Wandering Son - Hourou Musuko

Wandering Son is a new anime series that debuted January 13, 2011. The main character of the series is Shuichi Nitori, a boy beginning his first day of middle school. Shuichi has a number of close friends and is well-liked by his classmates. Shuichi, though, has a secret that is not known except to a small group of friends - Shuichi feels that he should be a girl.

Transgender themes and stories are not unfamiliar territory for anime. What is impressive about Wandering Son in terms of anime, or any other media for that matter, is the sensitivity and honesty with which the series handles its transgender subject matter. Absent are the usual external motivations for crossdressing or the fantastical elements that make the transgender elements seem to be just part of a larger-than-life narrative. Shuichi wants to be a girl because that is part of who he is. While Wandering Son is supportive of the transgender identity of its characters, the series is also seeking to realistically present the continuing struggles of transgender people to live in this binary-gendered world. Shuichi has come out to a group of supportive friends, but his sister yells at him and calls him "sick" after discovering him wearing her clothes.

Shuichi is not the only transgender character in the series. His female friend, Yoshino Takatsuki, wants to be a boy, though Shuichi is the focus of the first episode. The two young characters are still trying to figure out who they are and their place in society. Yoshino, for example, is envious of another girl in her class who comes to school wearing a boy's uniform just because she feels like it. After running into a sobbing Shuichi, Yoshino starts to give him the boy's uniform a friend gave her but then stops and says "this isn't what you need right now."

Reaction to the first episode has been mostly positive, though I will take a little issue with Gia Manry's characterization of Shuichi's transgender identity as a "hobby" in her review of the first episode on Anime News Network. While it remains to be seen how the series will develop over its entire 11 episode run, it seems pretty clear that Shuichi's desire to be a girl is more than just a hobby.

Wandering Son is currently steaming in the US on Crunchyroll - the first episode is available now for subscribers and will be available on Thursday, January 20 for non-subscribers. The first volume of the manga will also be coming out sometime this year from Fantagraphics Books.

Wandering Son follows last season's Princess Jellyfish - a series featuring a crossdresser that is available on Funimation Video. Check out either series if you want to see some of the most positive and supportive examples of transgender representation airing in Japan or anywhere!

U.S. Manga Sales Down 20% in 2009

The pop culture business website ICv2 reports that manga sales in the U.S. were down 20% in 2009 from $175 million to $140 million. This is after a drop from a high of $210 million in 2007. To put this in perspective, the movie industry made over $10 billion in 2009.

I will be the first to admit that I didn't buy as much manga last year as I have in years past. As I looked at the pile of unread manga volumes on my desk, I couldn't quite down to the local bookstore and buy more when I knew they were just going to sit there for months as I focused on my grad school reading. Now I buy manga more in bunches; when I get a break, I'll read through the manga I have and then go buy some more.

It's interesting to note that the author of the ICv2 article points out the female fans as a factor in the decline in manga sales. Manga has long been one of the few pop culture forms that specifically targeted female fans and these fans can be rightly credited with the manga boom in the U.S. For many of the geek fandoms in the U.S., having female fans is just an added benefit, not a group to try to specifically appeal to. Now that these fans are in their late 20s/early 30s, the article argues, the shoujo (girls' comics) manga that led to the boom is not as appealing and the josei (women's comics) manga titles that have come out haven't caught on at the same level.

It will be interesting to see if the U.S. manga industry can find a way to keep these older fans interested in manga or find ways to appeal to a new generation of female fans. I just hope they will continue to bring titles to the U.S. that appeal to female readers and don't decide, like every other fandom, that the only way to survive is to try to be more appealing to males.

Be Yourself!

Last week, a friend and I went to see the new film "How to Train Your Dragon: from Dreamworks Animation. The film itself was very good a features a younng Viking boy who struggles to find his place in his warrior culture. The film got me thinking about a prominent feature of many animated films.

The message of many of these films is "Be yourself!" Many animated films feature characters who don't fit in in their society. Po in "Kung Fu Panda" struggles to find his place in his father's noodle shop and in the dojo of the Furious Five. Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" is ostracized by the people in her community because she is interested in reading and seeing the world instead of marrying Gaston. "The Little Mermaid," "Shrek," "Lilo & Stitch," "Mulan" and many other films feature this message.

This is obviously a lesson that we as a society have decided is important and is something that we should be teaching our children. As a transgender woman I can't help but note the disparity between the message of these films and the way trans people are treated. It seems that we want our children to learn to be themselves, but only to a certain point.