I've heard of good works here and there, but does anyone have a decently compiled list? Just introduced to Inside Mari, think I might pick up a copy.
Stop! Stop! Hibarikun is pretty old and has a lot of racial stereotypes and other such things, but I would stay it’s still worth a watch, however the show falls off hard at the end. You can get it for free on the Internet Archive, just search the name of the show into the browser.
considerably more than a minute later
important note, i haven't read all of these, and some of the ones i have read i haven't read in like a decade
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stop! hibari-kun: the grandmother of trans manga. hibari is the trans daughter of a mob boss and takes no shit. the author is insistent that she's just a crossdressing boy iirc, but like. that's just not the text of the manga. she's stealth as a girl basically everywhere outside her family home and gets mad when misgendered. has some kinda gross stereotypes but afaik hibari herself is treated pretty well
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wandering son: a couple of trans middle schoolers have drama. really nice art but doesn't always treat the transmasc character well and has an older trans woman who's a little bit of a creep. i know a lot of people like it but i don't really remember it super well
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boys run the riot: trans guy is part of a group designing and making clothes
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love me for who i am: there was once a man who wanted to do a manga about a cafe of crossdressers but then learned trans people exist. the main character is a fem enby, and there are 2 trans women working at the cafe. very good, but you can tell at some points it was written by a mildly clueless (but supportive) cis guy
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my future self is persuading me to become a woman: a trans woman travels back in time to try and convince herself to transition earlier, arriving just before the dysphoria really hits back when she was
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to strip the flesh: about a trans man who wants to join his father hunting and skinning but is scared to come out. some kinda gory imagery, and extremely not vegan if that's a concern. only a 2 shot, so very short.
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ore ga watashi ni naru made: not technically trans, it's about a young boy who just magically turns into a girl. but the way it handles its everything is really grounded and good and feels very trans to me. i know i had a post where i railed against this kind of thing, but this is very much not a romantic wish fulfillment thing, it's imagining how the main character feels, what choices they make about their own gender presentation, the societal pressures they face, their efforts to stay stealth and not be outed as someone who used to be a guy
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hello melancholic: haters might say "cromalin! there's no hard proof the main character of this is trans! she might just be a super tall girl who has anxiety over people hearing her voice before she can warm up in the morning and who's drawn noticeably different than the other girls in the manga in ways that definitely make me think she's trans!" and to them i say that's true. but you should read it, because she's trans
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here's some more, though i really want to give an anti-recommendation to majo no geboku to maou no tsuno which i did not like despite many people really loving it
Thank you for this... But how can I find English print of these, or at least a digital version that's not through some janky website?
i believe all of them have had official english translations except for ore ga watashi ni naru made, though wandering son wasn't finished. try your local library first. but check out mangadex as well. that's going to be your best bet for non-sketchy manga pirating websites, though i know to strip the flesh isn't on there. until i become me, my future self is persuading me to become a woman, hello melancholic, love me for who i am
in general though you are almost certainly fine if you just search "read [name of manga] online free" and click on whatever the top result is as long as you have an adblocker
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lmao i was gonna make this exact thread last night (and then didn't)
to an actual posterKanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku - is short but heartwarming manga about trans girl Akira who is early in her transition. She has a childhood friend Hine who supports her no matter what. Since Akira decided to be presented as girl full time she got a lot of attention and Hime decided to help her friend by crossdressing as a boy. I like this manga because it's literally about trans person and it's not denied unlike in many other manga where character swap their gender, they enjoy it but they are still cis™ tho.
it's good but it isn't textually trans iirc. lots of gender going on though, so it's close enough
Fair enough. It's my partner's favorite anime because it helped them realize they were nonbinary so I've always put it in that camp, even though it's not super explicit.
yeah there are for sure reads that work completely and i definitely think it's worthy of mention here, i just think it's important to be clear about how explicit these things are in the text when recommending something for representation reasons. if someone wanted a gay anime and i said madoka magica that'd be true but i really should mention that it's technically subtext
Bokura no Hentai is not a hentai, and is worth reading. The premise put me off at first, but the character explorations made it work. It starts out with 3 middle schoolers "boys" who are "crosdressed" for various reasons and having a meetup. One is just trans femme and has been transitioned for a while. One is a gay kid who is dressed because he's hitting on a straight kid. One is dressed to feel more connected to his dead sister. The latter of these two sound lole they could be shitty and problematic, but they're better than I thought theyd be. This one might be labelled shoujo but is probably closer to Josei (adult woman) manga in style because of its sober and mature tone.
Another one I liked was Dreams at Dusk (Shimanami Tasogare). This is about abguy who got outed as gay and is at a crisis point in his lofe when he discovers a shack where other lost queer kids have set up a second family. It's a bit more of an ensemble manga, with a diverse catchall cast that covers a lot of queer angles. This is a bit more philosohpical and somewhat surreal at points.
