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.