Two children both alike in identity in fair Japan where we lay our scene. From ancient tradition breaks to new mutiny where an errant confession tears old bonds asunder. Once the closest of friends these two star crossed dreamers... One born male wishing to possess the eternal beauty of a maiden and one born female wishing to possess the guile and power of a lord... Find themselves lost between the carefree days of old and several romances that shall never be. Whether together or apart Shuichi Nitori and Yoshino Takatsuki share one common dream... To abandon the genders they were assigned at birth and be accepted by others in the way that they see themselves even as the everpresent threat of adolescence encroaches upon them. As they embark upon this journey however theyll need to support each other through the trials and tribulations of being transgender youths for the path that awaits them may be far more cruel than they could have expected. I wouldnt go as far as to say Wandering son has a unique look to it but it definitely has an uncommon one. Half the time the visuals in this anime feel really soft from the outlines of the characters to the slight blur of the backgrounds kind of like the sort of artwork youd find in a childrens picture book. Theres also a really pleasant watercolor effect especially in the hair and clothes of the characters and for the most part I think it all looks really beautiful together but where it kind of loses me is the constant white blur around certain shots especially in the daytime when the kids are at school like everything is surrounded by a thick fog and if Im being honest I dont really like that. This kind of aesthetic is usually employed to create a sense of nostalgia in the viewer and for such an emotionally honest series this is the one element that kind of slips into manipulative territory. I find it pretty distracting overall especially with just how jarringly different it is from how the backgrounds look the other half of the time where they can be so richly detailed that they seem almost photorealistic especially with exterior shots at night. Its a shame that the art style is so inconsistent because other than that the animation in this series is drop dead gorgeous. I barely noticed any budget shortcuts throughout the run time and Im usually pretty sensitive to that kind of thing. The character animation feels constantly natural with a ton of extra effort going into the way each individual character moves as whether walking or just sitting and talking each character carries themselves in a unique way. The character designs are soft and slightly cartoony in their faces but everything about the way they move feels natural and realistic. Director Ei Aoki has never really had much of a voice or style of his own in his work but he has always been really talented at picking up the tone of the projects he works on and figuring out the right overall vision to present them through. I was especially impressed with his use of blocking and framing to communicate information about character dynamics to the audience most notably with Nitoris early interactions with Anna. By his own admission he mainly focuses on adapting works that speak to him in some way and it shows. I can kind of relate to that because I usually focus on reviewing anime that speak to me in some way for better or worse and I feel like Wandering son is the kind of anime that has the power to speak to everybody but none more so than the community that are at the center of the story the transgender community. A community that I am very demonstrably not a part of which is why I initially felt a little hesitant to write this review. I dont want to be that outsider who tries to offer their approval or disapproval over material that they are not qualified to comment on. The other day I saw someone on Facebook criticizing Disneys portrayal of queer characters by presenting a list of queer anime couples that they said did it right... Even though half of the couples on the list were either NOT queer like the main protagonists of Dirty Pair Completely one sided like Tomoyo and Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura... Or one sided and deeply problematic like Misaka Mikoto and Kuroko Shirai. I dont want to be like that appropriating an experience that I didnt have and frankly do not understand to make some biased point. I may be asexual meaning I do know what its like to grow up differently than the majority of my peers but there are very specific things about gender dysphoria that I will never be able to wrap my head around. Like one of my biggest influences as a reviewer was the former reviewer Jesuotaku who was a pretty big deal at one point. Well in 2014 he came out as transgender and as part of his video revealing this he mentioned that hed been skinny all his life... Not because of an extra healthy diet or anything but just because he had always had difficulty swallowing and getting food down. This difficulty finally began to disappear the day he said for the first time I am a man. Which goes to show gender dysphoria can manifest in any number of seemingly unrelated ways. Its not just depression or a lack of comfort in ones own skin its so much more complex than that and I dont know if I could ever understand this kind of experience well enough to judge how accurate or respectful an anime based on the topic was able to portray it. Still you dont have to understand someone in order to respect and empathize with them and thats where this story truly wound up resonating with me by having a cast of likable believable and sympathetic characters. I will say though its kind of hard to talk about them because I feel sorely compelled to refer to them as transgendered and call them by their proper pronouns but the show weirdly doesnt seem to like treating them this way. Rather than Nitori saying I am a girl its constantly phrased as I want to be a girl implying that without growing up and receiving reassignment surgery they are male by default. I cant really blame the story for that since it was released way back in 2011 and probably took place way earlier especially in Japan of all places. I genuinely dont know whether or not the people who made this anime had ever heard of the concept of using peoples preferred pronouns as evident by Nitori being referred to exclusively as a male throughout the series so I dont know if this is the right way to approach things but I am going to go ahead and use everyones preferred pronouns for the rest of this review. Wandering son is the story of two transgender preteens attempting to explore their identities while dealing with both internal struggles and external reactions from their families and classmates. Some of the people around them are judgmental and some of them are supportive even if its only to a certain point. I was particularly impressed by the level of nuance to these reactions as nobody ever felt like a strawman and it never felt like anybody was being used as a mouthpiece to make a point. Everyone feels believably human and while I feel like the amount of bigotry these characters face feels unrealistically light I do acknowledge that going too far with this side of things would have made the story feel too meanspirited. Even characters who present the most opposition to Nitori... The bullies at school his aggressive and unaccepting sister... They never feel like some cackling antagonists they just dont have the benefit of spending time in Nitoris headspace and seeing the world the way she does like we do. From the perspective of the audience its hard not to feel sympathetic for these kids who are going through the most confusing time of their lives while struggling to just be themselves. The very idea of just being a transgender person while going through to physical changes of puberty is terrifying enoughIm pretty sure thats what killed one of the Zombieland Saga girls without adding the inevitable teasing and social stigma of a building full of immature voices who are already just looking for something to pick on you for. Weve all had some kind of experiences related to bullying and feeling ashamed of something we wanted desperately to be proud of. Weve all been judged ostracized and treated unfairly. We all know how precious a single moment of solitude can be away from the eyes of the world. We all know how frustrating it is to have that peace shattered by an intruder but we alsohopefully all know how gratifying it can be when you find people who you can share that solitude with without fear of rejection. Even if you will never understand the feeling of gender dysphoria there will surely be something in this story that you can relate to. One thing that spoke to me personally and this is going to be kind of a spoiler is that when Nitori finally decides to go to school in a female uniform and under a long haired wig she faces consequences that Takatsuki and another female student did NOT face when they came in wearing boys uniforms and this reflects an issue that has always bothered me... The fact that its far more acceptable for girls to have masculine interests than it is for boys to have feminine interests. When girls are into sports or video games or comic books theyre considered cool but when boys are into dolls fashion or pretty much anything seen as girly theyre considered weak and called pussies or homophobic slurs. Ive always kind of seen this as the backbone of toxic masculinity... The idea that the more manly something is the more admirable it is. Im not trans I want to be clear about that but I will admit Ive had difficulty accepting the label of man before not because I dont consider myself male or a guy or a dude but because I dont want to be bound to the societal expectations of a real man. You may think that entire paragraph had nothing to do with Wandering son and I do just generally have a tendency to lose myself in unhinged rants in the middle of my reviews but I feel like this also illustrates what works the most about this anime... Even if youre not a part of the transgender community this is a powerful thought provoking anime that will in fact inspire you to question the world around you from your own personal beliefs to the conventions of society. This is the kind of show that digs its claws in your brain and forces you to think long after the fact not just about the themes and subject matter it presented you with but so much more. Again I dont know for certain if this anime does it right presenting an accurate and respectful portrayal of the transgender experience but I feel confident in saying it does so without any hint of artificial or forced emotional manipulation. Wandering Son is not available stateside and the original manga is out of print from Fantasmagraphic books. Wandering Son is a thoughtful series with a slow and gentle pace that goes the extra mile of humanizing its main characters by placing you in their headspaces so that even those furthest removed from the transgendered spectrum can learn to empathize with them having been granted a front row seat to the way they see the world. The ending was unfortunately cut off as is usually the case with LGBT manga adaptations but I still believe the anime ends on a satisfying and optimistic enough note and unlike a certain anime that I could name you can look up the mangas ending without ruining your entire day. The main reason I think this anime works however is that it isnt just an LGBT anime or a transgender anime its a very human anime in general. And at the end of the day we are all human. I give Wandering Son a 9/10