At the end of the year, many share their favorite manga. In my case “Hōseki no kuni” or “Beastars” would be an obvious choice. SF-classic “Toward the terra” or rising Jump star “Act-age” too. But I want to talk about another classic: Eguchi Hisashi’s manga “Stop!! Hibari-kun!”.

Published from 1981 to 1983 in Weekly Shōnen Jump, this gag manga tells the story of Ōzora Hibari, born as the male heir of a yakuza clan, who decides to live as a girl. When Kosaku, the son of a former lover of Hibari’s father moves into their house (and falls in love with /

Hibari, a love-comedy starts, as Kosaka is attracted to Hibari but cannot ackknowledge this because she is a “guy”. According to Hisashi an important part of the gag here was to draw Hibari even more beautiful than the other Ōzora daughters. A tour de force/

ultimately causing the series cancellation, as Hisashi couldn’t keep up with high quality of his stylish illustration. Remember, this was published in a weekly magazine.

Back to the story: throughout the manga Hibari gets harrest by people around him, especially his own father and Kosaku (who just doesn’t want to admit he’s fallen for Hibari). “A guy wearing a skirt, that’s a true pervert!”, “A man ins’t supposed to be erotic.”

But Hibari does never falter. She is never the end of the joke. In fact, Hibari is the strongest character in the whole manga, and probably one of the strongest trans women in fiction.

Faced with unwanted attention and blatant sexual harrassment, Hibari doesn’t hesitate to use brute force. Go Hibari! Go!

Then she says woke stuff like this all the time: “There is nothing particularly perverted about a man using make-up.”
Nobody agrees with Hibari, everybody is outraged, which is the joke, but the manga never makes the point Hibari might be wrong or has to reconsider her opinions.

Have I mentioned that there is lots and lots of fanservice? Also, that French kiss scene.

There are other characters besides Hibari who question gender norms. There is a lesbian Takarazuka girl and trans man who looks like Kenshiro from “Fist of the North Star” and is taking male hormones.

Talking about all of this, it is easy to forget that this is actually a gag manga. And it is pretty hilarious!

Another nice touch is Hisashi’s love for popular music. There are countless references and even recommendations of his favorite records in the manga. Takeuchi Mariya anyone?

Finally, Hisashi’s fashion sense is incredibly gorgeous, back in the days, instead of reading fashion magazine young people would read “Hibari-kun!” to chose their outfits.

There is one thing I have to talk about. In one chapter a girl falls in love with Kosaku and wants him to forget Hibari. She says “Homosexuality is wrong. Aren’t you afraid of AIDS.” At that moment, the air freezes, even Hibari’s father, who calls his son a pervert, is shocked.

Hisashi didn’t draw this manga with a progressive agenda or to raise awareness. Yet the amount of things that are brought up and happen in this manga is astounding. Even more astounding are those things that don’t happen in this manga. “Stop!! Hibari-kun!” could have been awful.

“Hibari-kun” could have ended like this: Kosaku marries Hibari’s sister Tsubame and Hibari becomes the Oyabun, the next male head of the Ozora Yakuza clan, following the footsteps of his father and subjecting himself to heteronormative norms. But it doesn’t, because this isn’t Ha

Eh, because Hibari never was anything but a woman. Although she would be awesome as a female Yakuza heir, but that’s another story. Hibari is strong, always and only in very few moments we see her vulnerability.

The chapter illustration above was pointed out to me by a Japanese reader. It shows Hibari-kun on the top-right side, walking alone gazing on the right side out of the frame. She is alone, there is no place in society for her. Not at that time.

Hisashi, intentionally made his readers fall in love with Hibari, and probably unintentionally created a role model for transgender people in Japan and all around the world. Hibari motivated readers to question their sexual identity and find out for themselves who they are.

Trans women are women.