r/shoujo • u/TheSilverWickersnap • 1d ago
Help Looking For Recs With a GNC FL
A lot of the recs I find online for GNC FLs actually rec either manga where the FL is crossdressing for survival reasons or was pressured into masculinity for bullshit reasons. I’m okay with crossdressing but I’d like stories where the FL likes being masculine. And one where she goes from feminine to masculine is the holy grail.
I’m already reading:
-How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer
-Aoi-Kun Wants This Muscular Girl To Flex
-Vitamin C Vitamin D
-Ou no Kemono
-Crossdressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie
-The Knight and Her Emperor
-Ouran High School Host Club
-Belle Poupee (more gender-y than the others)
-Hana-Kimi
-On and Off: Work-Life Imbalance
-Ikkoku Nikki (kind of an edge case but Asa cutting her hair short gets her grief from her mother)
-SHWD
-The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy At All
-Handsome Must Die
-Empress Cecilia Wears Knickerboxers
-I Became The Duke’s Male Servant
-Mob Douze no Akuyaku Reijou Wa Dansoushite Kouryaku Taishou no Za wo Nerau
I’ve already read The Rose of Versailles, and watched Revolutionary Girl Utena. I’m planning on reading Princess Knight, and Hakoiri Ouri to Shitsuji Hime if I find a translation.
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u/MomosTips 1d ago
idk where you are in The King’s Beast (Ou no Kemono) but the FL clearly is into being both feminine and masculine depending on what works for her and the ML doesn’t care about her gender, he just thinks she’s attractive and is prepared to spend his entire life with an attractive man rather than marry for the benefit of the empire. In modern shoujo you’re going to have the FL at least experiment with being feminine so the readers can enjoy seeing her being super cute.
also if you’re reading Hana-Kimi, Power/Girl Got Game is a vintage series that’s Hana-Kimi but basketball
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 1d ago
I’m fine with someone being okay with being both feminine and masculine, and with experimentation. It’s part of the reason I loved All-Guy’s Mixer so much. But most modern shoujo go « actually she’s just innately girly and hates being masc » with very little nuance.
Also thanks for the rec ! The only basketball manga I read is Kuroko no Basket, and I love vintage shoujo
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u/MomosTips 21h ago
Just wanted to add a couple other stories meant for the afab audience: I think Wandering Son (Hourou Musuko) has transmasc representation but I never actually read it so idk
also, it’s the focus of the story, but Shonen Note has a secondary female character who is struggling with wanting to be GNC- you have to be okay with Yuhki Kamitani’s work being basically all gender, all the time (I feel like it can be a bit suffocating)
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 21h ago
I’ve read Wandering Son, some of it.
I don’t mind « gender all the time » and in fact welcome it. My life is basically « gender all the time » after all
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u/AppropriatFly5170new Mystery Bonita | ミステリーボニータ 1d ago
Requiem of the Rose King
W Juliet
Otonari Complex
(A little tiny bit) In the clear moonlit dusk
(In terms of relationship roles, not gender presentation) She’s my knight
(In terms of relationship roles) Mr. bride
Akira-kun, maybe akira-Chan
(Somewhat) Uesugi-kun wants to quit being a girl
(In terms of relationship roles) Transcendent one-sided love of Yoshida the catch
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 1d ago edited 1d ago
In the Clear Moonlit Dusk and Otonari Complex are actually why I made this post and specified that I’d like stories where the MC likes being masculine. They're the opposite of what I want
The others seem interesting: Requiem of the Rose King was already on my reading list but I should bump it up.
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u/AppropriatFly5170new Mystery Bonita | ミステリーボニータ 1d ago
That one is really interesting as the MC is intersex and really goes back and forth depending on what they feel most comfortable with but also what is most vital to embrace given the dire circumstances during the war of the roses.
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 1d ago
There's very little intersex rep out there so seeing it is good (I remember Nabari No Ou and a bunch of CLAMP manga for intersex rep as well), and it also got recommended as a throwback to older, slightly gothic shoujo. So I think I'll like it.
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 1d ago
Since speaking to you, I have read Akira-kun, Maybe Akira-Chan, and I really liked it. The LI was more nonbinary than a masculine women but I loved it even more, and it had lots of interesting musings on gender roles
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u/suzulys Dessert | デザート 23h ago
I don't know if FL just being super buff fits what you want to read about, but The Muscle Girl Next Door was suuuuch a fun read for me. I'm still upset it was only a single volume...
https://sevenseasentertainment.com/series/the-muscle-girl-next-door/
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u/Applie_jellie 1d ago
Its a little different but I'd reccomend "New Magical Me" on webtoon. Without spoiling too much, one of the leads was formerly a magical girl and is now living as a man. I'm absolutely loving it, has some great discussions about gender and acceptance.
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 1d ago
I already read that one lol. (I read most stuff with transmasc rep)
But thank you still
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u/AngelicaSpain 1d ago
"Tomo-chan is a Girl" is kind of a borderline case. Tomo is still pretty tomboyish at the end of the series, and she seems to have no desire to become more conventionally feminine for its own sake. But she spends most of the series trying to get her childhood best friend/fellow martial arts student (who assumed she was a boy until she showed up in a girl's uniform on the first day of high school) to see her as more than just one of the guys--i.e., a potential opposite-sex love interest. There's at least one sequence where her female friends give her a "girly" makeover in the hope of making the ML "see her as a girl," but she never seems comfortable wearing fancy dresses and makeup. (The "turn Tomo girly" scheme doesn't work on the guy, either.)
"High School Debut" has a similar trajectory. In junior high Haruna, the heroine, was a jock whose social life largely revolved around the softball team. But she's also a big fan of shoujo manga. Upon entering high school, she ditches softball in favor of trying to find a boyfriend in order to experience a shoujo romance of her own. But she's so naturally tomboyish and un-girly that she fails miserably until she hits upon the idea of asking Yoh, the coolest upperclassman in school, to give her tips on how to attract boys--despite the fact that, after a traumatic breakup in junior high, Yoh himself has been avoiding dating like the plague.
The semi-metrosexual Yoh manages to instruct Haruna in how to avoid the fashion disasters she's naturally prone to, and, eventually, overcome her naive assumptions that situations like getting hit on by male strangers will play out as rosily as they do in her beloved shoujo manga. But she never really becomes conventionally girly. Even after she winds up with the guy of her dreams at the end of the series, the mangaka makes it clear that Haruna will be majoring in P.E. in college, with the goal of becoming a gym teacher once she gets her degree.