Some series are famous because they create a whole new chapter of fandom. Others spearhead a new style of art or story telling. But there are some series that are just ahead of their time and should not be forgotten. Eguchi Hisashi’s Stop!! Hibarikun! is among the latter. Serialized in the early 1980s Shonen Jump magazine, this manga is a classic.

In Stop!! Hibarikun! Complete Edition, Volume 1, before Sakamoto Kousaku’s mother dies, she asks her son to go live with an old friend of hers. He’s got children roughly the same age and will welcome Kousaku. When Kousaku arrives at the Oozora home, he finds mom’s old friend to be a yakuza boss with 4 children – among them, Hibari-kun. Assigned male at birth, Hibari knows that she is a girl.

The manga progresses as a comedy, much in the artistic style we’re used to in, for example, Ranma 1/2. Lots of face faults, grimaces, falling over, nosebleeds, etc. Dad is not at all happy that Hibari insists she is a girl, but other than his pointless raging about it, her sisters seem to have little to no concern. She passes at school, until a mean girl confronts her in the locker room, demanding to see her without her shirt. One of her sisters masquerades as Hibari, so she passes the inspection, and the rest of the girls in school go back to treating her as one of them, despite random plots by the resident mean girl. Thugs sent after Hibari go down, because she’s the child of a yakuza leader….she knows how to fight. When Kousaku joins the boxing club, so does Hibari.

Kousaku’s overreactions to Hibari are the main “comedy” and they can become tiresome. I meant that generally – that kind of goofy overreaction is just…tiresome. I was watching something and every reaction was just “EEEEHHHH~~~~?????” over and over at louder decibels until I had to stop. I ended up watching some morning live-action Japanese drama afterwards, just to relax. Hardly any shouting. Phew. When you remember that this would have run at the same time as hyper-masculine Fist of the North Star, and City Hunter, you can kind of understand that this would have been a breath of fresh air…even if it was intended as a parody of shounen romance manga.  There are moments you forget that this is meant to be a gag comic, though and those are worth it.

The best part of Stop!! Hibarikun! is Hibari herself. She is occasionally sad that her body is not in sync with her identity, but she knows who she is and doesn’t really care that other people struggle with it. She’s comfortable showing interest in Kousaku, and teasing him about it. She’s physically and emotionally strong enough to hold her own when she’s being bullied by one of the girls, or one of the guys. She’s an awesome female lead in a series full of mostly unworthy supporting characters.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Cute, and stylish when it comes to Hibari and the other girls, gooftastic for the guys
Story – 7 I mean, it’s a sitcom. So…gags
Characters – Hibari is a 9, her sisters are 8 and everyone else just sort of trickles down from there
Service – Yep. Nakedness is hi-larious
LGBTQ – 10 for Hibari, who knows who she is. It all trickles down from there

Overall – 8 When its good it’s very good, when it’s not it’s more meh than awful

I’m very pleased this classic manga has been collected into a complete edition and grabbed this copy when I saw it on the shelves in one of the bookstores in Japan (I think it was in an actual bookstore, rather than a manga store, in fact.) I’ll be very interested to get the rest and see what I think of the story. 

Here’s the OP of the anime for your viewing entertainment. That may lead you to look for some of the anime on Youtube. You may find it there if you look. (Please do not link to any of it here. Read the atmosphere. Thank you.)