Claudine

tsukinohana May 3, 2023

9

Claudine's story, though quite old, is still very topical. Riyoko Ikeda also did a fantastic job despite being a 70s manga - Claude is unarguably a trans man and quite explicitly and vocally so. Although this is a trajedy, I was surprised about how progressive and modern the thoughts expressed here are. This is only a single volume, so there isn't much time for character moments, but the specific story it wanted to tell was more self-contained rather than an in-depth character drama. The art is very 70s shoujo, with beautiful, intricate lines, frills, sparkles, swirls, giant eyes with sparkly accents, and super freee-flowing panelling. It's glorious and gorgeous.

lacrymosai Nov 7, 2016

6

This manga is old and like they say, it was fair in its day. It didn't strike me as anything special or extraordinary because we have an abundance of manga like these today. It tells the story of Claudine, a young, intelligent woman with identity disorder how her doctor calls it. To complicate things, she can only love girls. She claims for herself to be a boy and unfortunately, her sense of identity isn't accepted by others except her neighbour Rosemarie. Rosemarie confessed to her, but was rejected. She claims to be the only one who understands Claudine's nature. During the manga, she falls in love 3 times and each relationship ends painfully for her. Many people stood in the way in her relationships. Her first love Maura was taken from her by her parents, her second love Cecilia rejected her, was having a affair with Claudine's father and in the end was killed togheter with him in a cabin fire, which was set by Cecilia's jealous brother Louis who, as a young boy, had an affair with Claudine's father himself and her third love Sirene cheated on her with her oldest brother. Needless to say, her first and third love weren't neccessary gay. She struggles with her identity and blames her failed relationships on her gender, that is, her not being a male. She disscusses her issues regulary with her psychiatrist and claims that her body isn't perfect. Her guilt over not being male leads her to commit suicide. This manga shows the society's inability to accept people different from the norm and the pain it causes for them. It would have been better if Claudine had accepted Rosemarie's feeling in order to escape her painfull past relationships, but the manga teaches us that it cannot always end the way we wish for it to end.

nathandouglasdavis Nov 4, 2020

6

This is a story about a trans man, Claudine, and the three or four romances fe experienced (depending on whether you count Rosemarie or not). It's a tragedy. Most of the drama comes from love triangles, with multiple affairs going on within the same family, and only indirectly relates to feir gender identity. It is implied that some of these women were incapable of loving Claudine in the same way that they would love an "actual" man. This is most blatantly seen with Sirene, who is the only one to have actually reciprocated Claudine's love, but is also there with Cecilia. And who knows what Maura thought, since fe was booted out of the story before their relationship could develop. If I had a complaint with the way this portrayed trans people, it would be the suggestion of divine involvement ("you were given a female body by accident") and also the implication that the ideas of "man" and "woman" have inherent meanings. Gender is a social construct, and masculinity and femininity are culturally relative. If a person self-identifies as a man or a woman, there's nothing wrong with that. But Man-ness and Woman-ness aren't objective, determinable qualities shaping the make-up of our souls or some such thing. They are vague, shifty boxes we place upon ourselves. The eyes are overly black, like ink blots or something. The chins and nose both jut out, creating and intriguing gap-shape when the characters are drawn in profile.