suddenly started having thoughts about this aidairo twitter illustration again, and i feel like articulating the mixed feelings i've had on it since it came out, since it's my blog and i can talk about whatever i want
so to be blunt, i don't like it and didn't like it at the time either. at the time i actually felt guilty, since the illustration features mitsuba, and i *should* like any depictions of mitsuba straight from aida!!! but by now i've come to the conclusion that the reason i don't like it is because it doesn't look like mitsuba at all. in this illustration, mitsuba is portrayed as significantly more masculine in appearance compared to nene. nene gets to have cute lower eyelashes, while mitsuba doesn't, despite mitsuba's long eyelashes being noted by nene herself in the hell of mirrors. nene gets to have a cute & round face, while mitsuba doesn't, despite consistently having soft features as well, with mitsuba's face looking feminine being a focal point of the mitsuba arc. nene gets to have a small frame, while mitsuba has shoulders so broad by comparison that without context of the series, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking he's meant to be an adult.
overall i think it's fair to say that aida, notorious heterosexual woman known for drawing yaoi-ass men with big bulky veiny hands and shoulders so broad they count as mountain ranges (rest in piss minamoto teru), ended up projecting some of this onto mitsuba to fit the "sexy bunny waiter" vibe for bunny day, with the artificially masculinized results being utterly absurd, to the point that this is where i actually switch back around and start to like it?
this kind of hyper-masculine depiction of mitsuba, whether intentional parody or not, ends up reinforcing mitsuba's femininity to me by displaying how the opposite fails. in this illustration, we see firsthand how the masculinity mitsuba is expected to perform by cisnormative society is absolutely laughable once you get to know who mitsuba is truly supposed to be. because let's be real, little miss "i'm so cutes :3" trying to play the sexyman archetype is objectively hilarious. it makes me wonder about mitsuba's own feelings regarding this piece, i can envision it as a sort of drag king parody akin to doechii's ricardo character; "you want a man, i'll give you a fucking man." intentionally performing a costume of masculinity to take back control and poke fun at how stupid the whole thing is, rather than having it forced on you in the far more mundane and cruel ways it is in daily life.
so tl;dr, this illustration unintentionally reveals the way in which the masculine expectations that were forced onto mitsuba end up looking completely fucking stupid compared to mitsuba simply being allowed to be feminine, and i think that's beautiful in its own way. also aida, we love you, and we support you even though you're straight, but you gotta leave mitsuba out of it. you're the one who illustrated the chapter where mitsuba expresses visceral horror at nene's heterosexual fantasies involving him, you should know better than this β€οΈβπ©Ή please
but anyway that's all. transfem mitsuba is real, gootbye βοΈπΆ
