{"id":30917,"date":"2013-03-29T13:51:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T17:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=30917"},"modified":"2013-03-29T13:51:18","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T17:51:18","slug":"ask-john-how-many-anime-have-cross-dressing-lead-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/ask-john-how-many-anime-have-cross-dressing-lead-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask John: How Many Anime Have Cross-Dressing Lead Characters?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ribbon_no_Kishi\"<\/a>
\nQuestion:<\/strong>
\nI saw Rose of Versailles recently and I really enjoyed it. I was just wondering but are there any other animes which feature a crossdressing main protagonist?<\/p>\n


\nAnswer:<\/strong>
\nBecause performance art cross-dressing in kabuki theater has been a part of Japanese culture for centuries, the concept of cross-dressing is not as unusual or ostracized in Japanese society as it is, for example, in American society. Near countless anime have included cross-dressing characters. A handful of anime, such as Ranma 1\/2, Cinderella Boy, and Kashimashi, have even revolved around characters that physically change gender. But lead or co-lead characters that routinely cross-dress are not quite as common as cross-dressing supporting characters, and many of the anime that do utilize cross-dressing protagonists do so in comparable situations.<\/p>\n

Oscar of Versailles no Bara was actually preceeded by Princess Sapphire in the seminal 1967 Ribbon no Kishi shoujo anime television series. In Princess Knight, Saphire adopted a male persona in order to legitimately claim royal ascendency. Furthermore, setting a precedent to be used by later anime, Saphire also adopted a masculine “hero” persona that reappeared in the 1979 Versailles no Bara television anime. Later swashbuckling heroines appeared in La Seine no Hoshi, Shoujo Kakumei Utena, and Romeo x Juliet but only Utena Tenjoh choose to cross-dress.<\/p>\n

Having to fit into a non-integrated school is a common justification for cross-dressing within anime. The trope forces male characters to pose as women in the 1987 Oira Sukeban and 2012 Asa Made Jugyou Chu! OVAs, and the 2001 I My Me! Strawberry Eggs, 2006 Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru & Princess Princess, and 2009 Mariaholic television series. The 1983 Stop!! Hibari-kun! television series also revolved around a boy attending school as a girl, but Stop!! Hibari-kun! is a rare, unique anime in the respect that its co-protagonist Hibari Oozora personally chooses to live as a female. Contrary to conventional circumstances, he isn’t forced into cross-dressing by circumstances. The 2006 Ouran Koukou Host Club television series turned the trope around by starring a female high school student who adopts a male persona & clothing.<\/p>\n

Like Stop!! Hibari-kun, the 2010 Kuragehime television series is unique in the respect that its co-lead character is a boy who enjoys cross-dressing and living as a woman instead of unwillingly being forced to adopt a female persona. Hana, the obvious man in drag in the 2003 feature film Tokyo Godfathers, is likewise a co-leading character who prefers cross-dressing rather than cross-dresses because he has to.<\/p>\n

After ten years, there should now be little need for a “spoiler tag” prefacing the fact that the protagonist of Kino no Tabi is actually a girl who looks and acts like a boy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: I saw Rose of Versailles recently and I really enjoyed it. I was just wondering but are there any other animes which feature a crossdressing main protagonist?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-john"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30919,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30917\/revisions\/30919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}