krofire

Asahi Production’s, 2014, high-school-cross-dressing-comedy, is packaged in extremely short episodes delivered at break-neck speed. You really need to strap yourself in for the ride because it is all too easy to miss bits if you blink. Is it worth it? Certainly. This is a barrel of laughs and all extremely pervy (if-you-like-that-sort-of-thing). [Do not watch it with your kids as you will not know quite how to explain it.] The all-girl Student Council is recruiting new members based upon one sole criteria – is she cute? The only trouble is that their latest recruit isn’t a girl. The main character is high school boy Hime Arikawa who is being held responsible for his parent’s debts. The council make him a deal: dress as a girl, be their dog and, in return, they will cover his debts. He agrees to this bizarre deal and quickly learns that the council have super pervy plans for him. Add to this mix is Hime’s cross-dressing little brother who joins the Morals Committee. They are committed to the destruction of the Student Council. Most episodes focus on the humiliations that the Student Council plan for poor Hime. Be it semi-nude modelling for the art club, becoming a cheerleader, forcing him into bras and a thong, or making him compete in a beauty competition, nothing is too low for them… Then, one day, they go too far and live to regret their choices.

Through the story the audience learns that an alarming large number of the girls in the Morals Committee are actually boys whilst the one boy is actually a girl. Following this? You get the picture. The Vice-President of the Student Council (Aruku 18-kin) develops feelings for Hime and by the end of the story to girls come to consider him to be a friend and equal. The whole thing is an absolute riot that clearly will not be to everyone’s taste. Only in an anime universe would it be possible for pubescent teenage boys to pass as convincing girls. This and the fact that both the girls and the boys seem to get quite over-excited by boys-in-girls-clothes makes this an extremely odd sub-genre. It is not unusual in context. The same idea is witnessed in ‘Genshiken: Second Generation’ where a principal character is a cross-dressing boy who meets with the confusing curiosity & affections of both male and female friends (regardless of whether they know of his true gender or not). Maybe because western culture associates animation with harmless, family-friendly, children’s cartoons, that it remains a significant culture-clash to see such an adult-orientated subject appear in anime. Yet in Japanese culture all this seems quite normal and the genre is aimed at quite young men (seinen/shonen). Such a show would fit nowhere in western TV schedules. If it got shown it would be immediately banned. The numerous references to male genitals and the normalisation of teenage obsession with cross-dressers would be deemed unacceptable. The fact that the boy involved gets to quite like dressing would clash with western concepts of ‘toxic’ masculinity. This is ladyboy culture that could only arise in Asia. That’s the impression you get, right or wrong.

Is this show worth watching? Of course, the critics hated it. The ritual humiliation of Hime crosses the line into actual sexual assault. This goes beyond what many will swallow even if it is sugar-coated in humour and nobody gets hurt. It is a dangerous topic and it is hard to accept that it could be normalised with humour. Nobody should think that assaulting a transvestite is OK because they might like it. This is a stupid fantasy and not territory any anime should venture into. These criticisms should not be extended to the gender-bending nature of the story. It is quite a liberating story of young people being exactly what gender they want to be and everyone accepting it as quite normal. Do these positive aspects outweigh the doubts? Yes. This is perfectly watchable and enjoyable. It is completely daft. You won’t get all the jokes. It is easy to plough through the entire series back-to-back in an hour. It will be an hour well spent. Go for it. If only real-life was more like this. Adorable.