Girls Who Are Boys, Who Like Boys To Be Girls

I had to really hunt for an answer to this question. The whole cross-dressing, sex-switching, et cetera thing is a lot more common in manga than in mainstream American comics. But I finally came up with a favorite title that does include some of these elements: Finder (Lightspeed Press). While main character Jaeger is most definitely male (very, very male) he encounters a wide assortment of differently-categorized or uncategorizable characters. For example, the "constructs", which are genetically-engineered beings, often with animal characteristics and often used as sex toys/servants/slaves. And than there's the Llaverac Clan, in which every member looks female — which partly explains Lynne's problem. Biologically male, raised female, and more than a little screwed-up as a result.

My favourite gender-bending comic is also one of the first manga titles I ever read, over a decade ago: Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma 1/2. Ranma Saotome is a very talented martial artist. Ranma has been engaged since birth to marry a daughter of his father Genma's best friend, Soun Tendo, a prospect that neither Ranma nor the girl chosen as his fianceé, youngest Tendo sister Akane, is entirely pleased about it.

Ranma, thanks to a cursed old Chinese spring he fell into, becomes a girl when he's doused with cold water! (He changes back with hot.)

Still, since tomboyish Akane hates boys — thanks to being relentlessly pursued as an object of desire by every boy at her school — you'd think this would be a match made in heaven. Instead, Akane treats Ranma like he got cursed on purpose, constantly calling him a pervert and clobbering him with furniture. To be fair, Ranma tends to say some very mean things to her on a regular basis. It doesn't help that, despite his little problem, he has no shortage of female pursuants; a few of them, thanks to ongoing idiocy on Genma's part, are even engaged to him! Unfortunately for Ranma and Akane, a number of the guys and gals chasing these two are also quite skilled at martial arts! One of them, Kuno, is even in love with both Akane and girl-type Ranma!

Over time, Ranma learns to accept his female side, at least to some extent (although he never seems to learn to keep his chest covered!). For one thing, he has a sweet tooth, and being a girl allows him to satisfy it. For another, it's a handy disguise. It also allows him to take Akane's place when necessary in duels. (Don't think that Akane's some shrinking violet, though!) And lastly, despite her accusing Ranma of lecherous activity now and then (such as sneaking into the girls' bathroom, which he's never done for lecherous reasons), they do seem to grow closer as time wears on, partly because Ranma is, in some ways, more of a girlfriend to Akane than a fiancé.

The series is very humourous, jam-packed with puns and slapstick. It also has a good dose of tender, sweet moments, not just between Ranma and Akane, but between them and their friends/rivals. I've read and re-read my tankoubons over and over, and never seem to tire of the series. I'll always be grateful to my fellow Tart, Sharon T. Schmitt, for introducing me to it, way back when!

Right now my favorite gender-bending comic is Penguin Revolution (CMX), by Sakura Tsukuba. This manga has more crossdressing than a Shakespearean comedy — appropriately enough, since it involves the theater.

Like the lead characters in Tsukuba's previous series, Land of the Blindfolded (also CMX), Penguin heroine Yukari Fujimaru has a rather limited psychic power. In Yukari's case, she can literally see how much talent an actor or performer has (based on an aura in the shape of wings) projected by those with genuine star quality. When the plucky Yukari comes to the aid of a female schoolmate who is being sexually harassed by an older boy, she inadvertantly discovers that the girl, Ryoko, whose invisible-to-others wings Yukari had coincidentally noticed in the schoolyard that morning, is actually a boy named Ryo Katsuragi.

Ryo's schoolgirl masquerade turns out to have everything to do with his metaphorical wings. As he explains to Yukari, Ryo has managed to get signed by the prestigious Peacock talent agency. However, as a newcomer who has yet to make much of an impression professionally, the avian-named agency has classified him as a low-ranking flightless bird, or "penguin," who so far hasn't even been allotted his own manager.

In addition to being addicted to bird metaphors, the eccentric president of the Peacock Agency is obsessed with secrets and determined to keep the private lives of the performers he represents strictly classified. As a result, Peacock Agency performers are required to treat their offstage personas as literal secret identities and disguise themselves accordingly whenever they appear in public on their own time. In Ryo's case, the agency president has decreed that the lowly "penguin" must disguise himself as a girl.

When Yukari's feckless father's company goes bust days later and he skips town, leaving his daughter behind penniless and homeless, her cross-dressing newfound friend tries to help her out by getting the Agency to hire her as his manager. The unpredictable Peacock president approves this plan, but only if Yukari can successfully pass herself off as a guy while on the job as Ryo's manager — allegedly in order to forestall potential scandalous rumors of hanky-panky between male Peacock talent and female Agency staff. If anyone discovers that Ryo's new manager is a girl, both of them will be fired on the spot.

Naturally, the inevitable wacky hijinks ensue. But despite its zany convoluted premise, Penguin Revolution is more than just a farcically over the top screwball comedy. In contrast to other manga with similarly unlikely plot elements, the cross-dressing boy and girl are likable, fully-developed characters who are willing to jump through all these elaborate hoops more because they genuinely like and want to help each other than because credulity-straining flimsy plot twists force them to do so. Most of the more outrageous plot developments are directly attributable to not the arbitrarily string-pulling author, but the whimsical Peacock president. Even this character's deus ex machina actions are convincingly presented as stemming from his own peculiar set of motives, with a mischievous sense of humor and a mile-wide manipulative streak being chief among them. Between the vivid characterization and the author's obvious fondness for the equally skillfully-evoked theatrical milieu, this bizarrely high-concept manga somehow manages to be entertainingly wacky, but oddly wholesome and heartwarming at the same time.