By Edwin Perley

My novel, "The New Girl," is the story of a girl mistakenly raised as a boy. In the above story, social pressures lead an intersexed (otherwise known as hermaphrodite) individual to change to the gender that matches her appearance and personality, even though she is not really comfortable with that identity. Whether or not she had made such a drastic decision, one would expect her have to deal with a great amount of gender confusion in her life.

The following discussion is concerned with three Japanese Manga (comic books) and their associated anime (animated cartoons), that also deal with gender confusion. It is interesting how three different authors have dealt with this subject.

CONTENTS ON THIS PAGE
Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl
Ranma 1/2
Birdy the Mighty

Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl

This anime (and manga) has a theme much like that of my novel, though the events, characters and outcome are quite a bit different. The story is for the most part serious, though there are occasional flashes of ridiculous humor.

Hazumu is a sensitive effeminate teenaged boy. Just looking at him makes me think that he may be intersexed, though that is never brought out in the story. If not that, he still appears to have some serious hormone problems. He is heartbroken when the girl he has fallen in love with spurns him. (Actually she does love him: the situation frightened her and she ran away.) Alone, out in the forest, he sees a shooting star and wishes for a loving relationship. And he wishes to become more manly. What happens seconds later aptly demonstrates the saying, "Be careful what you wish for."

It is not shooting star. It is an out of control UFO that is about to crash land on top of him. The impact kills him, but the aliens, with their super advanced technology are able to reconstitute his body and soul and bring him back to life. Except for one major error. Hazumu is now a girl, totally and completely, all the way down to her DNA. And thanks to the news media, everyone in the world knows about Hazumu's transformation.

This story is primarily about relationships and how the sudden change in Hazumu's gender drastically changes everything. No problem with her parents. They love having a daughter. Hazumu, who is by nature passive and undemanding, goes along with it, though she finds the whole situation quite confusing. And now it is easier to develop friendships with girls, including the girl who spurned her, something she was afraid to do before. She tries hard to learn to behave like a normal girl. But how will Hazumu deal with the fact that two girls, that she has for a long time had very strong feelings for, are still in love with her? What does a guy, who has devoted much effort to be a friend of Hazumu and help him to act like a man do when he suddenly becomes a she? How does Hazumu deal with that situation?

Hazumu does not appear to have any romantic attaction to boys, understandable since until recently she was one. She finds herself romantically attracted to the two girls in her life, but she is afraid of being in what now would be a homesexual relationship. And she is afraid that if she choses one girl over the other, she will lose a friend. The two girls do not seem to be restrained by such limitations. When thinking in terms of romance, they still think of her as a boy. The series strongly suggests that in spite of all her girlishness, deep down that is what she is. The male friend is even more confused. He is falling in love with her, but at the same time believes that such feelings are wrong and are a betrayal of their friendship. He eventually decides that the best way he can show his love for her is to be the best friend he possibly can be, with the hope that someday she might fall in love with him.

Because Hazumu is unwilling to go beyond friendship, the three girls form an uneasy relationship that leaves all of them unsatisfied. Eventually a misunderstanding leads to betrayal, and the friendship is broken apart. All three are hurt badly. Now Hasumu must correct this disaster, at great pain to herself, for the sake of those she loves. Strangely, her actions demonstrate that her second wish, to become more manly, has also finally been granted. The series touches on just about every manifestation of love you could imagine.

As an additional twist, two of the aliens move in with the family, to observe the social interactions of humans. Hazumu's accident-prone teacher develops a crush on one of them. This title is brand new in the U.S., and the DVD has just recently been advertised for sale on Amazon.com.

Ranma 1/2

There is a Japanese manga (comic book) and animated series from the nineties that deals with a character with a great deal of gender confusion. The manga is called Ranma ˝ , by Rumiko Takahashi. The television series is based on the manga, but it does have some significant differences. This discussion is based mostly on the story told by the television series.

Though it is a comedy and the situations presented are extreme, it is an interesting study of how an individual with a serious gender identity problem manages to cope. It also demonstrates how a society's perceptions of an individual can pressure him into changing his attitude and behavior. This is especially true in the traditional Japanese cultural setting presented, where conformity to social standards is expected, and where there is little tolerance of any kind of deviant behavior.

Mr. Tendo, the owner of the Tendo School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts, has a serious problem. He is a widower with three daughters and no male heir to carry on the school after he is gone. An old friend, Genma Sahatome, promises to arrange a marriage of his son Ranma to one of them. Ranma and his father are martial arts fanatics. Finally, the boy is sixteen, and it is time to introduce him to Mr. Tendo's family. Much to the dismay of Akane, the youngest daughter, she is chosen to be his fiance. Things are very difficult at first, because they cannot stand each other. Then, gradually over time, their attitudes change.

Unfortunately, Ranma has a lot more than an unfriendly fiance to worry about. A month before, while training in China, Ranma fell into the cursed Spring of Drowned Girl. Now whenever he gets wet, he turns into a girl. Hot water turns him back. In the manga, his female form is refered to as Onna-Ranma. She is pretty, petite, and has a very attractive figure. She insists she is a boy and has no desire to be a girl. Even so, she does not behave quite the same as her male counterpart. Probably because even though she has the same thoughts, attitudes and memories, she has a female brain and a lot of estrogen.

For the first few seasons of the television series, only the immediate family and a few other acquaintances know of Ranma's secret. In some of the episodes from later seasons, there is evidence that his situation has finally become more common knowledge. It is fortunate for Ranma that his abilities as a martial arts fighter have earned him the respect of those around him. Even so, his condition, strange behavior, and the secrets he has to carry make it difficult for him to establish many close friendships.

As the series progresses, Onna-Ranma suffers from "gender creep" as a result of social pressures from those around her. The first incident concerns a big guy at school who feels romantic attractions toward girls who are martial artists. After an accidental dunk in the school swimming pool, she gets his attention. He issues to her what she thinks is a challenge of combat. When she arrives, ready to fight, he gives her a bouquet of flowers and tells her he loves her. This totally freaks Ranma out. The following night he has a homosexual/heterosexual nightmare about the guy. To keep his sanity, Ranma begins to compartmentalize Ona-Ranma's life as separate from his, almost like she is someone else. Even so, throughout the series, Onna-Ranma has absolutely no romantic interest in boys. That is one place that she definitely does not want to go.

At first, Onna-Ranma is very unwilling to take on any aspects of a female gender role at all. But it is hard to resist the social pressures. The first time Ranma willingly accepts a female gender role of any kind occurs fairly early in the first season. While walking home with Akane, a dislocation in his back temporarily takes away his ability to walk Akane insists he let her carry him piggyback, but he refuses. It would be too embarrassing for him to be seen being carried by a girl. She quickly sprays him with a garden hose. Onna-Ranma seems somewhat mortified, but she is unable to make any objection. She lets Akane carry her home.

More pressures are in the offing. There are a few instances in which the three sisters push Onna-Ranma into a more feminine roll. This may be partly a power thing, to make the newcomer easer to dominate. They object to how casual Onna-Ranma is about sitting around the house half naked. Akane gets exasperated and says, "Honestly, Ranma, where is your feminine modesty?" Finally, the sisters lay down the law. Onna-Ranma must stop going around with just a towel over her shoulders. Because all her clothes are in the wash, they insist that she wear something from Akane's closet. Onna-Ranma finally relents, but she is not happy about it at all.

Thus comes into existence Ranma's alternate wardrobe. During the first season, Onna-Ranma is completely unwilling to wear such attire in public. But that changes with time. Throughout the series Ranma and his female counterpart normally wear pants and traditional Chinese style shirts. His hair is long, tied in a tight braid at the back of his head. It is likely he shows himself this way because this rather exotic look is more suitable for Onna-Ranma than the conventional white shirt or dark jackets worn by boys in Japan. There is another reason for the braid, which I will not talk about here.

It is late in the first season that Onna-Ranma is pressed into taking on a female gender role in a very public way. Akane is training for a martial arts gymnastics ( ! ) tournament against a girl from another school. The night before the match, she slips and sprains her ankle. Because she is clearly in no condition to compete, they must find a substitute. "But where," Akane laments, "At this short notice, where can we find a martial artist who looks good in a leotard?" She and her sisters all look at Ranma. Ranma loudly objects. "No way! That's not funny! I'm not wearing no leotard!" The next scene shows Onna-Ranma in a cute little leotard, learning the moves. Incidently, she does win the match. After this performance, everyone is aware of the strange girl who also has the name Ranma Sahatome. People probably assume the boy and girl are related in some way, since the alternative would be impossible to imagine.

Another confusing aspect of Onna-Ranma's life concerns her sexuality. As stated before, she has absolutely no interest in boys. Though a female, she seems to be as romantically attracted to Akane as is her male counterpart. Sexual attraction seems less pronounced, possibly short-circuited by familiarity with her own body. Though she is pretty casual about being seen naked, she does find exposure to nude girls to be embarrassing, and avoids situations where that could occur.

Early in the second season, you see another example of Ranma choosing a female gender role, and its consequences. He is trying to learn how to ice skate, and having a very difficult time. He decides it would be less embarrassing to be in his girl form. This immediately leads to trouble. After rescuing her from a almost falling on the ice, a big handsome guy picks up Onna-Ranma and gives her a long kiss on the lips. (In Japan, this kind of behavior is a definite no-no.) She goes into a state of shock with a crazy smile on her face, then runs away, loudly boo-hooing all the way. A moment later, the totally enraged Ranma, fresh from a dip in hot water, challenges him to a fight and beats him senseless. That evening, he clearly shows how upset he is about what happened. Akane says he should not let it bother him. But it does. Probably because at the moment it happened Onna-Ranma really did like it. Things like this provide further pressure on Ranma to compartmentalize his two identities.

Later, in the second season, Onna-Ranma loses the ability to change back into his male form for an extended period. At the same time she finds it necessary of get a job as a waitress, and gets a lot of experience wearing female clothes. No skirts, but certainly not male attire. It seems that with the very real possibility that she may be stuck as a female for the rest of her life, she concludes she might as well try to get used to it. After Ranma gets cured, Onna-Ramna goes back to wearing boys clothes as before. But various situations she gets into in later episides indicate that she no longer minds wearing girls clothes if the situation requires it. She will even pull dresses out of the closet, once in a while. There is one memorable scene, late in the series, when she is coerced to dress up pretty to accompany Akane and her sisters in a karaoke performance at a Christmas party.

Significant behavior changes occur as time goes on. Sometime late in the first season, Onna-Ranma discovers that if she acts real cute, she can get an extra scoop of ice cream at the ice cream shop. This type of thing really gets going in the third season. There are a few episodes where Onna-Ranma is clearly be playing at being a girl, flirting, and letting guys buy her food in return for a few minutes of her attention. In later seasons, there is less of this. Possibly this is because she learns that this kind of activity tends to lead to trouble. Perhaps also, Ranma is becoming more sensitive to Akane's feelings. She definitely does not like to see her fiancé doing such things. Some "girl thing" activities do continue, out of necessity. For instance, when at the beach, Ranma finds it easier to stay a girl all the time to avoid accidents involving water. She has "Boy" written on her swim suit, probably to discourage guys who might get interested in her. In the second season, Onna-Ranma does occasionally still tell people she is a boy, but by the third season she apparently realizes that that type of talk only makes her look more strange to people.

By the end of the second season, Ranma appears to be getting used to having two identities, and frequently finds it useful to be a girl. The characters now are so compartmentalized, that the un-masculine situations Onna-Ranma gets into do not seem to bother Ranma so much any more. In the fourth season, Onna-Ranma actually goes on a date with the guy who had freaked her out with the bouquet of flowers in the first season. Not for romantic reasons, though: it is to trick him into giving her something he has that will take away her curse. He thoroughly enjoys his dream date, and she does a good job making him think that she does too. Apparently, Ranma sees this type of behavior to be socially proper for his female form and not at all perverted. And since it is she, and not he who does the "girl thing," it no longer troubles him.

It is clear that as long as Ranma can exist in his male form, that is going to be his primary existence, and the girl form is just a condition he just has to put up with. This seems to be acceptable to him, assuming he never again loses his ability to transform to his male form. Though he continues to seek a cure, it is clear that there are other things in his life that he deems to be more important. One is his martial arts skill and his striving to be his absolute best at that. Another is his determination that he will never let anyone get power over him and control his life. The third thing is his affection for Akane, demonstrated by the number of times he is willing to risk his life to protect her.

Finally, here are some thoughts about the curious relationship between Akane and Ranma. Pride and resentment that their parents have pushed them into an engagement neither wanted continue to keep them from expressing their true feelings toward each other. Akane seems to be perennially annoyed with Ranma, not because of his curse, but because he does act like a jerk a lot of the time. Ranma is annoyed with her much of the time, becaues she keeps getting mad at him for things that are usually not his fault. Even so, they seem to prefer each other's company, and they show a great willingness to render assistance to each other. Their relationship, though quite strange, seems to work. After the second season, they seem to be together most of the time. It seems likely they will eventually marry.

Birdy the Mighty

The situation presented here is something like Ranma 1/2, except the Male and Female forms are two separate people, who have virtually nothing in common. Birdy, a female humanoid intergalactic cop, in the course of a fight with an alien gangster, injures Tstutomo, a teenaged boy. In order to save his life, she has to fuse his body into hers. Birdy, in effect, becomes two persons, only one of which can appear at a time. Birdy has the ability to switch places with Tstutomo whenever she wishes, and when in the boy's form, is able to force him to do things he does not want to do.

This story involves mainly a problem of time-sharing, rather than of gender confusion. The two individuals have to learn to cooperate and help each other to accomplish their missions. His mission is to get good grades, so that he can go to a good school. He also wishes to preserve his relationship with his girl friend, which becomes difficult when she starts seeing things that he is not able to explain. Her mission is to stop a ring of intergalactic gangsters from enslaving the human race. One mission they both share: try hard not to get killed.

Tstutomo has to carry the burden of the social awkwardness that results. He tries to avoid answering embarrassing questions like: Who are you arguing with? Why are you hitting yourself? Who is that strange woman in the colorful spandex suit? Do you know who is borrowing your sister's clothes? The ratings given to this anime at Amazon.com are quite high. Unfortunately, distribution of this series appears to have come to an end. Copies of it are still available on eBay.

I think there is a lesson for us in all three of these series. They all express the optimistic belief that no matter how confused one's personal situation, it is possible to find happiness and a place in the world. And to find someone to love.

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