Yesterday, I finished the トラップヒロイン (series) | L25?? series and it was not what I expected.
I looked at the summary (a guy who has a past trauma related to femboys (男の娘 specifically) starts high school and finds out that his dorm roommate is a femboy) and expect BL.
I don’t think anyone would fault me for that. Sure, the main character says he is straight, but they always say that.
But then fanservice started showing up??? And that’s when I realized it’s a shonen comic.
So I was a bit disappointed, especially since the story (MEGA SPOILER TERRITORY) starts hinting that said femboy may be actually a girl just pretending to be a guy. Honestly, that felt like a stretch when thinking of the logistics that would involve… but I thought maybe the story just had that much of a plot hole. At the same time, there is some fan service, and cis girls in bikini look like this 8 while his bikini look is more like that ▯ (in case the character doesn’t properly shows up, that’s a tiny rectangle; it would be a very flat rectangle too, if I could bring 3D to the screen). Still, at that point, I was a bit annoyed that it might just end up as a regular straight rom com. I will leave the answer to that to the Great Spoilering™ section, because that’s like the main major point of the story 
Anyway, (back to regular spoilers) the main character (チロダ) gets convinced (as in, he intellectually knows) that 小日向 (I’m getting tired of saying femboy) is a guy, but at the same time, he sees him as a girl (with his err feelings). チロダ is crazy confused about that but still think, well, maybe it can work out. Honestly, I found the depiction of his internal conflict more realistic than what I usually see in BL, so that was nice, at least. And now, we move on to
The Great Spoilering(tm)
チロダ ends up confessing to 小日向 who, at first, gets angry about it (“you are only saying that because you are not seeing me as a guy”). They still kinda patch up and 小日向 says “let me think about it”. At that point チロダ is getting confident that, no matter what, things can work out. AND THEN, a few days later, when asking for an answer, there’s an “accident”, causing 小日向 to fall on top of チロダ and, well, the poles (sfw link) end up touching. If it was BL, things would ensue I assume… but it is not. Instead, チロダ’s feelings (?) go nope as hard as they can (… that sounds wrong; hard is definitely not a thing they do). Both characters are emotionally hurt in the process.
After more shenanigans, though, it turns out that 小日向 has been presenting (and behaving) as a girl since like, 5. It is strongly hinted that 小日向 also experiences gender dysphoria, especially when it comes to stuff related to puberty. Imagining having to present as a guy once puberty makes it impossible to pass makes him (?) have suicidal ideation (that scene was hard too). While 小日向 didn’t want to trick チロダ, being treated like an actual girl just felt too good to stop either.
While I didn’t like the way it was done, they still patch things up (again?!?), admit that they do love each other, have no idea how things will work out in the future (meanwhile I think that, you know, transition is a thing if 小日向 feels like it) but that they are willing to try it out.
Now, that sounds like an extremely interesting development. What will happen next?
Next page: THE END thank you for reading.
Me: just pure unadulterated rage.
Without spoiler, I would say that I really liked the theme of the book, but found the approach quite frustrating. In the end, I see what the author is going for, but I found the pace and introduction of some developments quite clumsy. Also, that was the MOST FRUSTRATING ENDING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED IN MY LIFE. WHAT THE HECK STOP. (Or, technically, DON’T STOP)
It terms of trigger warnings, I guess I could say the title includes a slur that is used as a slur in the story. At the end of the story (SPOILER, obviously) there’s a call back to that part, but it turns out that love was the trap all along. Reeeeally cheesy, but at least it’s positive. But there’s also a short scene with suicidal ideation at some point.
Boy, that was a lot of stuff I had to get off my chest.
