In English, the second trial seems pretty transphobic because everyone is so quick to use he/him pronouns for Chihiro or call them a boy once they discover he’s male. However, in Japanese, this is not the case. I’m not going to go over everyone, but it’s noticeable that Makoto uses the -san honorific for girls and -kun honorific for boys. After finding out Chihiro was biologically male, he continues to use -san. I think this shows a lot of respect for Chihiro. Makoto didn’t know if Chihiro liked being referred to as a boy even though he’s male, so he didn’t start using -kun.
A bonus mode called School Mode was later added, which had an ending where Chihiro tells Makoto he’s biologically male and identifies as such. In English, Makoto thinks it’s a joke, but in his inner thoughts, he already started using he/him for Chihiro. That doesn’t make sense to me because why would he use he/him if he doesn’t believe Chihiro? In Japanese, Makoto thinks it’s a joke and still uses -san. Once Chihiro establishes it’s not a joke, Makoto says this line:
He changes from -san to -kun. I really like how he included that change in his sentence. It shows that Makoto doesn’t view this as something small and understands how much this means to Chihiro.
Basically, I like these two.
