Day 4: Comics and Manga
Hello everyone! The week is halfway over at this point, so I hope you’ve all been enjoying these posts as much as I’ve been enjoying researching and writing them. Today’s focus will be on comics and manga. It was actually one of today’s entries (To Strip the Flesh) that inspired this whole idea (along with some of the entries for day 6) so today was a day that I was particularly excited for. I had a few trans-themed manga that I knew I wanted to talk about, and I decided I would expand the topic to include any comics. Unfortunately, it was disappointing how little positive representation I was able to find in major western comics, so I chose to only include one such entry and I don’t actually have much commentary for it. Along the way though, I did come across this great read titled ‘
The Complete History of Transgender Characters in American Comic Books’. It’s absolutely worth reading if you’re generally interested in comics, and it contains some interesting insights into the comic book industry as well.
Likely one of the most well known instances of trans representation in an American comic is Alysia Yeoh from the Batgirl: Shattered. In issue #19, Alysia Yeoh, Batgirl’s roommate, comes out as trans in a very touching and vulnerable moment where the two characters open up to each other about their pasts. When this issue was released (2013), it marked the first time a mainstream comic included a major, explicitly trans, human character. This kind of representation simply didn’t exist before that, and the support from fans was incredible.
There’s definitely a lot more to be said about Alysia. I’m not much of a comic reader myself though, and I’m not familiar with this story beyond what I’ve read about the comic while researching this. The article I linked above has a much more detailed and interesting write up about Alysia on the second page, so be sure to read through that if you’re interested.
I want to be a cute anime girl is an award winning, 6 year ongoing web comic by Azul Crescent. It follows a transgender girl named Cheryl as she learns about herself and her identity bit by bit. It’s a very light read, but still manages to be incredibly informative. The comic’s author is also a trans woman, and the writing in the comic is a reflection of both her own experiences as a trans woman and of an incredible amount of research put into creating a respectful, accurate, and informative story.
If you don’t end up reading this comic, I invite you to read
chapters 10-18 as well as
chapters 338-349. Chapters 10-18 depict the initial conversation between the comic’s lead character and her father. She’s very vulnerable and unsure in that moment, but her dad is extremely supportive. It’s more than just him being supportive of her identity though. The way he speaks creates a safe environment for her to feel comfortable and loved while she’s exploring her identity. Chapters 338-349 depict her speaking with an older trans woman that she meets as a family friend of one of her friends. The conversation covers a lot of information about the different ways that different people transition. It covers a lot of very useful info and was clearly heavily researched, although despite how much information it provides it’s still very easy to follow along. If you’re at all interested in learning more about what being trans means, what it looks like, and how to support a trans person in your life who is still figuring themself out, I really strongly recommend reading this comic.
This particular comic actually set me significantly behind on my writing schedule for this post because I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read it in its entirety rather than just skimming it to see if it would be a good fit for this project. I’m really glad I did though, because this is going to be a series that I follow now for regular updates. If you're interested in reading it, the title is a hyperlink to the webtoons page.
Content warning: There is a non-graphic scene depicting the main character’s breasts and uterus being surgically removed, which also depicts censored nudity.
To Strip the Flesh is a oneshot manga by Oto Toda that tells the story of Chiaki, a transgender man who wants to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a hunter. If you want to read this for yourself, the title here is also a hyperlink to an album (Read right to left). What I really like about this story is the portrayal of the relationship between Chiaki and his father. At every point in the story you can tell how much they love each other, but you can still see how much Chiaki’s father hurts him unintentionally with his expectations. It shows how loving someone without understanding them can be hurtful, a concept that isn’t exclusive to trans people.
In an interview, Toda explains the intended message of the manga:
The thing I most wanted to convey in this manga is ‘Don’t succumb to your parents!’ Even if parents are considerate when they say things to their children, their words can also be a curse that binds their children for their entire lives. So kids shouldn’t succumb to their parents – they should aim for their own happiness, and then their parents might come around… yeah.
I quite like this message. Even if you surround yourself with people who love you dearly, no one will be able to understand yourself and your happiness as well as you can. Your parents are responsible for raising you and setting you down a good path, but you’re the one who has to decide where the finish line is for you. To Strip the Flesh tells a story about how well-intentioned love can be the wrong kind of support, and it shows how confusing it feels to be on the receiving end of that. In the next entry for today I’ll talk more about guilt associated with transitioning, but this story illustrates very well how love and expectations can pile on guilt and cause someone to suppress part of themself for the sake of pleasing the people around them.
(Spoilers in this section)
Beyond the overall message, I just really like the writing. The themes of hunting and butchery are used in multiple different ways throughout the story and make for an excellent metaphor. “Stripping the flesh” as a metaphor for transitioning while also directly referring to the work Chiaki does as a butcher makes the story really interesting and thought provoking, and reading it helped me put my own feelings about gender dysphoria into words. In particular, the scene where Chiaki imagines himself on an operating table with his father removing the parts of his body he rejects is extremely powerful not only as an interesting depiction of dysphoria but also in describing how important it is to Chiaki for his father to accept him as the person he truly is.
Content warning: References the Columbine shooting (though only briefly, and it is not the focus of the story) and depicts the main character attempting suicide (this isn’t graphic and the act is written in a very lighthearted manner)
This one is also hyperlinked in the title for this section. Read right to left.
Something that I haven’t really talked about up to this point is isolation. Transitioning is a process that can be very isolating. It irrevocably changes relationships and the ways that people see you. Even when you know it’s the right thing to do, it can feel like it comes at the cost of community, or of being loved in the same way you once were. Many trans people carry guilt associated with transitioning. It’s the idea that by becoming ourselves, we’re losing some other aspect of ourselves or hurting the people around us. When transitioning is the catalyst for losing a relationship or for loved ones feeling like they’ve lost a child, sibling, parent, or friend, it’s very easy to blame yourself or feel like you’re being punished for transitioning.
Before I discuss this manga, I strongly recommend reading it first. It’s very short, and this one in particular is best experienced without any spoilers. The subject matter is pretty heavy, both in terms of making a reference to the Columbine shooting and in the focus of the story being the main character jumping off a building, but the writing is surprisingly light and wholesome with that being considered, and I think those elements balance each other quite well in this story. The rest of this will contain spoilers.
Lunch at Columbine is a short manga by Dowman Sayman that explores this guilt and the desire for connection. The story follows Fumi, a transgender girl who tries to jump from a building with the intention of starting her life over without her painful memories. Each time she jumps, she relives a memory tied to her guilt. First she remembers her mother superstitiously suggesting that Fumi may be the reincarnation of someone from the Columbine shooting, then she remembers an affirming and supportive moment with her father before she lost him, and finally she remembers being rejected by a classmate and the dysphoria associated with his comments. As she remembers each moment, she convinces herself that there must be a reason for her suffering and that perhaps being born trans was some kind of divine punishment.
This is a very common sentiment among the trans community. There’s a lingering thought in the backs of our minds that the friendships you lose, the growing distance from family, and the constant friction with the world is all somehow self-inflicted. You learn to carry shame that isn’t yours, and when you internalize that long enough, the happy moments can start to feel undeserved.
Lunch at Columbine doesn’t tell a sad story though. Throughout all the doom and gloom, there are small gestures that soften the rest of it. Fumi’s relationship with her father is a cherished memory for her, and when the other girls in her class invite her to eat lunch with them, that gesture saves her life. These gestures are both simple, but they’re profoundly transformative. They remind her that she isn’t being punished, and no one is meant to suffer alone. At the end of the story, she isn’t reborn like she originally wished, but she comes to realize that the basic connection of feeling supported by friends is what she really needed.
There’s a moment in here where Fumi says “God if I’m reborn again, please let it be as a normal girl.” This moment was hard to read, because I distinctly remember thinking almost exactly this when I was a kid. But the thing that makes this story really resonate with me isn’t this line or that the story is relatable, it’s that the story tells us we don’t need to be reborn to deserve love.
Manga Extras
Honestly, a lot of manga is problematic for similar reasons to what I mentioned in the anime post. Comics and manga was a topic I knew I wanted to talk about coming into this project because of To Strip The Flesh, but it’s also two genres that I know very little about as a whole. I wasn’t able to read and form opinions on as many of these as I would have liked before I needed to post this, so rather than completely neglect to mention some of the more common works I saw, here’s a
link to a blog post about trans manga.
Honorable Mention: THE PERVERT
THE PERVERT is a comic about a trans sex worker, written by Michelle Perez and illustrated by Remy Boydell. This one is a lot heavier than anything I’d like to mention here. The comic has a lot of trans characters and was made by a trans writer and a trans artist, and discusses experiences directly tied to sex work and to being trans, with quite a bit of overlap. Ultimately, it’s a story primarily about work, financial insecurity, and class struggles. The story’s creators have said in interviews that this was not meant to be a story about trans representation, but rather something akin to an autobiography. It makes sense that the story follows a trans character though, as
trans people generally face housing, financial, and food instability at higher rates than cisgender people.
This story is depressing and difficult to read. It’s neither the tone I wanted to include in this project, nor appropriate to post on this platform. It is, however, an extremely well made and deeply human story that I recommend reading. I’m not going to link it here, but it is worth reading.
Content warning: Homophobic and transphobic language, slurs, explicit depictions of sex and nudity, sexual and nonsexual violence, drug and alcohol use, mental health struggles including depression, dysphoria, and suicidal thoughts.
I really enjoyed researching for today’s post and I’m particularly proud of how it turned out. I was a bit worried about what I’d be able to find for comics and manga, but I think these are some of the most interesting works I’ve shared so far and are probably also some of the least well known. Something about these particular mediums feels a lot more personal than the previous days, and you get to see some really expressive work. Comics and manga allow for so much artistic freedom, and the (generally) smaller team sizes compared to things like production teams for movies and video games mean that you end up with combinations of stories and visuals that very clearly come from the heart and are very human.
