Hourou Musuko

Feb 1, 2008

30 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

Jiji (All reviews)

91 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Title: Hourou Musuko (”The Transient Son” / 放浪息子)
Mangaka: Takako Shimura / 志村貴子
Originally Serialized in: Comic Beam (Enter Brain)
Scanlated by: Kotonoha

Nitori has always been a bit of a girly kind of boy. He likes to cook, he’s sensative and has little in common with the other 5th-grade boys. He’s even cuter than his older sister, Maho, who wants to be a model. Saori Chiba is a classmate who seems to understand him, but mostly just likes dressing him up. He strikes up a friendship with Takatsuki, a tall girl who is very much a tomboy and who everyone calls “Takatsuki-kun”. They meet and befriend a gorgeous woman, Yuki, who is actually a transsexual. All the while, Nitori is discovering how good he looks as a girl, and how much he likes it.

Hourou Musuko centers around elementary- and middle-school children, but is a seinen manga, targeted at college-age readers. Although the look back at school days relies heavily on nostalgia, the issues the characters are wrestling with are very adult. Nitori isn’t gay in the sense that he has no real idea of, or interest in, sexuality or romance. He is more interested in having friends, and likes acting and dressing as a girl. For both him and Takatsuki, their friends and families are loving and supportive, but there is some tension with the schoolmates acting in proscribed manners.

Things move slowly in this manga, focused on social situations and the feelings of the characters. It almost makes you think it’s sort of shoujo, but there’s little in the way of overwrought interior dialogue (or screentone, either). It’s a slice-of-life story and despite the sexually liminal nature of the plot, it still manages to capture the reader with distinct and heartwarming characterizations. The crossdressing makes me think of sexual roles versus sexual gender…and those two versus sexuality. Hourou Musuko is much more concerned with sexual roles in society than with mere titillation, which I liked very much.

Shimura employs a very clean style, but somehow manages to retain a sketchbook sort of look, making it look as if she had simply sat down and effortlessly sketched her perfectly cute faces–impossible, as those of you who do art well know. Art this effective is always the result of hard work, and it certainly shows here. Most of her panels leave out the background of any kind, once she has set up the scene. She is an obviously very accomplished artist, since her figure studies are realistic and foreshortening of limbs or bodies (a sure giveaway of an artist’s skill) is very well-done.

Kotonoha’s scanlation is typically of high-quality for them, the whites are white and the blacks are clean black. The typesetting is well-suited to the style of the manga, while being easy to read. I highly recommend downloading this one.

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Feb 27, 2020

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 3

Varjosoturi (All reviews)

24 people found this review helpful

Hourou Musuko at first glance is what seems like a rare gem of good representation in the muddy grounds of LGBT+ characters being fetishized or used as comic relief, but soon enough proves itself to be no better.

First things first – trigger warning. The manga contains quite a lot of graphic language and events that can easily be triggering for transgender individuals. I advise you to approach this manga with caution, so that you don't have to suffer like I did... The following review also contains some core spoilers, but if you found yourself feeling iffy after the things I've just said, I suggest you read more

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Aug 19, 2018

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 8

somaisbatman (All reviews)

28 people found this review helpful

After having a tough time getting into the series and having to restart a few times, I raced through the second half of Wandering Son in a single day. Now I’m just lying here in a haze, trying to collect myself into a human being again. I feel like this writeup is a necessary step in the process. Let’s do this.

Wandering Son, or Hourou Musuko, is a manga about the self. It's extremely introverted, with characters lost in thought, staying home from school, and mulling over their anxieties all the time. When a character makes a particularly bold decision, they’re often ridiculed and punished for it. There’s always other stuff going on, but most of these bold decisions are about gender identity. This is a manga, perhaps THE manga in the eyes of many, about dysphoria and being transgender. The uniqueness of Wandering Son is that it starts our cast off in elementary school, right before the onset of puberty. This gives us a different perspective than many other trans mangas, which star college-aged characters grappling with their identity while being young adults. But wow, this is a uniquely brutal perspective.

At the start of the manga we are shown our main characters, Nitori Shuuichi and Takatsuki Yoshino. Shuuichi wants to dress like a girl and Yoshino wants to dress like a boy. Pretty early on, Yoshino’s identity issues are sidelined so the plot can zero in on Shuuichi - compared to everyone else, he’s suffering immensely. He’s trapped in a world that doesn’t know how to help girls like him, but even he doesn’t know that yet. However, his world seems to be built perfectly around enabling his crossdressing, from friends that keep encouraging him to endless school festivals revolving around gender-swapped plays. Unlike other mangas, our trans character here is not deeply repressed, which makes the relentless march of time all the more painful to watch.

Going into Wandering Son, I didn’t realize that we would see these kids grow up all the way from sixth grade to the end of high school. Instead of timeskips or focusing on a single year, our cast just keeps gaining years. You know how in a lot of anime and manga, high school graduation almost feels like a metaphor for death? For once, that implication actually carries some extra meaning. Puberty stops for no one, and with every passing year our protagonist Shuuichi will be less and less able to convincingly present as female. Throughout these 123 chapters, we see Shuuichi grow, not okay with any of the physical developments happening to him but unable to do anything. This is cruel and painful, especially as a trans woman who went through the exact same motions, just more internalized.

If you read through Wandering Son with the adolescence of Shuuchi as your guiding narrative thread, you will end up with a truly existentially depressing manga. Seriously, this perspective is more personally painful to me than anything even Goodnight Punpun can conjure up. It’s a good thing there are other, more palatable narrative threads woven throughout. Yoshino’s story, for one, never reaches these levels of anguish. Their classmates have fights and relationships and arcs. The adults in this story stand out a lot – more on some of them later. And last but not least, there’s a wonderful slow-burning romance throughout the second half of the manga. Shuuchi having friends and lovers through all of this is the authors’s greatest act of kindness throughout the story, reminding us that even people who are very clearly suffering still deserve and will find people who support them. This is a very important message for any dysphoric people who find this manga and want to use it as solace.

*********************SOME ENDING SPOILERS BELOW***********************

But still…this is not a very hopeful manga. At least it isn’t to me.
Shuuichi gets the girl, so that’s a happy ending, right? Except every little bit of subtext is arguing the exact opposite. Let me explain further. Shuuchi meets 2 adult trans women throughout the series. The first is young, pretty, and lives happily with her husband. This seems like the perfect role model for Shuuchi and any dysphoric readers! A beacon of hope that yes, it is possible to transition and live a great life. But she kind of stops being an influencing voice for Shuuchi, for whatever reason. Instead in the manga’s endgame we are introduced to an older closeted trans person. Living as a husband and father for all these years, after their wife’s death they took to crossdressing in her clothes. This character is totally unable to pass. In a sense she doesn’t care, although she worries immensely about how her young daughter will view her. Forgive my weird pronouns throughout that. Anyways, compared to the first trans woman this is a character we are clearly supposed to feel pity for, unable to pass in a world where passing means everything, and burdened with single fatherhood at that too. I would love to comment more on the specific hardships of transitioning at an older age, but alas I lack knowledge of that experience. This old woman shows up in the third-to-last chapter, so clearly she’s meant to represent something. As Shuuchi grows older and older we mentally associate him with her instead of the younger trans woman. Shuuchi’s love interest even makes a passing remark about being okay with dating a weird crossdresser well into old age, which is kind of cute but also reinforces that Shuuchi will never be able to truly transition and will be stuck uncomfortably as a man, feeling like a crossdresser instead of a “real woman”. This is immensely depressing. I’m lucky as all hell to have the resources and social ability to start transitioning as a young adult. Too see the subtextual conclusion of this manga boil down to “yeah, Shuuchi is forever stuck as a boy wanting to be a girl, but that’s kind of okay” feels like a punch in the gut. This is a very good author who is able to write to the trans experience impressively well for being a cis woman. However, for the love of me I can’t tell if she intended the ending to be this melancholy or if I accidentally extracted an extra layer of suffering out of it. It doesn’t matter, this is how I still feel at the end of the day. This is my ultimate takeaway from Wandering Son, and it’s what tore me apart. I’m sorry if my feelings are unrelatable or if my writing style was accidentally problematic or if my takeaways are just plain wrong. I wanted to make my wallowing as productive as can be and this writeup/explanation is what I settled on. So thanks for sticking through it.

************************END OF SPOILERS***************************

Wandering Son is good, I think. It’s not as deeply relatable for me as some other trans-themed mangas, but it’s still a worthwhile read with a unique youth perspective. It’s not fetishistic, instead it’s both sympathetic and cruel in oscillating doses. If you can relate strongly to the dysphoria stuff in this manga, then that’s wonderful. But don’t be fatalistic about your assigned gender, even if the manga seems to be towards Shuuchi. A happy future may seem impossible right now, but one day Things Will Be Better.

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Nov 27, 2010

91 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

Damonashu (All reviews)

40 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

From the standpoint of a storyteller, the slice of life genre is the biggest you can use and because it's slice of life it can make for a long story. The problem however, is that the genre is almost always filled with generic things. You'll get a protagonist in a high school full of tropes, and despite what the writer might want you to believe, if you've watch or read slice of life then you've probably seen it all before. That's where Hourou Musuko stands out. While it is slice of life, it is more specifically the characters' life, which makes it one of few manga in this genre that you can actually say you haven't seen before.

Story:
Despite being little more than its synopsis, Hourou Musuko has a very enjoyable story. This is because it is slice of life and surprisingly enough, it lives up to that point. When the story begins the characters are very young and naive, but as it goes onward they slowly grow older, and the hardships they experienced before leave a very imposing mark. When they approach situations that resemble these events, self-doubt manifested through the past billows upward, and makes them question if they should or could do it again. This is very realistic, which all slice of life manga don't need, but should have a little more of . It's a very character driven story, and Shimura's attention to character depth, makes it a very involving tale.

Art:
Because I'm not much of a visual artist myself, I can't exactly give Hourou Musuko's art any justice when it come to critique, but in my opinion it's suitable for the story. When done in color pages, it looks sort of like a water painting, and uses very pastel colors to go with the over all lighter essence of the story. Character design is simple and won't likely be how you remember them, but its clear that Shimura tries to make an effort, and she has admitted in one omake that her art isn't very good. This however is my critique, and while I can't say that it will appeal to the artist in you, I can say that its simpler look does a good job at giving form to its story.

Character:
The trait that undeniable ranks highest amongst all of Hourou Musuko's traits, is its characterization and and character development, which is important when going into a story like this. It is a manga that shows how far the slice of life genre can be taken when the mangaka isn't just looking for a plane to throw the characters into. What makes the story is the characters, and Shimura pays enough attention to all of them to make them stand out. It is not a cast of anime tropes, thrown into a typical setting but real people in a real setting, thrown into a fictional world. If you have a life that resembles any of the characters, or even if you don't it is possible to see a bit of yourself in them which makes them that much more endearing.

Enjoyment:
The enjoyment you'll find in Hourou Musuko is extremely high, if its not your type of manga then its likely that you won't read it but if you do you won't have to worry about drama being unnecessarily thrown in. Slice of life is an unfortunate genre that more oft than not, comes in two form. One is comedy which can be good sometimes, but is otherwise an excuse to make a story where nothing happens. The other is drama which goes out of its way to prove that it can be that. Again there are some dramas that are actually good, but its not hard to happen upon one that slings the drama into your face. At times, life can be hard, and at others it can make you smile, and if any manga I've read is a testament to that, then Hourou Musuko would be it.

Overall:
The story is involving, the art suits it, the characters it portrays are very well done, and all of this only adds to its enjoyability. What adds to its overall score though is that it is a seinen, and unlike a lot of other seinen that are generally just gore and porn, Hourou Musuko has a reason for being classified as that. The reason it's a seinen is not just because it has things that can't be put in shonen, but because those things require you to think. You have to be mature to read it. This is of course debatable, but I implore you to give it a look before you make your decision. For being a rather well woven story,with a likable cast that drive it well, I award Hourou Musuko with a 9 out of 10. However it does have a lot of characters, and not all of them get enough time, which inevitably took away from the ending score.

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Jan 15, 2013

60 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 5

Gersen (All reviews)

32 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Hourou Musuko is nothing more than your run of the mill shoujo manga with a crossdressing twist. If you are like me and come expecting a story about boys and girls growing up as transsexuals, this will leave you sorely disappointed. What this title offers instead is loads of teenage drama, love triangles, love confessions, first dates...- everything strictly heterosexual and involving kids as young as 12 years old.

There's one actual MtF, adult transsexual in the story, but she's presented as a sexual deviant and a predator, making sexual advances on a preteen child.

As for the main characters, they seem more confused than anything. The read more

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Feb 10, 2018

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

sweetsweetlain (All reviews)

17 people found this review helpful

I would say if you've ever struggled with your gender identity you have to read this. If you've never struggled with your gender identity, you still have to read this it's so good.

Ok so, the review, i read this whole series over the course of two days and it destroyed me emotionally. I think the ways in which the two main characters struggle with their gender identities is shockingly real and hit incredibly close to home for me. I'm a trans girl and like I have never found a character who I can see myself so clearly in. I think the characters and their growth read more

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Mar 10, 2019

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

Ankithadam (All reviews)

9 people found this review helpful

Sexuality and gender orientation is the topic debated for many generations and is also still continuing.
This manga is a story about a guy named Shuuichi Nitori (Shuu) who has a best friend(a girl) named Yoshino Takatsuki who wants to be a boy, so she makes him wear her clothes instead of her. Although a bit reluctant at first but also interested, Shuu starts cross-dressing on the demands of her, various friends and even his sister as they all admire his cute personality. What started as a fun habit or for admiration, later leads to a point which makes him question his gender orientation.

So as to not spoil the story, let me tell something about myself so you can understand why I was able to like this manga:
Almost all weak boys have this boyish trait (manly) and girly trait (cute side) present in them. The me who used to do things based on what the society thinks or how my friends would like me, I very much hated the girly trait inside me so as to not get teased or laughed at, and hence I suppressed it and always wanted to become a man quickly. Since I was also attracted to females, so this was more like a catalyst for me embracing the manly trait and I don't regret my decision. But who knows what would have happened if I was introduced to the world of cross-dressing, I might have embraced the other side more.

So as you can understand from my story that I could have turned to either gender depending on the situation, thoughts, circumstances etc. Besides this, I have also met many on the internet who are cross-dressers, I've had a premonition mindset that they were just perverts who wanted to touch girl's clothes and wear them.
But nevertheless, this manga explains you various topics from people like me who stayed as it is, people like Shuu who experienced change from childhood and people who embrace it at a later stage of age and many other questions related to gender and sexuality.

Your mindset would completely change, after reading this manga. In fact, I have decided to bluntly support people who come out as LGBT or even asexuality. It's not that I would ask them to change their gender quickly, just being moral support and telling them that, you are there for them makes them feel secure, because God knows how many months and years they might have thought and struggled to whether tell about their inner feelings to others. Talking out in a way not to hurting them, helps to clear yours and their's misunderstandings and misconceptions.

Although this manga tells the story from childhood to the age of 18 years, it does have some boring or rather tiring parts for about 20-30 chapters(as it was hard to explain the circumstances of huge cast of characters) but that's what makes it a masterpiece as it fleshes out every part of character development without much hurry, also the art is little confusing sometimes as to who is speaking to whom, but then this manga was never written with any malicious intent, in fact, it doesn't even have a proper kissing scene drawn.

I would definitely recommend this manga as you can't understand these hard topics by just watching a 2 hours movie, it needs some time and that's what this manga does properly. It was an emotional and beautiful journey while reading it, I hope you enjoy too.

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Apr 27, 2009

42 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

ChibiHime (All reviews)

16 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Hourou Musuko or The Transient Son is a beautiful slice of life story that you can relate to and seems so realistic.

It's about Nitori Suuichi, a boy who not only looks cute as a girl but seems so well suited as one. Thing is, he does want to become a girl. And his friend, Takatsuki Yoshino is quite the opposite. She is a girl who wants to become a boy...

Story: 9

When I first looked at this manga I first thought 'ewww, there are gays in here!'. Man was I wrong. The story is so realistic you can't help but continue to read. Not everyone has read more

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Nov 20, 2018

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 8

emmeka (All reviews)

5 people found this review helpful

I'll just start by saying this: I've never seen any media, manga or otherwise, deal with trans youth as well as this series. The messy, confusing and difficult nature of handling the transition through puberty as a sexual minority is handled here with nothing held back, characters are not locked into stereotypes but grow and change as they mature to the point where they are scarcely recognizable by the series' end. If that premise alone interests you it is a must-read. That being said I will stop short of calling it a masterpiece due to some issues with the way the plot progresses and is explained to the reader. Overall I give it an 8/10.

Story: 6.5/10

Hourou Musuko is fundamentally a slice-of-life series that progresses over a very long time period. In 123 chapters it covers the day to day lives of the characters from the 5th grade until they enter college. Because of this massive amount of time to cover, the setting of the series changes every dozen chapters or so, characters are moved around to different classes/schools, and friendships perpetually re-allign. While this plays to the realism of the series it makes following character interactions difficult, and this is a character-driven series with no other overarching plot. There's a fairly large cast who all have their own friendships, crushes, relationships and families that become hard to recall especially with the appearance of characters constantly changing as they age. It becomes especially difficult when all of these characters seem to have different nicknames for each other!

Besides this, at times the storytelling can be jumbled. Since character perspective jumps so frequently it's hard to tell what subplot we're supposed to be following, or if a new one is being established. It also doesn't help that events aren't clearly linear, or that timeskips of months can occur inbetween panels on the same page. Often the series simply changes a major relationship between characters and doesn't explain why until several chapters later, with a flashback. This occurs progressively more frequently as the series goes on, especially as the rate of time passing seems to speed up in the second half of the series. All of this being said despite the story being difficult to follow at times, it is quite good for a slice of life series, certainly more in depth than the genre's average.

Art: 7/10

The art of the series is usually fairly basic to the point where many secondary characters look very similar and it's hard to tell them apart until their names are used. However, a lot of key scenes are very well drawn, as are the two main characters Shuuichi and Yoshino. The quality of the art also seems to progress with the series, not surprising since it took over a decade to complete.

Character: 9/10

This is the real strength of the manga. The major characters got absolutely flawless character development, they're all living breathing people who change as they grow up, as the events of their lives unfold. Given how character driven the series is, it's hard to speak of the specifics of what makes their development throughout it so great without spoiling anything so I will simply say this: it's the agonizingly authentic way that these characters grow, make mistakes, hurt each other as well as support each other in this messed up world that won't accept them that makes this series so fantastic.

The only thing that prevents it from being a 10/10 in my opinion is the sheer size of the cast seems unnecessary. While none of the minor characters are one-dimensional some of them seemed to lack purpose. Momoko comes to mind, who is little more than the jealous friend of Chizuru, herself a minor character. Plenty of pages are devoted to Momoko's friendship with Chizuru, or to Momoko fighting with Saori or Chizuru herself but it never seems to tie into the rest of the story, or lead to anything meaningful, and I'm not sure why she was added to the story at all.

Enjoyment: 8/10

In the end, I loved it. I loved these confused kids trying to make sense of the world in the same way we all have to, in the most painfully real way possible. I loved how it starts and I loved how it ended, but this series is not a fairytale. It's not even really a romance series, and if that's what you're hoping to enjoy from it you'll be a bit disappointed. If you're down for something that takes every trope of school life manga and throws it out the window, though, I strongly suggest you give it a read.

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Aug 1, 2019

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 6

shysnail (All reviews)

3 people found this review helpful

If there's one word to describe Hourou Musuko, it's meandering. It's long, and it feels long. You cover a group of kids' entire school days in the span of the manga, which is pretty impressive. In that way, you do grow attached to the characters. They're with you for so long that they become very familiar.

And I think they will be with you a long time, because this really isn't a manga to storm through in a couple of "can't wait for the next chapter, must keep reading!" sittings. There aren't many cliffhangers, and the pace can seem quite glacial at times, circling back on read more

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Sep 6, 2020

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

ANormalUser (All reviews)

2 people found this review helpful

A manga that talks about gender identity is rare, and when it happens it usually also introduces comedy so this covers and ridicules the theme. It's even rarer the fact that it talks about gender identity in children and young people in a serious and mature way, so in my opinion, Hourou Musuko is very precious. This manga is very good at conveying an important and serious message while being bearable to read, it is also a good reflection of Japanese culture in terms of gender.

- Story (9/10): It has the right content of each thing, drama, romance, comedy, etc. Among those types of content, romance and drama are highly relevant. It generates tension and uncertainty of what may happen as the plot progresses. The story arcs are well done. What made her not give a 10 to this category didn’t score a 10 because throughout the chapters there are temporary jumps that can cause confusion, but if you are attentive it is not a bigger problem.

- Art (9/10): The art is very good, but not excellent. Haircuts and makeup are well defined and drawn, that's great since they influence the plot quite a lot. However in some chapters it can be difficult to tell the characters apart because of the angle in which they are drawn, this happens just in a few chapters, so it's not a big issue, apart from that, the art is great.

- Characters (10/10): The characters are exceptionally developed, with marked personalities and ideas, not necesarily settled. The characters evolve throughout history, both physically, as well as personality-wise. This is given a lot of importance in the manga, letting a lot of development to take place. Even within the same event we are shown the differnt perspectives of the different characters, in this way the reader can understand the reason and motivation of an action. Another thing that differentiates Hourou Musuko's characters from other works is realism, their ways of acting in different situations are real, and credible.

- Enjoyment (9.5 / 10): Despite its flaws (which are very few) one can highly enojy this series. You can see this in the sensations that one can feel when reading this manga, which are varied and change from person to person. In my case, this work came to transmit feelings such as sadness, anger and happiness, it can make another person feel different things, and that is something I like about these works. It depends on who reads it and what personal experiences that person has, for example the sensations and feelings will be very different if they read it alone than reading it with someone. I really value this when recommending a manga. As I mentioned in the character section, this manga contains a lot of realism in the actions and things that happen in the plot, this gives depth to the feelings that I was talking about before. There is only one bad thing: The ending is open. The fact that I don't like these types of endings makes me unable to put a 10 in this category, but a 9 seems too small to me since i really enjoyed it, so I decided to put a 9.5.

- Overall (9/10): The total average of all categories is 9.3, but i'll round it up to a 9. I think it is a very good story to read, it is very deep and leaves a great message. It may not be to the liking of some, but others may relate to the characters or situations. I recommend you not to miss the opportunity to read it if you can.

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Sep 2, 2020

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

llorando (All reviews)

2 people found this review helpful

Spoilers bellow

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I have a soft spot for Shimura Takako's idiosyncrasies as a writer. She tells mundane stories about mundane people - even if the subject matter is something fantastical, like "Sayonara, Otokonoko", it's still told in a way that resembles everyday life - but the way she does it is not very conventional in itself. The story is always jumping from present to past and then to present again, from a real situation to a imaginary one, from reality to dream. Sometimes a conversation is being held by two characters and in the very next panel - without warning or proper closure - different characters read more

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Jul 21, 2020

123 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 10

lemozine (All reviews)

1 people found this review helpful

For the last year or so, I've been thinking about the power of telling stories. Stepping into the shoes of a character we may be unfamiliar with in our own lives and seeing the world through their eyes does more for educating than emotionless facts and statistics ever could. Whenever someone asks me what fictitious story has most changed my life, I immediately think of Hourou Musuko. This is truly an incredible read, and I highly recommend it for everyone, regardless of whether you are completely ignorant of trans people or you feel like you already know more than enough.

TLDR: This story does an amazing job representing trans people, and completely changed my life and the way I view trans people. This story made me grow as a person while being a very entertaining read.

First off, as you may notice themed in my reviews, anytime a story represents a marginalized / minority group, I am ecstatic. It is so important for these stories to be told, both so the wider society is exposed to people that they may not encounter in their bubbled life, and so that these groups can have stories about people that are like them. This story delineates the life of a young trans girl [and for a while a young trans boy]. This isn't the first time a manga has featured cross-dressing, but it is the first time (at least the first time I've encountered) that it doesn't fetishize it, play it solely for laughs, or ridicule it as silly or absurd. As far as I can tell as a cis person, it does a good job representing trans people. Just there, I would probably love this manga. It tells the story of a marginalized group that is rarely represented in media, and it tells it in a tasteful, accurate, and thoughtful way.

It has been a while since I read this manga, but as far as I can remember, it was generally an interesting story. I enjoyed reading it, representation aside. The characters were interesting. The story has often funny, which I found surprising given the serious nature of the topic at hand. It is the kind of read that tackles delicate issues but in an engaging way, which is really the power of fictional stories. We remain entertained the entire time while we simultaneously digest and actualize the story and its underlying themes and lessons.

I say that this story is the one that has most changed my life, and here is why. As philosophy tube would say, I was guilty of being "yer dad". I would openly deny being transphobic, and sincerely believe it. Intellectually, I could fully acknowledge that trans people deserved rights and protections. I knew that trans people were the gender they asserted, but was simultaneously uncomfortable around them. I didn't quite understand any it, but knew better than to express that. I hadn't done any of the hard work of understanding and empathizing, just the easy work of espousing the "correct" stances. Living life through the characters in this manga has helped squelch the last spore of transphobia I'd been hiding. It let me better understand what it means to be trans, and to empathize with the struggles that trans people face. This was just the start, and I am in no way saying that if you read Hourou Musuko you are no longer transphobic. However, for me, reading this manga let me start of journey of engaging with trans people in my life and trans creators. This book made me aware of just how ignorant I had been, and how important it is to do the hard work to overcome internal biases and to break the cycle of hate we've been handed. This has been such an incredible book for my own growth, and it is impossible to fully describe the myriad of aspects of my life it has changed.

It wasn't actually so much seeing the life of a trans person that changed me, but seeing myself reflected in some of the other characters. There were several characters who weren't openly hostile and violent (which is tragically an issue many trans people face, just look of crime statistics against trans people), but who just didn't get it. They were ignorant, and they were "yer dad", and they made life so incredibly difficult for Shuichi. They constantly invalidated who they were as a person, and said hurtful and insensitive things. They were just unacceptably ignorant, and that ignorance caused a lot of harm. My first reaction was to get so frustrated with them, and kind of despise them and their wilful ignorance. However, I soon realized that the reason I despised them so much was because of how much of myself I saw in them. I was ignorant of my own volition, and I was unquestionably perpetuating many of the same harmful ideas they were. This is what actuated my desire for change and self growth. I saw myself and the role I was playing in the life of trans people, and I realized how much I disliked it. It wasn't enough to not be violent or openly hateful. I needed to be an ally.

---Spoilers---

Finally, I would be remiss to fail to talk about the bittersweet ending of this book. I was unbelievably heartbroken when I got to the end. This story ends with the looming threat of puberty. We've spent the entire story watching our dear Shuichi Nitori weather hardship and grow in confidence in who they are, only to have to acknowledge that this is at risk when puberty arrives. Their voice will drop, their adam's apple will develop, they'll get facial hair, and it will get harder and harder to present as female. Life is about to get a whole lot harder for her, and it hurts to see. The most surprising thing for me reading this was just how much I ended empathizing for Shuichi and this upcoming struggle. I would have never guessed how deeply it would effect back before I started reading it. Anyway, I just remember the ending of this story having a profound effect on me, and really messing me up emotionally.

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Feb 26, 2020

27 of 123 chapters read

Overall Rating: 3

RegalRascal (All reviews)

1 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

Story: Trans kids growing up and going through puberty.

Actual story: Young kids being confused about gender identity because they don't fit their own gender's norms and attribuating it to not being their sex. Also, transgender girls being taken more seriously kinda, even though the kiddo isn't a trans girl but a crossdresssing boy.

It seems really liked and hyped, especially by the lgbt community, probably cuz there isn't anything else that is so openly ''trans'' with its story setting.
It's not a trans story though, so I don't get the praise for that specific aspect. It's a story about kids being confused and not conforming to what people expect of them in term of gender roles rather. Which is good for japan since they are kinda uptight about it I've heard, but it's not a trans story in any way AT ALL.

Alternative translated mangas:
Hommonculus did the trans aspect way better, in less time, and it's not at all a ''trans story''. There also is I.S, an intersex manga which def isn't good, did a similar thing but way better. Even tasagore (or somthing) does a better job, with the trans guy (the trans girl is kinda meh) and that manga is WAY overhyped and really boring and archetypal (the boring part is my opinion, but it's def not 10/10 good at all objectively either). Only good trans story would be Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku. (so far, might suck with later chapters)
Ah and the zombieland one is supposed to have a transgirl in... I dunno, dropped the thing.

Pros:
-The art could be enjoyable for someone that likes cutesy/ more innoncent looking art. It's really simple but mostly well done.
-The concept that it aimed to achieve isn't common, even if the attempt is quite frankly really, really misinformed and not the reality of real transgender guys and girls. Kinda is what someone that doesn't know anything about it transgenderism would think trans is rather that a realistic story about the subject.
-The slice of life parts are fine if you remove the ''transgender'' component. It's about young kids being confused and lost with themselves.

Cons:
-Dreadful piss-poor trans representation (but it's a good crossdresser/gender noncomformity story I guess.)
-Characters are quite forgetable and could have been explored in better ways, and not with a trans angle, since it failed miserably in the aspect. The feel bland and charicatural, rather than complex and realistic.

So if you came hoping for a trans slice of life, honestly, don't bother at all. Unless you want to read what not to do about this topic.
If you came to see a crossdresssing and kids being vonfused about gender (more of a girly guy/ tomboy chick story dynamic), please go ahead and enjoy your reading time.
p.s.: sorry for any typos xd

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