Today I stumbled upon an interesting and well-written article on the subject of transgendered characters in manga. I’ve always found this a strange and yet surprisingly popular aspect of Japanese manga culture, and I’m happy to see someone write intelligently on the subject.

From the article at The Pitcher

As early as in the 80’s works such as Doraemon have explored the idea through magical machinery and technological remaking of the physical body. Even to this day, there are works that give the writers’ interpretation of body, spirit, and gender via tales of ’switching brains’ with outlandish events, machinery, and magical interference.

…

There are, however, less well known works that deal with gender displacements, oddities and obvious trans issues. In fact, there are dedicated mangaka who have given deep thought and research into the subject and portray the issue in a serious yet readable light.

Read all of “Trans/Intersex Manga: A brief Introduction of the subgenre” at The Pitcher

Sadly, there was no mention of perhaps the most well-known gender-bending manga character:

Popularity: 25% [?]

Technorati Tags: anime, manga, trans-sexual, intersex