Haruhi is a person anyone should take after. In my opinion it’s more important for a person to be recognized for who they are, rather than what sex they are.” This is followed by Haruhi being irritated once again by the club member’s fascination with every day “poor peoples” products such as instant coffee. Haruhi’s response to Tamaki after putting him in his special corner is to state, “Listen, Senpai, I don’t really care whether you guys recognize me as a boy or a girl. When it is soon discovered that Haruhi was originally registered in the school as a girl, Tamaki the clubs flamboyant leader both falls in love with them and flips out (as Tamaki always does) that Haruhi is continuing to participate in the all-male host club. After Haruhi is mistaken for a boy and accidently knocks over a priceless vase they are roped into a becoming a host at a wealthy high school host club (a club where wealthy men entertain women). Haruhi is a rare example of a fleshed out non-binary character. While a few of these characters will be flawed representations (especially the early ones), I want to highlight different characters that made a difference to me as a transgender person and that as a transwoman I found inspiring, rather than looking at cringe worthy characters that made me want to throw my book, tv, or computer against a wall in frustration.
While some characters of these characters mainly inspired me as a form of well needed wish fulfillment such as Ranma Saotome, in this article I want to focus my work on the characters that best represent the transgender experience. I have been inspired by several transgender and gender non-conforming anime and manga characters that were portrayed as deep, representative, and fun without being objectifying. This isn’t to say that all depictions of transgender people in anime are bad (if that were true, I wouldn’t be writing this article), some anime and manga series have had depictions of transgender people that are light years ahead of even most United States portrayals. I wish all these stereotypes die in a firey blaze! These types of characters present transgender and gender non-conforming characters as jokes or shallow people to be mocked, rather than fleshed out characters. This is further complicated by the fact that gender identity is often associated with sexuality within Japan.īecause of this many anime and manga series portray transgender people as falling into a number of harmful stereotypes including: the Okama an extremely feminine behaving but often foppish masculine looking gay stereotype, a “Fuka,” a cisgender woman in all respects except with a huge dick (TMI: most medically transitioning transwomen don’t have stallion sized dicks) ((big shocker)), or the deceptive “trap” character that is trying to “trick,” viewers and/or “fools,” the cast into thinking they are women. The understanding of transgender people in anime and it’s depictions in Japan are often much much worse than even within the United States. Outside the United States depictions if anything are even worse. Transgender people are often still used in films and television as the butt of jokes and/or as people who are dangerously deranged. It’s no secret that transgender people have been badly represented in media.
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