#IReadsYou Review: BOYS RUN THE RIOT: Volume 1

BOYS RUN THE RIOT, VOL. 1
KODANSHA COMICS

MANGAKA: Keito Gaku
TRANSLATION: Leo McDonagh
LETTERS: Ashley Caswell
EDITORS: Tiff Joshua and TJ Ferentini
COVER: Keito Gaku
ISBN: 978-1-64651-248-5; paperback (May 2021); Rated “OT 16+”
244pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $16.99 CAN

Boys Run the Riot is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keito Gaku.  It began serialization in Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine in January 2020, and then moved to Kodansha's “Comic Days” manga app in September 2020.  Kodansha Comics began publishing an English-language edition of the manga as a four-volume trade paperback original series in May 2021.  Each volume of Boys Run the Riot will also be available digitally upon release across all our participating digital vendors including Bookwalker, comiXology, Google Play, Kindle, Nook and izneo.

Boys Run The Riot, Vol. 1 (Chapters 1 to 7) introduces Ryo Watari, a second year high school student.  Ryo knows that he is transgender, but he does not have anyone in which to confide about the confusion he feels.  He can’t tell his best friend, Chika, who only sees Ryo as a girl who likes to dress as a boy.  He can't tell his mother, who is constantly asking Ryo why he “dresses like a boy.”  He certainly can’t tell Jin Sato, the new transfer student who looks like just another bully and a delinquent.

Ryo is into “street fashion,” and the only time he feels at ease is when he is wearing his favorite clothes.  It is then and only then that the world melts away, and Ryo can be his true self.  However, one day, while out shopping at a “pop-up” store, Ryo sees someone he didn’t expect, Jin.  The new student who looked so tough in class has the same taste in fashion as Ryo!  Ryo has someone with whom he can be open, but it is never that easy – especially when uniting with another outcast can make you even more of an outcast.

THE LOWDOWN:  Earlier this summer, I came upon either a review or an advertisement that alerted me to the existence of Boys Run the Riot.  I liked the title, and also, I have been curious about manga featuring transgender characters since I first read Shimura Takako's trans manga, Wandering Son Volume 1 (Fantagraphics Books), back in 2011.

Boys Run The Riot Volume 1 does an amazing thing.  From the moment I started reading, I only thought of Ryo as a boy.  Creator Keito Gaku only ever presents Ryo as a high school boy, and midway through the first chapter (entitled “Encounter”), Ryo declares to Jin, “I'm a guy on the inside!”  At that point, the narrative makes conveys the fact that Ryo is a guy through and through – at least to me.

I like Guka's art with its expressive faces and large, emotive eyes on the characters.  Ryo and Jin's street fashions fit them so naturally and with a sense of ease.  Guka's graphical storytelling feels at ease, but it is also capable of sudden changes and explosive displays of emotion.  Ryo and Jin's friendship is an evolving relationship, and there are plenty of bumps along the way, especially because Jin likes to tease and provoke.

Leo McDonagh's English-language translation perfectly fits the art and storytelling, while Ashley Caswell's lettering captures the many moods of the chapters contained in this first volume.  I thought that I would like Boys Run The Riot, and this first volume makes me want to read more.  The final chapter of Vol. 1 (Chapter 7: “Riot”) sets up some interesting things to come.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of transgender manga, of high school-set manga, and of comics about fashion will want Boys Run The Riot.

A
9 out of 10

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"


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Leroy Douresseaux on WANDERING SON Volume 1

WANDERING SON, VOL. 1
FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS

CARTOONIST: Shimura Takako
TRANSLATION: Matt Thorn
LETTERS: Paul Baresh, Ian Burns, and Priscilla Miller
ISBN: 978-1-60699-416-0; hardcover
208pp, B&W with some color, $19.99 U.S.

Fantagraphics Books is back in the manga-publishing game, but their new series does not feature boy heroes, aliens, monsters, robots, magic, super powers, or even love-starved teen girls.

Wandering Son is a manga from creator Shimura Takako that began serialization in 2002 in the manga magazine, Comic Beam. Fantagraphics Books recently began publishing English-language graphic novel editions of the series. Wandering Son follows fifth grader Shuichi Nitori, a boy who wants to be a girl, and his friend Yoshino Takatsuki, a girl who wants to be a boy.

Wandering Son Volume 1 introduces the two protagonists and their friends and family whose lives intersect with their own. Nitori is the new student in school and makes his first friend, Takatsuki. They bond over a dress that Takatsuki doesn’t want and gives to Nitori’s sister, Maho. Nitori wonders what he would look like in a dress, and soon his female classmates are encouraging him to wear them. Meanwhile, Takatsuki is exploring life as a boy by passing for a boy. When the fifth-graders put on a production of The Rose of Versailles for the farewell ceremony for the sixth graders, the play’s gender-bending brings gender issues out in the open.

Ostensibly a seinen manga (comic book for adult males), Wandering Son begins with characters that are preteens or preadolescents and is appropriate for readers of that demographic (although I say this as someone who isn’t a parent). I assume parents and guardians freaked out about any discussion or visual fiction depiction of issues relating to gender identity, puberty, and transsexuality would consider Wandering Son inappropriate for their preteens.

However, Shimura Takako tells this story in such a gentle, unobtrusive way, one might believe that this story flows naturally – as if it simply spun itself from nature and is the way it is supposed to be. I think Matt Thorn’s tidy translation, which goes down the mental gullet with such smoothness, is a big reason for how readable this is. Wandering Son is not flashy or aggressive, nor does it pander or try to be hip and stylish. Takako draws the reader in so quietly that some may be surprised to find themselves on a journey of discovery and exploration with these characters. It’s like seeing preadolescence for the first time or seeing it again through fresh eyes and a new perspective.

Takako’s simple approach to compositions and graphical storytelling entails sparse backgrounds and a cartoony method of figure drawing. The figures are striking in their simplicity, and their emotions and actions in the story are crystal clear. If only more comic books were so evocative and so clear in their storytelling like Wandering Son, an ideal comic book. Ages 8 to 80 will like Wandering Son.

A

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