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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Author Talks About His Disability, Gender Identity, and PC Culture

Recently on Twitter, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! author Sumito Ōwara was accused in a comment of mocking political correctness. Incredibly bothered by the idea that even one person saw him that way, Sumito Ōwara posted a massive tweet detailing not only his thoughts on political correctness and its relationship to his work but also his thoughts on physical and mental disabilities and gender identity.

To start with, Ōwara detailed his personal history with disabilities to give context for his other opinions.

“This is a human story. I am a disabled person.

My mother is physically disabled, with one leg missing, and my sister was suspected of having a developmental disability from childhood and started going to the hospital for it. After my sister, my father was diagnosed with a developmental disability and ADHD and obtained a disability certificate.

Several years after my family (around the time of high school), I, who could not write kanji, was not good at reading, and was also morbidly bad at math, obtained a disability certificate for my learning disabilities. Thus, everyone in my family came to have their own disability certificates.”

He went to average yet diverse schools filled with kids of many different nationalities. Yet, school life was hard for him.

“There were all kinds of people at school. I put out a lot of negative energy and received a lot of it, too, I think. I was bullied and also had trouble keeping up with some of my studies, which led to me skipping class.”

It was during his early school days that he confronted his gender identity for the first time.

“Although I was a boy, I liked cute things like hamsters and stuffed animals, but in elementary school, for the first time, I was told, "Those are for girls,” by a girl. [Even now,] I feel that my gender identity is unstable and my sense of belonging to my gender is small. I only identify myself as a man because my body is male.”

Much of what he experienced is now mirrored in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

“I don't know if it has anything to do with my upbringing, but ever since I was in middle school and high school, I preferred unusual types of characters and unexpected developments rather than predictable stories and characters with familiar roles.

Now I am writing that way in the stories I draw myself. I mix in the realism that I have felt rather than the conventional standard. The main characters have something going on, and the school is filled with people from various backgrounds.”

However, while this makes for an inclusive story, Ōwara isn't making a conscious effort to push an agenda or be politically correct.

“I choose to do this not because society demands politically correct expression but because of my own origins. And at the same time, I feel that I am of a generation for whom such [inclusive] expressions are a 'normal thing.' […] What we humans, who seek political correctness in expression, are ultimately aiming for is a stable state where people naturally respect each other without political considerations. I believe that my generation is naturally developing in this way.

I am not denying [the need for] political correctness with this statement.”

Because of making a statement similar to this one previously, Ōwara was accused of mocking political correctness—which became the impetus for him to write all this out.

“The criticism I received was probably misreading what I wrote as, 'I don't need political correctness. I know enough about diversity,' and what I wanted to say is the exact opposite.

I've seen several tweets like these before: 'The author of Eizouken, I don't remember what it was, but I think he was mocking something. I won't be buying Eizouken.' or 'The author mocks feminism.'

I was more than a little upset by these reactions. I have not lived my life in a way that allows me to mock any gender, nationality, or disability. I have come to consider the lives of many people, not just my own perspective. I have been living my life for more than 20 years now, trying to deepen my understanding [of others] by juxtaposing and comparing them. That is why I have continued to write with an obsessive focus on 'human beings.'”

To sum up his thoughts, Ōwara ended with the following simple sentence.

“I try to live my life in such a way that I do not laugh insensitively at anyone.”

Source: Sumito Ōwara on Twitter.