Powered By Patreon: FukaBoku: A Sweet Drama That Explores Japan’s Gender Landscape

• Author: Ashley Hakker
• Date: 4/22/2019
• Format: Op-Ed

What Is It?

This is a critical look into Love Me For What I Am ("FukaBoku", henceforth), a manga series by author Kata Konayama. In the article, Ashley takes a deep dive into the work, exploring the subversive drama and strong characters, who serve as guides (of sorts) through a very relatable presentation of Japan's LGBT+ community. 

She notes situations like the "Accepting Queer Family" that's arisen among the staff at Question!, portrayals of very real conflicts that LGBT+ people face daily, and the sad, complicated circumstances that actively make life immeasurably difficult for far too many queer individuals today, among numerous others in this glowing highlight of the work.

How Did Patreon Power It?

This is another one of those works that began on the Patreon backer discord, funny enough. On March 8, Ashley noted that she found FukaBoku while seeking some new content to read through, and that she was about to check it out.

And, well, several of us in the room did. Myself included. A few days later, this was the title of the week, as everyone who read it raved about it, much to the chagrin of everybody else. 

Like... I'm not exaggerating. We straight-up raved about this series for days on end.

After that, we got to talking, and she pitched the possibility an article to me.

At first, I waffled, kind of worried about the "unlicensed" element of it. I slept on it, though, and talked to Matt Brown, a good friend who was my former EiC at Anime Dream. After a short while, we came to an agreement that I was worrying about nothing. I ended up reaching out to Ashley not long after that. 

The draft for the article was turned in on March 30. Initial edits were finished a few days later; image translations took about a week and a half.

Patreon funds paid for the article in its entirety.