On Finding Trans Men in Old Manga

So a commenter left a comment on my review of Paros no Ken volume 1 rightly critiquing my initial written interpretation of the titular character of Ikeda Riyoko's Claudine...! for finding Claudine's gender identity somewhat ambiguous instead of "this character is a trans man." They also made a good argument for Paros no Ken's Erminia being read as a trans man. Because they brought up some great discussion points, I wound up practically writing an essay in response to it, and I think those discussion points are worth a blog post instead of being hidden in the comments of an old review.

The primary point of the comment was- why my interpretation of Claudine and Paros no Ken's protagonist Erminia as having some ambiguity to their gender identities?

In response to that, I wrote:

I am much more sure that Claudine is a trans man than I was when I first reviewed it years ago. As you read in my writing about Paros no Ken, it's harder to determine bona fide trans men in old manga because the folks writing older lgbtq stuff didn't have a lesbian lingo vocabulary (or couldn't use it) and somewhat clumsily described some characters (like Oniisama E's Rei and Sailor Moon's Haruka) as having "the aura of a man" (this being in the text of Oniisama E) or "the heart of a man" (which the creator of Sailor Moon said before clarifying that she did intend to write two girls who were a couple.)

I hesitate to definitively call Erminia a trans man (although there are definitely grounds for that interpretation) because of the broader context of the time, and the fact that whether Erminia is "both a man and a woman" or "neither a man nor a woman" is a major plot point in PnK. Regarding Claudine, when I first reviewed it, I was looking too much at historical context and not enough at how Ikeda Riyoko went the extra mile to make it more trans-specific than the other examples I mentioned in my discussion of trans straight male vs cis gay female identity in old manga. I will add a note to my review of Claudine...! about that.

In response to the points that "even in clearly trans stories like Hourou Musuko the mangaka have missed the importance of the chosen name. Since Nitori is a girl, the title should have been Wandering Girl and not 'Son'. (The same goes for Claudine and Paros no Ken's Erminia :/)", I wrote:

Re chosen names, yeah, Hourou Musume would better reflect Nitori's gender- ditto with Claudine...! being changed, although it's better there imo because Claudine himself didn't mention wanting a different/true name, like Nitori did. In the cases of Claudine and Erminia both not saying they wanted different names, I'm also pretty lenient because Claudine lived in the early 20th century and subsequently didn't seem to know what being "transsexual" is and how it applied to him until right before the end of the book, and Erminia (assuming the trans reading to be the right one) lived in some kind of Medieval kingdom. I'm reminded a little of how at the women's college I attended from 2008-2012, there were some trans men who didn't realize they were trans before they started school and were exposed to the queer awareness on campus, causing them to realize what they were and start publicly identifying as such- that's my reading of what went on for Claudine until the doctor told him what being transsexual is and what might be going on with Erminia. I realize that I am not the best judge and could be wrong about something, though. Anyway, that is the end of my long rambling!

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 3

We ended the previous volume of Paros no Ken on yet another cliffhanger- but this time the threat is real.

The contestants in the sword-fighting tournament are whittled down, and Yurias is one of the semi-finalists. Erminia hopes he'll win because they have sparred together since they were children and she has never lost to him. At this point, Yurias is competing not with the aim of marrying Erminia, but of freeing her to choose whoever she wants.

However, Yurias's next opponent not only defeats him, he slashes his right eye and exults over it. Technically, the man who blinded Yurias is still allowed to compete.

Enraged, Erminia rushes into the arena to challenge him, and the livid spectators cheer her on. Erminia holds her own to the point that the folks who had wanted her to be a delicate flower are really impressed. But then her opponent knocks her sword out of her hand, her uncle Alphonse throws her another sword, and Erminia finds, too late, that she has walked into a trap.

Long story short, Erminia's father dies, Kauros takes over Paros's capital, and Erminia wakes up imprisoned. The third prince of Kauros is there when she wakes up. He confirms what happened and tells her she will be his bride. The prince of Kauros is a sewer of a human being ("You may act like a man, but that does not change the fact that you are a woman! And women must submit to men." After being rejected by her: "Erminia... what a pity it is that such a beautiful woman holds men in such disdain. I shall cure you of that illness."), and tries to rape her, but thankfully, doesn't go through with it. He figures he'll have plenty of time to break her after she marries him in Kauros.

The procession escorting Erminia to Kauros stops at a town overnight, where Fiona and Erminia are reunited.

How did Fiona get there after what happened in volume 2? After being raped, Fiona threw herself into the river nearby and was rescued downstream by a nice older couple who live in the countryside. While living with them, she recovered somewhat.

After learning what happened to Paros's capital and Erminia, she organized the other youths in the area into a rebel group (in case you're wondering, Fiona is sixteen; Erminia is eighteen), helped Yurias leave his captivity (he was much less stringently guarded than Erminia; and somehow, knew what happened to Fiona), and hatched a plan to get Erminia to safety.

While the people who attended the sword-fighting tournament easily bought Alphonse's reason for indicting Erminia for her father's death, most of the citizens of Paros recognize that Alphonse's argument for Erminia's guilt is bullshit and are still willing to resist the Kauran military under her. Their loyalty to Erminia and Paros is so moving, in fact, that I felt pretty awful for them re-reading this volume, knowing how things would pan out.

In a nutshell, Fiona, Erminia, and Yurias all ultimately sacrifice everything else for love, and Fiona and Erminia get to be together.

The ending is pretty abrupt and leaves Paros's fate more ambiguous than I'd like. I suspect Kurimoto Kaoru wound up not having as much time to resolve things as she wanted, and had to do the best she could given the page count she had left. But, erm, despite the ending's problems- especially considering this series's context and the fact that Kurimoto could have easily written an unhappy ending for Erminia and Fiona for perfectly valid reasons- I'm glad Kurimoto was like "lol Nope" to ending things with Erminia accepting Fiona's sacrifice and sacrificing her own happiness with her, and made Erminia save Fiona anyway.

Despite its flaws, this is a very worthwhile series, both for its value to the yuri genre and simple entertainment value- especially if you're in the mood for a romance that is more plot-oriented than most.

Story: B+
Art: A
Overall: B+

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 2

Couldn't find a picture of this volume's cover online and my scanner's being funky, so I'm just posting a photo of my copy of it.

Volume 1 left us with a masked Yurias breaking into Erminia's room and covering her mouth before she could scream. He only snuck in because he wants to play fairy godmother and give Erminia the chance to go to Paros's capital city Paro's annual carnival with Fiona. Yurias made sure Fiona had the night off so she could go. Erminia gives Fiona a beautiful gown, dons a dapper outfit herself, and promises Yurias that she will return before midnight. If she doesn't fulfill her promise, Yurias will be found out and executed for helping her leave.

This series' artwork is always lush, but the carnival pages are especially vibrant and eye-popping.

The revelers admire how good Fiona and Erminia look together. (Granted, because Erminia is wearing a mask, they don't recognize her as their princess. They think she's some random guy.)

When Fiona and Erminia step away from the crowd, Fiona shares her fear that that night will be as good as it gets for them and she'll never see Erminia again. Not knowing how little Fiona has to look forward to in her day-to-day life (or how little hope Fiona had of seeing Erminia again after being demoted to an even more menial position than laundry maid because her co-workers are all assholes), Erminia has a more optimistic view of things. Erminia asks Fiona if there aren't any dreams she wants to fulfill, and shares her dream of traveling the world. Erminia is thrilled Fiona takes her dream seriously, because the only other person who has is Yurias. She is surprised when Fiona tells her that her only dream has been to meet the prince from her childhood, and that prince is her.

They kiss, but their moment is cut short when a tipsy masked man with a villain smirk shows up and hits on Fiona. He persists, so Erminia challenges him to a sword duel and kicks his ass. His reaction to losing makes Erminia think he might not be so bad after all. He reveals that he has been living the dream, traveling the world as a sailor. Erminia tells him that Fiona is an aristocrat who has seven days to choose a groom to marry, and Erminia cannot marry her because her status is too low. The stranger proposes a solution, which Erminia puts into effect when her time to choose a groom is up.

Erminia's suitors must compete in a sword-fighting tournament, and the last man standing must win a sword fight against her before he can marry her. Erminia, of course, expects to win- and then (although she doesn't mention it as a condition to her father), expects to be free to publicly make Fiona her bride as a result. Awww/nothing can possibly go wrong, right? ^^;

The part in which we see people in the various classes of Paros preparing for the tournament is cute- especially the cameo by Candy Candy's leads.

Erminia's uncle Alphonse, whose interests would be served by Paros being absorbed by Kauros, reminds Erminia of the very real possibility that she will lose and gives her a way to cheat. Erminia dismisses him, but can't bring herself to dismiss his plan completely. When she thinks that she would be willing to dirty her hands for Fiona's sake, you know the story isn't going to let that go.

Additionally, Erminia worries about an old legend saying that Paros will have its glory restored if it is ruled by one who is both a man and a woman, and will be destroyed if ruled by one who is neither a man nor a woman. The people of Paros are anxious to see if Erminia will turn out to be the former or the latter. Yurias freaks out about the legend after Erminia rejects him. You're more of an ally than an ass, Yurias, but please stfu about how if Erminia could just "regain a woman's heart" and like guys/you, you would be happy.

Btw, despite the context for this series, the effect I know its setting would have on how its characters conceptualize and discuss sexual orientation and gender (i.e. not how we do) and its awesome progressiveness and skewering of sexist and heterosexist social conventions, I'm annoyed by the weirdly conservative correlation drawn at points by the story between Erminia's lack of interest in men and her gender being possibly male/not-female. Claudine...!, which I compared to this series in my review of Paros no Ken volume 1 for having a protagonist who could be read as a butchy cis lesbian or a straight trans man, actually succeeded at pulling off that ambiguity without drawing that correlation. I remember a similar correlation coming up briefly at one point in Rose of Versailles also, and it annoyed me there, as much as I love RoV. (Like, to the point of having a PVC figurine of Oscar in uniform, brandishing her sword.) Ribon no Kishi plays with a similar idea (its protagonist Sapphire being cool and competent and actiony when she has her boy heart, but weak and damsel-in-distressy when she only has her girl heart), but takes it to the point that I dislike Ribon no Kishi.

Erminia cannot see Fiona until after the tournament. Unbeknownst to her, something horrible happens. Some knights from Kauros find Fiona and rape her, thinking she will be ashamed enough of it to never approach Erminia again.

On the last day of the tournament, Kauros's army crosses the border into Paros.

While volume 1 focused on setting up character relationships, this volume sets up the plot denouement that will take place in volume 3. What will become of Erminia and Fiona!? Tune in next time and see.

Story: B+
Art: A
Overall: B+

Speaking of portrayals of lgbtq folks in Medieval Europe-inspired fantasy stories, this two part blog post series, "Heteronormativity, fantasy, and Bitterblue", is really worth reading for its discussion of writing sexual minority characters in such settings.

Manga Review: Paros no Ken volume 1

Paros no Ken (The Sword of Paros) is a three volume fantasy series written by Kurimoto Kaoru (Guin Saga's author) and drawn by Igarashi Yumiko (Candy Candy's artist). It ran from 1986-1987 in Monthly Asuka. It is, as far as I know, the earliest example of a yuri romance that doesn't end with either half of its couple being killed off, committing suicide, or marrying a man. Incredible progressiveness for its time aside, it holds up today as a ripping good yarn.

Paros no Ken begins and ends described by an unnamed wandering minstrel to us as a legend based on events from long ago.

The kingdom of Paros was once in a dark period, in which it was threatened by a militant neighboring kingdom called Kauros.

Although Kauros could have gained control of Paros by invading, its leaders tried to save themselves the trouble by uniting the two kingdoms through marriage. Paros's King Aldius doesn't want his kingdom to lose its independence to Kauros by any means and tries to politely decline them. But he's running out of excuses, so he pressures his only heir, Erminia, to pick a Parosian man to wed. Unfortunately for him, Erminia isn't interested in men and makes no secret of it.

Erminia spends most of her free time riding horses with her best friend since childhood Yurias. One day Erminia saves one of the castle's laundry maids, Fiona, from being run over by a runaway horse. Neither can stop thinking about the other after that- Erminia because Fiona's her type, and Fiona because Erminia reminds her of the "prince" she met once as a child who she has always wanted to meet again. Of course, the person from Fiona's childhood is Erminia. I've mentioned before that I find the "I have been in love with you since we were kids, even though I haven't seen you at all since then!" trope stupid, but I actually don't mind it here. Fiona has had such a godawful life that it sadly makes sense that she would cling like a drowning person to a memory like that. 

But anyway, Erminia's sex doesn't make any difference to Fiona, and Fiona and Erminia spend more and more time together. Erminia becomes further smitten because Fiona is not only kind, she's the only person Erminia knows who isn't like "You're a woman, so you should do this and that and this! And be interested in these things!" Yurias, who is in love with Erminia, instantly pegs where things are heading between Erminia and Fiona. Some knights from Kauros attack Erminia when she is with Fiona. After Erminia and Yurias fend them off, Erminia notes that the Kaurian knights had several chances to kill her, but didn't. They were just testing her, for some reason.

Erminia's father finally gives her an ultimatum to chose a groom within ten days' time, and has her confined to her room until she chooses. This volume ends on a cliffhanger.

Erminia, who has justifiably been compared a lot to Rose of Versailles' Oscar, is a charismatic, ass-kicking lead- and, of course, groundbreaking for avoiding certain negative tropes and being happily outspoken about who she likes. In a high fantasy setting, but still. Erminia's out-ness is a big deal within the world she lives in because Paros no Ken's world is brimming with heterosexism, not to mention sexism. It can be incredibly, wonderfully refreshing to read something like Malinda Lo's Ash (one of my favorite novels), in which the characters live in a world where homophobia is nil and being openly interested in other women/other men need not come with any potentially negative consequences (because, you know, that's how things should be and will be someday)- but stories in which the characters work through (or have worked through) the less pretty aspects of coming out are, in a way, more... Well, let me put it this way. As a high schooler in the "What do these feelings mean!?" phase, I loved how utterly not a big deal the romances between Strawberry Panic!'s characters were. But for its much lower amount of out-and-out yuri, I found Maria-sama ga Miteru more comforting because the one canon lesbian among its leads, Sei, dealt with the less pretty aspects of coming out and ultimately came out happy even though she didn't get the girl she liked when she was questioning.

The point of that rambling tangent is that, even though Paros no Ken takes place in a high fantasy setting, it's written in such a way that Erminia's development parallels a lot of folks' real life experiences with coming out/being out as lgbtq, for better and worse, such as when Erminia tells Fiona (after mentioning that Yurias called her selfish for her time spent romancing Fiona), "If I express anything of a free will at the castle, I am accused of being selfish. One day, I simply realized that I needed to be true to myself, even if it caused others to curse my existence. I have just one chance... One chance to live a life that belongs to none but me."

One thing that does date this series is the ambiguity between trans male and lesbian identity in it. To quote what I wrote about that ambiguity in my essay on lesbian identity in yuri:

In some early works like Ikeda Riyoko’s Claudine…! and Kurimoto Kaoru and Igarashi Yumiko’s Paros no Ken, there is some ambiguity between lesbian identity and transgender identity. Oniisama E’s Rei is an example of a character whose description of being like a man—having the aura of a man, as Nanako [Oniisama's E's protagonist] describes her—was pretty obviously the closest thing that you were going to see to the word “butch” (or the Japanese equivalent) in a 70’s shoujo manga. That may have been the case with Claudine (the lead in Claudine…!) and Erminia (the lead in Paros no Ken) as well. Sailor Moon’s Haruka is described by creator Takeuchi Naoko, as having the “heart of a guy,” although when Takeuchi Naoko was asked if Haruka had been a man in her past life, she said no, and affirmed that she intended to create a relationship between two girls.  Just as the concept of akogare in Japan has a Western historical parallel in the idea of “smashings” between Victorian schoolgirls, the association between lesbian and transgender identity in older examples of Yuri has a parallel in the numerous historical examples of lesbians who passed themselves as men or adopted a masculine identity in order to enjoy the freedoms and opportunities men enjoyed, like La Maupin.  Some characters are clearly butch, but for some, like Claudine, one can’t be certain whether they are asserting themselves as transsexuals or as lesbians who want the privileges exclusive to men. Yuri fans have fondly dubbed cool, butchy yuri characters “Girl Princes,” partly because their earliest ancestor (who actually isn’t a Yuri character) is Ribon no Kishi’s Sapphire, who is literally a girl prince.

In short, like Claudine, you can read Erminia as a butchy lesbian or a straight trans man (or genderqueer, since the text leaves room for that), whatever suits you. That ambiguity is actually a plot point in this series, but it doesn't come into play majorly until later on.

I should also, finally, mention that Erminia and Fiona are sweet as a couple, but Fiona is more passive and damsel-in-distressy than I'd like for the first two volumes of this series. Thankfully, she moves away from that in volume three and (SPOILER!) saves Erminia from the biggest threat she faces- and Erminia likes Fiona's heightened competence, even if the risk Fiona takes because of it scares the shit out of her. But I'm getting ahead of myself. More romantic intrigue and political skulduggery coming in volume 2~

Story: B+

Art: A LOT of beautiful detail. A

Overall: B+