What is the worth of Hourou Musuko?
It is made of excellence and deserves to be on our Enlightenment list.
30.0%
3
It is too unremarkable to be on on either of our lists.
10.0%
1
It is vastly overrated and deserves to be on our Relations list.
0.0%
0
Progressive gender understanding makes me squemish, so I have not seen this.
60.0%
6
10 votes
| Hourou Musuko is now up for vote. Decide if it will find the liberation and acceptance it deserves in Enlightenment or if it will be shunned in the Relations. RULES: 1. You can only vote for a title if you've finished watching/reading it. You must’ve read or watched at least 60% of the published content for unfinished titles. There might be exceptions for very long finished titles – they are decided on a case by case basis, but usually amount to more than half of the published content. 2. Write your vote at the very top of your comment. 3. Below your vote, give a substantial explanation to back it up. It doesn't have to be lengthy; it just needs to cover the points you want to make. 4. If you have only read/watched the adaption/source material of the respective nominee, please state so in your post. 5. It will take a minimum of 5 votes for either Enlightenment or Relations to make it into any of the lists as an anime (3 votes for manga). If it fails to reach that, it will be deemed Invalid. 6. The votes for Enlightenment will have to outnumber the votes for Unremarkable and Relations for it to be included in our list; the same goes for Relations. If it fails to reach that, it will be deemed Unremarkable. 7. Behave yourself. We accept discussions and debate, not flaming and incoherent fanboy/fangirl behavior. 8. The fate of the poll will lie in the hands of the officers if it turns out that there are more first time voters than regulars or the series cannot be gauged by both voting and discussions. This polling process will last 14 days. BEGIN!!!!!!!! |
AlabastreAizoJan 6, 2014 12:31 AM
| 1 - Enlightening Hourou Musuko has many strengths, but the subject of transgenderism isn’t one of them in my opinion. Though it’s supposedly the main subject, one of the reasons I thought it fell short was because of a lack of displayed masculinity. I found the male characters to all be rather weak (by which I don’t mean they were feminine, which is also partially true I suppose, but just weak as a fictional character) compared to the female cast, and without the aspects of masculinity a gender conflict couldn’t really be found within (both male and female) characters. As a bio-sex male I can’t say I’m capable of making an entirely fair comparison between the male and female cast, and I recognise the difficulty of a female writer using a male main character, but one side of the gender spectrum seemed to be clearly more well developed. Unfortunately the show felt rather female-oriented despite its subject matter; if it were a different show this would probably not have bothered me at all, but it felt a bit off at times. I also saw this video of a Japanese gay couple the other day, and they said something quite interesting. One of the girls mentioned how she as a lesbian felt as if people expected female gay couples to be cute, and male gay couples to be entertaining somehow. With that in mind I noticed a similar thing in Hourou Musuko, where Nitori seemingly wasn’t so much concerned with being female as with being cute. Being a girl apparently wasn’t enough at times, he also had to be super attractive; as though being a masculine or unattractive girl was not an option for him, it was either go big or go home. Takatsuki also had the similar thing going on with how cool and handsome she was – though less so – thus their transgenderism felt somewhat idealised in hindsight. However, I wouldn’t write the series off just like that, it’s not like there’s no response to be given to what I’ve just said. rjo9732 and cipheron have already given an outline of Hourou Musuko’s “subdued”, “very relaxed” and “non-preachy” way in which it attends to the subject matter. It is not a psychological anime, and thus it’s not so much about internal gender-conflict, transgenderism or sexual identity (disorders). It might not even be so much about the social norms on the matter; it’s primarily a slice-of-life with a cast which ‘just so happens’ to contain some GSM kids. It’s more about the characters, their choices and their interactions than about exploring gender and sexuality related subjects. The choice for including GSM kids is still a deliberate choice of course, and it provides a subtle yet effective way of displaying GSM as normal. Chiba even states nicely, near the end of the last episode: “I’m sure that [Nitori] is just an ordinary boy”. It purposefully takes transgender people as the main characters, but does nothing beyond simply showing their ‘ordinary’ lives. Possible flaws in the culmination of gender-conflict within characters is thus more easily forgiven, as that isn’t made to be important by the show. The show also escapes a sort of realism because of this, or perhaps it should be called ‘materialism’ or ‘intentionalism’. I actually found it to be quite the melodrama, but not in the bad sense of the word. The soft artstyle, carefully choreographed dialogue and the mature-for-their-age characters make it nearly theatrical. Things are carefully put together, making it a fluid and ongoing experience, with the music capturing different situations under the same atmosphere. There’s no interruptions by ‘catastrophic’ events, which are simply moved from their chronological origin to be put after you’ve already been shown the effects. There’s no fear of interruptions of this slice-of-life experience as it slowly carries on and shows you life and its characters in their purest form. Within this superlative context the issue of idealised transgenderism is also just a part of the series, and would most likely have gone unnoticed by me if not for the recent memory of that video. Simply all the characters are beautiful, “everyone is special”, and life with all its problems is ultimately a thing of beauty. Anyways, that is probably more than enough analysing (and romanticising); I have a tendency to overthink these kind of things. Just looking at it ‘as is’ and enjoying the show as it carefully plays out, it is still a very pleasurable experience. The fantastically implemented ‘watercolour art’, incredibly solid directing and acting, and the accompanying soundtrack keeping careful measure with the dialogue and story-flow all adds up to a very uplifting slice-of-life experience. The characters are way better than what you would find in most other anime, even including the male characters. It invokes thought without instigating it, and though it is not without flaws, nothing really is. It does what I deem most important for an enlightening series, showing something unique and interesting which will make you think, and it does it very well without sacrificing any of the series’ beauty as a slice-of-life drama. |
| "The view from the bottom of a well may not be much, but you can see the sky and the stars really well. My world is small, but since I'm looking up at space night after night, you could say I'm a frog on a universal scale. When you gaze up at space all alone like that, the back of your mind goes quiet, and you feel as though you've gained an extraordinary amount of wisdom." |
| Enlightening Wow. I don't think I can really say anything as well as our lovely members above, but I will write what I feel I need to say. Everyone considers different values when assessing whether or not something is entitled to being on the Enlightenment list. Some people think it just needs great characters, story, and production; some think it needs to be a capable representative for its genre; others think it needs to influence the industry or people. Hōrō Musuko does enough for those categories, that I believe it is a solid contender for the list. The characters are believable and easy to understand. The story is nothing special, but the writing blends all these characters interactions quite well. The art style, most of the voice work, and the soundtrack are all quite charming. It's surely the best piece in what some would call the "gender bender" category, but it's so much more than that. In Japan, more so than in the West, cross dressing is a big joke. You would be shocked to see how many TV personalities are known for cross dressing, and for this, they are the butt of many jokes. To see something come out of Japan so sympathetic to transgender issues is fantastic. I just love how it's done, too. As was said above, the series is not preachy with its concepts, but it allows the viewer to understand--at least a little--about the troubles of feeling that one is not in the right body. Because of the thoughtful manner in which these characters' problems are shown to the viewer, I would recommend this series to anyone. This is the main point of contention regarding if I view something as Enlightening or not, so that has been fulfilled. There really aren't any shows that I can think of like this one. If anyone would like to get a more in-depth view of some of the issues touched on only lightly in this series, I recommend watching the documentary, Trans. |
| Option 1 - Enlightening The points I could make are better brought up by the previous posters but I still think this is an outstanding series; both in the treatment of its main idea and on the actual execution of its slice-of-life story. The issue of cross-dressing and transgender in fiction is pretty usually mistreated. When it's not brought for the sake of ridiculing and comedy, it is introduced in a major drama for the shock effect. It is viewed as an oddity, the opposite to a normal situation and in that sense the conflicts around it tend to be shallow and basic. What Hourou Musuko does instead is including the sexual identity issues in a major and relatable character story. Very few times the feelings of Nitori lead to some nasty extreme; there is a conflict indeed, but it's one that is slowly developing, that doesn't have a clear beginning, an end or a moral in between, and it's never forced or manipulated for melodrama effects. The most noticeable effect of this is that Nitori becomes a perfectly contextualized and understandable character beyond his condition; and that, in turn, allows to understand his condition better. It is not used as a tool, a stereotype or a source for conflict. Similarly goes with Yoshino, but I find her description a little less satisfying in this sense, probably due to a lack of exposition compared with Nitori's case. In addition to this storyline, the pastel tones and simple character designs in drawing manage to create a warm atmosphere that fits the narration pretty well, complemented with as a nice use of music. The aim of this show, as said, is not to build a clear conflict, but rather, to look properly mundane and natural, as in the typical slice-of-life narration where the objective is not in the construction of a climax, but on experiencing the characters and the environment, and creating an overall feel. Whether it succeeds at this purpose or not is up to the viewer, but it really did work for me. I would also point at the nature of this adaptation because apparently it is an incomplete one, but I think that it is actually a benefit; by avoiding to depict the "origins" and "conclusion" of the story, it manages to create a feeling of continuity in the portrayal of the characters that is not available through more typical storytelling methods. |
jal90Jan 5, 2014 10:04 AM
| With 5 votes for Enlightenment, I draw this poll to a close. Thanks for voting everyone! |
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