothing is solved (and perhaps they might even have made things worse), it seems to be oddly helpful. Not to blindly promote stereotypes about the types of conversations that occur among men and among women, but it’s hard to see this being a regular thing for the old guard of primarily male characters. Moreover, the interactions between Yajima and the rest are framed by their otaku/fujoshi mindsets, as well as the fact that they come from a different “subcultural” generation compared to Madarame and the rest. Not that there isn’t some overlap between the two groups or differences within, but overall I think it’s that the characters, now mostly female, have a tendency to talk about things that they might not be willing to if the club were dominated by men like it used to be, just as there were once certain topics conveyed as being uncomfortable if Saki or Ohno were around.

Hato is a kind of X-Factor in all of this, his crossdressing ostensibly making him one of the “girls,” but the actual physical truth makes things much trickier, particularly for Yajima, who now has that very same physical truth burned into both the shallow and deep recesses of her mind. Hato is the gateway, albeit a “troublesome” one in that he can seem familiar yet alien at the same time.

That leads to me to the third point of difference: Nidaime continuously challenges ideas of gender and sexuality in ways that the original Genshiken only began to touch on, with Hato being the most prominent example. With Ogiue, the “controversy” was about the degree to which being really hardcore into yaoi might affect actual intimate relationships, but that was still a girl being attracted to men, whether or not they were fictional/into other guys. With Hato however, the fact that he is into yaoi but finds himself attracted to women in real life makes for a trickier dynamic, especially when he starts to fantasize over fictional portrayals of real people like Madarame. While Ogiue did the same thing (and even said to Sasahara that she has no feelings for Madarame himself), Hato’s gender makes it feel like the idea is really being pushed to its limits, and every time they add another layer to it as they did in this chapter, it becomes that much more complex.

Overall, I find that when taking the notion of a sequel as more of the same, more of what you loved, more of what you’re familiar with, Genshiken II doesn’t quite feel like that. However, when taking a sequel to mean a progression from what has occurred before it and a development of ideas began in the original, Genshiken II fulfills that definition much more thoroughly. When I look at it and the work that has come between the two Genshiken (notably Jigopuri), I get the feeling that Kio Shimoku as at a point in his life somewhat removed from the typical otaku, especially male otaku, and that this is the result. Maybe this would have been better to talk about in its own separate post instead of as part of a chapter review, but I do think it was relevant here.

By the way, this post is probably going to push Ogiue Maniax’s lifetime hits to over 1 million. When you think about it, there’s no topic more appropriate for this than Genshiken.

Name: Takayo (貴代)
Alias: N/A
Relationship Status: Dating
Origin: Fujoshi no Hinkaku

Information:
Takayo is a 29-year-old office worker (OL) who is so experienced in the ways of the fujoshi that she is able to perfectly juggle her professional and personal lives, even using the latter to enrich the former. In addition to carrying a daily planner for fujoshi-related events (coded so that normal people are unable to understand it) and being adept at saving money (to be used later on BL goods), she has also managed to memorize her company’s entire inventory by associating their products with personality types in yaoi. As a young girl with a limited budget, she would purposely take many days to read a single work of BL to extend its enjoyment.

With a younger fujoshi named Fujoko joining the company, Takayo gains an apprentice to whom she teaches the art of being an adult fujoshi. Takayo ahas a little fujoshi sister named Takako, as well as a boyfriend who is fully aware of her hobbies and interests. She is also a fan of the Shacho franchise and its BL potential.

Fujoshi Level:
An “elite fujoshi,” Takayo was able to master the English language for international traveling by reading Slash fiction on the internet. Using the English-language term specifically, Takayo shows that her fujocity knows no borders.