Board Thread:Manga Discussion/@comment-32189512-20180216130910/@comment-2601:600:C880:32E2:C5EA:AF96:C2D9:3EEE-20180415203917

Mountaintimber wrote: 2601:600:C880:32E2:C5EA:AF96:C2D9:3EEE wrote: 73.94.20.6 wrote:

Neferpitou = ?/female? We don't know much about Chimera ant biology, it could be anything from asexual to sequential hermaphroditism. She is cute in a toboyish way. while I agree with the rest of your statements, this one bothers me. Never once is Pitou refered to as female. Unlike all the other ants who use gendered pronouns and language, pitou is always adressed by their name or using "it". Out of all these characters Pitou would be considered non binary. Pitou is not male nor are they female. Pitou may look feminine and girly but gender presentation =/= gender, just because someone looks like one gender doesnt mean they are that gender.

You're making no less of an assumption than the person you replied to, and you're making a xenophobic one at that. Gender neutral language is ubiquitous in Japanese and doesn't necessarily correlate to a western perspective of non-binary gender identity and language, so at this point any assertations that gender presentation of this or any similar character does or does not equate with actual gender are equally inconclusive within context until further clarification from the source material is provided. I'm not saying you or anyone else are completely in the wrong but an imperialistic take on the Japanese language to frame a character as you'd like isn't going to do you any favors. im sorry if it came across that way you misinterpereted my point. I was stating that while the other ants are refered to as he or she pitou is the only one that is not. I understand that gendered language in japan isn't as common as in the west and that they have different veiws on a nonbinary gender but the fact remains that out of all the characters, pitou is the only one seen who is refered to exclusively with gender neutral language. Im not attempting to say that any other interpretation of the gender nuetral language is false but based on the information presented to us in the source material this is simply my veiw. I agree that until togashi makes an official statement the gender of pitou will remain a mystery but mainly due to the fact pitou is the only one never assigned to gendered language I agree it was to early for me to state pitou is nonbinary as there is no conclusive proof and I was mainly just attempting to relate to the topic of this thread but at the same time I believe it is just as incorrect to assume pitou is either male or female as there is no conclusive proof on that front either.