Reviews for Claudine

I heard about this manga on TVTropes, and read that it's known for having a character who is a woman but identifies as a man, and the manga portrays this character in a human, respectful, and sympathetic light. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to read this manga, but when my Modern Japan class got cancelled and I had nothing to do, I decided to go to the library and read this since it's only one volume long...and wow, they were right about this manga having a very respectful portrayal of the transsexual main character and the issues he (I'm going to refer toClaudine as a he since he identifies as a male) goes through...and the weird thing? This manga was written in 1978, the setting is in 20th century France, and the author of this manga is Riyoko Ikeda of Rose of Versailles fame! Why is this manga not more well known?

The story is relatively simple. Claudine de Montesse is the daughter of a French nobleman and the first child to truly resemble his father. He began identifying as a male at the age of 8, claiming that he was born in the wrong body, much to the surprise of his family. His well intentioned but confused mother takes him to a doctor, not knowing quite what to do. The doctor and Claudine become friends, though they hardly ever spend any time together. The only people who truly accept his sexuality are his father and his clingy childhood friend Rosemarie. Unfortunately, even with their support, Claudine's attempts to find love and be accepted as a man wind up ending in tragedy one by one, especially when he discovers certain secrets about his family and his loves that he may not be prepared for.

You may be surprised by the rating I gave this. You may be thinking, "If you really think this manga deserves a 7 out of 10, why are you gushing about it? Don't you like it?" Well, the reason I ranked this manga rather low is because there are quite a lot of things in this that sort of felt really forced or turned me off. The first of them is the melodrama. It places a bit too much emphasis on certain scenes, making them come off as very forced, especially the characters' reactions (though I think that's because of the way they're drawn). But then again, this was drawn in the seventies after all, so melodrama was the standard at the time. The second thing that really irked me were some of the twists that were revealed. I won't go into detail about them and the melodrama, as these twists happen to be VERY FULL OF SPOILERS and have a HUGE affect on the story afterward. What should be a good manga about the transsexual main character is somewhat overshadowed by a strange, convoluted, and unnecessary love dodecahedron that's much too complicated for even me to keep track of, and the actions of some of the characters really made me cringe. I feel that if the manga was a bit longer, it could have developed these things more and made them a lot more subtle. I wonder if the subject matter is why the manga is so short? Maybe Ikeda wasn't able to go beyond one volume?

However, even with the manga's huge and glaringly obvious flaws that keep me from rating it much higher, I still respect it wholly. Why? There's just so many little details about this manga that I really appreciate. For one thing, Claudine's father actually accepts her sexuality even though in the 19th century, transsexuality or homosexuality were considered mental disorders and maligned by everyone back in that time period, and he conveys this with this line: "God made an error in not giving him a male body." If that's not a true sign of love and appreciation, then I don't know what is, even though he has his own issues later on. Normally, the fathers are the ones who are the quickest to hate their children if they decide to be homosexual or transsexual. It's just SO UNGODLY refreshing to find a fictional father figure who still loves his child regardless of what they decide they are! And in a manga taking place in the 20th century, no less!

Another thing I truly appreciate is Claudine himself. From what I'm hearing from other places, transsexuals have been portrayed in manga and anime as flamboyantly gay or just acting gay for the sake of showing off their sexuality, which is rather insensitive. Wandering Son is an exception to this rule, along with Claudine. Claudine is a wonderful and well-rounded character. He's not flamboyant or flirty or any other poorly executed gay stereotype. He's simply a human being who has flaws, makes some mistakes, is easily saddened by tragic events in his life, and who deserves as much respect, love, and acceptance as everyone else does, but most people he meets don't like him because he's "technically" a girl and not a man, which he claims to be. However, I will admit, the final thing about this manga that irked me was the ending. Not because it was rushed or not well done or anything like that. In fact, it's very well done and well worth it. But it's just plain sad. Sad sad sad. I won't spoil it, but let's just say that what Claudine does at the end is sadly reminiscent of what young gay and transsexual kids are doing after years of bullying drive them over the edge today. I wish it had a happy ending, but still, this ending is well done so I'll give it some slack.

Despite all of this manga's problems, this is definitely a guilty pleasure manga that I'll definitely keep reading. If the forced twists and love triangles were removed, it'd be a masterpiece. But I can wholly love it for what it does do absolutely right, and more people should too!

Claudine is the kind of manga that has come to be called "ahead of its time", because it brings up debates that we're not used to seeing dealt with so well, even nowadays, where sensitive topics such as transsexuality and homoaffectivity are so fetishized. He is a man who often claims to be a man (a trans man) and that doesn't stop him from suffering like any human being, suffering from love. As is typical of romanticism, the reader can see the tragic issue here being either unrequited love or love forbidden by families, like Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, among many others... Claudinecan never be happy, there's always something preventing him from reaching his full potential in relationships, but that doesn't make him desperate to accept anyone, and that's a very important detail in the story.

I hope to read more of the author's work.

Interesting as a museum piece and short enough to read on a whim, so that's cool. Ultimately, I just thought the story was a little too thin. There's not a lot of actual conflict because most characters accept Claudine's identity as a man without much trouble. The characters who do challenge him on his gender generally don't persist in this for more than one chapter each. Other than that, the tragic note the story ends on felt more than a little contrived because we didn't have much time with the principle characters of it other than Claudine. The art is really luscious and good, though. It'sa great representative of the Gothic style, which fell out of favor next to the style we'd recognize as "manga" or "anime."

A respectful and fairly early portrayal of a trans man in manga, but one that needs a little more depth. Rather than elaborating on one idea or storyline, Ikeda ping-pongs between a few romances with the fairly loose connecting thread of Claude struggling to make people understand him. The art is solid, but that's unsurprising from a real star of shojo. The backgrounds and the fashion are the real highlight here. While the characters aren't especially interesting to look at (partially because of Ikeda's role in defining the shojo style), her backgrounds are rich in detail and depict a more modern France than VERSAILLES. Theromances aren't especially interesting in themselves, as mentioned previously. They suffer from "serialized syndrome" where they have some out-of-nowhere endings that don't really clearly advance the story just to wrap things up within the page count for the month.

Claudine is an interesting subject for a manga, but it would really work better if it stuck with one idea for more than a chapter.

This manga was recommended to me due to being a somber/serious portrayal of transgender issues. That is a rare thing. I can only count two manga which I would call somber/serious portrayals of transgender issues. The rest are facetious comedies along the lines of ‘Prunus Girl’ or ‘Boku Girl’. So when I hear about such a manga, I did get a bit excited. So overall, how would I rate ‘Claudine’? Well, it is a serious manga and it does involve a transgender man. However, I would not call Claudine a manga about portrayal of transgenderism. That’s because it never really comes up as an issue at all. Claudineaccepted himself as transgendered at a young age with little question and, with the exception of Claudine’s mother, Claudine is universally accepted and loved for who he is. He is frequently described as personable, charming, and intelligent. Even the psychiatrist hired to treat Claudine by his mother is turned to believing that what Claudine says is absolutely true. In short, Claudine never really goes through any acceptance issues or personal identity struggles. He is never ridiculed, confused, or ostracized for who he is.

Now, a manga about a transgendered man does not necessarily have to contain such issues, despite how unlikely it seems (especially when one consider the setting), but it should come up as an issue somewhere, no?

In Claudine’s case, the author makes the transgenderism an issue in Claudine’s love life. Again, though, I have to question how much of an issue it really is.

To begin, Claudine tends to fall in love with women…and he is immensely popular with women. One of them is his childhood friend who loves him to the core and is willing to do just about anything for him. The other ‘serious’ women in his life all loved him to varying degrees.

In fact, I think there was only one instance in which Claudine’s transgenderism was an actual issue, but that had a number of surrounding problems that made it ambiguous. The other love in Claudine’s life varies but was pretty standard love-and-lost type deals. Overall, transgenderism rarely comes up as an issue at all.

In short, Claudine is a fine read, but I can not recommend it if one is looking to read about LGBT issues. If one is looking for a manga about transgenderism, it’s understandable as, as I stated, those are very rare, but unfortunately, Claudine is just not it.

If you read it, read it for a short, fun story involving a unique character. That way, you’ll enjoy the manga a lot more.

Claudine is certainly a fine manga: not great but not bad either--just fine. The art is gorgeous as always but, the story-line is quite quick and slim. In fact, it is so quick that you can instantly blitz Claude’s entire life by 104 pages (l-lol). Now, it is okay to write short stories, but it all depends on the content. Since the story is about a transgender man in mid-19th century France (perhaps, the 1930’s), this story might need to be told longer and more in-depth to make the theme of the search for acceptance more effective to the reader. The need to be long-formbecomes even more apparent with the reveal of the affair between Cecilia and Auguste, Claude’s father. That reveal is certainly melodramatic, but the dramatics would have been excused if we could spend more time with Cecilia and Claude and actually see Cecilia’s affair with Auguste. Without much time being spent on Claude; Cecilia; and Auguste, the reveal comes across as sudden rather than a slow-burn car crash that lets us really feel for Claude lol. And speaking of Cecilia, her and Auguste’s murder by the hands of Louis Laque, her brother, also fell extremely flat for me because again, we just did not have time spent with them. The murder would have been more extremely effective to us, the reader if we could have seen Auguste and his affairs with the Laque siblings.

It sure is a pity to see how bare-bones this manga is, for Claude is a pretty compelling character with an understanding of the tragedy that becomes even sadder by the end. Since childhood, Claude has always been well-liked by the people around him, but, as people around him constantly call him by his dead name and refer to his “imperfect body” in contrast to his identity, he has never been accepted to be a man, even by his lovers. One such prominent example would be his relationship with Cecilia. After getting over his first love with Maura, he becomes friends with Cecilia and bonds over books with her. He has become romantically infatuated with Cecilia to the point of sniffing her neck, suddenly grabbing her from behind, and then randomly kissing her (yeah uh lol), but Cecilia slaps him and rejects him because Claude is “a girl.” Claude immediately runs away from Cecilia in tears while Cecilia’s rejection repeats in his mind. Her reason for rejecting Claude is said so simply and casually yet it is enough to invalidate Claude’s identity and feelings. However, as I’ve said before, we have only met Cecilia for a short while before going to the next and final lover, Sirene. And because Cecilia shows up and leaves quickly in the storyline, her rejection though already damaging to Claude doesn’t seem to be this damaging to the reader because more time needs to be spent with her in order for the reader to feel what Claude truly feels.

And with a tragic character, there is a tragic theme: the endless search for acceptance. As you can see in the manga, Claude is very adamant about his gender identity despite being misgendered and being called by his dead name and seeks a long-lasting romance with women as proof of validation. He and Sirene would have been this case for Claude, for Claude has devoted himself “to loving Sirene” by living with her and giving her a broad education. Unfortunately, though, such dedication hasn’t stopped Sirene from falling for Andrew, Claudine’s brother. Sirene has kept this infatuation a secret from Claude knowing how dedicated Claude has been to her, but Claude suspects that Sirene might go back to seeing him as “a good friend” after falling in love with someone else. Claude’s suspicions over Sirene get confirmed after Claude sees Sirene and Andrew together. As Claude breaks down and calls Andrew “a traitor,” Andrew confidently claims his desire to marry Sirene and forgives Claude on the basis of “being a woman.” The invalidation of Claude’s feelings and identity comes across as very casual and simple again but this time from a family member, especially one that she can still trust after her father’s affair. In a way, it is a repeat of Claude’s experience with Cecilia with a cisgender man from Claude’s family snatching up Claude’s love interest on the basis of being “a real man.” However, the experience with Sirene devastates Claude more because out of all of the lovers, Claude dedicates to Sirene the most and has encounters with her since childhood. As Claude’s romances all end with failure because of his identity alone, not even the words of encouragement from the psychiatrist could help him. He claimed himself to be “an imperfect man” til his suicide. It is a pity that he cannot love him for himself if many others around him couldn’t love him for himself.

The casual invalidation of Claude’s gender identity gets even more serious when you consider the history of transgender activism in Japan. According to Mark J. McLelland in “Japan’s Queer Cultures,” transgenderism was seen as part of entertainment as seen in the “masculine women” in all-female theatre tropes, like the ever-famous Takarazuka. Since transgenderism is treated as something like a costume for cisgender people to put on as a hobby or to put on a show, transgender people do not have their identities taken seriously in Japan. Now, let’s transfer that context into the setting of mid-19th century France in “Claudine.” While Claude is well-liked by everyone, he is still treated as a girl. Therefore, the people around Claude must have seen him as an “eccentrically-dressed lady” or a “girl with a cross-dressing hobby.” So, when the people around him casually invalidate his identity and the feelings that come with the struggles of it, they infantilize him by thinking that he is a “woman with a cross-dressing hobby” but not an actual man. However, such remarks do not work, for Claude takes being a man seriously and kills himself after being invalidated for who he is in his entire life. Claude’s story may be fictional, but it is clearly very real, especially in Japan.

For this reason, “Claudine” is a revolutionary work for simply showing the struggles of a transgender man being invalidated for who he is. However, like I said before, I would prefer the manga to be a long-form series in order for us to spend more time with Claude and the people around him. Doing so could make the execution of Claude’s struggles and the theme of the search for acceptance even more powerful to the reader. After all, it gets off-putting when the story-line just blitzes past through Claude’s life. Claude’s suicide could have been more powerful if we could just spend more time on him just like how Riyoko spend more time on Marie Antoinette to make way for her execution in Rose of Versailles.

Additional reading that can enhance your experience of Claudine like I have lol:

McLelland, Mark J., Japan's Queer Cultures 2011.

https://ro.uow.edu.au/artspapers/265

Go to page 15 to see Mark's blurb on transgenderism in Japan, specifically the first paragraph about the perception of transgenderism as entertainment and to a lesser extent, the second paragraph about cross-dressing magazines.

Claudine – Spoiler Free – Recommended TLDR Story – 7/10 – 7 x 0.275 = 1,925 Art – 5/10 – 5 x 0.2 = 1 Characters – 4/10 – 4 x 0.225 = 0,9 Enjoyment – 6,5/10 – 6,5 x 0.3 = 1,95 Total: 5,775 -> 6 Story – 7/10Claudine is a trans manga classic published in 1978 by Riyoko Ikeda, the mangaka who made The Rose of Versailles. This manga has the privilege of being one of the first representations of an openly trans character in a manga.

Claudine was assigned female at birth but felt like a boy from a very early age, although most characters, and even herself, use female pronouns with her.

Most of the story is narrated through her therapist.

This very short story quickly descends into a string of romances in which the main character – Claudine – happens to live. There isn’t much else to this story other than this: there is no plot other than the romances that she lives through.

The relationship with her father could also have been explored more, and the pacing in the beginning has some problems with it.

However, Claudine has to live constantly with an unknown pain: it is even stated that it was a mistake that God gave her the body of a woman but the heart of a man. She has to live with the pain of falling in love with other women while being a female assigned at birth, and she has to live with a female identity while feeling like a boy. It is known in the trans literature this effect: suffering from something that the person quite doesn’t know yet, but still suffers greatly because of it – i.e., gender dysphoria. This is definitely the story's saving grace, as the rest is uninteresting.

In short, Claudine is a trans manga version of The Sorrows of Young Werther in some aspects, where there was clearly some inspiration taken from it.

Art – 5/10

The art style in Claudine is a bit outdated, making for a rather unconventional visual setting. However, page composition is interesting and definitely out of the box – especially taking into account that it is a manga from the 70s. There are some problems with character design, but it is nevertheless functional in the end, and that is what's important in the end.

Characters – 4/10

There aren’t many characters in Claudine. Other than the main protagonist – Claudine –, the rest of the cast isn’t developed. Moreover, the first romances of Claudine are definitely not explained in terms of character depth. But again, not much is possible in a 100-page long manga.

Enjoyment – 6,5/10

One reads Claudine for being a trans manga classic but not much else. Its story is uninteresting, and there are problems with the pace in the beginning. Nevertheless, it is a quick read with the trans element as its saving grace. For this reason, and because it is a classic that one reads very quickly, contributing to our otaku culture, it deserves a recommendation, although not enthusiastically.