Hourou Musuko

[vervianroot]

I’ve started reading a manga called “Hourou Musuko” or “The Wandering Son.” It’s well-written and explores gender identity and sexuality issues in high school in a sensitive manner which I haven’t seen in most literature or film. The main protagonists are a transgendered girl and a transgendered boy.

The thing is I started reading it on Mangafox at first. I was halfway through the archive before I realized that the main protagonist FTM (Takatsuki) was NOT a boy dressing like a girl though still gendered male as I thought (even though I briefly skimmed the manga summary before reading). I initially thought BOTH protagonists were born male. I double-checked Wikipedia and accessed that I was indeed wrong, but looking back at the archive I realized that with good reason (despite a few anvil sized hints) it wasn’t my fault.

A lot of chapters were missing, including volumes one through four. A lot of chapters which concerned the main plot for Takatsuki were missing and I believe it to be deliberate on someone’s part, primarily from the first half of the manga which would have made this clearer. I started reading it over at Mangareader.net which had a more complete archive. It should have been clear from the get go. In addition, the ones up on Mangafox portray two other female characters named Chiba (a girl who likes Shuichi, MTF character, but dislikes Takatsuki and is a bit cold-hearted and mean at times) and Maho (Shuichi’s sister who is disgusted by his cross-dressing and is mean to him on occasion) in a very unflattering light, though these characters are not always cruel or unsupportive as rereading a fuller archive has shown me. The ones that are up focus on Shuichi’s independent and main plot points entirely. Some chapters which concern Takatsuki’s independent plot ARE there, but not many. I could probably count them on one hand. The ones that concern Chiba’s are, but it seems clearly because they relate to Shuichi’s and due to shipping.

I don’t know who did this, but I am very, very disheartened and upset about the intentional misogynist and transphobia. Whoever is removing the chapters or not uploading them intentionally is OKAY with Shuichi’s exploration of her sexuality and her gender because she was born male, but not of Takatsuki’s self-exploration and it disgusts me. However, anime fandom is not without people who have LGBTphobia, are misogynists and have other isms and I already knew that.

This manga is INCREDIBLE. Even if you aren’t into manga, it is worth a read. I’m aware there is an anime series, but I’m a manga reader at heart and haven’t decided if I will watch it yet. I’ve barely begun to reread and I’ll update if I notice any other major things were left out at Mangafox. Apologies in advance if I have mussed terminology or pronouns anywhere.

ETA: And I got linked on animanga_news. Never been meta before. :)

Comments

[destinyislands]

Saw this through animanga_news.

Ugh, why would someone do that??? Luckily, I started reading it elsewhere. I know it shouldn't surprise me at this point, but it always baffles me when I see people do things like this. Even more so considering the subject matter of the series. ><'

[vervianroot]

I'm surprised that it's up there and I wish that they had asked before they linked, but I guess it's cool.

This is just me theorizing as I don't know if it's really going on, but it just looks weird. I wouldn't lay the blame on the site, but it just seems really weird because I have rarely come across archives where such a large chunk is missing for series which are gaining popularity, especially ones with anime adaptations.

[destinyislands]

I think a lot of what ends up on animanga_news is based on recommendations?

That is very odd that so much is missing. What makes it more odd is that specific parts are missing. The implications of that...x--x