manga: Kaze Hikaru Vol 1
When 15-year-old Sei’s father and brother are killed by Imperialists, she shaves the top of her head (I forget the official term, sorry) and disguises herself as a boy and joins the Mibu-Roshi, Shogunate loyalists who will later be known as the Shinsengumi, for two reasons. The first is that her murdered brother had been meeting with them, and planned to join them. The second is that, when her father’s clinic was attacked, Okita Soji, a member of the Mibu-Roshi, is the only one who tries to help.
There, she finds herself assigned to Okita himself and has her idealistic views of the Mibu-Roshi dashed. Not only are the Mibu-Roshi poor, but they’re also hated by many of the people of Kyoto. In addition, many of them seem to be far from desirable as heroes to Sei. Of the leaders, Serizawa seems to be a slobbish, drunken lech, Hijikata an ill-tempered brute, and Okita, while serious and admirable in private, often imitates and plays along with Serizawa in public, seeming to be little better. In addition, many of the other men seem to be little better. As the volumes proceeds, however, she comes to realize they’re deeper than they initially appear, though still not the ideals in her head.
I like Sei. She appeals to me in a similar way that Rin in Blade of the Immortal, Sarasa in Basara and, to a lesser degree(in terms of character similarity, not appeal), Yuya in Samurai Deeper Kyo do. I’m not so big on the Mibu-Roshi members yet. I like Hijikata and Saito (who resembles Sei’s brother and was his friend) but I’m not sure how much of that is them, and how much of it is the fact that I tend to like them in most Shinsengumi stories. I suspect I’ll like Okita a good bit, but I have an instinctive “oh, not again…” to his character type. (I’m all for his normal personality, but the “tee hee” flippancy at times grates.) I do, however, like the (so far) fairly realistic portrayal of the times, including the treatment of Sei as a “pretty boy” in this environment, and that the mangaka isn’t writing the Shinsengumi as perfect or supercool.
A few comments regarding the gender bending aspect that I particularly like, in terms of using it as a narrative device. The handling of the it actually reminds me somewhat of Basara aka “the best shoujo ever”*:
1. No one looks at Sei and responds to some vital inner blossom of femininity that she can’t quite hide. They look at her and think “pretty boy!” When everyone wants to see her when they hear the new “boy” is pretty, it isn’t to see if it’s actually a girl, but to see if a boy can be that pretty. People are even called idiots for thinking she could possibly be a boy.
2. Directly related, Sei’s design and behavior are not clearly “girl pretending to be a boy,” right down to her hair. This isn't a "short but still cute" boyish hairstyle, but a hairstyle that would humiliate any well bred girl. There’s no obvious narrative clues to make people make exceptions for her. She’s drawn and written in a way for it to be believable that people don’t instantly go “ok, girl!”
3. We aren’t clued in to the fact that Sei is a girl (ok, we were because of the back cover, but that’s not the point!) until Okita *cough* “unmasks” her, and Okita only does so because he attacks her for atempted desertion while completely convinced she’s a boy, and by treating her as such. After he learns, he continues to treat her as a boy as much as possible.
*I should mention that the handling if the gender bending/crossdressing aspect is the only obvious similarity to Basara that jumps out at me. Well, that and the fact that both are gender bending in the vein of “teenaged girl pretends to be a boy to get revenge for the death of her family.” Which, in both the individual series and the grand scheme of historical and genre fiction, really isn’t that much.
There, she finds herself assigned to Okita himself and has her idealistic views of the Mibu-Roshi dashed. Not only are the Mibu-Roshi poor, but they’re also hated by many of the people of Kyoto. In addition, many of them seem to be far from desirable as heroes to Sei. Of the leaders, Serizawa seems to be a slobbish, drunken lech, Hijikata an ill-tempered brute, and Okita, while serious and admirable in private, often imitates and plays along with Serizawa in public, seeming to be little better. In addition, many of the other men seem to be little better. As the volumes proceeds, however, she comes to realize they’re deeper than they initially appear, though still not the ideals in her head.
I like Sei. She appeals to me in a similar way that Rin in Blade of the Immortal, Sarasa in Basara and, to a lesser degree(in terms of character similarity, not appeal), Yuya in Samurai Deeper Kyo do. I’m not so big on the Mibu-Roshi members yet. I like Hijikata and Saito (who resembles Sei’s brother and was his friend) but I’m not sure how much of that is them, and how much of it is the fact that I tend to like them in most Shinsengumi stories. I suspect I’ll like Okita a good bit, but I have an instinctive “oh, not again…” to his character type. (I’m all for his normal personality, but the “tee hee” flippancy at times grates.) I do, however, like the (so far) fairly realistic portrayal of the times, including the treatment of Sei as a “pretty boy” in this environment, and that the mangaka isn’t writing the Shinsengumi as perfect or supercool.
A few comments regarding the gender bending aspect that I particularly like, in terms of using it as a narrative device. The handling of the it actually reminds me somewhat of Basara aka “the best shoujo ever”*:
1. No one looks at Sei and responds to some vital inner blossom of femininity that she can’t quite hide. They look at her and think “pretty boy!” When everyone wants to see her when they hear the new “boy” is pretty, it isn’t to see if it’s actually a girl, but to see if a boy can be that pretty. People are even called idiots for thinking she could possibly be a boy.
2. Directly related, Sei’s design and behavior are not clearly “girl pretending to be a boy,” right down to her hair. This isn't a "short but still cute" boyish hairstyle, but a hairstyle that would humiliate any well bred girl. There’s no obvious narrative clues to make people make exceptions for her. She’s drawn and written in a way for it to be believable that people don’t instantly go “ok, girl!”
3. We aren’t clued in to the fact that Sei is a girl (ok, we were because of the back cover, but that’s not the point!) until Okita *cough* “unmasks” her, and Okita only does so because he attacks her for atempted desertion while completely convinced she’s a boy, and by treating her as such. After he learns, he continues to treat her as a boy as much as possible.
*I should mention that the handling if the gender bending/crossdressing aspect is the only obvious similarity to Basara that jumps out at me. Well, that and the fact that both are gender bending in the vein of “teenaged girl pretends to be a boy to get revenge for the death of her family.” Which, in both the individual series and the grand scheme of historical and genre fiction, really isn’t that much.