Well, here I am, just over a year and a half out from that first fateful video on this
series, just over a year out from starting the hormone replacement therapy I realized
I needed immediately after making that video.
Much to the confusion of my commenters at the time, I didn't really know what I was;
looking back on it the video is really vague and confusing, but making the video allowed
me to figure that "what" out.
Wandering Son made me realize I'm trans.
...And then I made a number of people realize that they're trans, and then some of those
people have made other people realize that THEY'RE trans; it's a beautiful little
queer circle of life-
the wave of transtrenders is coming for you.
For about as long as my first video on the series has been out I've been planning to
make more episodic analyses of Wandering Son, looking at the major idea or point of interest
of a given episode, sort of along the lines of Digi's Eva series,
but, y'know, complete,
and as you can see here I've settled upon compiling my looks into each episode within
a single video.
I won't just slot that video on episode 1 in here, but I hope you can forgive a summation
of that analysis so that this video can function as a standalone.
Thank you my kittens.
The central concept of Wandering Son that you should keep in mind as I go through each
of these episodes' individual points is the value of having people who can understand
you and your experiences.
This is a thread that the series weaves throughout the course of its run, both that the root
of many issues queer people face is a misunderstanding of them, and that the greatest solidarity
and comfort you can receive is having someone else who does understand you.
Ep. 5 16:45 "People laughed at me.
In grade school.
… But you and Takatsuki understood me, so I know everything would be okay.
If I can't understand you now, I'll learn how.
And if anybody laughs at you, I'll be mad."
It can feel like society as a whole is gaslighting you as a trans person, with newspapers falsely
fear-mongering about trans kids getting surgeries at age 14, and a massive portion of the population
saying "science doesn't care about your feelings, transgenderism is a mental illness,"
when it is irrefutably, objectively untrue to claim being trans is a mental illness according
to the scientific community.
You need people to help ground you, to show you that you and your experiences aren't
an isolated incident.
In light of these ideas it puts forth, it is so powerful that through its impeccable
craft this series manages to itself be a remarkable vehicle for spreading an understanding of
the experiences of trans people, and in so doing also manages to be a remarkable vehicle
for communicating to those trans people that their experiences are understood.
Wandering Son not only makes a statement of the issues faced by trans people and what
can be done to help, but has made an actual, material impact in the fight to address those
issues, and provides the very help it posits is needed.
This is proactive media in action.
The role this first episode serves is getting the audience into the shoes of Shuu, getting
them to understand and begin rooting for her.
While this aim is pretty typical for a first episode, the shot Wandering Son has to hit
is made much trickier by the experience that it must convey an understanding of.
Thankfully however, it hits a perfect bull's-eye in this regard.
The direction and storyboarding of series director Ei Aoki does a remarkable job of
getting you into the head of Shuu.
Throughout this episode, and specifically when she's out in public presenting as female,
she is constantly framed as being walled in and isolated from the world around her, by
the world around her.
It's a perfect visual representation of the anxious sense of being cut off from everyone
else you experience in that position, and having now experienced that same anxiety many
times over myself I can say that with even more confidence than the first time around.
This sense of isolation continues into the episode's climactic scene, this time tinged
with legitimate fear and heartbreak as well.
As Maho walks in on Shuu the music sharply cuts out, and cuts your heartstrings with
it, leaving that heart of yours unsuspended to fall into the pit of your stomach.
Shot 1, the window divides Maho from Shuu, shot 2, it cuts them off again, shot 3, this
time the bedpost cuts them off from each other.
Shuu is alone, in her own house, with her own family.
THE FIRST shot in which Mato and Shuu share the frame without anything separating the
two of them is when she crosses that boundary not to provide support, or empathy, or love,
but to assault Shuu, trying to force her to remove those clothes, and on a more metaphorical
level to give up and deny her identity.
She is forced to shove Mato back across that barrier, forced to create this isolation for
the sake of her own protection, and as she rises the wig falls from her head, that piece
of Shuu's identity having now been taken from her.
This?
This isn't an abstraction.
10% of trans kids who come out to their families face violence from those families, and that's
according to the largest study of transgender people conducted to date.
This is a lived reality for thousands of kids across the U.S. alone, as is the homelessness
Shuu's running away here alludes to.
Wandering Son doesn't pull punches; it doesn't waste fuckin' time; it doesn't focus on
trying to communicate the minute specificities of the trans experience; it highlights those
elements that hit upon fundamental, core human experiences.
It takes things that everyone understands to be unpleasant, to be unfair, and tells
you "yeah, this sucks doesn't it?
Do you know what being trans feels like, could you imagine it?
No?
Well do you know what it feels like to be anxious expressing your genuine self?
Do you know what it feels like to feel isolated when you do express that self?
Can you imagine what it would feel like to face violence from those closest to you if
they saw you expressing yourself?
Congratulations, you now know what being trans feels like, or at the very least can imagine
what it'd feel like fairly accurately.
Here is what you're faced with if you're trans, just for being trans."
Shuu gets yanked out of her destructive downwards spiral by Takatsuki's unexpected words.
Watching this scene was always hard; it was always deeply emotional.
Now, with new perspective…...it's scary.
I know these feelings, I know what path society directs trans people down….and Shuu is following
the directions laid out for her by society.
"I can't...stand this...I can't."
All of this only furthers the incredible rush of comfort and relief that Takatsuki ends
up providing, both to Shuu and to the feels of the audience.
The immense amount of tonal and emotional tension built up, and the immediacy with which
it snaps back to a relaxed state upon his appearance strikes the viewer hard with just
how important the comfort of someone who has shared your experience is.
And so, as its first episode draws to a close, we thoroughly understand, on an immediate,
sensory and emotional level, what Shuu's experiences are like and why we should care
about her.
We learn the answer to, "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
While most of the characters do get introduced in episode 1, it's the second episode where
their personalities really get established, and where their web of relationships is spun
out for us to see.
Chi's a real fighter, Sasa wishes everyone would just get along, aaaaaand, Chiba hates
everyone, oh, also Momoko is gay as hellll.
For a series focused on the importance of having others who understand you, on the harm
a lack of understanding can cause, and on how to build that bridge of understanding,
the interpersonal dynamics of its characters are an absolutely key element.
What is the root of Maho's resentment of Shuu?
We learn here that it's jealousy over Shuu's cuteness, and that this jealousy of Maho's
makes her especially likely to lash out at Shuu's gender expression because if she's
presenting as female she'll essentially be "competing" with Maho, in Maho's
eyes anyway.
Maho is so caught up in this competitiveness that she can't even stand to let Shuu bath
first….even when she doesn't want to take a bath herself at that point in time.
The strong use of blocking returns once again, which makes sense given that this is another
episode storyboarded by Ei Aoki.
I especially love the shot where as everyone walks home together in an attempt to create
some unity and goodwill, the whole group gets in between these two pillars before it cuts...except
for Chiba, who still isn't ready to be a part of the group.
The one other thing I'd be remiss not to mention is this fantastic moment where Shuu
gets called a girl for being awkward and off to the side while changing, and she just sits
there with a dumb smile on her face for like 10 straight seconds because of how happy that
made her.
Most episodes of the series have more little details like this, more #TransLifeMoments,
but because there's so much characterization and backstory to establish in this episode
there just isn't room for much else.
Don't get me wrong, the stellar witty dialogue of the series makes those interactions a blast
to watch, I only just noticed this random girl trying to hit her teacher up, hahaha.
I think that Mari Okada is probably the best writer in anime when it comes to fun quippy
character interaction, and she brings out the best in these great characters here, making
pretty much all of them endearing.
Chii is just utterly wild, Maho is so adorably petty, Chiba is hilariously edgy and self-serious,
Mako is suuuch a disaster straight girl, and Sasa is trying so hard to get everyone to
be friends.
There isn't a ton more to say about this one that wouldn't just be summarizing those
relationships though, since showing us everyone's baggage with and attitudes towards each other
is most of what happens here.
And so, as its second episode draws to a close, Wandering Son has set up the primary cast
of major players in the ideological conflicts that will spring up around Shuu and Takatsuki,
and around how they handle and present their genders.
As we learn, before these characters can reach a resolution among each other, they'll have
to work through a whole lot of, "Hate, Hate, Despise"
With all of that taken care of episode three can once again narrow its scope.
Now that both Shuu and the broader cast are established, it's time to take a deep look
at the Chiba, Shuu, Takatsuki love triangle.
This is the little friend group that Shuu was able to safely explore and express her
femininity within, and the same goes for Takatsuki and his masculinity, so learning all this
helps us learn a lot about the more specific elements of how these two relate to gender,
moving past the broad strokes of "I want to be a girl and wear girls' clothes"
that we got in the first two episodes.
Fittingly then, in addition to that history this episode also explores the particulars
of Shuu and Takatsuki's present day anxieties and dysphoria.
It's here where we learn the complexity of Chiba and her relation to Shuu.
While she's an enthusiastic source of encouragement and enablement to Shuu, lavishing her with
cute outfits to try on, Chiba is doing it at least in decent part for her own satisfaction.
She bowls over Shuu's desires and borders on using her as a dress-up doll, after Chiba
lets us know in episode 1 that Shuu is her image of cuteness.
It goes to show that even superficial support of trans people can come in dehumanizing and
objectifying forms, and it's an issue Chiba will have to grapple with over the course
of the series.
Takatsuki meanwhile is someone who shares Shuu's own experiences, someone who can
go "I wish I had your chest" and in doing so provide comfort to her, simply by showing
that she isn't going through her dysphoria alone.
These characters are now in the throes of puberty, so Takatsuki is forcibly confronted
with the growth of his breasts, told during basketball practice that he needs to start
wearing a bra, and Shuu has to start dreading the deepening of her voice.
A fantastic delicate touch is employed in communicating their anxieties.
In an anime-original scene Takatsuki forgets the bag with his newly-purchased bra at the
bus stop, a reflection of his distaste for the bra, and also of his desire to be able
to forget about his ever-encroaching chest.
And speaking of reflections, those are exactly what enhance this scene here, not anime-original,
but greatly-improved over its manga counterpart.
As Takatsuki awkwardly starts asking Shuu about whether she'd like to wear a bra,
we see him as a reflection in the medicine cabinet, cut to his face when he finally comes
out and states the question frankly, and then it goes back to showing him and Shuu as a
reflection while they both get awkward following that directness.
In the manga this conversation is portrayed through a simple back and forth of their faces,
but here the anime imbues their exchange with a palpable sense of the nervous awkwardness
involved in talking about this stuff with someone else.
There's a feeling that it's weird or perverse to talk about what should be mundane aspects
of your life as a girl or guy, because you're a transgirl, or a transguy.
There's a reason why in spite of my underwear quite literally being panties I never refer
to them as such (personally my choice of substitute is "pantsu" because that's goofy enough
to diffuse the awkwardness).
It's because a "guy" having a particular interest in panties would, not necessarily
unjustifiably, be seen as a bit weird, and enough of society views me as a "guy,"
a guy who is prone to creepy perversion no less, to make that association uncomfortable.
And we're confronted with yet heartbreaking instances of the incorrect puberty resolutely
advancing.
Fearing the changes that are to come, Mako and Shuu record themselves before it's too
late, preserving the memory of the voices that they are powerless to protect.
It isn't a dramatic scene, but it's one of the series' emotionally affecting.
There's few experiences more frustrating and hopeless than watching your body march
on in the opposite of the direction it should, leaving you behind to day by day feel your
hairline receding, feel the adolescent growth hormones that would empower estrogen to grow
your breasts more fully draining away.
The tragically beautiful fantasy that Shuu has later that night only furthers the assault
on the audience with feelings of sad longing.
All we can do is wish for eventual happiness for our unfairly burdened, "Romeo and Juliet".
Injecting some much needed empowerment and hope into things is episode 4 here, which
focuses on a multitude of ways of taking agency over your gender and gender presentation.
After the depressing reality that is his figure with a swimsuit on, Takatsuki heads to Yuki's
house for some comfort and counsel, and is shown a bra that will flatten his chest.
He may not be able to stop the changes that are happening to him, but there are tools
out there that can enable Takatsuki to fight through them and express his true self regardless
of those changes.
This scene does carry with it tinge of sadness though, sadness at the accuracy of Yuki's
phrase describing things like this bra, "ways to protect yourself".
At the end of the day this stuff isn't valuable just because it can help relieve dysphoria.
The risk that you can mitigate for yourself by being able to better conform to rigid preconceived
notions is something you have to take into account when considering it as well.
Later in the episode Takatsuki brings this newfound optimism and agency over into his
shopping trip with Shuu, asking her if she'd like a girls' swimsuit.
When Shuu replies that she doesn't have breasts, sooo...Takatsuki says that the point
here is whether or not she wants to wear one.
Fuck it, why shouldn't you wear a girls' swimsuit just because you don't have breasts.
If that's what you want, if that's what best represents you, you shouldn't be limited
in that regard by society.
(now, as established, limiting yourself in that regard in order to be mindful of your
safety is absolutely valid, I said you shouldn't be limited in that regard not that you aren't)
Shuu seemingly takes this call to action to heart, because she builds up the courage to
tell Takatsuki that she wants him to see her as a girl.
Not only this, but she goes ahead and says that she sees Takatsuki as a boy.
For this scene we get this really neat framing where the two of them are pinned in, restricted
by society's narrow view of gender, and it's all the more fitting because it's
the walls of the bathroom, of a gendered space, providing that restriction.
To complete this self-identification, casting off that which society has branded them with
upon birth, they exchange names, refusing to be bound by society's expectations.
However, society is still a looming force, and if you choose to self-identify you'll
be challenged on that by those around you.
We see that cleverly demonstrated when she says "my name is…" only to be cut off
by her sister filling in that blank with "Shuu!" as she calls her name to say she's taking
too long bathing.
Chiba also represents a resistance to Shuu's self-identification, questioning Shuu's
motives for wanting to be a girl, but once again that newfound confidence of her shows
its head.
She asserts the fact that she doesn't want to be a girl for Takatsuki's sake, for the
sake of her crush on Takatsuki, but for herself.
To end things off Chiba leaves the question of surgery up in the air.
As Yuki says, "You can do anything to your body within reason," but Shuu isn't ready
to decide on that one just yet.
It can be crucial for younger queer people to hear that's there's help in place for
them, paths forward to find some self-realization even in the face of a lack of access to something
like hormone blockers.
Sometimes you just need to hear someone say, "I'll Give You My Name"
Letting people know about the agency available for them to take is great, but there can often
be a darker side to that enthusiastic encouragement, namely, those who don't receive that same
enthusiastic support and get left behind.
All too often it's a pretty narrow conception of transness that gets put onto a pedestal
and praised.
All too often that conception is of a white, thin, petite, pretty, traditionally feminine
trans girl.
More masculine trans women, trans people of color, transmasculine people as a whole, far
too often these groups aren't given the same visibility, people falling within them
aren't validated in the same way, or given the same inspirations to aspire towards.
And look, maybe a little bit of that greater visibility is because us white girls just
cannot stop taking selfies, like omigod, but the vast majority of what causes this rests
upon the community's shoulders.
Those overlooked trans people that don't line up with the ideal are who Mako represents.
And yes, I read Mako as trans in the anime, both because she ends up being trans in the
manga, and because her anime counterpart certainly doesn't contradict a trans reading.
Takatsuki is a whole different can of worms but as far as the anime goes he says he wants
to be seen as a boy so I'll provide him that courtesy here.
Mako is a clear foil to Shuu.
While Shuu gets praise and validation heaped on by just about everyone around her, constantly
told how cute she is, how good a girl she makes, Mako gets none of that.
And as it is Mako is pretty feminine herself!
But her features aren't as soft, her brows aren't as delicate, her mannerisms aren't
as cutsey, and so she gets looked over and goes largely unappreciated.
Everyone thinks Shuu is of course the natural Juliet, so there's a collective disappointment
at Mako receiving that role.
Shuu's being used as the measuring stick, and there's no way Mako can reach the height
that's being set when Shuu's the only one given a pedestal to stand upon..
This is shown the most clearly in the following episode, where Mako has to stand there and
take the skeptical negative appraisal of Ninomiya, who specifically finds Mako lacking relative
to Shuu.
And then again when Yuki stops by to say "hi," she has to hear a lamentation that Shuu won't
be Juliet, has to feel guilt over "taking" the part from the person who "deserves"
it, as if she doesn't.
Shuu is sort of the idyllic trans girl that many of us would love to be.
A bunch of those around her outright encourage her to present as female, she's incredibly
cute, and she can pass pretty much perfectly without a hint of makeup.
However it's Mako who I most often hear people say they relate to.
She's a much more accurate representation of the struggles of most trans people, who
won't match up to binary gendered expectations as naturally and neatly as Shuu does.
If Shuu is the fantasy Mako is the reality, and while I think that fantasy has value in
its own right, and certainly served as a comfort and a respite for myself personally, Mako
and the representation of a broader experience that she brings with her is a lynchpin to
making it all work.
Wandering Son avoids falling into the trap of limiting itself to the prettiest and easiest
to confront examples of transness and instead stops to tell the stories of those who don't
neatly slot into such narratives, as it does with this episode here.
Not every trans narrative should concern itself with the blooming of spring; because most
of us end up having to face, "The End Of Summer."
It's fitting that as the
plot reaches the first theatrical production, the series begins to study in earnest the
nature of gender as performative.
Our casts' class is putting on a gender-bender play, and Mako can't help but lament the
light this casts her performance in.
She says that she didn't want anyone to laugh at her, but because of the nature of
the play, that performance, the concept of her as a woman, is inescapably made, to some
degree, the object of farce.
This speaks to a larger Japanese trend of relegating trans people to the role of entertainment.
There have actually been trans people with media prominence in Japan since the 60s.
In some ways you could say that trans people have greater visibility over there, and yet
Japan still practices forced sterilization of trans people who want to get their gender
legally changed.
The sad fact is that while these people were elevated by the media and its audience to
an extent, it was by and large a position of mockery that they were being elevated to.
In the late 80s a variety show called Waratte iitomo introduced a segment featuring transgender
guests titled…...Mr Lady.
One of the most prominent transgender media figures was Asakawa Hikaru, whose running
gag was that her top half resembles her mother while her bottom half resembles her father.
Now I don't want to paint an un-nuanced picture here.
The simple fact that trans people were getting to be represented did real good, seeing yourself
in another trans person is one of the best ways to be able to discover or come to terms
with your own identity, so this getting to exist at all had its benefits.
Imperfect as it was, this kind of representation can still serve as the groundwork to achieve
further advancements.
Still though, all of this occurred in front of the backdrop of a society that starting
with the Blue Boy Trial in 1965 had banned sex-reassignment surgery, and would not decriminalize
it until 1996.
Theaters, television, and bars served as havens for trans people, but that was primarily because
in those institutions trans people were made into mere entertainment for the consumption
of the masses, a novel product to be sold, but not considered seriously as an autonomous,
conscious being.
Later in the series Shuu is being badgered about if she'll dress up as a girl in that
year's play by a kid called Doi (don't worry we'll get to him).
This is after Shuu has already gone to school in a girl's uniform and gotten in trouble
for doing so, becoming the target of persistent bullying because of it and she is told, "It's
not like you're going to school in it" Because that's the nature of the thing,
isn't it.
The performance, the farce is asked of her, at the same time as her basic right to express
that self in daily life is denied.
After the play Maho tells her she's got guts, because the main character was basically
just her.
But the audience clapped and cheered for that character, when Shuu herself would not, does
not, meet a similarly warm reception.
People want their dancing monkey, but only at their whims, only when they play the music
for her.
(if you'd like to read up on this history of trans media perception in Japan I'll
link my resource on the subject, "From The Stage To The Clinic, Changing Transgender
Identities In Post-War Japan," down below: )
Even though she's not a part of the play, Yuki also has to give a performance.
In spite of having transitioned years ago, in spite of being beautiful, in spite of having
been on a variety show herself as a trans woman, she still feels like it would be wiser,
like it would be safer, to present as male when she attends the play.
As it is she worries about looking like a "male prostitute," saying she'd get
reported on the spot and that she needs to look like "a nice young man."
As a trans person she, reasonably, feels a very real threat that her mere presence in
a middle school would arouse suspicions of danger, even though she's doing so with
her adult boyfriend, and so she tries to mitigate that risk as much as possible by simply presenting
as male.
Because gender is a performance, life for trans people is in a sense one neverending
play, welcome to the, "Cultural Festival."
While puberty and its dysphoric effects is present in most episodes throughout the series,
it's episode 7 that does the most to make viewers not just sympathetic to that experience,
but able to empathize with it on some level.
It builds this bridge of understanding with the planks of universal experiences (i'm
sorry that was very dorky of me).
To start off the episode Shuu is reading a passage about the anxieties of someone losing
their cuteness as they go into puberty, and the point that receives focus is the emergence
of a zit.
A pimple, there we go, who doesn't relate to frustration about pimple or acne?
Ah!
The vanity of school-age adolescence, how precious it is.
This is a great way of doing things because not only does this serve as a direct relatable
example of an undesirable effect of puberty, pimples also bring to mind wider anxieties
most people will have experienced.
You can feel your body changing, and feel like you're entering this awkward cocoon
stage where for a while you'll just be the janky mishmash of adult and child elements,
along with the random unpleasantries like pimples that are more specific to puberty
itself..
If there was any broader experience that could be tapped into to get across some idea of
what Shuu and Takatsuki are going through it would be this one.
It's at this point that I wanna step back to make an examination of how the series conveys
dysphoric experiences generally.
Nowhere do we get someone dramatically chopping of their long hair while shouting "I'm
a boy, dad!" or a girl crying in the shower with a razor and bloodied legs.
Trans narratives should not at all be precluded from employing melodramatic storytelling,
and as Alicia covered in her series on trans representation in Japanese media, the story
of a trans man in Kinpachi-sensei, a beloved legacy j-drama, was a big moment for trans
visibility.
However there is a special resonance to the understatedness, the sad resignation, that
is most often put on display by Wnadering Son.
Here in episode 7 there's Takatsuki's disappointment at his period returning.
As Shuu is pondering the question of surgery a girl rides by skirt flowing a bit revealingly,
and all Shuu can do is look dejectedly downward at what she wishes was just like that girl.
The most heart-wrenching one of these is when after greeting Takatsuki Shuu notices that
he's started wearing a bra.
There's so much sadness there as she stares after him, acutely aware of how strongly Takatsuki
wanted to avoid this.
I didn't really pick up on these scenes when I first watched the series, or, didn't
make note of them at least, in part because they are presented so matter of factly, but
watching again knowing the deep pain that was housed beneath these unhappy faces carried
a lot of emotion.
All the characters can really do in these moments is to hide their sorrow behind, "Rosy
Cheeks."
After digging into the performativity of gender two episodes prior, Wandering Son uses episode
8 to explore the ways society reacts to a performance that breaks gender norms, and
the fears these characters have of that backlash.
Chii is a blessing and a curse for Takatsuki.
On the one hand he has reason to believe he could get away with wearing a boy's uniform
because of the fact that Chii does so, but on the other he has to worry about being seen
as doing it just to imitate and gain attention because of the fact that Chii does so.
In the end he settles on taking a partial step in that direction, forgoing the typical
ribbon of the girl's uniform and instead wearing a tie.
He walks into school shoulders hunched, hoping to go unnoticed, but one of the teachers asks
him to wait as he walks by…..only to ask if Takatsuki tied it himself and express how
impressed he is by that fact.
Not only is he not reprimanded, but Takatsuki even receives a nod of respect from the establishment
for achieving that milestone of masculinity.
In many cases "girls" can receive bits praise for aspiring to the "higher" gender,
as long as such aspirations are modest and non-threatening to the social order they're
expected to fall into.
Shuu's gender expression this episode receives a bit more….mixed reception.
When Maho hears of Shuu's strong interest in clothes from Anna, she angrily confronts
her about it.
As we'll continue to learn, Maho really does care about Shuu, but this caring often
comes in the form of pushing Shuu to follow social norms, to be "normal."
She's rooting for Shuu's relationship and doing what she thinks will best protect
it.
It turns out that she had little to worry about though, since when Shuu brings up the
fact that she enjoys dressing as a girl to Anna she gets met with a simple, "Yeah I
knew."
In fact Anna goes ahead and asks Shuu if she'd like to wear girl's clothes for their next
date, and reassures Shuu that she doesn't think she's disgusting at all.
This does come with a bit of a rub though, that being Anna's comment that Shuu is like
a cute little sister.
There's an element of this that's just endearingly awkward adolescent chastity, as
Shuu says she isn't really sure if she wants to kiss Anna herself.
But, there's also a very real part of this that is heteronormativity at play, and this
will continue as the series goes on and Shuu's identity reveals itself as not a quirky hobby
but a core part of who she is.
Anna does love Shuu, but as she comes to view her more and more as a girl, she starts contextualizing
that love as something less romantic, certainly non-sexual, as Shuu just being her little
sister.
Now don't be too hard on Anna here; she doesn't know much at all about the subject
and even then she starts coming around pretty quickly; her heart is in the right place.
However it is true that because of the society around Shuu, this presentation of hers will
cause roadbumps like this, even with those who care for and accept her.
A flourishing of life, the birth of new confidence and new hardships brought on by that confidence,
arrives as these characters enter into, "Spring."
Hooo boy.
This episode is certainly a lot.
The prior episode's look into the consequences of breaking gender expectations, and the fear
of those consequences, weighs heavily on the mind, while the buildup of tension as Shuu
prepares to wear a girl's uniform to school is only compounded by the tense discomfort
of the unnerving scene with Doi, and by the end it feels like your heart's in your throat.
Here the series explores the tricky subject of presenting a certain way for yourself versus
presenting that way because you were coerced into doing so in service of others.
Takatsuki finally wears the boy's uniform to school, and the weight this lifts off his
shoulders is sooo palpable.
It's an emotional experience in itself just seeing how much relief and contentment he's
brought by being able to wear it.
His one real moment of discomfort comes when a classmate goes on for a bit about how awesome
he looks and how he looks like a guy.
Takatsuki doesn't want this to be some event or spectacle, he wants it to be treated how
it would for any other guy, as if it's nothing remarkable.
Also, let me take this moment to note the crucially important fact that I ship Takatsuki
Chiba HARD.
Between this adorable scene where she comes in and straightens his collar up, and the
one last episode where in flashback we see her saying she liked his hair when it was
a bit longer, only for him to have indeed grown that hair out, along with many other
great interactions of theirs throughout the show I wish they could get together.
Takatsuki'd certainly be better for her than Transphobe McChristaindick.
Aaaaanyway, one moment where this change in Takatsuki's demeanor is really palpable
is when he chats with Shuu on the bridge.
For a few episodes now he'd been distant towards her, and while a big part of that
was definitely unresolved romantic stuff that came up when he learned Shuu was dating Anna,
stuff that finally did get resolved last episode, there's also definitely an element of Takatsuki
finally loosening up that can be attributed to his newfound comfort and confidence as
a result of getting to present as male.
Having now acquired that curve-hiding bra Shuu can fall against his chest on the train
and he's totally unfazed, whereas earlier in the series such contact really bothered
him.
Perhaps my favorite line of the whole series comes when Shuu asks him about
the bra.
It's such an utterly perfect way of vocalizing the effect gender-validating presentation
has.
Shuu's next line immediately undercuts the joy that one brings me though "That sounds
nice."
There's definitely got to be some pain for Shuu in seeing Takatsuki get to go through
this euphoria while she's still stuck in her ill-suited uniform, and witnessing Shuu's
dream where she gets to walk to school with them, Takatsuki in his boys' uniform and
hers in her girl's will utterly destroy you.
That isn't the only reason she finally gets serious about wearing the that uniform this
episode though.
After spotting Shuu with Yuki, Doi convinces Shuu to take him to meet her.
Now, this is sort of hilarious, I honestly have no idea what Doi was planning on doing
here.
Like, does he honestly think this gorgeous adult woman is gonna swoon in the face of
the overwhelming romantic prowess of a 12 year old guy?
I guess, look, in his defense, I've been a 12 year old guy before.
It's a weird place to be.
Testosterone is a strange beast.
Unless you're into it.
That's cool.
I may have lacked his sheer unbridled confidence, but there were certainly times where I at
least fantasized that i'd be able to charm an older woman.
Dark days, dark days, a loooooooot of gender repression and coping-
Aaaaaanyway Doi doesn't get his date with Yuki, but what he does gain is the knowledge
that she's transgender, or, as he later oh so eloquently puts it, "I never even
imagined a guy could be that hot."
In short, Doi represents chaser culture, and boy did that taste of Yuki get him thirsty.
The next day he tells Shuu, "Dude, you should try being a chick," (really has a way with
words this guy), and that leaves her conflicted.
She asks herself why her heart is pounding, and while some of that is just nervousness
and embarrassment towards Doi, a part of her definitely feels validated by his interest.
I considered it a big milestone when I got my first chaser in my twitter dms.
His "hey" was unassuming enough, but once he dropped the "miss" I knew exactly what
I had on my hands.
It is a powerful hit of serotonin to have someone that is into girls reach out to you
out of attraction.
Doi tells Shuu to walk home with him, and they head to her house together.
This scene is tough to watch.
It's immediately infused with a sexual element as Doi asks if anyone's home, and Shuu informs
him that they're alone in the house here.
When Doi closes the door to Shuu's room we sit on that still image of the shut door
for an agonizing 11 seconds, and then once it cuts to the room there's another 7 seconds
of silence while Doi stares at her, before saying, "Jeez your cute."
It feels gross, it feels threatening, it feels dehumanizing, in a word, it feel fetishizing.
Every shot here is held for so long, every silence is so drawn out, it is uncomfortable
perfection.
Doi tells her she should come to school dressed like this, and here we go again.
As with earlier, the norm-breaking gendered presentation that is accepted and encouraged
is not when a trans person does so of their own accord, but when that presentation is
being done in service of an audience, usually, a fetishistic straight male one.
So now, her desire to wear a girl's uniform is tainted somewhat.
If she does so is she doing it for herself, for Doi, for both?
Thankfully she's got Chii to give her the tea, sis.
Chii warns Shuu of the blacklash she's very likely to face if she goes to school in the
girl's uniform, but says that ultimately the decision is up to Shuu, not to her.
Takatsuki isn't quite as level-headed, getting angry at Doi for putting Shuu up to this,
but as Shuu insists, Doi had something to do with it, he suggested it, but he is not
why she's ultimately chosen to do it.
Shuu's core thought on the matter is expressed later in the episode in one little heartbreaking
line.
That's it; that's all she wants; that's all most any of these kids want, all, we,
want.
To be comfortable with ourselves, and to be unimpeded by unfair forces in trying to achieve
that.
I'm sure you've noticed by now that I've been doin this cute gimmicky lil thing where
I end off each section with that episode's title, some I had to contrive a little more
than others to get them to work, but this one just really wasn't gonna happen given
that I don't talk about Anna at all in this section.
So instead, I'll just say that I've got a real dang, "Cool Girlfriend."
The thing that always strikes me the most when witnessing the aftermath of Shuu going
to school in a girl's uniform is the extent to which the reaction to it from any individual
of authority is one of warmth, and lacking any particular negative judgement of Shuu
for it.
Her mother asks if she's been getting bullied, and then suggests this ended up happening
because Maho used to dress Shuu up in girl's clothes.
Her father heads to the convenience store with her and shares an anecdote about how
she's always been particularly feminine.
One of the teachers extends sympathy, acknowledging that this must have been hard on Shuu, and
when she says that she shouldn't have gone to school in the uniform that teacher's
replies with "why's that?"
This isn't a condescending, "now tell me why what you did was wrong," it's the
teacher actively questioning, for Shuu, why she shouldn't have been able to do that.
Basically every individual in a position of authority as a part of the establishment is
outright eager to help Nitori.
In the next episode her teacher is careful in making sure that Shuu feels comfortable
putting on the play with the class, that she doesn't feel pressured to join in, and is
clearly visibly delighted when she says she wants to be a part of it, jumping at the chance
to suggest she write the script again like she did for last year's.
But that near total lack of ill will doesn't matter.
Shuu's still getting screwed, and an expression of her true identity which would harm no one
is still getting repressed.
It is the transphobia which is baked into the system itself that's causing this, and
it can inflict its cruel results in the total absence of individual attitudes of transphobia.
A lot of those on the right scoff at the concept of "systematic oppression," and a common
little phrase of reasoning among skeptic youtubers back when I watched them was "show me the
individual act of racism and I'll be right there alongside you to fight it, but you can
not just claim that people are being oppressed in the absence of that."
"Most people probably aren't racist.
Therefore we can't just explain the western world as being inherently racist because some
minorities do worse than others.
And some minorities do worse than white people."
The closest thing to individuals acting prejudicially is the ensuing bullying from Shuu's classmates,
but most of that is a reaction to Shuu being isolated out as a target.
Shuu was ostracized by the system, Shuu's behavior was marked as aberrant by that system,
so it's only natural that these kids, who would know no better, would take that as a
signal to bully her.
While none of the representatives of the system exhibit transphobia, her classmates read the
transphobia inherent to that system itself in its punishment of Shuu for merely expressing
her transness and act accordingly.
Maho says at one point that if she never leaves her room again it's Shuu's fault, but
why?
Because if you're searching desperately for an individual to ascribe blame to, as
we've been taught to do, Shuu is the only real option.
None of the individual authority figures did this, they're just following the rules.
Do you get it?
That's the magic trick, there you go.
...This isn't an accident.
The system is set up in such a manner as to abdicate any individual responsibility for
what it does, and thus the only person left to be blamed is the victim, because if they
hadn't done the thing that caused the punishment none of it would've happened in the first
place.
Never mind whether that punishment was just in the first place.
They're the only individual who actually made a decision to do a thing, and that's
the only concept most people are willing to understand.
As long as society insists upon viewing things only through the lens of individual people
who are at fault, oppression will never be sufficiently addressed, because this twisted
game of sleight of hand will keep working to fool that society into ignoring actions
that are taken by a system instead of a person.
What do those classmates say as they lock her out of the classroom?
"Hey, you're going to get in trouble!
It'll be fine.
Our teacher isn't scary at all."
In other words, it'll be fine, we won't get in trouble for this; it'll be fine,
the authority is on our side; it'll be fine, this kid was punished for what they did, so
clearly punishing them is fine.
Shuu is punished for wearing a skirt to school, her classmates will go unpunished for targeting
a student with harassment and impeding her education.
A side has been picked.
The policy is that people like Shuu, or people like my girlfriend, or people like me, get
punished for being like that, that's the rule things operate by.
A, side, has, been, picked, regardless of any personal sympathies from the people within
the system that picked that side.
Fuck the state of this world and fuck those who work to maintain that status quo.
And Shuu knows what's happening; she can see all this.
Just as well as those classmates picked up on the judgement that had been made she watched
as her true self was disallowed from existence.
It's this unfairness that she fixates on.
"I was the only one taken to the nurses office, I was the only one whose mother came
to get them.
Nobody laughed at Chii and Takatsuki…………..they only laughed at me."
She doesn't want to ever go back there, and why would she when she just witnessed
that institution throw her into the line of fire like a rag doll.
She doesn't want to ever go back there and not get to be herself again, because even
with all the nerves and uncertainty and anxiety wearing that uniform filled her with GOD did
it feel good to have that weight lifted off of her, and god does she not want to put those
shackles back on and drag herself back to school in them.
She got that taste of relief and that is all she will ever be allowed to have of it.
When she heads over to Yuki's place Shuu is asked "why she'd got to such an extreme,"
and the answer is because she needed to.
She knows how much joy presenting as female brings her, saw how uplifting it was for Takatsuki
to be able to do so.
She needed to try to do so; she couldn't stand to have there be even the slightest
possibility that this happiness was something she'd be allowed to have, and not check
to see.
Yuki's expression her is so hard to look at.
It is utter empathy, utter sorrow, utter pain.
She knows that an event this dramatic meant literal years of depression, wasting away
in her room, all alone, nothingness, and knows this could very well mean something similar
for Shuu.
"Heartbreaking" does not even approach giving it justice and I curse the English
language for being so insufficient in this instance.
This scene of each day's representative of the group coming to Shuu's house to give
her the work and cheer her up one after the other ruins me; it's such an integral show
of solidarity and care.
At the end of the episode, as a result of an argument that breaks out while planning
one of these visits to Shuu, we get one of the hardest to decipher exchanges in the whole
show.
Now, especially knowing about manga stuff with Takatsuki, the lines, "no I couldn't
see you as a real man," and, "now it just seems like you hate being a woman" from
Chiba seem pretty bad, but I think there's a lot more to this than just those, admittedly
pretty eyebrow-raising, lines.
Chiba says that when he wore the boy's uniform he looked more like a tomboy, but crucially,
she says that there are guys who look like that too.
Chiba then says "It would've been better if you'd worn what you wanted to wear."
What seems to be getting said here is not that Takatsuki can't be a boy, or is insufficient
as a boy, because as Chiba said you can look like he does and be a boy, but rather that
by adopting an inauthentic, performative masculinity, he actually ends up coming off as less genuinely
a man than if he had expressed his own masculinity, in whatever manner it would actually manifest
for him.
That's why Chiba says it seems like he just hates being a woman, because Takatsuki is
presenting less as a guy and more just as a "not a girl."
And hey, if Takatsuki was non-binary that'd be all cool too, but what is being gotten
at here is that this "not a girl" presentation of his doesn't reflect his true feelings.
You have to decide how much stock you put into Chiba's analysis of Takatsuki here
of course, but judging from his reaction it feels more like she was right, or at least
generally on the mark.
As Takatsuki says earlier in the series to Shuu, he's not planning on changing the
way he speaks, and by that he meant he doesn't plan to stop using the more feminine "watashi"
to refer to himself.
He doesn't feel the need to use the more typical "boku," so there definitely is
some rejection of fully conventional masculinity on his part.
And this lines up with earlier exchanges like when Chiba said he should grow his hair out,
when she again remarked, "there's guys that look like that too."
Now, there is some reason to doubt my reading here.
What it would mean is that Takatuki is naturally more of an androgynous or feminine boy, and
there isn't much to support the idea that he isn't just a typically masculine slacks
and t-shirt guy, outside of his reaction to Chiba suggesting that that presentation is
inauthentic coming from him.
Knowing the way the manga goes you could easily just conclude that this is Chiba saying, "no
you're not a real man, you're just running away from your womanhood for whatever reason,"
and hey, if you interpret it that way I certainly won't fault you.
But analyzing the anime on its own terms, Death Of The Manga and all that, I do believe
there's a lot more nuance here.
Chiba isn't a TERF, she just thinks boys can wear skirts too, and that's pretty dang
woke.
As we see though, sometimes girls can't wear skirts, and so Shuu is left thinking
about why, "They Only Laughed At Me."
Even with all of that heaviness of the last episode, Wandering Son is still ultimately
a cheerful-leaning story of its characters overcoming the challenges in their path, and
finding happiness.
In this episode, we get to see Yuki's story, and the even more dour reality it acknowledges.
Well, I should say that some of us get to see that story.
You see, Wandering Son has 12 episodes, but when it was broadcast only 11 episodes ended
up airing.
Episode 10 is actually episodes 10 and 11 cut together into one episode, and then on
the disc release of the series all 12 episodes were present uncut.
As is often the case when Crunchyroll gets the rights for things, they have the tv version
streaming rights for Wandering son, and so if you watched the series on there you'll
have missed out on a few scenes that add valuable characterization that had to be cut, along
with this whole little section on Yuki's backstory.
There's also never been a release of the series in the West, so there is no legal means
of watching the entire show.
Thankfully fansubs of it do exist, so even if you want to watch the first nine episodes
and the finale on Crunchyroll, I highly suggest torrenting episodes 10 and 11 so that you
can experience it in full.
It's really worth watching because as I said, Yuki's scenes here provide a very
valuable expansion of perspective beyond the story of our main characters.
We don't know what specifically caused Yuki's bullying, if it was simply her being effeminate,
or if her desire to be a girl was known information.
We do know that unlike Shuu, when she wore the girl's uniform it was not by choice.
She was forced into it and forced into confessing to some random guy.
This is the line that gets the most focused, being repeated later on in the episode, this
line that encapsulates her total lack of agency in the situation.
Everything that she should have gotten to do, that she should have gotten to experience
was denied her.
She didn't get to wear the right uniform to school, didn't ever get to confess to
her middle school crush, and instead she was forced into acting out a cruel, hollow facsimile
of that.
That same day, she left school early, and would never return.
She never got to have her middle-school graduation, never got to go to high school.
She spent three long years that should've been spent learning, growing, and having fun
with friends wasting away in her room, listless and despondent.
And that was the best choice she could've made probably, given that 43% of transgender
students in Japan report being victimised for more than 5 years due to their identity:
All she could really do is lay there and wait, wait until she'd be able to get access to
hormones and start living her life.
The general rule is that you have to be a legal adult to get on HRT, and Japan's age
of legal adulthood is 20.
It's possible to start hormones at 18 with parental consent, but as it is that can be
tricky and uncertain, and given that we see a flashback of Yuki's mother insisting she
get a suit and saying "boys really do look best in formal wear" we can assume that
her parents wouldn't be the supporting type.
So that's it, at age 14 she was presented with the reality that she would have to stay
like that, constantly taken as a joke, never viewed with respect as who she truly is, for
the next six years of her life.
She holed up in her room and faced that fate, in total social isolation aside from the occasional
trips to the batting cage her caring older brother took her out on.
Shuu's story has plenty of hardship, is often sad, is often unfair, but the mere fact
that she gets to have a social group who understands and supports her, who to some degree help
protect her from the others, means that even with everything she has to face she is still
better off than huge amounts of other people in her position.
Knowing Yuki's story makes it absolutely clear just how fucking hard it actually often
is to be trans in Japan, and she's someone who made it.
The world of this series is mean as hell to Yuki and yet it isn't even as mean as real
life often is.
Suicidal ideation among trans people in Japan is over 70%, and discovering your identity
at a younger age greatly increased rates of self-mutilation, including suicide attempts,
among male to female transgender people, for the reasons Yuki's story lays out.
There you go; there's your odds as someone in her position, here's your dice now go
roll them.
The line of Yuki's that really gets to me is what she says to Shuu after telling her
about her past.
"Now I really love my life."
Now she does, meaning there's another side to that coin.
The way she expresses the hatred of her life that she had back then through implication
here, without literally stating it, like she doesn't even want to give voice to what
her feelings were back then, speaks so much more to her hardship than anything else she
could've said.
What matters is that she was able to move past that; what matters is that in the end,
she got to have her, "Confession."
And finally, after all of that emotional hardship, we come to the final episode, we come to the
idea of acceptance.
Shuu accepts the changes that are coming and resolves to face them.
In the shooting star exhibit she doesn't wish for her voice to stop changing or to
become a girl, she rejects those wishes as the thought of them arises because she knows
that won't fix things.
She is prepared to take on the difficult life that's laid out for her.
Finally she gets to dress up with Chiba and Takatsuki again, finally she's comfortable
enough to accept the offers of clothing and take those home with her.
Remember those road signs she was following ALL the way back in episode 1?
Well finally she's walking her own path in opposition to the one society has set out
in front of her.
But it's all the characters, not just Shuu, who reach a state of acceptance in this finale.
Yuki, inspired by Shuu's bravery in wearing the girl's uniform to school, presents as
female when she attends the cultural festival this time around.
I like to think that part of her motivation in doing so is to show solidarity, that she's
thinking that if someone does notice she's trans that will serve to normalize and demystify
the concept of a trans person, and thus help make things better for Shuu and those like
her.
Chiba, after expressing discontent at the start of the episode of Takatsuki's haircut,
to some degree accepts his desire to wear masculine clothes, after she has him put on
a dress and they both agree he looks terrible in it.
After Mako says she isn't cute Shuu insists that she is, and accepts the idea that actually,
maybe that's true.
When Chiba says that she used to think Shuu was special, but now that her voice is changing
realizes that Shuu is actually "ordinary, just like any of the other boys," Takatsuki
refutes that.
He says Shuu is special, but so is Chiba, and Mako, and Sasa, and even….himself.
I think here Takatsuki accepts a less rigid, more personal conception of gender.
Shuu isn't "just like any of the other boys," but neither is Takatsuki himself.
Each person is their own idiosyncratic individual before they're a member of any given group
you might classify them under.
Even Doi finds his own acceptance, finally accepting the fact that Shuu has her own agency.
He suggests that she comes back to class, but having learned this lesson also says,
"I won't force anything on you though."
It's a perfect concept to end off on.
As the series asks that the audience go out and be more accepting of others it drives
this home by having its cast all come to accept themselves or aspects of the world around
them in its final episode.
And to end the episode off, finally Shuu steps out into the spotlight as a girl, to perform
the play whose title is her self-actualization, "boku wa onnanoko," contenting herself
with the fact that she is, "Forever A Wandering Son."
And finally after all of those words, over 10,000 of them now, we come to the conclusion
of the video.
The message the series ends off on might seem a bit naive or shallow, but I think it works
really well.
The series says to trans people, or really marginalized people generally, "I know,
I'm right there with ya, this can really suck, but if you accept how things will be,
you can get through it, and it'll be worth it to do so.
That doesn't mean we should accept how things work, hell I've done my part in repudiating
that the best I could, but I'm gonna look at you and say, that whether you're a Shuu,
or you're a Yuki, you can get through that, and you can find happiness.
Even if life is hell right now, there's a future out there for you where then, you'll
love your life."
And then it tells people outside that group to look around them at what's going on,
recognize how cruel and unjust it is, and do something about it.
The central thread of the series is how integral having someone who can understand you is.
You understand these people now, so go help them, be it through fighting the system, or
just being there on a 1-to-1 personal level.
Wandering Son has done so much for me on a personal level.
It helped me realize my identity, breaking me out of an almost decade-long repressed
emotional haze.
Since that first video I've formed the first genuine social groups I've been able to
have, i've had writing of mine about the series published in an actual book, I've
relocated from one coast of the country to the other to move in with the love of my life,
and all of these are direct immediate effects of this series.
And as wild and surreal as this fact will never cease to be to me, my own work on the
series has in turn had positive impacts on at least a handful of people.
The strongest feeling I have towards this series is gratitude, because more so than
any other piece of media in existence, Wandering Son has resulted in my life being SO much
better than it would have been otherwise.
I can't help but feel like this show saved my life.
…..And I can give no stronger argument for it accomplishing what it set out to do than
that one.
This is proactive media in action.
Uhhhh, first off, thank you, for getting this far if you have in fact done so.
This is by far the largest project i've undertaken, and the simple fact that some
of you sat through to the end of it is pretty remarkable.
After taking up an hour of your time I'm not quite done asking for things yet though.
Seeing as this was such an endeavour I'd certainly like this video to be seen as widely
as possible, so any sharing around of it would be much-appreciated, as would of course, any
financial support of what i'm doing here, either or patreon, or as a one-time donation
through paypal or ko-fi, all that fun stuff is linked below.
A hearty thank you also goes out to everyone who was a part of this project, Mathwiz, Kat,
Elijah, Joe, Giani, Callum, Kami, Jack, Hbomb, who, for some reason, follows me, Alicia,
who in addition to lending her voice to the video also conducted research that was extremely
helpful to it, go check her videos out, and, of course, Zeria, whose careful mix of emotional
support and, when necessary, pushiness in getting me to get my work done made this video
possible at all.
The biggest thank you of all is, as always, reserved for those supporting me on patreon,
Sykur, Mathwiz97, Jonathan Conley, Tyler Mohnke, Tincho37, LordLiquidBacon III, Elaine Aldfelt,
DavidMcCown, SmokeWeedSephiroth420, jman4747, Chase Sutter, Dove, Lucas Holcomb, Randall
Hudson, Elaine Gilstrom, John Smith, Mad Marx, BootyWarriorGT and everyone else on there.
Thank you so so much.
For more infomation >> The new rules of money - Duration: 9:15. 
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