by Eleanor Walker, Okazu Staff Writer

It’s always nice to see a new publisher enter the manga space, especially one whose first title is explicitly LGBT+. I Wanna Be Your Girl ,Volume 1 tells the story of two childhood friends, Hime and Akira. But when Akira comes out as trans before starting high school, headstrong and fiery Hime makes it her life’s mission to protect her best friend from the world. Only the world turns out to be a little more complicated and less black and white than Hime realises.

It’s so nice to read a manga where the teenage characters actually feel like real teenagers, but this one is just a little more personal to me than most. When I was in high school, I had a crush on someone who I thought was a boy, but she told me she was actually a girl. My reaction at that point was “huh, that’s a bit weird but ok” and still kept kissing her. Maybe I should have realised earlier on that I wasn’t straight… But having experienced something similar myself, I can believe Hime when she acts the way she does to try and protect Akira. She’s clearly madly in love with her and will do anything for her, and in a show of entirely well meaning solidarity, shows up to school in the boys’ uniform Akira’s parents bought for her. This however causes a new set of problems (Disclaimer: I am not trans but I am married to a trans woman and have many trans friends) Akira, like most trans people, just wants to get on with her life and not have people make a big deal about the fact she’s trans, and Hime is unintentionally shining a spotlight on her. The classroom erupts into chaos and their rather strict teacher yells at everyone to calm down and be quiet.

It seems though, that there is more to the teacher than first meets the eye. He sits Hime down for a talk one day, and it’s strongly suggested that he’s gone through something similar regarding identity in the past, but by the end of the volume Hime and Akira have even managed to make some friends in their class, and they struggle over which after school club to join together. Just normal teenager things.

I cannot recommend this series enough for queer/questioning/curious teenagers and those around them. I wish something like this had existed when I was this age.

Ratings: 

Story – 7
Art – 6. It’s nothing groundbreaking but it does the job.
Characters – 8
Service – n/a
LGBTQ — 10

Overall – 8 but probably 9 if you’re a confused teenager looking for something to relate to.

by Eleanor Walker, Staff Writer

Content warning: this series discusses topics including human euthanasia and suicide.

Perhaps inspired by the success of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and its sequels, Seven Seas has also published some other queer autobiographical manga, including The Bride Was a Boy and the subject of today’s review, X-Gender (性別X) by Asuka Miyazaki. X-gender is an umbrella term used in Japan to describe various non-binary and genderqueer identities.

This series is most definitely aimed at people who have no knowledge of LGBTQ+ or women’s health, as it was originally serialised under Kodansha’s Young Magazine umbrella, a seinen (aimed at young men) magazine. There’s lots of explanation of basic queer terminology which may seem superfluous for many readers of this site, as well as a chapter explaining periods, but probably needed for the average reader of Young Magazine. I hesitate to compare this directly to My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, as I don’t really feel it’s fair to compare people’s real life experiences, but there are definitely some parallels to be drawn with the stories. Being queer can often be an incredibly isolating experience, and X-Gender tells the story of Asuka finding a community they can be a part of at local gay bar Poker Face, owned and run by a fantastic trans man known as “The General”, only to then have it ripped away from them by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Whilst volume 1 mostly deals with Asuka’s finding themselves as a newly out X-gender person, there’s a noticeable change in tone in volume 2. Japan and the rest of the world is shutting down due to Covid, and Poker Face, Asuka’s favourite IRL hangout, is closed. I did find this volume rather unfocused compared to volume 1. This is acknowledged by the author though, as they were finding life very difficult during the pandemic and lockdown. The chapters are much shorter, and there’s very little story continuity between them, they’re more like a set of short stories with recurring characters. I don’t like to criticise someone’s real life experiences when used as the basis for a story, but I do think that Asuka is a good visual storyteller, the panels flow nicely and it’s an easy read visually.

Overall, I’m happy this series exists and was released in English. It’s a good introduction to non binary identities for those who have absolutely no idea what they are. (I am a cis lesbian with many non-binary friends, and I acknowledge this is not a substitute for actual lived experience.)

Obviously this is only one person’s story and the non-binary experience is vast and variable, but I feel like a lot of readers of this site can relate to the feeling of not belonging in society or not being comfortable in our bodies, as well as the isolation many of us felt during 2020. For the cishet men this was aimed at, I hope it can be an insight into a life that’s very different to your own, but ultimately a reminder that we’re not so different after all.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 6. This one is definitely best read a chapter or two at a time, rather than all in one go, especially volume 2.
Character – 7. The General is by far my favourite.
Service – 7. There are some fairly graphic descriptions of the author’s porn and sex preferences but nothing explicitly illustrated..
LGBT+ – 8

Overall – 7