Hourou Musuko - manga

Hourou Musuko (The Wandering Son) is a coming of age slice of life drama by Takako Shimura.  The series was published between 2003 and 2013 and compiled into 13 tankoubon.  An anime adaptation was released in Japan in 2011.

 The review that follows does contain semi-spoilers so be cautious.

     Hourou Musuko follows a small group of friends as the move from being children to adolescents to adults.  The story begins with the main character Shuichi Nitori beginning 5th grade as a transfer student.  Shu is quiet and easy going and quickly makes friends with some of the girls in his class.  His closest friends are the boyish Yoshino Takatsuki and self centered Saori Chiba.  Both Yoshino and Saori convince Shu to start dressing as a girl and end up giving him dresses to wear.  Shu isn't opposed to the idea and starts to dwell on the wish of being a cute girl instead of a boy.  Yoshino on the other hand wishes that she was a boy.  Conflict ariss as Saori becomes jealous over Shu's relationship with Yoshino, she is falling in love with her living doll.  Tension becomes so bad that Saori begins to hate Yoshino and herself,  even converting to Christianity to fight the guilt she feels. As Shu and Yoshino become closer in their shared gender identity concerns he starts to fall in love with her.  The next year brings another quiet tranfer student, Makoto Ariga, who quickly becomes Shu's best male friend.  Makoto starts to explore cross dressing as well and confides in Shu that he is gay.  There time as elementary school students ends with dysfunction when Saori finds out Shu confessed to Yoshino but was rejected.

    The circle of friends grows, amid hatred between Yoshino and Saori, as they enter middle school.  New friend, Chizuru 'Chi' Sarashina emboldens Yoshino in her cross dressing desires.  Chi shows up from time to time wearing a boys uniform, for nothing more then self entertainment.  After being rejected by Yoshino, Shu ends up dating his sisters model friend Anna, but he can't determine what their relationship really is.  Attempts to repair the void in the three main friends relationship are put into action with varying degrees of success by those around them.  While they can't completely put aside their conflicting feelings their greatest enemy is the continuing path of puberty.  Both Shu, Yoshino and Mako stress about the changes their bodies are going through and how their entrance into adulthood will conflict with their desires.  An old enemy from elementary school, Shinpei Doi, convinces Shu to be friends with him.  Doi is mostly interested in meeting a beautiful woman that Shu is friends with.  Little does he know, that beautiful woman is a cross dresser that Shu and Yoshino have been friends with for a few years.  Doi is also intrigued by Shu's cross dressing and convinces him to come to school as a girl one day.  When Shu builds up the confidence to do so his life falls apart from every ones reaction.

    As they enter high school the friendships change and break apart.  Yoshino and Chiba start to mend the rift between them while Shu end's up isolating himself due to the trauma from when he came to school as a girl.  Anna ended up breaking up with him and Mako confessed his feelings to him.  As he comes closer to adulthood, Shu struggles with what he really wants to do with himself; still desiring and wishing to be a girl, but knowing that in reality it is impossible as his body is changing

    After watching and enjoying the anime I wanted to read this manga, as I knew it dealt with much more than the anime did.  The anime really only covers the first two years of middle school, but that does take up a good bulk of the manga.  I was not disappointed in the manga, it is very well written and well drawn.  The dream like atmosphere expressed in the anime also comes across in the manga.  I did get anxious in parts of the story which were covered in the anime.  I already knew what was going to happen and just wanted to quickly get to the parts I didn't know yet.  As I read it the one thing that kept coming again and again in my mind was the quality and detail in the expressiveness of the characters faces.  Takako-sensei has a fine eye for detail when it comes to facial features and how expressions change those features.  One thing that also stood out was the subtle changes the characters faces and bodies go through over time as they age.  It is most striking with Shu as he is about to finish high school.   There were times, though, where it was difficult to figure out who some of the characters were and what their relation to the main characters are.  This was particularly the case when they entered high school.  There were characters who would show up for a few frames, say some things, and I didn't know where they came from or what their motivations where...they seemed to just be thrown in haphazardly.  Through out I was hoping for some of the side characters histories to be fleshed out more to help understand their view points regarding the main characters.  By the end, some of these characters were fleshed out well enough, but not others.  There was too much obfuscation with some of the characters pasts, particularly some of the teachers and other adults the characters related with.  You have to connect a few dots and make a few assumptions to get the complete picture.  This in no way detracted from the story, it just added a few bumps in the journey.    But the real meat of this manga is the story.  It is a finely crafted tale of self awareness, self identity and how to deal with the world around you and your perception of yourself. 

    This is a fantastically well written story and has received a number of awards.  This is the type of thing that makes a great introduction for wide audiences into the world of manga; not as a comic book, but as a form of story telling that can be respected and can actually be quite beneficial.  Thankfully the manga is being licensed and released in North America by Fantagraphics Books and would make great reading for teenagers, especially those dealing with gender identity issues.  Even those that are not to help given them pause when thinking negatively towards peers that are gay or otherwise.  It is a mature and realistic look at what it is like to go through puberty and the trials and tribulations those changes present.

    All in all, fantastic manga, highly recommended.  I would actually suggest reading the manga first then watching the anime.  You will take more away from the manga and understand all of the back story they reference in the anime.  I look forward to reading the authors other manga as well!