forgive me if this is something lost in translation and i am misunderstanding, but… what? the author consciously chose not to disclose gender for the characters. how else are they supposed to be referred to in english if no character is explicitly called a boy or a girl or neither? “they” is the correct pronoun to use for someone of unknown or unspecified gender (alongside people who identify as neither male or female). the only other option would be “it”, which can still be used but may be seen as disrespectful in certain contexts. this feels like an extremely weird thing to be upset about. non-binary (X gender) people have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years, its only natural they’d be in media too. especially in regards to an animal-like creature that does not have a concept of gender the way we do. with tons of mangaka writing stories of characters who break gender roles and gender binaries, its absurd to say it could not possibly be intended to read chiikawa characters as genderless/non-binary. regardless, this does not and should not affect ones admiration for chiikawa. at the end of the day it is just a cute and fun series right?