Stop! Hibari-Kun! Review

Prepare to have your mind opened.

Kosaku's mother passes away, on her deathbed she requests that her son stays with an old friend Ibari Ozora, a well known Yakuza. Things seem normal at first with Ibari and his daughters but then Kosaku meets Ibari's son Hibari who acts and dresses as a girl much to her father's chagrin. Hibari doesn't seem to care how she acts and is more than capable of holding her own against people who try and force her to act male, however Kosaku is left confused as he doesn't know how to respond to Hibari as Kosaku thinks she's cute but all too aware that Hibari is male.
I wouldn't let the review picture fool you, the animation is way more 80s than that. It's a decent comedy that has gotten better with age thanks to further interest in trans culture in recent years and the fact that Hibari is the most positive progressive figure in transgender manga. Yeah the series suffers from being 80s and it's failure to finish, resulting in a "the madness continues" ending means if you've seen one episode you've seen the other 34 episodes. But the fact that it was able to create such a positive character in Hibari and the fact that Kosaku is hardly a pushover himself makes them worth watching and remember the first manga was 1981 followed by the anime in 1983, it was doing this long before creators like Steven Universe's Rebecca Sugar was even born.
No dub but deserves one, it also deserves a modern remake.
Final Verdict: A strong anime with a strong character that transgender people can support with pride; suffers from 80s at times but a decent anime nonetheless.

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