I've previously reviewed Wandering Son in my Top 15 Anime column. In it, I called it the 8th best anime that I have ever seen, only being beaten out by Ryohgo Narita, Ghost in the Shell, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, among others. My praise for the graphic novel is no different. And though I have read far fewer manga than I have watched anime (62-273), I am stunned to look through my list of manga I've read and find that no other manga has been better, in my opinion.
I'll give my own plot summary of Wandering Son through one volume. SPOILERS AHEAD, people. But after the summary, I'll try to keep is spoiler free.
Wandering Son starts off with Nitori-kun and his family moving somewhere else. The point being, there's a new kid in town and his name is Nitori-kun. And his sister's teacher actually mistakes Nitori-kun for his sister, Maho.
[Editor's note: If you start reading left to right (aka, the American way), you'll find a quite long essay written by the translator about honorifics and personal pronouns in Japanese. This essay takes up almost three pages of the back of the volume. This is astounding for a manga. I have not read another manga that does this. But the essay is written like a true pro and anyone unfamiliar with the Japanese language should definitely read it before starting to read the first volume. I did not. I wish I had. Fortunately, I have taken a semester of Japanese and have watched all too much anime.]
He's placed next to our female protagonist, Takatsuki-san, when seated in his new 5th grade class. The story grows from here. We learn that Nitori wishes he was really a girl and Takatsuki wishes she was really a boy. This begins to escalate when Chiba-san (a popular and pretty girl in their class who has a crush on Nitori-kun) suggests they do a gender-bender play for the 6th grade sendoff assembly. I'm sure this is normal in Japan, to send of 6th graders in grand fashion. Well, grand compared to what we do, which is nothing. It culminates with Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san taking the train a very long way away for their home (it's never defined where, but far enough that they wouldn't be seen by any of their friends) dressed as a girl and a boy respectively. The first time Takatsuki-san did this (which she did alone), she was even mistaken for a boy.
I'll try to keep it spoiler free from here on out. Aka, END SPOILER.
What makes Wandering Son so good is that it tackles things that I have never seen any other manga or anime do before. This is a manga about a 5th grade boy who wants to be a girl and a 5th grade girl who wants to be a boy. How sophisticated is that?
But it's not just about that. There's Maho who finds his cross dressing deplorable. And there's Chiba-san who has a crush on Nitori-kun and thinks he looks cute in girls' clothing. But not just that, there's Takatsuki-san, who is going through puberty while relating more to being a male.
Think about that. If any girls read this, think back to when you were (and excuse my rudeness) having your first period. Likely, you were frightened. Takatsuki-san appeared to have been informed by her mother about the goings on of that, but it's so complex. She's trying so hard to make herself more relatable to being a male when her body is going through something like that, which is inherently female.
The one criticism I find with this manga in general (which the author Simura Takako admits to) is that the characters look very similar. I had a hard time distinguishing between Chiba-san and Takatsuki-san and Maho and Nitori-kun and all the other characters. The translation, however, is done brilliantly. It makes sorting through these characters much easier by giving each of them a distinctive voice without the use of the multitude of personal pronouns that the Japanese language has.
Despite this setback, the charm of this series really is its characters. In the anime, Kosuke Hatakeyama and Asami Seto bring Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san to life (as do the rest of the cast). I realize now that it's the writing of the dialogue that really brings the words to life on the page and the actors made it that much better. The point being, the dialogue is brilliantly done and this manga touches on a very sensitive topic in both Japanese and American cultures.
This first volume really just scratches the surface of what's going to happen in the manga as a whole, but it provides a look straight into Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san hearts and souls, about what both characters want as people and as a male and female. It's a beautiful commentary on gender confusion in people, and especially in teenagers (who are going through some of the hardest and most confusing times of their lives). Having watched the anime, I'm looking forward to seeing how far the story goes through volume two.
If you have the chance to read the series or watch the series, I highly suggest doing so. Amazon and Right Stuf have the first volume for sale while Crunchyroll has the series subbed on its website. Again, this is in the Top 10 of the anime I've watched and the manga I've read. It comes with high praise in my book.
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