My personal interpretation of how Asa Mitaka from Chainsaw Man can be read as a transgender girl and how it affects her character insecurities and entire character arc across Part 2:
To start with, we first see her introduced, ostracised from her class, as well as her envy and jealousy for those around her. She's never had a friend who could accept her for who she is, so she assumes the worst of those around her, feeling that they look down on her. The only friend she seems to make turns out to see her as an object of hatred and jealousy because we find out that she was sleeping with their teacher, who seemed to pity Asa, and possibly wanted to use her for his own purposes. We don't find the specifics around the situation, nor does it dwell on Asa's personal thoughts, given she seems to expect it. So we can gather that she's used to isolation as well the treatment that she is handed by those around her.
We later learn that nobody, aside from the Class President nor the teacher, calls her by her name, Asa Mitaka. This could imply that her name was chosen, and nobody seems to give her the light of day to even remember that nor see her as her own individual. The only time she's 'respected' is when somebody wants something out of her, this is a very common experience for trans people in how their identity is only respected by people when they want to use them and once they're done they discard basic human courtesy.
We see that reflected in Asa's thoughts, a consistent hatred and discomfort in her own body and sense of self, but also a deep desire to be 'normal' and to fit into the societal expectation of the female norm that she envies of those around her.
The senseless violence and horrific treatment that the Class President desires to inflict upon Asa is heightened in cruelty with how she believes it's 'just'. 'Asa is just an obstacle.' 'No one will miss her.' She's justified in her mind as someone to 'get out of the way'. This way of thinking is often how people view minorities and especially trans women, the excessive violence and manipulation that society often justifies in their eyes because they don't fit into the norm and will always be questioned for their every intention.
It's only at the moment of her death that Asa's true desires come to the surface. The wish for a better life, the desire for normality that she never had as well as the want to fight for it and live more selfishly, ignoring the expectations of those around her.
However, the cost of that wish is her body not being her own, the sense that she's intruding in someone else's body and identity, Yoru who now becomes her lifelong companion, representative of the innate guilt Asa feels towards what she desires for herself. The fear that despite wanting to be normal, knowing that her every action will be scrutinised and judged by those around her. All she wants is a normal life but is now subjected to the fear that she'll be killed or subject to becoming morally bankrupt as time passes.
Now, for as long as she desires to live as 'Asa Mitaka', her identity will be associated with war, her every action part of a propaganda against herself and the country. She has no say in her bodily autonomy unless she abides, and now she's suffocated in a different way. The normality she experiences from hereon will always have the aftereffect in the back of her mind in how all of this could end as soon as she got it, now a tool of the other identity inside her brain as well as the state who will demonise her the moment it is let free.
We can see this further in how Yoru uses Asa's body to ask Yoshida out, something she's explicitly uncomfortable in, but now she's a girl she must strive for normality, right? However, she has no idea how to go about it. She wants a boyfriend, but that's because as a girl she feels she 'has to' in order to fit in. Yoru asking him out against her will feels like how she's being used and rushed into the normality that she so desires because she doesn't understand how to even fit into it yet. We can see that Asa seems to deal with an innate embarrassment and awkwardness at the act of Yoru using her body to ask a man out as if she's repressed her desires for a boyfriend because she hadn't yet come to terms with her identity and who she liked.
We can also see how Asa's trust in Yoru started when she started to refer to her by her name of 'Asa'. This conveys that this is a personal thing for her, and a lot of her hope and trust in Yoru from hereon seems to be in a way of how she seems to respect her identity. We know however that Yoru is only using Asa as a vessel for her goals but from Asa's perspective she's never really had a friend before and it was easy for Yoru to manipulate her through her simple desires for normalcy that lie underneath her facade of nonchalancy.
And this influences upon why Asa bonded so quickly with Yuko, she sees how Asa is treated and ostracised by those around her but instead of pitying her she empathises and accepts her differences, being one of the first times she could be herself around someone else.
Despite that, it's hard for Asa to accept that Yuko genuinely cares for her, worried that she truly does pity hear underneath she has doubts on if Yuko really accepts her or not, feeling comforted by her but scared she'll betray her like others before.
But, Yuko turned out to be similar to Asa herself, following her heart and gut feelings about others and living true to herself much like Asa had begun to strive to do more, wanting to accept and love herself and her identity.
Another consistency in Asa's story is how she represents her past self, which coincidentally is always portrayed as looking boyish, which could imply that while her mother was alive, she presented as a boy unsure if she'd be accepted. Always feeling judged and ostracised for simply existing, she assumed the worst. However, it wasn't until after her mother's death that she adapted her new self, perhaps as a way to 'kill her weak old self', as something she couldn't bear to live with anymore.
One of the biggest themes of Asa's character is the way she finally accepted her desires but now her every action is always going to be scrutinised by Yoru, she doesn't have full control over her body, nor can the moments of normalcy and happiness she experiences last. No matter what she does from here on out, she knows that she can't maintain her hopes of normalcy unless she tries to 'co exist' with her more dangerous half, but society would never allow this if the secret came out, which causes her to be even more secretive than before.
Another hint towards the fact that she values and idolises her female identity is in the way her school uniform created such a powerful weapon. It was the last gift her mom gave her before her death, and the guilt and joy with the fact her mother could have accepted her. She can't stop thinking about what could've been if everything hadn't gone wrong. Could her mother have accepted her? Could things have gone better if her mother was still there to protect her? She's now haunted by what could've been.
Asa continuously has dreams of dead chickens suffocating her before a darkness, representing a feeling of guilt over a sin and secret that she hides from the world around her. Part of this guilt is the role she feels around her mother's death. But also, the idea that she views her existence as a sin due to the way she's been ostracised for being different. She views her 'transness' as something that others will judge and hate her for if they knew. Something that terrifies her but a desire to accept this side of her.
We can even see that she's already accepted and is aware of her 'sin', unlike Denji, who repressed those desires deep inside of himself. She knows she's someone whom society won't accept, but she also wants to live more selfish towards herself and her own desires.
Asa also begins to refer to Yoru in a way that mirrors the way many queer teens view their queerness, as a problem to 'get rid of'. The idea that if they got rid of the side of them that society uses to label them as different that they can be 'normal' and be accepted by society. However, by the same thought process, the desire to do things they view as unsavoury or harmful to themselves and those around them. Asa begins to accept she must 'taint' herself to become 'normal' because she's starting to fear she doesn't have much time left.
The way Asa views her appearance as 'cute' and pretty but while also having the awkwardness and not knowing the norms of being a girl read further into how sheltered she is, as well as bringing up the question that maybe she was raised as a boy up until her mother's death. Despite her self-worth issues, she values and idolises femininity and the norms that come with it. She wants to be a normal girl, she wants to have a boyfriend; she wants someone to love her and accept her for who she is. This desire is so strong that she can't stop wishing.
She's scared of doing things wrong and outing herself so badly that she has a habit to overanalyse everything and tries to act in such a way that makes people question her less. Asa wants to conform to the norm so badly that she stands out moreso because of it. No matter what she does, those around her will never accept her 'as normal' because the moment you don't fit into a clear box, 'normal' isn't something you can become. However, that doesn't mean you can't find your own normalcy with someone else. We see that when she decides to drop the act around Denji and begins to like him and want to open up to him, realising that they aren't so different underneath, unlike her original judgement of him. This was the first time she felt in control in some sense of the word.
We even see her confusion at her desires for love and connection from Denji overriding the desire for control of her own body and sense of normality through it. Asa has begun desiring more without worry of how her 'lack of normality' in the world would make people judge her. After so many years of isolation and solitude and the guilt of desiring connection but expecting those who get closer to her as getting hurt by her involvement, she's beginning to realise she can want something more and that she can find a place in the world.Despite that, the fear of accepting herself keeps her in turmoil, even if she can accept who she is she's scared of the world judging her for it and she ends up trapped in a cycle of fear and isolation where she desires for connection but expects the isolation that comes after.
The first major hint to me about Asa being trans is how we see in the second major flashback to her past, she's presented with short hair boy clothes, much like the first flashback but with this we can see this is how she looked before the present-day events. And given that we see she idolises the norm of femininity I find it hard to believe that she'd willingly present as a 'boy' and in fact was raised that way before beginning to desire a life where she could live as herself and not as a mirror of someone she despises. Asa's uniform, again, implies that it was a gift from her mother that she values so strongly as it was the first affirmation of her female identity. We can even see that she doesn't have much clothing outside of her uniform and that she only has this one pair of shoes as well. Another hint is that Asa is a gender-neutral name, often used for ancient kings in the Hebrew language, the common meaning either being 'hope', or 'morning' in Japanese. Her name being neutral in such a way feels intentional, as if to imply the ambiguity of her identity.
It's because of this she's scared of getting closer to others, she can't even imagine it because she feels they'll never accept her, but she can't help but desire for connection and intimacy because she's been deprived of it her whole life. Asa finally gets the chance to 'kill' Chainsaw Man and get control of her body back, but she can't do it anymore. She finally realised why she had despised him for so long. He's just like her, someone who doesn't fit into society but so desperately wants to belong. She realised that killing him for his own purposes would be the same as killing her old self, and she's starting to realise as much as she dislikes herself, she needs to accept that part of her if she wants to move past the past and be someone she likes.
Asa's fast crush on Chainsaw Man displays the innate desire to be protected by someone else after years of having to be strong and independent whilst in her isolation. She's looking for any escape and idolises the possibility of someone giving her an out. But instead, she uses this newfound love to become stronger. She's never really had femininity expected from her, and she doesn't really understand how or feel comfortable sitting and doing nothing when she now feels she has something to fight for. We even see the idolisation of the 'beauty' she has now become in the eyes of the public. Despite initially doing this to 'save Chainsaw Man', she now loves her position because she feels she's finally becoming like the women she's envied and desired to be for so long.
Unlike a lot of the other characters in the manga, Asa's body is always obscured in such a way that her body seems boyish, flat. Whenever she's not wearing clothes. Such as the scene between her and Yoru before the Aging Arc. I feel it's implied she pads her chest with the bra she wears so as to 'fit in', make sure no one can question her appearance as well as feel euphoria in herself and her body unlike the dysphoria she felt growing up. It's such a smart touch and hint towards this.
Finally, we can see in the third, and currently final, flashbacks that focused on Asa that once again she's always in boyish clothes, shorter hair and always purposely androgynous in her appearance. I'm aware girls can dress as boys or be tomboys, but the consistency makes me wonder.
Each flashback focused around Asa depicts her in a boyish presentation and as we know from the main story Asa desperately wants to conform to the feminine norm, it's a big aspect of her arc across Part 2 wherein she overanalyses the specific on how she can do so.
This leads into the complex around her mother's expectations as well as the way she likely killed her father as a way to show to Asa 'how not to be'. Her father was abusive to both of them, but it's really common for a single child raised by abusive parents to be 'compared'. Asa blacks out what happened with her mother before her death because she doesn't want to remember how her mother likely never really loved 'her'. She seems to be using her father as an example and compares herself to the actions of her father, causing a deep insecurity. Asa feels she's inherently 'wrong' for existing and the fear that no matter what she does society will view her as 'abusive', 'toxic' and someone who only harms those around her, we can see this mindset seep into her entire arc across Part 2. She's worried people will see her as 'abnormal', despite most not suspecting anything due to how 'perfect' her outward mask is. She's trying hard to be someone she can like and be proud of but she can't stop blaming herself for what happened.
Asa tripped during her father's death, causing his death because she truthfully didn't want to save him. The same thing happened when her mother died. This implies that her mother's abuse and control over her were similar, and Asa truthfully wanted to be free from both of them.
She blames herself for this, but the moment they both lacked control over her life, she began to try to find who she is, and what identity and sense of self she wants to find. This was the first time she 'acted selfishly' and now she believes that she doesn't deserve to live. She finally got to live a normal life thanks to Denji, so she wants to make her life and sacrifice worth it if it's able to help him. Another person like her, who wasn't ever given the chance to live freely and lost everyone he cared about.
But to her surprise, Denji explains that he's exactly like her. He's also been judged and demonised by those around him because of their own expectations of him and how he struggles to live upto that. Like Asa, Denji is also seen as an 'outcast' by society. If able he wants to save Asa so he can figure out alongside her how he wants to live, they can do so together, Denji isn't ever going to 'judge' her for not being normal, he understands her and by extension he sees accepting her as accepting aspects of himself. For both Denji and Asa this is the motivation they've built to desire to move forward from their trauma, ignore all the labels and expectations society has over them, but also to find their own happiness on their own terms, finally finding their own 'normal'.
Asa's slow realisation and acceptance of her feelings for Denji correlate with how many trans women who are male-attracted tend to struggle to accept their feelings for men despite a desire for 'normality' that they might start to feel once they do. Asa is not sexualised in the same way as the other girls, and Asa herself actually seems eager for people to 'view her that way' as if it'd be euphoric for people to treat her in a way she likely hasn't experienced much. However, despite this, she doesn't feel comfortable allowing herself to show any of herself towards Denji, she's not comfortable with the innate feelings of sexual desire, as well as being scared that she might not live up to the ideal that society pushes onto women. Asa has had to provide for herself emotionally and physically even before her mother's death. She doesn't want to feel 'weak' or allow herself to exploitable. She's so scared of losing what agency she has, especially now that her body isn't solely hers. She likes Denji, but her first action upon that realisation is to become his 'savior', and it takes most of Part 2 for that fear and mask to finally come loose. She's now not scared anymore of Denji seeing who she truly is underneath, hoping for true acceptance from him.
In conclusion, Asa being a trans girl fits perfectly with her arc of self-acceptance and desire to fit into the 'norm' but struggling to ever do so. Fujimoto has written trans experiences, both in Fire Punch and his one-shot Woke-Up-as-a-Girl Syndrome before. I personally think Asa being trans is a good parallel to how she's able to understand Denji and how he's been unable to fit into the 'norm' that society expects, it's this messy experience and self-acceptance they both experience that allows them to find comfort in one another. A comfort and acceptance that neither of them has felt before. One in which they don't have to change or be someone they aren't to belong. It's kind of beautiful actually, whether it's 'canon' or not, and adds so much impact to the story of Part 2.
