They Really Got Me Invested In This Man Getting His Balls Back

They really got me invested in this man getting his balls back

Transmasculinity and queer sexuality in the works of Ikeda Riyoko

Claudine describes himself as simply a man, not someone trying to be closer to his father or some other psychological excuse

Content Warning: Discussion of transphobia and suicide

Spoilers for Dear Brother, The Rose of Versailles, and Claudine

Ikeda Riyoko—perhaps the most famous member of the “year 24 group” that played a large part in creating the foundations of the shoujo manga genre—is often credited with laying the groundwork for depictions of queer characters in shoujo, and in particular with creating the archetype of the gender-bending heartthrob heroine, or “girl prince.” Building on earlier representations of butch or transmasculine characters in early shoujo manga such as Princess Knight, and the Takarazuka theater tradition of the otokoyaku male role actor, Ikeda’s enormously popular gender non-conforming heroes—Lady Oscar from The Rose of Versailles, Rei from Dear Brother, Julius from the Window of Orpheus, and the titular character of Claudine—helped to establish that there was a major mainstream audience excited to cheer for a hotheaded, androgynous tomboy with a heart of gold. Lady Oscar in particular has fingerprints all over the history of anime and manga, from a gender-bending cameo in Pokémon to serving as the inspiration for iconic characters like Tenjou Utena.

When I first read The Rose of Versailles last year, I expected its depictions of queer and transmasculine characters to be somewhat limited—after all, the comic was written for mainstream audiences and a mainstream publisher in the 1970s. But across Ikeda’s work, I was deeply surprised with the level of care and nuance with which Ikeda approaches transmasculine love stories. While there is obviously a lot about Ikeda’s portrayal of transmasculine characters that feels dated to modern audiences (for example, her comics often do fall back on “biological” ideas of women’s weakness and emotionality, and sometimes psychologize her character’s genders in uncomfortable ways), I was surprised by how much of these comics still hit for me today. What makes them work for me is both the extreme pathos with which Ikeda writes transmasculine character’s experiences of rejection—and, at rare moments, gender euphoria —but also the fact that her trans characters are not simply given a one-size fits all born-in-the-wrong-body narrative. Instead, they are each portrayed as unique individuals with varied personal relationships to their gender, their sexuality, and the historical context of the society they live in.