Nov 7, 2025
my full piece i did for @lovefoolszine!!! leftover sales are happening now, please get yourself a copy if you can!! the zine is super duper cute 🌻
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my full piece i did for @lovefoolszine!!! leftover sales are happening now, please get yourself a copy if you can!! the zine is super duper cute 🌻
If anyone cares about skip and loafer I've been mikamaxxing
[skip and loafer chapter 29] something fun as i am thinking about this post again, is how sukirofa has a constant theme of "you never really realize how much effect you have had on others", and as I am rereading it's really fun to find it in other ways. Similar to how Shima doesn't realize how much his kindness affected Mitsumi (And how extraordinary that kindness was), here we're show how Mitsumi thinks of her younger self as kind of a burden to a younger Nao while musing about how Nao has been taking care of her. And immediately after we're shown Nao thinking she didn't take good enough care of Mitsumi, while remembering how Mitsumi's affection deeply affected her at a hard time in her life. (Later on we even have the chapter where Nao talks to Goro about how she feels she does too little for Mitsumi, and Goro responds by reminding her of her kindness towards Mitsumi and how it's appreciated). Something along the lines of "You never know how much you mean to someone, and they'll never know how much they mean to you. Unless you tell them."
happy trans day of visibility to HER!! 🏳️⚧️
ROUND 5 — Match 15 of 18
Nao Iwakura (Skip and Loafer)
Identity: Trans woman, explicit Notes: Described as transgender in-text, and explicitly referred to as transgender by Misaki Takamatsu. Propaganda: N/A
vs. Ayda Mensah (The Murderbot Diaries)
Identity: Polyamorous and WLW, explicit Notes: Has two spouses, one of whom is a woman and the other whose gender has not yet been specified. Propaganda: "Intrepid galactic explorer! Mensah is a scientist, a politician, a mom of multiple children, and is holding this scientific survey together as everything blows up in their faces. Mensah is thoughtful, kind, brave, and so so so bad at talking about her own problems. She's the first person to ever truly treat Murderbot like a PERSON, and the way they navigate their relationship going forward is so fascinating and sweet and makes my heart full."
Who should advance?
Nao Iwakura
Ayda Mensah
So happy to see Nao!! She's always there to watch Mika's love life evolve, haha.
It's so satisfying to see that Mika is noticed and that her efforts have finally paid off. She, who thought she'd never be chosen by anyone…
Nevertheless, Nao's reaction scares me… I have a feeling things won't go well for Mika afterward.
Poor Mitsumi :'( She must feel so lost… She can clearly tell that something is off with Sousuke, and this makes Mitsumi start overthinking too, with the thought that he might act like this just to get attention crossing her mind.
It's touching to see Nao making the effort to step out of her comfort zone for Mitsumi's sake.
It's beautiful to see her entire family and friends come together to watch her shine during her speech! They're all filming her, and you can feel how proud they are!
Meanwhile, Sousuke watches Mitsumi from afar. By positioning himself upstairs, away from her (unlike her family and friends), he clearly shows that he doesn't want to hold her back. He just wants to see her shine brilliantly.
This scene, along with the moment when Mitsumi realizes the effort Nao had to make to come see her, could have made me cry.
Seeing two people put themselves out there for someone else's sake… I just can't remain indifferent.
Nao Iwakura from Skip and Loafer
"she won't be polled during pride month but I submitted her during pride month so it's the thought that counts. love seeing trans woman rep in anime."
Do you like this character design?
Yes
No
It's Complicated
skip to loafer and the "i love you as a person" message
skip to loafer general spoilers
one thing that i'll always be very grateful of skip to loafer is really how they highlight so much the "i love you as a person" mindset — and how that is present in all the narrative, not only on shima and mitsumi's relationship.
this is not only important for the story's target audience, but it also opens the door to a discussion about the value of platonic relationships, which are often "denied" because they are not as "important" as romantic love. and this happens not only when mistumi tells shima that she will like him no matter what happens or who he is — the message spreads to other characters as well.
one of the examples i love most is the moment mika confesses to shima. throughout the chapter, all of her insecurities are exposed and she tirelessly hurt herself saying things like how she doesn't deserve to have someone who likes her in any way (a reflection of the way she was treated throughout her adolescence). this dissolves when shima refuses to throw away the valentine's gift she made especially for him and thanks her for all the care she took with it — an affirmation that her hard work has been recognized and appreciated. this shows mika that she is a person who deserves love and to be valued. for the first time, mika understands that she is being seen as a person, as someone who deserves to be treated well and be recognized.
i know that many people must be thinking that there was an intention for a romantic development in this scene and yes, i agree. after all, mika went to him to confess her feelings. but the way in which the scene was handled makes me think that being seen as a valid person to have feelings was worth much more to her than having her romantic feelings reciprocated — and this, in my opinion, comes back to prominence in chapter 54, when nao, once again, recognizes her pain and connects with it (the appreciation of the "self" when you find someone who understands where you’re hurt).
(...)
(this part wasn't included on the original analysis, but later on I decided to add:
oh my god i was so focused on some very specific scenes for mika that this one slipped my mind and i feel so bad for that! this moment is one of the most important for mika’s development and it also highlight the first time she was seen as a person (by no other than nao). since that day, mika holds nao to a very important place in her heart. i feel that she, at that time, said exactly what mika needed to hear to feel validated and to feel comfortable enough to just go back and spend the night with the girls. if it wasn’t for nao at that time, mika would probably go home and regret ever making this decision — and this ties directly to chapter 54.)
(...)
the second character i want to talk about is yuzuki and all the times she had her identity erased thanks to other people's selfishness.
since the opening of chapter 38, yuzuki talks about how she was always seen as someone whose time was numbered: there was a countdown until the day she achieved "true beauty" and began to be an object of desire, no longer a person. this not only happens thanks to the disgusting adult men that surround you, but also thanks to the friends she tried to make in middle school, one of the most important times of a child’s life, phase where they are beginning to recognize themselves as a person.
yuzuki is simply seen as a object of status to the boys in her class, while to the girls, she’s someone who was only interested in "diminishing others with her beauty" — something she never did, but never even had the chance to defend herself.
Thanks to that, yuzu is forced to grow up without having an identity of her own, but one forced on her, causing her to rebel and refuse to open up to new people. she had her feelings denied, being defended only when there was a sexual/romantic interest in the mix and forced to believe that she was being selfish for denying such a privilege of being "spoiled" and "admired" by everyone, all the time.
yuzu gets her chance to be valued as a person when she enters high school and meets mitsumi and the other girls. she is, for the first time, seen as a person, seen as a yuzuki, seen as someone who has the right to impose herself and be selfish, something she has never been able to be before. her feelings are not diminished or seen as "not valid enough” but most importantly: she’s finally heard.
and then, i think we have one of the most important “i love you like a person” moment: the breakup chapter. chapter 46 is a huge twist to skip to loafer’s romantic narrative, which i myself appreciate a lot. kind of a personal twist here, but it’s a breath of fresh air for someone like me, a demi girl, who always had a little trouble with understanding love when i was their age — and now, basically ten years later, mitsumi’s words not only reached shima, but it also reached me and other thousands of readers who needed to hear something like that.
but well, let’s get back on track. chapter 46 is one of the first times we see shima talking about his past relationship with other people and going a little more in-depth with his relationship with his mom. the core message of it all and the core line that guides all of his personal connections is very simple and highlight why shima have so many trust issues: no one ever saw him as a person, but only as a status object, as someone who was there to be used for their own benefit. shima was used by his mother when she forced him to keep on acting, was used by his peers in a situation a little similar with yuzuki (ofc not completely equal, because we need to remember that gender roles also have a huge influence on how both stories developed (see ririka, for exemple. i have a whole thread on her as well, but this is another topic), when both felt like they were nothing but puppets to the ones around them.
when shima is sitting by mitsumi’s side, he starts to wonder if he really deserves all of that, if he really deserves someone like mitsumi near him. he doesn’t understand his feelings as a whole, because he was never given the opportunity to really explore them and try to dissect it all — this is brought up once again on chapter 53, when he starts to discuss with mukai what it means to love someone in a romantic way (and why loving them as a person isn’t enough on society’s eyes).
he’s not, at any point, using mitsumi or making fun of her feelings. imagine if you were never allowed to think for yourself and then, suddenly, you have the freedom to do so. how does one express something they never had? how does one understand what it means to have a feeling, any feeling, if all they ever felt was guilt?
and that’s when the bigger bomb hits the scene: mitsumi, seeing how troubled he is, shows how important he is and how she values him as a person. it might seem silly to a lot of people, but just hearing someone saying “i will always like you as a person, no matter who you end up being” when all you ever heard in your life was how useless you were, makes you whole world crumble on the spot. he was seen, he was heard, he was understood. mitsumi valued him to the point of assuring him that a romantic relationship wasn’t more important than the platonic one they had. isn’t that beautiful?
to finish it off, i think the conversation the girls have on chapter 57 is also extremely important to the narrative and to the overall message. by not wanting the girls to see shima in a terrible light, mitsumi is, once again, putting their relationship as friends above any other romantic relationship they could have. she shows how much she values him and how much he is important to her — she sees shima as a person, not as an object.
and then, makoto comes to picture with a beautiful speech about how loving someone (any kind of love, not one or another) is to hope that they are happy, content, being taking care of and being comfortable with their own feelings. by forcing someone to feel anything you selfish want, you’re not valuing them as a person with their own feelings and insecurities, but only seeing them as a way to satisfy yourself.
of course, i’m not here to defend everyone and say that they never hurt anyone. yes, shima did hurt mitsumi and she still not completely over it, but she’s way worried with losing him as a friend than forcing something out of a relationship that both don’t feel very comfortable with. mitsumi herself is also someone who is slowly understanding her feelings and understanding what it means to love romantically — but never putting the platonic side aside, since there is no right way to love someone.
thank you so much for reading!! i hope i was clear about the points i was trying to bring up, but i'm always open to discussion!!! 💛
