As someone who is transitioning, it’s always interesting to get a good insight of people doing the same or feeling transgendered being told as stories told via the medium of manga and that’s where Boys Run the Riot comes in.
Boys Run the Riot has stood out to me as it gave an insight to someone thinking the opposite to what I am doing (female to male, instead of male to female)
The story follows Watari, a girl who wants to identifies as a boy (even though this is a fictional character, I will refer to Watari as male just to make things easier), tries to dress like one as much as they can and hangs out with the boys at school but gets accused of being boy crazy and a slut.
“Oh. That’s Right”
“I’m the weird one”
“I was born with a healthy female body”
“There’s no changing that”
“It’s my mind that’s the problem”
(Shows an image of Watari looking up a book called an Introduction to LGBTQ and looks at Transgender and Gender Dysphoria, as shown in the tweet above)
When you are transitioning or don’t like the gender you were born with, clothes help so much, they work their magic on you to either bring or hide something. In the case of Boys Run the Riot, it helps Watari give themselves a desired male appearance.
Through his love of clothes, he forms a friendship with a lad called Jin who proposes on starting a clothing brand.
When Watari & Jin first hang out, he treats Watari like a tomboy girl, which Watari gets upset about but Jin replies with
“If you don’t tell me..”
“How am I ‘sposed..to understand”
“I don’t know anything about your pain & suffering. Even if I spent my whole life tryin’ I wouldn’t fully get it”
“Of course, I wouldn’t. I’m just a regular guy”
“But I think I wanna know”
“Why wouldn’t I want a friend to confine in me?”
“So let it all out”
“You think I can’t take it or somethin’?”
From this the two find a photographer (Itsuka,) at school and form the clothing brand “Boys Run the Riot” hence the name of the series.
The top right panel of the image above are the Boys Run the Riot; Watari, Jin & Itsuka
The story gives those who don’t know, the inside on how a t-shirt business would start off. For me, for my last project in graphic design in college I came up with a fictional t-shirt brand so this brought back down memory lane of my college days.
The first volume introduces the hardship that a transgendered boy must deal with while at school such as the ones mentioned above among others and Watari becoming friends with two other boys then the formation of Boys Run the Riot. As mentioned above, gives a great insight into screen printing and the whole t-shirt designing processs.
The second volume goes into Watari trying to find a job that will treat him like a boy, does it go well?
This struggle kind of hit me because of starting transitioning while in work and being asked to be treated the other gender but thankfully my current work has truly been amazing & supportive.
You will need to check the volume to find out on what Watari has to struggle with!
Boys Run the Riot look into different ways on promoting their small t-shirt brand, such as promo by a big LGBTQ youtuber called Wing who helps promotes them but at a cost.
The third volume continues from the aftermath of Wings youtube promotion, how Watari is dealing with it. I can only imagine how someone in real life would deal with being outed online without being told ahead of time without your content, it’s interesting to get an insight of how someone fictional would have to deal with this sudden news to people online such as fellow pupils are school.
“They were trying to say nice things to me…”
“But why did it bother me so much”
“’We don’t care’ they said”
“’We’re not gonna judge you.’”
“But it definitely seemed like they were…”
“I know. I know. They didn’t mean to be.”
“But they made me realize…”
“That I’m… an “other” to them.”
By the end of the volume, you find out more about the youtuber Wing about their history being an LGBTQ youtuber. I won’t spoil the history of Wing; you will have to find out for yourself!
The last volume (volume no.4) continues the balance of going into the struggles of Watari and Boys Run the Riot t-shirt brand. I like to say the author does a great balance of this, it’s not just shoving transgender topics to the front so it’s just that but mixes it how any group of kids how to start a business, because when you are a kid you just think it’s going to be easy but there is sooo much to it.
The boys become friends with an experienced designer called Joe who has been running his fashion brand for 20 years so far, from him they learn about giving Boys Run the Riot a theme, a clear concept and motif ahead of their first exhibition!
With the exhibition for the boys to look forward to, this inspires Watari to come out to his parents about his gender identity, but I won’t spoil this scene, I will just say, I felt it when I came out to my parents many years ago.
The story ends with a new member to Boys run the Riot and what it means to be free (read the story to find out what I mean so I am just going to be cryptic)
The volume after its final chapter provides the short story “Light”, the author (Keito Gaku)’s debut one-short work and winner of the 77th Tetsuya Chiba Prize which was later adapted into Boys Run the Riot.
Which provides this great qoute
“You think I’m crazy?”
“You think I’m abnormal? Well, Fuck Normal.”
“I am what I am. This is my body. You don’t get a say on it.”
Seriously I have loved Boys Run the Riot from start to finish, the series must be in my top 5 of all the manga I have read so far in my life;
- Until I became me / Ore Ga Watashi ni Naru made
- Wandering Son
- One Piece
- Ranma ½
- Boys Run the Riot
And this is coming from someone who has read tons and tons of manga, this is the only third series of manga that I own the whole collection of (other being A Silent Voice & Trigun). Yep even putting this above Trigun and A Silent Voice (6th and 7th place if it was a top 10), series I have talked about tons in previous posts among many others. This has been a joy to read over the previous few months and I will take these to Japan with me next year as something to read in my free time.
I can’t praise this series high enough, especially if you want to understand the mind of someone who is transgender from the mind of an author who is transgender (being loved by this reviewe who is also transgender).
You can buy the volumes here (amazon)
With that, thanks for reading!
Megan
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Megan Leyman 
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