Hourou Musuko Was A Trans Anime Ahead of Its Time
The growing inclusion of queer stories in media isn't a new thing, but rather an acknowledgment of what has been there for decades. Anime is no exception, with classics of the 90s like Evangelion and Utena having explored queerness through storytelling that could hardly be called subtextual, and in 2011, Hourou Musuko: Wandering Son, told a daring story of its own.
Based on Takako Shimura's manga of the same name, Hourou Musuko tells the story of Shuuichi Nitori, a trans girl who was assigned male at birth, and Yoshino Takatsuki, a trans boy who was born a girl. This anime is a coming-of-age story following their time in elementary school, as they navigate puberty and society's expectations for them. To say that queer stories aren't a new thing is accurate, but it also buries the lede considerably, considering the amount of queer-positive messages that were either suppressed, censored, or denied. Even today, older examples of queer representation, such as the queer elements of Neon Genesis Evangelion, are still discussed as if the content is «debatably gay.»
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Films and shows talking about trans issues have existed for a long time as well, but the farther back one looks, the scarcer and more contested the representation is. A simple search of notable transgender films will yield lists of insightful recommendations, but a great deal of them, at least in the west, are recent, with an upsurge from the 2010s up to now.
So it's important to recognize how bold a show like Hourou Musuko was at a time just before a wave of transgender actors and actresses began coming out. Just before hugely popular TV and film productions were sharing trans stories and trans icons within Hollywood
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