This is the best transgender manga

I'm not saying this is the best manga that features or centers trans characters. I haven't read all the trans manga out there to be fair. There's some that I've heard good things about, such as Boys Run The Riot. But so far, this story is the (subjectively) best manga I've read for actually speaking to the trans experience.

From what I've seen, a lot of trans manga seems to go on in one of two directions, 1: well meaning but misguided and possibly problematic (Wandering Son), or 2: sugary wish fulfillment (Bokura no Hentai). My issue with the first is obvious, and my issue with the second is that while it can be a nice read, it doesn't really say much of value. In a lot of trans media the characters almost always pass, and they are often accepted by others without issue. In manga it's usually some super feminine boy who is mistaken for a girl constantly and just transitions without that friction. Usually with no mention of hrt. It's not really applicable to being trans as most people experience it.

This isn't technically a trans manga. It's a gender bender. This seems to be much more common as a setup for trans... adjacent manga. Maybe that's because it is/was an easier sell in a conservative society, or because it appeals to cis audiences better, but I'm not really knowledgeable enough on Japan to have a take on that. Gender bender manga is usually a poor allegory for transness because it essentially functions as either a comedic gimmick or (as mentioned before) shallow wish fulfillment. This manga takes it in a different direction because the characters aren't just inexplicably cool with it, and the story isn't about coming to terms with the condition. Basically, in most gender-bender stories the character is cis. In this one, they're trans.

It's essentially gender bender as psychological horror. I've never seen/read a piece of media that so viscerally communicates the horror of gender dysphoria. Several panels of it are incredibly relatable. It sadly got cancelled very early on, but I still think it works for what it is, even if the story is totally unresolved. I'm not into review-as-recommendation so I'll leave it at if you're looking for an unflinching take on dysphoria with realistic, flawed but likeable characters, give it a read. It'll take under half an hour. It does have some heavy imagery and events though.

~!A common criticism I've seen of the story is that the main character Shun is an asshole. That's kind of true but more understandable with a bit of empathy. He is an asshole as shown in the start of the manga, but he is dealing with a homophobic society/peers. And after the sex swap (I'm not calling it their made up word sorry) obviously that would be incredibly distressing to anyone since it's compressing a lifetime progression of dysphoria into one moment. His dealing with the sex change is what makes the manga. The initial scene is visceral and when he was trying to cover himself going back to school was real asf. The SA scene is probably where it gets the closest to being a bit gratuitous, but I still think it's effective enough that I'm ok with it and they do get immediate consequences at least. His plotline is basically successive scenes depicting each aspect of how scary being stuck in the wrong body can be. It's crushing and yes he is a dick to everyone, but he is still portrayed as very human and vulnerable. I think if the story continued he probably would have made up with his friends, and the story may have lightened up a bit as it progressed, but idrk since it's cancelled.

I like each of the main characters really, which is nice because this could easily be 6 chapters of horrible misery-porn, but Yashiro Yuka (his friend) and Yamagishi (his crush) are both such supportive people that it saves it. Yuka is interesting because it's a bit more ambiguous as to how they wish to identify. It doesn't read like they're exactly enthused by the sex swap, but I'm not sure which direction the story would have gone. They seem to be maybe willing to come to terms with being a man, but at the same time they're pretty distressed privately despite dealing with it better publicly. Maybe they'd go in a sort of non-binary direction I'm not sure. but I like how empathetic they are, and how they are both a support pillar for their friends while also opening up about how confused they are by everything especially in the hospital scene. And I was cheering to myself when they beat the shit out of the rapists. Incredibly satisfying.

Yamagishi is an interesting character as well. I'm not sure whether to read it as him realizing he is bisexual, or as him just being trans-inclusive in attraction. I guess those often go together irl lol. But I really like how, while the other two are dealing with their issues, he is realizing that he still does like Yuka even if they are a guy. It's cool to have another angle that complicates things beyond "wow that's crazy my friend is a guy now", and his support for his friends is really admirable. He also physically defends them from others and it's really nice. In a story where the other students are bizarrely evil in an exaggerated way, he works as a rock of stability.!~

I can't write all that much more about what is just a 6 chapter cancelled series, but I do really appreciate this manga. I'm not particularly interested in most trans media out there, honestly because it tends to feature people who pass. While the internal struggle can be interesting and relatable, I ultimately can't entirely relate. Trans media covering how much it sucks to exist while not passing is pretty uncommon. Maybe it's difficult to empathetically portray a non-passing trans character to a cis audience. Fujimoto does an admirable job with Togata in Fire Punch in a way (although they're more of a repressor I guess), and he also happens to have a one shot with a very similar comedic take on the gender-bender trope as this (Woke-Up-as-a-Girl Syndrome). But anyway, this story doesn't even feature a traditionally trans character, but it speaks better to the experience than anything else I've seen or read.