So pronoun use is a no go for answering this question no matter how you look at it. So as a western audience, we're left only with what Chihiro explicitly says about himself, and would miss any indirect indications based on cultural understanding.

There is no way for the translators to find an adequate translation of that for the game. quiet and refined) rather than an absolute sign of gender. Using more masculine identified or more female identified pronouns is also used as a sign of personality traits (outgoing and rough vs. They have preferred ways that males and females use pronouns, but pronoun preference doesn't exclusively indicate gender the way it does in the West. There are also pronoun problems with translations from Japanese, in that the Japanese don't have he/she unless they're being super formal. If he does it, he gets permission to pursue his dream. I rather enjoy the manga series W Juliet, which is a romance involving a straight cis male who is forced to prove his devotion to his calling to be an actor by living through his high school/senior year as a girl without being discovered. Unlike most real life trans people, Chihiro finds it safer and easier to 'pass,' whereas real people can have a lot of anxiety about it.Īnd as another poster mentioned above, this does seem to play into Japanese tropes about cross-dressing. The case alone makes that clear, as Chihiro despised his own weakness and wanted to improve and that drive to improve put him in the path of his murderer and led directly to his death.Īdd in the free-time and school events where he expounds upon having to hide his own identity and, yeah, he's cross dressing.

Danganronpa chihiro gif