@beardalaxy
>My guess is that there is a level of nuance that is missed when viewed through a modern lens, especially as English speakers.
I don't know what else it could be. Was she an actual (biological) female mistaken for male at birth? Did she somehow changed biological sex at some point in her life? Was she too tomboyish that she was called a male by her peers? I never played the game. I only know about it through DYKGaming.
A lot of people think that Japanese media has always been socially conservative, but when you really look at it, they were including subtle LGBT themes before the west embraced it. Most of it was just removed during localization. Phantasy Star II had a piano teacher that was heavily implied to be gay, but his dialogue was butchered in the NA release. One of the DS Harvest Moon games had same-sex marriage in the Japanese version. Phoenix Wright apparently had some gay chef whose lines were altered in international releases.
Maybe it could just be that the Japanese being somewhat more open to sexual themes in otherwise family-friendly content meant that they could sneak in some (implied) LGBT characters in their media.
>I bet if the remake came out two years from now that would have been scrapped due to how the social climate is shifting. Or maybe not... I'm willing to bet that the ttyd superfans either fully support that shit or at the very least are fine with it.
I think it would still be the same result if it was released two years later. This IS the type of game that attracts the autistic, trans/enby, terminally online types. I've been told that the Mario RPG games attract A LOT of trannies, which should be obvious because they are clearly the most autistic RPGs you'll ever come across.
And I don't think transgenderism will go back to being underground anytime soon. Trump promising to ban HRT and SRS for minors and AOC removing pronouns from her bio (implying that Democrats are throwing trannies under the bus) means jack shit. We don't know what is actually going to happen. If anything, I see states attempting to nullify any laws being passed kind of like how many states nullify federal raw milk bans. Illinois is already planning to do that.