While at the Jump expo I noticed a gag series from the early 80s which was described to be the story of a male crossdresser,
I became curious to see how the subject was tackled before it became an entire genre in the decades to come.
However, my expectations were thrown out of the loop soon after starting, despite other characters referring to the character as a cross-dresser, it quickly became clear that wasn't the case. This was not a story about a male crossdresser, instead it was a story about a transgender girl.
Now, if the subject of crossdressing was already something which had the potential to go wrong, the idea of an early 80s Japanese gag manga tackling the issue of transgenderism seemed to be the recipe for a disaster...
Stop! Hibari-kun
Stop! Hibari-kun is a story about Kosaku relationship with Hibari, a transgender girl who is misunderstood as a deviant by her family, though accepted by those who know her only as a girl.
Kosaku is technically the main character, and the story is told via his perspective, but Ill be focusing mostly on Hibari as shes the most interesting aspect of the work.
The series follows a very traditional gag format of set up, punch-line, reaction (usually with characters falling down with their legs up), which personally I didnt find it particularly humorous.
The art is also rather plain, though the series has some pretty stylish covers shoots.
The set up is pretty normal by today standards, after Kosaku mother dies he is adopted by a mob family. It is there that he is presented to his four new step-sisters.
One of which is Hibari, supposedly the only male heir to the family, she refutes the idea of being her father son and instead presents herself as his daughter.
This is one of the first surprising points of consistence with Hibari, she always refutes the idea of being a male, and at times corrects those that refer to her otherwise.
The writing backs up her claims, the story presents Hibari as a normal girl, intelligent,popular, and with a strong personality capable of defending herself. Despite being written as a strong female character, she is never presented as being masculine.
To further this thought, she is constantly presented as a female in her school environment, and while there are characters that try and expose Hibari as a transgender, she is always accepted and treated as a female by those at school.
Despite this, insults towards Hibari are common by those that know of her situation , Pervert being the most usual one. Yet the story carefully never sides with those insults, instead it always presents Hibari as a normal and well adjusted girl, while those that insult her are often made into the butt of the jokes.
During the series we can catch glimpses of more of Hikari struggles as a transgender girl. She feels uncomfortable to be with other girls both in locker rooms and baths due to her own body. We see her expressing wishes for having a biological female body.
And while she often justifies not joining a sports club due to lack of interest, theres a general feeling that she doesnt do so due to her gender of birth.
Kosaku attitude towards Hibari changes through the series, while is he taken by her from the start, the realization that shes a male by birth makes him go into a defensive position. As the series progresses, he slowly eases up on his defenses against Hibari, and while he never fully gets there (partly due to the series early cancellation) you can notice small changes in his attitude.
As an example, there are a few scenes in which Hibari kisses Kosaku, and every-time it happens he seems less reluctant about it, even going as far as nearly initiating the kisses in a few situations.
The series also doesnt present these kisses as bad or even as funny, at worst the series presents them as unexpected.
While its treatment of transgenderism is surprisingly progressive, the series isnt without issues. It occasionally enters uncomfortable territory with stereotypical caricatures of certain groups, and while these caricatures likely do not come from malice but from ignorance or a misfired attempt at humor, they are never the less uncomfortable to read.
This is unfortunate blemish in an otherwise surprising progressive work, thankfully these are rare situations which are best ignored to appreciate the overall experience.
Unfortunately the story came to an early ending, canceled with only 53 chapters due to the author inability to write weekly chapters(including not finishing the last chapter), due to this Stop! Hibari-kun ended in a relatively ambiguous way, with the only thing of note being the introduction of a male transgender character to the mix.
While reading the manga I often wondered if the author had purposely written a realistic and well researched transgender character, or if this had happened by mere chance.
However, the male transgender introduced in the last chapter goes as far as stating that he was taking male hormones supplements, which makes me think the author might deserve more credit for being informed than I initially assumed.
There is a very thin-line between having ignorant characters and having an ignorant story, yet Stop! Hibari-kun manages to walk this path, laughing at those who are ignorant, rather than being ignorant for the sake of humour.
Stop! Hibari-kun premise and context had everything to go wrong, and while it doesnt particularly succeeded as a gag manga, it does something far more important, it manages to tell the story of a young transgender girl.
This would had been an achievement even for a manga written today, the fact that it did so in 1981-1983 makes Stop! Hibari-kun a remarkable work on its own merits.