Mangas and animes, with their various examples of gender-bending friendliness (and awful stereotypes), can sometimes be your best resort in a book or dvd store. You know, one of those days when you’d like a romantic comedy, and it’d be kinda nice if the story was about (in my case) two girls and their happy endings.

Having to read up on gender-bending in adopted online identities lately, I stumbled upon this interesting manga called 1/2 Ouji manga. This manga is written by Yu Wo, and illustrated by Choi Hong Chong.

It’s 2100 AD — Feng Lan is a 19 year old college girl, living in T City. Her twin brother introduces her to the game Second Life. Rather like our own Second Life, users can construct their own identities in this game. The difference lies in this: the game is immersive, one enters the virtual reality, and injuries  received from the game translate into real pain.

Those familiar with Hunter X Hunter may compare this with Greed Island.

OH, SNAP! Hehe.

Feng Lan is furious at her brother for declaring that being female gives her an unfair advantage in the game. I presume this may mean in 2100AD, Second Life is catered for, and dominated by, straight, hormonal males. At the very least, it is certain that the game allows females to level up easier.

Feng Lan decides to play the game as a man. This makes her the first transgendered character in the game.

I have only begun reading the manga, I cannot say if Feng Lan is actually transgendered — though based on the circumstantial beginnings, I am inclined to think not. She also seems much  more interested in getting into her own pants.

I’m not that far along in the manga yet — from what I understand, Feng Lan’s supposed to evolve into a blood-thirsty warrior. I’m still at the part where in Second Life, he’s a lust-inducing man, getting favours thrown his way because of how beautiful he looks.

Yeap. That’s a picture of Feng Lan as “Prince”. Certainly a more interesting character than Legolas, for me. I like my fictional elves to be evil.

If you’re sold on the idea of giving it a try, Manga Fox has scanlations of 1/2 Ouji manga. The link to yonder first chapter is here. If you like what you see, head on over to your favourite manga shop and pick up a copy.

As for me; my two favourite gender-bending manga comics growing up were Ranma 1/2, and F. Compo. What’s yours?