Discussion Manga / StopHibariKun

I'm inclined to feel the same way, especially since that "Word of God" is often in the context of how the series was pitched and there was a clear evolution in how Hibari sees herself over the run of the series. Not to mention introducing one of the most explicit depictions of transgender themes in any manga in literally the last chapter before an abrupt cancellation in a scene that took almost two decades to surface.

The tone of the article right now is as one sided as unilaterally stating Hibari fits perfectly into modern Western transgender conventions would be honestly. My vote is go on ahead with the pronoun change and a couple of things that would need to be cleaned up as a result, and let's preface it with a blurb putting it into its appropriate historical context. Hibari, by how we characterize things now both here and in Japan, says many things that clearly mark a consistent feminine gender identity. But she is a relic of a time where law and censorship standards in Japan were impeding fair representation of a concept the society was actually grappling with behind the scenes.

In essence, the "debatable" aspect all comes from external factors. But we're talking about a character that is in universe as consistently explicit as she is allowed to be using linguistic conventions at the time.

Edited by rougepenguin

its especially annoying given that 1980s japan quite literally had no language to desribe trans people outside of purely medical terms or outright slurs. art is often limited by the medium in which it is created, and language is no exception.

Even the examples where Hibari calls herself a boy fall victim to the lack of any real contemporary language to distinguish between anatomy and gender identity. Which sure, complicates things and deserves some recognition that traditional queer depictions in Asian societies don't always mean trans. But the fact that the article as is gives the impression the only times Hibari says she is a girl is "put on" or "part of the act" is way more loaded. She expressly asks family to just treat her like a girl, the sister she's closest to earnestly obliges, and about the only time she ever truly seems hurt by the things people call her is at "okama." That on top of showcasing legitimate dysphoria multiple times, including about her genitals at least once. Hell, the first chapter also throws in another sister explicitly saying she's not sure Hibari isn't really a girl.

The author's said what he said, but he's also burned out on the entire industry and the last five pages didn't surface until almost 30 years later. The series ended abruptly right as it was showing the family softening towards Hibari across the board and those last five pages introduce an explicitly trans character. It is ignoring cultural differences to assume every traditional otokonoko is trans, likewise it's just as ignorant to refuse to acknowledge trans communities in countries with such an identity tend to grow out of it and that Hibari is very much set in the time of transition between those for Japan.

Are you saying Japanese law somehow forbade depiction of a sympathetic transgender character? That's a bold statement; can you back this up?

Keet cleanup

A discussion split occured a few days ago, with about 50 posts made in ATT: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=98668&type=att

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Based on the interviews linked in ATT, and general Japanese culture, I'm fairly confident that the Japanese Hibari is male-identifying, the English Hibari is male-identifying, and the French Hibari is female-identifying. The fan interpretation that the author was deliberately trying to write gender dysphoria and speak to a culture of people that he wasn't familiar with is Trans Audience Interpretation and doesn't belong on the main article page(s).

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

To recap my position: From the information I've been given, I believe that Hibari is a boy, and I believe that Word of God backs me up on the matter.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

In essence, I concur with crazysamaritan. My reasons for that are in the linked ATT thread.

Based on everything I’ve seen, Hibari is written as a trans character (she shows strong social dysphoria, living as a woman even when it results in physical abus from her father), the author has confirmed she’s a trans character, and all evidence pointed to try to say otherwise is comes from the clunky blurriness between talking about physical sex vs gender in Japanese mixed with the author being unfamiliar with how best to write certain things. I also feel it is incorrect to push a modernized explanation based around tropes of a genre that did not exist at the time (otonoko genre) onto the work.

^^^^

The discussion on ATT never actually turned to "the English Hibari" - was the manga or anime officially translated into English?

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

No. French and Italian are the only official western translations.

So we have no "English Hibari" outside of scanlations, and obviously we can't rely on those.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Ah, my mistake on that (not a fan, just comments based on what's being said).

---

That's the issue here. Anything outside of crossdressing gay and transgender being conflated is a modernized explanation. The author admits that it would be a different story if begun today, but we can only trope what does exist. With the assumption that the author only knows Japanese and that the interview was translated into French, they are taking a midern interpretation that Hibari represents a trans character, so anything about the French translation should write Hibari as female, but that doesn't necessarily apply to the Japanese version.

Edited by crazysamaritan Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Can we agree to the compromise of gender neutral pronouns then (they/them), if we’re considering separating ‘crossdressing gay’ and ‘transgender’ and choosing ‘transgender’ + ‘she/her’ pronouns to be applying the modern lens? Choosing ‘crossdressing male’ + ‘he/him’ pronouns is also separating the two and choosing one modern interpretation over the other when the two were not distinct at the time of writing.

^ I have since read the almost the entire manga and I agree with either gender neutral pronouns or she/her. the character reads as unambiguously trans to me, but that isn't exactly how its framed in the story- still, i think they/them is a good neutral choice, and avoiding using pronouns when possible.

I do think that some of the language you chose, Beedok, was pushing the modern perspective a little hard ("Hibari's flat chest becomes a plot point in one story, when some mean girls at school start suspecting the truth about her assigned sex at birth after hearing her discuss her dysphorias"). A reader who isnt familiar with the story should be able to read this page and get an accurate picture of the story as it was written.

"Hibari's flat chest becomes a plot point in one story, when some mean girls at school start suspecting the truth about Hibari's biological sex after hearing her(them?) wishing she had breasts" Something like that would be more accurately supported by the story as written

I think this page should not include any examples which state "Hibari is trans" as an objective fact, (even tho it clearly reads that way to me). They can say "Many modern readers interpret Hibari as a trans girl" or "Hibari is often considered an example of early transgender character" but not "Hibari is trans and identifies as female."

Last thing:

• "Recently, though, Word of God has confirmed (when handled by a trusted translator who’s worked closely with the author) that Hibari is Transgender. Precise identity beyond that (binary or non binary) can be up for some debate, though."

Again, sounds very pushy of a modern western view on gender and also oddly defensive. It should point out that Word of God regarding Hibari's ender identity has differed throughout the years, and via different translators. It can link to the french interview if you want

Edited by Tremmor19

I would respectfully disagree with that. In English, the use of "they" as a singular pronoun is something very exceptional, and the only persons who use it are those who are somewhere on the transgenderism spectrum. So this is effectively calling him a transgender person anyway, just without using the word.

AFAIK it also has no real equivalent in Japanese. It certainly isn't the way Hibari is referred to in-story.

The author clearly did not intend for Hibari to be a transgender person in the modern, "Western" sense. As Beedok argued in the other thread, he probably did not know enough about transgenderism to write a transgender character even had he wanted to. And as far as I know, Hibari does not display any obvious exclusively transgender characteristics. See again, the ATT thread for further discussion.

What is it that would make Hibari very different from any other Japanese Wholesome Crossdresser who presents as a girl in everyday life, yet has no desire or intention to change sexes and is happy with just crossdressing?

^ Singular "they" for someone of ambiguous gender is acceptable (and certainly better than "it"), but Hibari's gender isn't exactly ambiguous. He's a boy.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

That was my point, although I may perhaps have expressed it poorly. What I meant to say was, by using that pronoun for a known individual person (or character), one indicates by default that this entity's gender is indeed nonbinary or otherwise extraordinary. Which I agree is not the case here.

This is different, of course, from the usage in manuals and such, where it is sometimes used nowadays in place of "he or she" for a generic "the customer," "the player" or whatever.

In any case, thank you for helping me clarify.

Basically, I am issuing my support for she/they > he/they > he/him. But whichever one end up being chosen, I support the page mentioning both points of view- i see hibari as clearly a trans female, but that's not the only interpretation which could reasonably come from a good-faith reading of the source material

I agree that the "Hibari-as-a-transgender-person" interpretation should still be mentioned, since there are people who do read it that way.

Perhaps that would be something for a Trans Audience Interpretation example, as crazysamaritan suggested earlier? I wasn't aware of that trope before it came up in the previous discussion, but it would seem to fit very well here.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot

Perhaps Hibari would fit Ambiguous Gender Identity better? Trans Audience Interpretation is a subtrope of Alternate Character Interpretation where a character who isn't presented as anything but cis (Danny Phantom, Lars from Steven Universe) is commonly interpreted as trans by fans.

Keet cleanup

Hibari is presented as cis, albeit a cis crossdresser.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

The main difference in this case is that the "hibari is trans" side isnt a fan theory which relies on information not present in the text like with the "danny phantom is AFAB" theory- it's a different reading of the same original material.

The character dresses in female clothing and deliberatly passes for female in public, and refers to herself as "sister" and "daughter" (albiet in a jokey way). Reading her as trans isn't an unsupported WMG, it's a different interpretation of an Ambiguous Gender Identity character.

A reasonable reader without outside information could easily read the story as written and come to the conclusion that Hibari is meant to be understood to identify as female. It doesn't require a huge stretch of logic or adding in information that's not mentioned in the original

Edited by Tremmor19

^Yeah, that's what I meant.

Keet cleanup

Fumiko refers to both herself and Hibari as being ‘New Half’ ‘s in the anime, a term which Hibari makes no objection to. The term is, effectively, synonymous to ‘transgender’ (if rather dated).

Edited by Beedok

^ From a quick Wiktionary check, ニューハーフ could mean either crossdresser or transgender, probably because the concepts were conflated so often at the time.

So that doesn't help.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I could only find Wiktionary saying that. Every other source I could find says it’s an early term for trans folks.

^ I feel like this could go back and forth for a while lol

Beedok (and bwburke94), whether it is decided on she, they or he, would you be ok with acknowledging both POV on the page? I could be ok with he/him pronouns, even if not my preference, as long as the page doesnt objectively take a stance on "hibari is a cis male crossdresser" or "hibari is a trans girl" and remove any mentions of other interpretations

Edited by Tremmor19

I'd certainly be okay with an entry for Trans Audience Interpretation, or maybe even Ambiguous Gender Identity, that lays out both views. It could perhaps go something like,

"According to Word of God, Hibari was intended to be a crossdressing gay boy (okama in Japanese), and he thinks of himself as a boy In-Universe. On the other hand, he really loves crossdressing, and some modern fans think his behavior is closer to what would now be called transgenderism in "Western" contexts. The 2018 French translation also interprets him as a transgender person."

(Just a quick example text. Obviously it doesn't have to read exactly like that.)

As for nyuuhaafu, it's hard to translate without losing nuances. Basically, it can refer to any sort of biologically male person who dresses and acts female, from crossdressers to transsexuals with surgery. However, it also has strong connotations of glitzy show business (and on the darker end, shady entertainment industries) that often make it a sort of negative word. I'm a little surprised someone as classy as Fumiko would use it as a self-designation.

Still, it doesn't really change anything either way as far as Hibari is concerned.

^that works for me. I would also like the page to allow trans-specific tropes, (such as Trans Relationship Troubles), and female specific tropes (such as Action Girl for Hibari) when they apply contextually

If we use he/him, a note like this at the top of the page:

%% In keeping with the official English translations, this page uses he/him pronouns to refer to Hibari

Edited by Tremmor19

I thought that we didn't have an official English translation?

Oh, and I still think the main work article should have She's a Man in Japan to explain that the official French translation treats Hibari as female. Any transgender tropes would appear to fit that language's translation.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Better potential wording:

%% This page treats Hibari as a male crossdresser, and uses he/him pronouns.

%% Please do not change Hibari's pronouns and/or gender identity without consensus.

Edited by bwburke94 I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I accept that the argument Hibari is trans has some holes. She never outright states it. I’m fine with saying that both interpretations exist. But I remain very unconvinced the argument she’s cis and male makes more with her behaviour in canon, and therefore prefer the use of she/her pronouns in the page proper.

The ‘oh I have to wear these bra inserts’ statement: a) was meant to convince Kousaku who wasn’t liking the idea, and b) came after she’d ‘borrowed’ Tsubame’s bras multiple times to cut a more feminine figure. Any statements of ‘being a boy’ are at best ambiguous about whether they’re gender or physical sex related, and the way Hibari says it with regret for how it’s messing up her life a few times pushes to the latter. Liking motorcycles is completely gender neutral. Doing martial arts, especially in Japan, is gender neutral as well. Plenty of highly feminine characters (Ran and Kazuha in Detective Conan, Madoka in Kimagure Orange Road, Kyoko in Plawres Sanshiro, etc) do martial arts. (And aligns with Hibari’s rough and tumble yakuza upbringing.) Hibari’s use of ‘boku’ is nothing too bizarre for anime, and was something feminists in Japan had tried to get to catch on for a period around the time of Hibari’s release. (And also connects to Hibari’s rough around the edges yakuza household.) Hibari not expressing interest in medical procedures that were at the time both controversial and illegal is a) not surprising from an out of universe context of the author/publisher not wanting to deal with the controversy, b) not actually proven since we rarely see Hibari’s internal monologue and introspection, and c) not in any way odd for real life trans women.

A character who lives as female (putting in significant effort to do so at many times), receives physical and emotional abuse for doing so, risks ostracization from the community if caught, and reacts violently to those who attempt to make the character act masculine is very hard to read as a cis male by anyone who’s aware that trans people exist. The trope page should work off what best fits canon.

^^ that's not really the same thing tho. the page shouldn't "treat hibari as a male crossdresser". Tvtropes shouldn't take an official stance on the characters gender identity at all, other than to describe factually the events in the story, and acknowledge that there are different interpretations of what they mean. the page only has to pick one set of pronouns over the other because switching back and forth would be confusing

((anyway, I've said my bit. prefer she/her but he/him is understandable, would like the page to include Ambiguous Gender Identity and Trans Relationship Troubles. okay))

Edited by Tremmor19

Well, most of this was already discussed in the old thread, and we probably shouldn't repeat everything again here. But if we attempt to summarize things:

• Hibari thinks of himself as a boy In-Universe: "I am a boy, but even so, I don't want a kiss that's fake;" "It should be all right, since we're both boys" and the like. (Sorya boku otokonoko demo furidakeno kisunante iya and Iijan otokodoushi nandakara respectively.)
• In contrast, he never says he "feels like a girl" or "wishes he were a girl" or any such thing. Far less are any medical procedures ever suggested. From a Death of the Author perspective, Beedok is of course right that we may imagine him as thinking of such things offscreen if we want to. But there are no hints of that in the canon.
• Hibari also displays no private discomfort with his male body, but appears perfectly happy being who he is. Far from being conflicted or ashamed of himself, he enjoys teasing and confusing Kosaku with mixed signals.
• Death of the Author or not, in this case the author expressly intended to write Hibari as a boy (more specifically, an okama). And moreover, as Beedok pointed out in the old thread, he probably didn't know enough about transgenderism at the time to write a transgender character even had he wanted to.

Against these points, there are various subjective interpretations that Hibari's behavior is characteristic of transgenderism, in that he really likes dressing and posing as a girl. But at least as far as I can tell, none of his behavior goes obviously beyond what would be expected of a Wholesome Crossdresser in a Japanese anime context. It's very common for this kind of character to crossdress in everyday life like Hibari does, yet identify as male.

Looking back, this debate is probably also due to cultural issues at least in part, since there's no exact "Western" equivalent of "effeminate" but male identities and character types such as the okama or the Japanese style Wholesome Crossdresser. So some "Western" readers might want to label them as something else that's more familiar to them. But since Stop!! Hibari-kun! is a Japanese work...

I don't think anyone here objects to people headcanoning Hibari as a transgender person if they want to. And since there are some who do, it should be mentioned on the page, as previously discussed. But it seems wrong to force that subjective interpretation on the work's entire main page when the In-Universe evidence is unfavorable to it and the author's intent was demonstrably something different.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot

Trans Audience Interpretation is exactly that; an interpretation by the audience. This is a bit unusual because a translation actually went down that path, but it isn't what the author intended and we can use She's a Man in Japan to further explain the situation.

^^ Given the objections to my previous attempt at a comment, what should we do instead?

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

this entire discussion has been very interesting and I've learned several new things from it

Could the French interview mean Hisashi Eguchi currently thinks of Hibari as a trans girl, even if he didn't necessarily in the 80s?

Edited by rjd1922 Keet cleanup

It's possible he changed his mind. But since the Japanese interview where he was still calling Hibari a crossdressing boy was from 2017, then he must have done it much more recently than the 1980s if so.

Personally I think it's more probable that the French editors and translators smoothed things out to make the series sound more appealing to their "Western" target audience. (Which of course is part of their job when commercially adapting a foreign work, so I'm not necessarily blaming them if so.) The word they translate as transgenre there might even be okama or nyuuhaafu for all we know. Without a Japanese version to check the French against, we can only speculate.

All things told, it seems better to go with what Eguchi has repeatedly said in his own words. Especially if that has been his consistent position over many years.

[Edit: I looked through the page more and never mind my point, actually.]

I agree with going with the author's latest interview, though. There have been a lot of cases where authors put off expressing their intent until much later, or changed their minds.

Edited by perona

Unless we know what Eguchi said in Japanese, the French interview is basically useless. All it tells us is that it was a word translated as transgenre, not which of those words was used.

(In addition, I'm wondering whether the already-existent French translation of the manga affected the French translation of the interview. The translator of the interview may have deliberately translated Eguchi's words to match how the manga had already been translated.)

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Any last thoughts?

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

If everyone's said his piece, perhaps we should move on.

I motion that first of all, the page (and also YMMV) should be reverted to the version before Beedok's rewrites. Then we add the point about the alternative interpretation, as Tremmor 19 suggested, and a She's a Man in Japan entry as proposed by crazysamaritan, along with a commented-out note at the top to explain things.

The note could go something like:

In this story, the author's stated intent was to portray the character Hibari as a male crossdresser. Some fans prefer to interpret him as a male-to-female transgender person instead, and we're totally cool with that. However, when writing on this page we use male pronouns for Hibari. Please don't change them.

Given that one translation did treat Hibari as transgender, perhaps:

The author's stated intent was to portray the character Hibari as a male crossdresser. Some fans prefer to interpret Hibari as a trans woman instead, and this interpretation was used in some European translations. However, when writing on this page we use male pronouns for Hibari. Please don't change them.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

That's fine with me.

I've stated before that I don't want to do the revert myself; given the scope of Beedok's edits, it might be better to have a mod do it and manually add in the later changes to the page.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I feel like this conversation has gone way off topic, into the question of if Hibari is trans or not. The question however was "which pronouns should Hibari be referred", and while the two might often be connected, that isn't always the case. I think the only way to answer this question is to see which gendered language the characters themselves choose to be referred by in the story. So answering that and it becomes super clear to me, Hibari chooses to go out in the world and be seen and referred to as a girl by the majority of people, and as far as I'm aware has never told anyone in the story to use male gendered language. So, I think it only makes sense to use she/her, regardless of what Hibari's gender identity may or may not be, as that is certainly the language we would be using if Hibari were real, considering we aren't part of the family. Now, I admit I made this account yesterday and thus don't expect this to change anything, but I just wanted to get my two sense in.

^ Hibari thinks of himself as a boy disguised as a girl. The fact that we wouldn't be clued into that "if Hibari were real" is a common problem when dealing with fictional crossdressers.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

The question is not if we would be clued into it or not, it's "what would Hibari have us use". The answer to me would obviously be the same gendered language Hibari has everyone use, and unlike other "crossdressing" stories Hibari has no elaborate reason to be publicly seen and referred to as a girl other than she wants to, and to me, how Hibari chooses to be seen in the canon is all that should matter. Contrary to what Idumean Patriot says, that isn't very common at all, I think it might also be the case with No Bra , and well, people have had the exact same disagreements with that character as this one.

IdumeanPatriot provided a few quotes above in which Hibari self-identifies as a boy. Assuming that these are an accurate English translation of the Japanese text, and knowing that Eguchi's intent was to write Hibari as male, it seems obvious to me that Hibari is a crossdresser.

Returning more directly to the pronouns/trans issue, Hibari's pronouns are female if and only if Hibari is a trans girl. Gender and (English) pronouns should match for any fictional character of clear binary gender — and Hibari is of binary gender, albeit we can't agree on which one!

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Eh,like I said, I didn't expect it to change anything, I mean there is no real good faith way to not only argue in favor of he/him, but to also relegate the vast number of hints and even an actual confirmation of Hibari not being cis to an unnuanced YMMV blurb. You can pretend to be as impartial as you want but y'all's biases are clear as day.

The thing is, the story itself treats Hibari's passing as a girl as a disguise that he assumes in public. In his own thoughts, and in dialogue in quiet, serious moments, he explicitly refers to himself as a boy.

Thus, it would seem that male pronouns are a better fit to describe Hibari's identity and self-perception. Which is also confirmed by Word of God in multiple instances. See the lengthy preceding discussion in this thread and the previous one for more details.

None of this is to be a jerk to anyone. It's simply a matter of canon and the author's stated intent versus subjective fan interpretations.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot

It isn't a matter of canon, you are actively ignoring huge parts of the canon and even using your own subjective interpretations. Hibari never stated she dislikes her breast pads and it never says she stops wearing them, that was your interpretation, in fact she complaines about her lack of breasts at least one other time in the beach episode, and this time is completely unprompted from outside forces. The idea that Hibari is always joking when she refers to herself as a girl is also your subjective interpretation, she refers to herself as a girl in someway more times then she does a boy (and you've already had it explained linguistically why her doing that doesn't necessarily mean she identifies as a boy, I've met real life japanese trans women who've done that) and several of those times she refers to herself as a sister/daughter she absolutely does not seem to be joking, like during her fight with Tsubame. Also in the episode with the teacher visit she does refer to herself as a highschool girl in her head. So yeah, you can accuse us of applying our own subjective interpretation as much as you want, but ultimately you are doing the exact same thing as well.

My interpretation is that generally speaking, Hibari is joking or being perverse when he calls himself a daughter or sister. This is often very obviously so when he is trolling his father and/or Tsubame, similar to when he proposed to be his father's lover(!). By contrast, he seems very earnest when he tells Kosaku that he doesn't want a kiss that's fake even though he is a boy.

Hibari initially says that he "has to" wear the breast pads specifically because of those mean girls. They are then not seen or referenced again after featuring prominently in that one plot of the week, once the issue has been resolved. By a Doylist analysis, the writing surely isn't trying to make us think they are still there. But of course, it's not expressly stated either way. Nor did I claim otherwise.

As for the beach episode, I don't see Hibari saying he wants female breasts there. What happens is that he is annoyed because Tsubame's bikini top that he borrowed/stole to wear was too big for him and fell off. It's that specific embarrassment that he's unhappy with, not his body.

And as for the case in episode 20 (the teacher visit), the context there is Hibari being amused with the pervy school doctor (who thinks he is a girl) asking "her" out for a date, and having fun with the image in his head: Joshikouseito koui ("A high school girl together with a school physician"). He seems to be enjoying the idea of what an odd couple they would appear, in line with his usual quirky humor. Not making a serious statement about his own identity.

In the end, as I said before, there are aspects of Hibari's character that sometimes resemble "Western" perceptions of transgenderism, but none that go obviously beyond what might be expected of a crossdresser in a Japanese anime context. There are also other aspects which indicate more specifically that he nonetheless considers himself male, as enumerated before. And per Wordof God, that was what Hisashi Eguchi intended to write him as.

Thus, that is how it makes sense to refer to him in a neutral way in a wiki article. Fan interpretations that differ should be acknowledged, but not allowed to dominate the main page at the expense of canon and creator's intent.

I have no problem referring to Hibari in a neutral way, but that's not what you are proposing, and that's not what your original edits were either. You want to sequester an equally valid (I'd say more valid tbh) interpretation of the character away in a little blurb and make it look like it's just some desperate fans head canon. In fact Beedok already proposed neutral language and you turned it down. You keep brushing off other peoples views as subjective interpretation, yet refuse to accept your own interpretations as subjective and instead act like they are somehow "neutral".

Edit: Also, writing off every bit off evidence against you as "just a joke" is a huge copout.

Edited by Pine182

To be blunt: If both the character himself and the author call him a boy (despite being a crossdresser), isn't that the canon? Some of the other evidence might be read in isolation and used to argue for something else, but not necessarily. It is ambiguous and inconclusive at best. Fans are free to draw on it for their own interpretations, but such interpretations have no official standing.

From the Doylist point of view, it is also exceedingly unlikely that a Japanese author in the 1980s would have been writing a transgender character in the modern, "Western" sense. He most likely couldn't have even had he wanted to, as Beedok pointed out earlier. And in this particular case, we have it in his own words that he didn't. Arguing that he doesn't understand his own work is not only disrespectful to the author himself, but inorganically forcing 2020s "Western" sensibilities on a 1980s Japanese manga.

Using "they" pronouns for a known, named individual is not neutral language, as was pointed out before. The most neutral approach would seem to be to go with what the internal evidence appears to show and Word of God confirms.

No, they/them pronouns ARE the neutral option, they are an open acknowledgment of the ambiguity of the situation and the author's own conflicting statements, of course if you hate they/them pronouns so much it's also possible to just not use pronouns if it's written carefully enough. You have repeatedly been given numerous points of evidence against you and have dismissed all of it offhand with little more reason than you personally don't like it and you keep going on about how Hibari has said she's a boy in a couple occasions yet adamantly refuse to entertain the thought that Hibari may have meant it any of the (more) times she referred to herself as a girl. You dismiss the fact that Hibari's own canonical choice is to live and be referred to as a girl, saying it's a "disguise" even though it isn't, Hibari is literally just attending school with no changes to her appearance or name or anything really, and has no stated goals for doing so, the *only* difference is that people see her as a cis girl, which isn't really what I'd call a disguise. Is a real life trans person going stealth a disguise? I don't think it is. You expect everyone to just bow down to *your* interpretation, just because you said so, constantly using Word of God, while ignoring a Word of God yourself. Anyway, I'll try to keep this my last large reply, I might need a small one for something idk.

Ps. There is at least one more French interview that may be relevant but I can't read french so I'm not entirely sure, it may actually be part of the other, I'm not sure. But using machine translation, there does seem to be a part were Eguchi refers to Hibari as having the body of a boy but feels like a girl, a statement which if true is a lot harder to claim is lost in translation.

https://www.manga-news.com/index.php/auteur/interview/EGUCHI-Hisashi

They/them are often used as "neutral" pronouns; no one's disputing that. The problem is that you're trying to push those 2020s Western sensibilities.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you also have a modern western perspective? Which I find particularly ironic as I WANT the ambiguity bought on by the language used in Japan at the time to be properly acknowledged and featured in the page, and you don't.

^ All reliable translations so far have stated that Eguchi wrote Hibari as a boy. There's a possibility that the one you linked above is different, but anything translated recursively through French may be unreliable because the French translation of the manga deviated on that aspect.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Sigh. Y'know what? You two can continue to be as stubborn as you want. I think both of your responses here have made it VERY clear how biased y'all are, everyone else is willing to compromise and acknowledge the complexity of the situation, but for y'all, you want to treat everyone else like we don't know what we're talking about. I just hope anyone else reading this, if anyone even is, can see now that y'all aren't the unbiased observers you pretend to be, a truly unbiased person doesn't stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the validity of other perspectives like y'all have. Any person honestly engaging with the material should easily be able to see that this isn't just some headcanon.

I think I've made it clear but I write out how I feel it should be handled here. While I would prefer she/her pronouns as the character canonically chooses to be seen as a girl, I feel that they/them pronouns and not taking a stance on Hibari's gender is an excellent compromise and would be understandable given the ambiguity of the situation, while he/him would be a gross misrepresentation of the character and her own canonical choices of how to be referred. In addition to that, the ambiguity of the situation should be fully mentioned regardless of which pronouns are used, and not just in little blurbs either, it's clear to me that for this series painting any other perspectives as just some fans head canon would be not only be extremely dishonest but actively harmful to this pages ability to correctly convey information. No matter what is done it should NOT be reverted back to Idumean Patriot's edits, as they were very biased.

Edited by Pine182

Using "they" pronouns to describe a known, individual person is simply unnatural English, no matter how one cuts it. It's one thing when a work itself does this, but that's not the case here. Hibari is referred to with normal pronouns in the Japanese: Kare (he) by people who know his secret, kanojo (she) by others who don't.

While I won't presume to speak for others, as for myself, my foremost consideration has been to be faithful to the work itself and its cultural context. Hibari sometimes refers to himself as his father's daughter, and sometimes as a boy. But at least generally speaking, he does so in rather different contexts. Hibari has a weird sense of humor and often says outrageous things as a joke, and/or to tease his father, such as suggesting he be his lover. The "daughter" references are always or almost always in these nonserious contexts—I don't claim to have memorized the entire series by heart, but certainly the vast majority of such mentions at least.

By contrast, his thoughts or statements about being a boy are always or almost always (same caveat as before) either casual and seemingly non-joking, or occur in very serious and sober contexts (e.g., about the fake kiss). So I feel it is reasonable to conclude that they reveal more of his actual self-perception.

To which I add multiple statements across many years by the author in his own words in Japanese, describing Hibari as a boy. To me, that is more or less conclusive proof that this is not just my own subjective interpretation. Of course, there's the possibility that he may have changed his mind since last year or so. But certainly, thus far at least I've had no good reason to doubt what he has been saying, consistently, up until at least 2017.

It's clear you don't agree. Perhaps you subscribe to the Death of the Author school of literary analysis. You're obviously entitled to your opinion either way. But I'd like to ask, as the bare minimum of courtesy, that you stop constantly accusing me (or bwburke94, or anyone else who has weighed in on the topic before) of arguing in bad faith. All other things aside, that makes participating in the thread far more unpleasant than there's any reason it should have to be.

Edited by IdumeanPatriot

If you are truly invested in respecting the cultural context then the ONLY possible option is to treat Hibari ambiguously, because as has been stated before, the culture at the time conflated trans and gay people.

I've already stated how I think it should be handled considering this fact.

Edited by Pine182

^ We've all stated how we think it should be handled. And we're all stuck in a situation where we can't compromise.

I'll rephrase what I said earlier: with limited exceptions, we trope what the work is, not what the work is interpreted as. And in the Japanese-language manga, it's rather unambiguous that Hibari thinks of himself as a boy.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Except she doesn't unambiguously think of herself as a boy, the amount of people who read the work and then come to the understandable conclusion that she is trans proves this. Although if I'm being honest, I'm only calling it ambiguous for the sake of compromise, from my perspective, from the numerous times I've read and watched it, Hibari is unambiguously trans, I do not see Hibari's own canonical preference as just some interpretation. That doesn't matter though, because ultimately we are not in a situation were we can't compromise, a very reasonable compromise was already offered by me and those before me, the article can easily be written in such a way so as to acknowledge the ambiguity without outright dismissing either view. This is a perfectly reasonable compromise and I see no reason not to go with it. If y'all have a better compromise in mind though, I'm open to hear it.

Japanese culture in the 1980s certainly had concepts about gender, even if they were not the same as current "Western" ones. The default in Japanese culture in the 1980s would be to refer to an okama as he. When the author also calls him male, at least in his Japanese interviews, I don't think that should be too problematic.

"They" pronouns certainly don't reflect how Hibari is treated In-Universe. There he is called either "he" or "she" depending on who is talking and what they know. No one speaks of him as "they" (I don't think this idiosyncratic use of third person plural even exists in Japanese?) or uses circumlocutions like "that person with an ambiguous gender" or any such thing. If the entire page were to be written in that style, that would indeed give a very distorted impression of the series.

I have likewise stated my views and the reasons for them. With all respect to those who feel otherwise.

---

Anyway, we've been repeating a lot of arguments that were already treated earlier in the thread (and/or the previous one) so going by what's been said, we probably aren't all going to be able to agree in the end. And with this thread being this long and almost a month old, maybe it's time we asked for a moderator ruling or something.

Crazysamaritan, if you're still reading this, any suggestions on how we should proceed from here?

Edited by IdumeanPatriot

A note on the page could easily clarify why they are being used, that should avoid any distorted impressions of the series.

I do agree though that this conversation is going nowhere.

^ Is that "they, the pronouns, are" or "they, the pronoun, is"?

And speaking of pronouns, when did the androgynous use of boku become a thing?

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

We've already come to the conclusion that these back and forth arguments could go on forever. Instead of perpetuating them, we should come to a solution.

The reason we haven't come to a solution is obvious: our solutions are mutually exclusive!

Ignoring the pronouns issue for a moment, the sticking point is which of the "transgender tropes" would apply if Hibari was interpreted as male, and which of the "crossdressing tropes" would apply if Hibari was interpreted as female. (Both interpretations should be on the page, this is just about how the examples are written.)

• Attractive Bent-Gender has a few trans examples on the trope page, so it's okay either way.
• Bokukko is clearly female-exclusive, as boku being used to hide gender is more Ambiguous Gender than anything.
• Dude Magnet (a flipped Chick Magnet) applies either way, as gay examples can exist.
• Although not on the page, Even the Guys Want Him would be valid to a male Hibari. It's gender-exclusive for obvious reasons.
• Mr. Fanservice / Ms. Fanservice are gender-exclusive but both should be listed. (A male Hibari would fall under the "pretty boy" type.)
• Otokonoko Genre applies either way, as the genre is flexible enough to count either crossdressing men or trans women.
• Trans Equals Gay is valid regardless of which one Hibari is, by its very nature.
• Transgender / Trans Relationship Troubles can only apply to a female Hibari, but the former has non-Hibari examples as well.
• Tomboy can only apply to a female Hibari. Its gender-inversion, In Touch with His Feminine Side, would apply to a male Hibari but isn't on the page.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal applies either way; the trope page is clear enough that it can be about genitals rather than gender.
• Wholesome Crossdresser applies only to a male Hibari. Or at least the "crossdresser" part does.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I'm totally on board with focusing on specific tropes right now, actually if they are handled correctly it may not really even matter, as much, which pronouns are used.

I actually think Bokukko works either way, because that's how Hibari is presenting in public either way.

Lol, yeah, Trans Equals Gay is one of the main reasons we are even having this discussion so you'll get no complaints there.

Actually, the only one on here I may contest is Even the Guys Want Him, as most suitors see Hibari as a girl. So would that even apply to male Hibari either? I'll admit I'm not super familiar with how the trope is usually utilized.

Bump. I'm intending to revert if I don't get any objections.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

You've gotten a ton of objections, that you have elected to ignore. I'm done arguing with you though, you were always gonna do whatever you wanted anyway.

I didn't ignore the objections, I disregarded them. If that makes sense.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

as someone who just read the manga (and having read some critical and observational text about it) , i dont feel qualified to do a deep dive rewrite of tgis article but i would certainly be happy to see it/proofread it! do you have any good resources about it's fasion influence?

Unfortunately, a lot of it is in Japanese. This book though was a scholarly effort on manga history that included an essay specifically on Eiguchi's influence on fashion. https://www.nttpub.co.jp/search/books/detail/100001830. One of the easiest straight line takeaways is a direct quote from the lead singer of Judy & Mary, one of the biggest Japanese bands of the 90s and fashion icons themselves, directly citing Hibari as one of her early style guides.

I'll get something together for it.

An "explicit legal ban" on what? Sex reassignment surgery?

Keet cleanup

SRS was actually illegal in Japan at the time Stop!! Hibari-kun! was written, yes.

Which probably led to behind the scenes prevention of Hibari being allowed to express interest in that. To keep a character of encouraging illegal activity.

Edited by Beedok