Hourou Musuko

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 a friend who wants to be the opposite gender. Looking into the world of one of these people gives you a different view on how everyone and everything else is seen from their eyes.

I would've given the story a 10 but unfortunately, everytime I catch up on the manga I get bored. So bored I feel like dropping the manga entirely. However, I make myself read it because I know the manga is definitely worth it. Slice of life just needs to ease in before you get gripped.

Art: 9

The art is quite unique. Whenever I see coloured pages I'm very surprised, each and every time. The manga is water coloured. The colours are smudgy but it really suits the manga as the water colours give off a peaceful vibe.

As for the actual art, I really like it. Nitori does look like a cute girl and Takatsuki does look like a handsome boy. The art is really cute and suitable for this kind of manga.

I thought I would not like this style of art but turns out I really like it and is very suitable for the manga.

Character: 10

I love the characters. I absolutely love Nitori and Takatsuki. Their actions are just so realistic you yourself could even imagine yourself doing what they were doing. Chiba Saori is a very realistic character too. Even though I just hate her I really like her development. She tries to be good. She wants to be good but she just can't control her emotions.

I really do love the characters and it is also one of the manga's strong points.

Enjoyment & Overall: 10

Yes I have admitted that this manga bores me when I start to read where I left off but you have just gotta love this manga. It is very enjoyable once you get into it. I've pretty much confessed my love to this manga so I'm taking off now.

Hope this review helped (:

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.

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 itself, or fixated on small things. That's not to say that Hourou Musuko doesn't have high points where it's a joy to experience, it does. They're just scattered throughout quite a long span, so you're likely going to pace yourself with this series.

The themes are quite complex, and handled delicately. To some extent, I wanted the author to bite right in, instead of nibbling around the edges, but I guess it does build up the tone of kids trying to figure themselves out quite well. The tone is absolutely slice-of-life, with underlying plots running as themes throughout, but often not being the main focus.

Spoilers bellow

--

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 are now the ones talking about the very same thing. The flow of time always feels off: days, weeks and sometimes months can pass by from one chapter to the other with the only indicator of it being few, very easy to miss, hints. She seems to really like this little tricks and abuses it, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility, that's true, but it's generally easy to follow. Hourou Musuko is the work where her techniques shines the brightest.

The reason for this became quite apparent for me this time around: it's because of it's length and the very nature of the story itself.

HM's major selling point, sexuality and gender non-conformity, isn't explored in a big, dramatic fashion, but rather in a very grounded way. It's a important thing to understand about the story: it isn't so much about depicting non-conformity, but slowly following Shuuichi and Takatsuki and observing how they'll deal with it while slowly, and I mean slowly, growing up. This is a character piece, not a thematic driven story. Making that distinction is vital to knowing what you're getting yourself at.

Anyway, the first 2/3 of the series are spent with introducting and getting us to know the characters which will form Shuu's group and their (I'll be using they to refer to Shuuichi, see below) family. Most of the time is spent with this kids hanging around, doing their every day chores. Little conflicts are born here and there, different combinations and interactions are born between the kids. Major conflicts also show up, but it never feels bigger than it really is (think about how Shuu being bullied after that event is portrayed).

However, the point where the series full strenght resides is, for me, the last third, which ironically is the most criticized section of the manga. While before there was a feeling of steady progression - for Shimura's standart, that is - and familiarity with the cast and their environment, now, starting with the last year of middle school, they have to face separation. For Shuuichi, that also means that their body will start developing into a man's one. The very ground on which everything was build upon is now no more.

That separation isn't only there as a stone cold fact, but it's felt organically through storytelling. What I mean by this is that the way that Shimura was handling the whole thing until that point starts to change. The progression of time, which was never very clear, becomes even faster. Instead of parting from the other kids and shifting the focus completely on Shuu's experience on highschool, Shimura's allows us to see, even more than before, tiny parts of every character's daily experiences.

The usual criticism thrown at HM's endgame - actually in it's entirety, but especially the last part - is that the focus becomes so lacking that it feels like that this's a story about nothing at all. Said argument couldn't be further from the truth. The beauty of the whole thing is that Shimura back away from one character and let us witness something much bigger than just that single perspective. By seeing a bit of each character, little by little, without us noticing, a much bigger picture is formed right in front of us. It's by seeing how them - not only Shuu's group, but their mother, father, sister, sister's boyfriend, Yuuki, Shii, the crossdresser they met while working as a waitress, in short, everyone, really everyone - lives their life that a larger than life feeling is born. Shuuichi's still is the central character, but what we're shown is the very network that sorround they, even if they're not aware of it.

What makes it so poignant is the fact that everything is really mundane: no major conflicts, no high stakes, so there's no chance for a happily ever after ending. It's like that quiet, sad feeling you get sometimes without any specific reason. This feeling is born from the awareness of the passage of time. The constant shifting of focus and the ambiguous nature of time in HM creates a blurring feeling that dominates it's pages. I'm talking about Shuu suddenly thinking about their friends from their first school and how they're a distant memory and then recalling their girl friends' faces, or when Shuu and Sasa meets and they just chat a little, or when Takatsuki sees Shuu and all they can do is exchange fast greetings, or when Shuu is thinking back when they used to be confident about wearing girl's clothes but the image we're actually seeing is they shaving their now manly face.

Time is passing, we're aware of it and from that awareness a bittersweet feeling is born. We see the characters changing, growing up. Some of them are still together, some grew apart, some are making new bonds, and none of this really has any big significance or serves for advancing the plot, because there's barely one to begin with. It's just like peeking through the real lives of this different individuals that you came to know rather well. It weighs on your heart because you know they're just about to take the next step, to become adults, to go their separate ways, and that things will never be like they used to: it's a universal truth that affects not only these fictional characters, but also us, real people.

"One wanted to be a boy. One wanted to be a girl. One stopped wanting to be a boy. That's all there is it to it"

This scene is simultaneously Takatsuki and Shuu's much needed resolution and the best way to end and summarise what everything is about. Because that's really all there is to it. That's the story of the life of two kids (and some others) who were once closely bonded but aren't anymore. Takatsuki's crying while thanking Shuu for holding her hand is just that. She knows that they aren't like they used to be, that they chose different paths and, because of that, the very thing that made them once kindred spirits is now the one that separates them, and she feels sorry and sad for it. But Shuu will keep walking, for it's already decided: she's a girl.

Shimura's tricks with time that I mentioned earlier is precisely what makes the ending such a heavy blow. The climatic interaction between our two main protagonists has already happened in the past, but we, as readers, only get to know how it really ended on the very last chapter, where, in a context where Shuu is getting ready to leave home and move to the beginning of their adulthood, the flashback from Takatsuki's crying face is revealed, and it's that very page that takes our emotional awareness to it's climax.

What happens afterwards - just a few pages, that is - is such a small, non-epic, almost matter of factly way of ending such a huge story that it has precisely the reverse effect. It feels huge, real and important

I personally, no, certainly think that the story plays out much better if you read Shuu not as a representative of what a transsexual woman should or should not be, but as an individual who wants to live their life as they please. You can call them a trans woman or a man with a clothes fetish, but this doesn't diminishes Hourou Musuko's power.

This is really, at heart, a coming of age story, even though gender and sexuality plays a big part in it this still is a story - Shuu's story, but also about the ones around them - about growing up and everything that comes with it. Growing up and following your path.

Someone pointed perfectly in the discussion thread: Yuki is not the transexual. Yuki is Yuki. that's how we come to think about it. Mako is Mako. Shuu is Shuu. Chiba is Chiba. Takatsuki is Takatsuki. That's the story of their lives and how they're interconnected. To achieve this is really so exemplary and just proves how great and worth of it's length this series is.

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 and inner conflicts are incredible. This applies to all characters for me. I think the story isn't going to be for everyone as the pacing can be very slow, especially in the middle of the manga. But I think it does an incredible job of portraying real life. The art is pretty clean and the characters are all distinct enough. EVeryone's pretty cute and distinct enough that it's easy to tell everyone apart. This story just has such a heavy emotional effect, I'm still trying to come to terms with it. I seriously would recommend this manga to everyone, its truly powerful and it does an excellent job of exploring gender identity, puberty, transness, love and relationships, its so powerful!!!