What are Little Women Made Of?

Before you accuse me of depraved intentions, no, this is not a post dissecting the many features of the female form. Instead, it is a post about Hourou Musuko, femininity, masculinity, and gender roles in a society where a boy is not a boy and a girl is not a girl. Except when they are, of course. Now, you know that I can’t tackle serious issues like this, so I hope you guys will comment and actually discuss, y’know, real stuff, and not the shit I put into my posts. My newfound popularity (?) after a spectacular loss to Shameful Otaku Secret ought to promote this discussion. OUGHT TO.

Unfortunately, no, I do not have access to Hourou Musuko screenshots. In lieu of pictures, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Except not really, because you know me, I don’t write sweet things.

Many children are confused (or, as they say, ‘Wandering’) as to their own sexual identities. For example, any of them question why they aren’t having any sex yet. Wait, that’s not the questioning I’m talking about. The questioning I’m talking about is the questioning in Hourou Musuko, where the main character, Nitori Shuichi, wants to be a girl, but is stuck in the body of a boy. His friend, Takatsuki Yoshino, wants to be a boy, but is stuck in the body of a girl.

Now, they each do those usual antics of cross-dressing, interacting more with the members of the opposite sex, and generally being confused about their sexual identity like you’d expect wandering children would. However, even so, Shuichi displays attractions to other girls, such as Suehiro Anna, some sort of creepy shotacon pedophile.

Although there are primarily children in Hourou Musuko, there is also a guy, Yuki (Yoshida Hiroyuki). Except, he’s not a guy; he was merely born as one. She’s a mature, twenty-something transsexual in a happy relationship with some creepy lolicon pedophile. If she didn’t tell us that she was born a boy, we wouldn’t have known. At all.

And now we reach the crux of our article: Jenna Talackova. My English teacher, a certain Mrs. Margaret Kalaski, once taught Walter Page Talackova during a summer high school course. She spoke at length about him one lesson, and something caught my attention.

Walter Page was never a boy. From birth, Walter had decided to be a girl; to be Jenny. She had just started hormone treatment the year my teacher started teaching her, but even before that, was already no longer a boy. She never wandered. What is a little woman made of, when the woman was once a boy? Determination, courage, and certainty. In a sense, Shuichi is already helpless, it’s too late for him to change. Many things about him are still masculine, and his effeminate qualities are quite common in other boys.

So. Does Shuichi have this choice? Can he really decide to change? Is he already too masculine? And is this male-female sexual dichotomy still relevant in our present society?

And therein lies the question of this tale.

…Except not really, because this entire article was all meant for one thing: to advertise that super cool Hourou Musuko ED I arranged just for otou-san you saw at the beginning of the article, even though he didn’t request (or even want) it. To otou-san: this is FOR YOU. Get it?! Ha ha ha ha haaaaa

P.S. Obligatory shout-out to Glo.