Manga to Show Your Pride – This Week in Anime

Happy Pride! Steve and Lucas browse through some queer manga in celebration.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Absolutely! A big part of why I got into manga as a kid is that I wanted to read stories different from the ones I had already experienced. Whether it’s because the manga industry is more niche, which allows a specific series to endure with a smaller audience of readers, or social differences between Japan and the U.S., there’s a wealth of queer manga to explore! I love that, as I grow older and my identity shifts, manga as a medium keeps providing me with new stories that help me figure out these budding parts of myself.

It’s not just us losers writing for an anime website, either! Legitimate institutions are recognizing the artistic merits of queer manga. Look no further than My Journey to Her, an autobiographical manga from Yūna Hirasawa currently nominated for an Eisner.

Deservedly so, too! It’s an uncommonly frank and graphically detailed account of her gender-affirming surgery in Thailand back in 2015. It’s as affecting as it is educational. She uses this food-based model to skirt censorship and explain how vaginoplasty works, and it’s the most informative breakdown of the procedure I’ve ever seen.

The frankness of My Journey to Her is something I admire as an American living under an administration trying to legislate trans people out of public life and obfuscate these processes and experiences.

Even as I think the Thailand culture shock jokes are a little grating for me, I appreciate Yūna Hirasawa sharing her experiences. She’s courageous to show such vulnerability in writing about an intimate part of her life, and I can’t help but admire this work.

I want to commend the localization too, which was published last year and acknowledges a lot of the still-in-progress legislative developments affecting trans people in Japan. As Hirasawa frequently communicates, there are a lot of societal and bureaucratic barriers to being trans in Japan, but things are slowly but surely getting better.
It’s also a good companion piece to The Bride Was a Boy, another autobio from a trans woman written around the same time. My Journey to Her focuses more on the specifics of the surgery, while Chii‘s book has a broader scope.

Interesting! I wasn’t familiar with this title before we started typing this column out, but this kinetic and pop-chibi art style immediately endears me! What do you think of The Bride Was a Boy?

Off the cuff, I can say that I appreciate The Bride Was a Boy also making space to educate its presumably younger audience on queer culture and iconography.

As I prepared for this column, I became increasingly curious about Japanese queer culture and imagery, and I wish I had this kind of succinct rundown of Japanese-specific terms and history.

I mean, I think that also highlights one of the many nuances that arise when we talk about “queer manga” in that kind of monolithic sense. Something written by a queer person about their own experiences is going to read much differently than, say, a fantasy series with a gay romance at the core of it. That diversity is an unavoidable and good thing, if you ask me, but it complicates questions about what queer manga is and, more controversially, what queer manga is supposed to be.

For example, Nagata Kabi’s oeuvre has drawn its fair share of criticism for her raw and confessional style, but My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness also did well enough commercially and critically to warrant a “special edition” printing. That’s quite the journey for something originally published on pixiv, and it spoke to a lot of people, yours truly included.

Nagata Kabi is so good at using her simplistic visual style to further embellish her brutally honest stories. Everything she puts out feels so real, and it’s easy to empathize with her experiences, even for those who haven’t gone through those same struggles.

To your point about the definition of “queer manga” being both tumultuous and eclectic, I checked out what I’ve heard referred to as the first queer manga: Hisashi Eguchi‘s Stop!! Hibari-kun!

Following the story of a young man who has to live with a yakuza family where the only son presents extremely femininely, it’s immediately a totem that explains why a lot of gender non-conforming characters are treated the way they are in so many works and one of those quirky older queer texts that come off as well-meaning but are super clunky in its terminology and delivery.

’70s horror and sci-fi manga had so much “gender” going on!!! I checked out the first couple of chapters of They Were 11! on our executive editor Lynzee’s recommendation, and it did not disappoint! Between the pulp sci-fi premise (which shares a shocking amount with the game that defined the pandemic, Among Us) and chaotic character outbursts, I was hooked instantly!

I mustn’t forget Riyoko Ikeda, either. The Rose of Versailles and Dear, Brother may not be predominantly queer narratives, but they’re built with queer components. Oscar’s gender presentation. Nanako’s infatuation with Saint-Juste. These paved the way for, among other things, works like Revolutionary Girl Utena that played with and commented on these tropes in both manga and anime form. Ikeda also authored Claudine, one of the earliest examples of an explicitly transgender manga protagonist.

Claudine isn’t perfect—it should be named Claude instead—but like Hibari-kun, it’s an important part of the grander narrative.

If we’re getting into older problematic faves, I must shout out Gō Nagai‘s Devilman!

While the original work itself isn’t explicitly queer, Satan’s androgyny and the “close friendship” between Akira and Ryo inspired some queer readings of the work in the decades since it was published. These readings would later be canonized in Science SARU‘s DEVILMAN crybaby anime, which I’m happy to say is gay and awesome!

Like any artistic work, a manga is a living, breathing thing. As personal and cultural attitudes adjust, things are re-read, reevaluated, and reinterpreted constantly. I think it’s fair to call the Devilman manga ahead of its time, and Crybaby realizes that. Similarly, I’d love someone to license or adapt F. COMPO. I haven’t read it myself, but why wouldn’t I want to see what the City Hunter man does with this premise: a guy gets adopted by his aunt and uncle, who are both trans, and does comedy shenanigans with his genderfluid cousin.

Like, I’m not expecting much from something made in the ’90s with this premise, but I think it’s valuable nonetheless to see that mangaka have always been exploring queer themes and characters.

With that premise and pedigree, reading F. COMPO sounds like a win-win! It’s either going to be a shockingly prescient critical look at gender and gender dynamics or the campiest thing on the planet with absolutely no middle ground! Now more than ever, this piece of queer literature and fiction needs to come stateside!

There will always be salient arguments about what constitutes “good” representation, but I like messy stuff. After loving the anime adaptation, I just caught up with the Onimai manga. While I agree the anime makes a lot of smart changes, I also don’t think you can get away from the fact that Onimai is, in its own gently perverse way, a fundamentally compassionate examination of the benefits of socially transitioning.

That’s great to hear about Onimai! I was a little worried it might be in a nebulous spot after Reddit more or less adopted the series after the anime was released. You’re completely right! Queer stories don’t have to be “realistic” or even feature “positive representation” for the work to be impactful.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure introduced an explicitly gender non-conforming protagonist in Part 9‘s Dragona. Despite this, the manga is a tentpole in the queer anime community and was partially responsible for me figuring out my relationship with attraction and gender expression.

I have seen people online get really upset at the implication that JoJo‘s is anything but the straightest of straight manga, and that is the funniest hill to die on.

One of my all-time favorite mangaka is Shūzō Oshimi, both because he is a master of his craft and because his works often dive into uncomfortably confessional and muddled depths regarding gender and identity. Ironically, I think that makes him refreshingly frank about his anxieties. Welcome Back, Alice in particular feels like sticking your eyeball into someone’s open wound—nothing else like it.

Inside Mari is an older work of his, dealing with similar gender questioning, and I can also recommend that. While The Flowers of Evil isn’t explicitly queer, in the context of Oshimi’s later manga, you can extract some potent readings from it.

I have to read Welcome Back, Alice! Folks that I trust with talking about both trans representation and people’s relationship with sex have been hyping this one up to me for a while! While there are a lot of famous horror mangaka, I struggle to think of anyone doing erotic-tinged horror as well as Shūzō Oshimi.

And, while we’re talking about more gruesome queer manga, I’ve got to shout out one of my favorite queer-tinged manga, Q Hayashida‘s Dai Dark.

While not explicitly dealing with queer issues or politics, this manga features a cast of characters that are explicitly targeted and under threat by a puritanical society due to parts of their identity that they cannot control. Even while persecuted, these characters find tremendous joy in various parts of their life, and it captures the emotionality of being a person under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

Q Hayashida is so cool. There’s a trans woman in Dorohedoro, too; this is how she’s introduced: with a turkey on her head. And her name is Turkey. I love Dorohedoro.

Horror is just perfect for probing at society’s rough edges and hypocrisies. But you can also do a lot with more down-to-earth narratives. One of the best queer manga of the past decade has to be Our Dreams At Dusk, which at times feels excruciatingly tethered to reality in between its brief flights of fancy and stunningly composed symbolism.

It also stands out from its peers for its focus on an intersectional and multi-generational queer support group, as well as the different tiers of discrimination they face. It covers a tremendous amount of territory in four volumes and never seems to shortchange any of its characters.

That multi-generational aspect got my ears to perk up! Queer expression and culture have changed rapidly over the past few decades, and I’m 1000% down to read any work that explores how people of different ages and circumstances relate to this part of their identity and fit it into their broader lives.

That sounds super sweet and grounded! I had a similar experience with what I’ve read of Boys Run the Riot by Keito Gaku. Here, a closeted trans boy and his new delinquent friend start a streetwear fashion brand and, in the process, confront a lot of particular external and internal issues that queer people face, like escaping the trap of gender and sex identity labels accidentally becoming prescriptive so you can fit into a space rather than a genuine description of their own identity.

It’s excellent and swings for the fences right out of the gate, and I can’t recommend it enough!

It’s a great pick! On the other side of the trans spectrum, next month, we’re getting an official localization of I Wanna Be Your Girl about a trans girl entering high school with her best friend, who navigates her crush on her.

It’s very fluffy, and I like that it’s being published by Penguin Random House specifically for young readers. I hope that’s a sign of things to come.
Now, on a completely different note, queer manga doesn’t have to be all-ages to be queer. There’s a whole world of porn catering to all types and identities, and I think that deserves mention as well. I remember being stoked, for instance, when Fakku started their LGBTQIA+ imprint, Kuma. I picked up one of their first titles, Can an Otaku Like Me Really Be an Idol?, and it’s a lot of fun! Gay crossdressing shenanigans where the crossdresser tops!

If we’re getting into the spicier side of queer manga courteous of Fakku, I’m no longer ashamed to admit that the first piece of media that got me to think about gender as a malleable concept and my relationship to my gender is Shindo L‘s TSF Monogatari.

I cannot stress enough that this work is primarily hardcore smut with some gender-bending MacGuffins thrown in for the sake of plot progression. But there’s undoubtedly something queer going on under the hood in this manga, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who has awakened to some of these ideas thanks to this work.

As with most things, I think you want a balanced diet—you probably shouldn’t get your exposure to queer themes and characters solely through porn. However, that doesn’t diminish the power or importance of porn! I also want to shout out Chris Farris for pointing me toward some smaller and spicier titles that were part of the recent manga guide. Out of Control, for example, is a combo omegaverse + futanari doujinshi drawn by gram, an artist I immediately recognized as a Steven Universe fan artist I used to follow.

Can you tell they liked Jasper a lot?

And here’s my obligatory Gushing Over Magical Girls plug, which we’re getting in physical form next month. Because, in all seriousness, the intersection of queerness and kink is an intersection worth exploring.

I live at the intersection of kinky and queerness! I got a nice corner apartment looking down at that crossroads! Sure, there are more traffic collisions due to reckless driving than you’d like to see, but it’s still a pretty good spot to hunker down!
In all seriousness, I’m pretty convinced that the only reason more people aren’t openly queer or kinky is because of the undue social stigma against either of those identities. There’s so much overlap with those communities because once people have made their peace with one set of prejudices being lobbied against them, taking on a similar set isn’t that much more of a burden.

It makes sense! I’m looking at how much we’ve written so far and how many titles I still haven’t mentioned. Do you want to do some lightning-round recommendations before we wrap up?

Let’s do it!!!

Good choices! Finally, I promised myself I wouldn’t end this column without extolling the vicious virtues of Fumiko Fumi. Because no matter how much queer manga gets localized nowadays—and it truly is amazing how much that has progressed in the past decade—there are volumes upon volumes more that don’t get translated. Fumi’s Bokura no Hentai is one of the most gripping and devastating queer narratives I’ve ever read. Every chapter makes you want to gawk at the art and/or scream into a pillow. One of the main characters is trans, one dresses up as a girl to woo his crush, and the other crossdresses as his dead sister to ease his mom’s suffering. It’s rough, nasty, and difficult to recommend, but ultimately sympathetic to its main trio. I hope some publisher gives me the chance to talk about it properly here one day.

If I’ve realized nothing else while writing this column with you, it’s that there’s still plenty of queer art for us to discuss! I know it’s hard to believe this with persecution against queer folks becoming growingly institutionalized, but it genuinely seems like the number of openly queer people in the world grows every year and that the demand for queer stories rises accordingly. Unfortunately, it will keep being hard fought, but I genuinely believe that folks all across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum will continue to come up in the years ahead, and I can’t wait to experience the art they create in the process.

As a wise man in an anime based on a Riyoko Ikeda manga once said,