In the latest volume of the acclaimed series about transgendered kids exploring their unfolding identities, we've reached a big event; the junior high school entrance ceremony. The boys wear black uniforms with stand-up collars based on mid-19th century European military uniforms and the girls wear navy blazers, tan skirts, and red ribbon neckties. Enter our heroes; Nitori-kun is forced to wear a boy's uniform while Takatsuki-san has to wear a girl's! Yet one girl ”Sarashia Chizuru" draws stares, whispers, and pointed fingers, because this long-haired beauty is wearing a boy's uniform. Both Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san are awed by the girl's courage, but Takatsuki-san is particularly vexed by their own faintheartedness. They envy more than a few other students who experience such liberty in wearing either uniform and ponder what it ultimately means about themselves. Envy and jealousy are prominent themes in Volume 5: Chiba-san is jealous of Takatsuki-san, for whom Nitori-kun still carries a tortch. Maho envies Anna-chan's professionalism as a model. And Chii-chan's loyal sidekick, Shiri Momoko, is intensely jealous of anyone in whom Chii-chan shows the slightest interest. And so our protagonists set off on the journey to adolescence.

Wandering Son: Volume 5 (WANDERING SON HC)

Comics & Graphic Novels

Takako, Shimura

Manga

Fantagraphics Books

Shimura Takako's sensitive and charming manga series about two middle-schoolers wrestling with their gender identities continues. Faced with unwanted changes to their growing bodies, male-identified Takatsuki-san discovers the wonders of "breast binders," and female-identified Nitori-kun explores the limits of his ability to "pass." Also: the success of their performance of The Rose of Versailles in the fifth grade - in which the boys played the women and the girls played the men - inspires our protagonists to put on another gender-bending play for the junior-high school festival. They riff on Romeo and Juliet. Nitori-kun and his friend Chiba-san write the script together, but Chiba-san has an agenda: She wants to play Romeo, with Nitori-kun in the role of Juliet. But Nitori-kun wants Takatsuki-san to play Romeo... Chiba-san forces Nitori-kun to confront a question he's been avoiding. Are his feelings for Takatsuki-san those of a boy for a girl, a girl for a girl, or a girl for a boy? Meanwhile, Maho plans a trip to the beach with her boyfriend, and Nitori-kun must chaperone.

Wandering Son: Book Six (WANDERING SON HC)

Shimura Takako’s groundbreaking, critically acclaimed, and beloved Wandering Son continues to explore gender identity among its cast of middle school students in our 7th volume. Nitori-kun gets his first signs of acne. This may well be the end of the world. But when he turns to nationally famous model Anna-chan for help, events take an unexpected turn. Meanwhile, Nitori-kun and Chiba-san are scouted by the theater club after the success of their gender-bending play, The Rose of Versailles. But when Takatsuki-san congratulates Chiba-san, Chiba-san calls her a hypocrite. If Takatsuki-san wanted to join the theater club, she wouldn’t congratulate Chiba-san ― she’d be jealous. So says Chiba-san, but what does she know?

Wandering Son: Volume Seven (WANDERING SON HC)

Curiosity and transphobia collide in the latest volume of Fantagraphicsâ€™ critically acclaimed manga about a boy who wants to be a girl, and a girl who wants to be a boy. In Volume 8, Nitori-kun, a boy who wants to be a girl, explores kissing with girlfriend Anna-chan; and Yoshino-san, a girl who wants to be a boy, finds the courage to go to school wearing a boyâ€™s uniform. Meanwhile, one of their male classmates, Doi-kun, who has caused our protagonists misery in the past, becomes intrigued with their grown-up friend Yuki-san, a transwoman. But Nitori-kun finds himself strangely drawn to Doi-kunâ€¦ Shimura Takaroâ€™s Wandering Son has been rightly hailed as one of the most progressive and enlightened treatments of gender identity in the history of comics. The eighth volume continues to explore the lives of its characters with insight and sensitivity.

Wandering Son Vol. 8 (WANDERING SON HC)

Wandering Son [14]

Enterbrain

放浪息子 2

ToÌ„kyoÌ„ : EntaÌ„burein, 2004

放浪息子 5

エンターブレイン

放浪息子 6

Runaway Girl, Vol. 2

Dynit

Book 9788833555379

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Books by Takako, Shimura