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It is true that transgender people do not see enough representation in mainstream media, and having transgender anime characters is truly an amazing thing. Being able to bring people of all ages in contact with trans characters in their favorite shows is a very important step.
Trans anime characters are plenty and you are bound to find one in many types of anime. If you're looking for the next best anime to watch, here are some that include a transgender character you are bound to love.
Aoi is one of the best representations of a trans character in an anime. She is an officer, who had originally dressed as a woman while working undercover to catch a serial rapist. During that time, she found herself and is very feminine in appearance as well as personality.
She has stated multiple times that while she might have a man's body, her heart is female. Before her career in the police force, Aoi used to be a famous basketball player, scoring the hearts of many girls.
While she has not come out about her romantic interests since her coming out as a transgender woman, it is hinted many times that she likes men.
Kaoru Kurita is a cute handsome guy with long black hair, appearing in the anime Wonder Egg Priority. He ends up falling in love with Momoe Sawaki, a girl who is oftentimes mistaken as a boy because of her looks.
Alluka is a trans girl who was possessed by a Dark Continent called "Nanika" when she was a child and they both share Alluka's body. She is the second youngest child of Kikyo and Silva Zoldyck.
Alluka's family, except her brother Killua, refer to her with male pronouns, and her brothers Illumi and Milluki refer to her as their brother. Killua is the only person who identifies her feminine character and pronouns and calls her his sister.
Ms. Mario is a transgender woman in the anime Cagaster of an Insect Cage. She is known for her pink service dress with white ruffles, a characteristic flower in her hair, and her favorite pink heels.
Ms. Mario is the owner of her tavern called Garden Mario and she resides in trade city E-05. While she has a masculine body, she is a very caring and loving female energy who takes a lot of pride in her ability to care for others.
While she faces a lot of discrimination from customers, oftentimes telling her she is not a real woman, she stands her ground and defends herself on every occasion. This is an important things for many transgender people who struggle with similar situations.
Ms. Mario could be considered a great transgender representation of the challenges other trans female individuals face on a daily basis. She is by no means a comedic character and she is shown as not afraid to fight back against those who try to belittle her.
While Comer is a minor character in Hozuki's Coolheadedness, he is loved by many fans of the series. He is a very intelligent middle-aged demon with long brown hair and elven ears, despite the fact that he resides in hell.
Comer is always mistaken as a man because he has a very manly physique. He is actually a transgender demon, having no relation to humans whatsoever.
Lily was a breakout star and a very famous child actress who starred in many primetime shows across many networks. Her story starts with her being resurrected from the dead. Lily was raised by her father, who loves watching TV and Lily decided to become an actress in hopes of making him happy.
Soon after her resurrection, she became a member of the idol group Franchouchou. She is sweet and innocent and she fully takes advantage of the fact that she cannot age.
Lily was born as a boy called Masao Go and is a transgender character who is quite playful yet very professional when it comes to her work.
Isabella Yamamoto is a transgender woman who has taken on the role of a mother figure to other members of Paradise Kiss. Isabella came from a wealthy family and was raised as a boy.
Her family was always hard on her and she took to her butler, Sebastian "Uedo" who helped raise her. She is now living like her true self as the most feminine character and is happy.
Despite the lack of love and support from her family, she had always been interested in wearing dresses and she became really close friends with fashion designer Jōji Koizumi, or otherwise known as George. He always supported her as a trans person and made many beautiful dresses for her over the years of their friendship.
Seishiro Kotobuki is a beautiful character representing trasgender people in anime. She is a young lady, with long blond hair and a fun side ponytail that definitely fits her cheerful character.
She is in love with a basketball player from her school and is not afraid to show her affection through jealous moments with other girls.
Transgender Oni is a minor transgender character appearing in Hozui's Coolheadedness. She is a middle aged demon who has a male physique but identifies as female, something that contributed to creating her name.
She has short curly brown hair, luscious eyelashes and cute little demon horns. She truly is an adorable character representing transgender people of all backgrounds in this show.
Seeing characters like her is very refreshing as it is a way to represent that having a different gender identity is a thing among mythological creatures in anime.
Yoshino is the secondary protagonist of the anime series Wandering Son, which follows his life from his teenage years all the way to his college days. This show is actually great in regards to transgender people representation, as more than one characters is trans.
Yoshino was assigned female at birth but he has always tried showing his need to express his real gender identity. Yoshino is viewed as a teenage boy and wants to dress and behave this way so he feels like himself, despite having to wear a female uniform at school at first.
The other half of the anime Wandering Son revolves around Nitori Shuuichi, who was assigned male at birth and is the main character of Wandering Son. Her true gender identity is a young girl and the anime shows her struggles during her highschool life all the way to college.
Just like Yoshino, Nitori is in the wrong body and she is perceived by others as a teenage boy since she was assigned male at birth. In reality, she longs to wear a girl's school uniform and be her true self in public.
This is something that causes her a lot of anxiety and dysphoria in the course of many Wandering Son episodes and highlights the struggles of a transgender girl of her age.
Blue is a supporting character in Violence Jack 2: Evil Town. She is known to be a very strong character with long, gorgeous blonde locks and a role as important as that of the show's main characters. She is also known to wear kinky leather outfits in the manga and fun lingerie in the anime.
Blue is openly bisexual and has formed a romantic relationship with Mad Saulus, a dragon-faced gangster who will later on fight the main villain, Jack, to avenge him hurting his Blue.
Mikihisa is a a minor character in the anime Level E, who is a transgender male character many love. He is a very handsome yet normal high-school student who expressed that he was in the wrong body since a very young age.
From his early childhood, Mikihisa was begging his any childhood friend he had along with his family to refer to him as a male instead of a female, as he never felt like he was a girl. He is a very compassionate and strong-willed person who will go to great lengths to achieve his ambitions.
He finally starts to live his own life, fully comfortable in his own skin, when an alien called Bana Ki El Dogra gives him gender confirmation surgery.
Kite is a popular 18-year old YouTuber with over 7 million subscribers. He loves to explore dangerous and previously unexplored areas from all over the world and shares his adventures with his audience online.
Kite has beautiful green eyes and short white hair and is implied to have been assigned female at birth. In an episode showing him as a child, he is seen with long hair and wearing a skirt.
The protagonist of the Ouran High School Host Club series is a very intelligent 1st-year student in Ouran High School, who comes from a middle-class family. Haruhi has to keep her grades up if she wants to keep her scholarship and continue her studies, which means the world to her.
In a very weird accident, Haruhi becomes the host of Ouran Host Club where she entertains the girls who come to Music Room 3 for some tea, snacks, and fun conversations with other boys.
Before her days at Ouran High School, Haruhi had long pretty hair and was wearing a girl's uniform. Now, she sports a more androgynous look with nerdy glasses and short hair and uses masculine pronouns while keeping her sex a secret.
Despite identifying as a biological female, Haruhi truly believes that gender is irrelevant to how society should see a person or how they should act.
While she might be a side character, Sherry is very popular among the fans of E's Otherwise. She has a gorgeous feminine body but she hides a secret which lists her amongst other tarsngender characters.
Most of the male characters in the anime are unaware of her transgender identity and she frequently enjoys being asked by men. She is a very strong and unapologetic character with a lot of charm and a beautiful female energy that makes the anime that much more fun to watch.
Connor is a minor character that appears as a young high-school student with a masculine body but a very feminine personality. He is a very sensitive and sweet person who loves to dress in fancy clothes and wear beautiful jewelry.
Because of his caring nature, he starts a relationship with Maxine Silverstone who is working as a detective in the Seven-O unit. Their relationship is quite revolutionary as she doesn't care about what others say about Connor's gender identity- she just loves him for him.
Bernadette Pink is a middle-aged transgender woman who is an amazing cook in the anime Child's Toy. She is a supporting character with long, flowy brown hair and plays the role of a mother to the two main characters of the show.
She might not be their biological mother but she is sweet and caring towards them and Sana and Brad treat her like their mom. Bernie, as they call her, is a brave and very loving character making her an amazing role model for many.
Being one of the main characters in the fantasy anime Happiness, Jun Watarase is one of the magical girls in her magic school. While her biological sex was male, she decided she is a "self-identified female" and has fully embraces her femininity.
Jun is a very energetic and loving person who is very proud of being who she is. This is an amazing example for transgender women in anime and many trans people love her for her pride.
She has a huge crush on fellow student Kohinata Yuuma who was not able to date her, so she still chooses to stay near him as a close friend instead.
Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 animated Japanese movie and manga which quickly spawned a plethora of series and OVA. It is a sci-fi show which takes place in a future where people no longer have organic bodies. Instead, they inhabit “shells”, robotic bodies which help them perform daily tasks and – in the case of Major Motoko – help her fight crime and other illegal activities.
Kusanagi Motoko is non-binary and inhabits a female body for the majority of the Ghost in the Shell franchise. However, Motoko’s original body was male, and her new female “shell” has no genitals of either sex and features underdeveloped breasts uncharacteristic of a typical adult female body. Motoko’s mind was transferred to a female body at her request because it better fit her identification as a female rather than a male.
My absolute favourite trans woman character is Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell (movie and SAC). No she doesn't need to prove it.
— Aria Burrell ?? (@litui) August 31, 2015
Kusanagi Motoko is one of the more complex and nuanced explorations of a transgender anime character. She is technically a cyborg, but her mind is very much human and she continuously struggles with her sense of identity, gender, and role in the world. If you’re looking for transgender anime that explores the themes of gender identity, sex, humanity, and does so through a sci-fi lens, look no further than Ghost in the Shell.
You’ll undoubtedly enjoy not only Motoko’s personality but also that of her Section 9 colleagues, consisting of many cyborgs, or “shells”, who are also transgender by definition, given that they inhabit various bodies throughout the anime.
Nagi Arisuin is one of the female characters that appear in Chivalry of a Failed Knight. She is one of the transgender women on this list and she is also known by the name Alice.
She is a young teen who rocks short purple, flowy hair and has a very feminine body and character. While she was born male, she always had a female gender and decided to live her life in this way that makes her feel more like herself.
Nagi was an orphan in a rural orhpanage that she protected by using her magical powers. She is very close friends with the main characters of the show called Shizuku and Ikki Kurogane.
Magical Girl Site would simply not be the same without Kiyoharu. She is a supporting character who shows up as a cute young girl with short blonde hair and a pink ribbon tied to the top of her head.
She knew she was a girl even since her childhood, where she was always bullied by her classmates. When she first learnt about the Magical Girl Site, she knew she had to become one of the magical girls and use her new powers to teach her bullies a lesson.
When it comes to trans representation in anime, Christina Matsuzaki is another preat example. She is the landlady of Juuzuo Inui, where most of her tenants and friends call her Chris.
She is an older lady, who has purple, medium-length locks and carries a manlier physique. Despite that, she has lived her years as a woman with a very charming and fun personality. Her weaknesses are handsome and intelligent people and she often teases the tenants that she deems most attractive.
Kintarou, or otherwise known as Alice in the series is a sweet and lively transgender character that is shown to really struggle with her gender identity versus her male body as she attends an academy for boys.
Since Alice is a member of the Hanadera Student Councill, she gets to interact with other members while the organization of school festivals takes place. In one of those, another student decided to switch Alice's character's genders and she got to play a female part, something that made her very happy.
Being one of the main characters in Tokyo Godfathers, Hana is one of the trans characters that had a difficult upbringing. After being abandoned by her parents, she was taken in by a foster mother who was also a transgender woman.
This sparked the confidence in Hana to live her life as a woman without issues. Despite being biologically male she decided to overcome gender stereotypes and use female pronouns in her everyday life, after spending some time as a former drag queen.
Hana has taken on the role of a mother, just like her own foster mom. She took in an abandoned child on New Year's Eve and has decided to help the child find its biological family, fully intending to teach them a lesson. She is caring, loving yet strong and offers some amazing trans representation in anime.
Tetora is a supporting character in Log Horizon and she is a young idol in the world of Elder Tale. Despite being born a male, she always had a love for cute pop culture idols and wanted to become one herself.
Eventually, she embraced her true identity and created her ideal female self and started using female pronouns. She is truly a tease with men as she loves to seduce them with her charming personality.
Kaoru is another compelling character that appears in IDOLiSH7, who is very intelligent and caring. She is an older adult woman who has always identified more with her feminine side and chooses to be a woman.
She is working as the manager for a very famous pop culture idol group called Trigger. She truly puts her heart into making her boys in the group reach the top and she sacrifices her personal life to see them succeed on a daily basis.
Cowboy Bebop is a 1998 anime series that focuses on a group of bounty hunters traveling the solar system in the Bebop, a spaceship held together by nothing but spit and duct tape. Its crew consists of very charming and memorable characters such as Spike, Fae, Jet, and their trusty corgi Ein.
About halfway through the series, the crew comes across a new character that has since transformed how transgender characters are portrayed. Radical Ed, Edward, or Eddy, is a transgender individual who is zany, quirky, and speaks their mind freely on every occasion.
Edward an agender/NBi hacker and don't you forget it pic.twitter.com/YMmIf4AuKG
— PastelWitch (@apastelwitch) August 23, 2021
The real gender of Radical Ed has been a question in the Cowboy Bebop community for many years. While the original author of the anime, Shinichiro Watanabe, never explicitly answered the question of Ed’s gender, he left the final decision up to the fans. He never intended to make Ed’s gender a topic of discussion, especially in the 90s anime landscape which wasn’t as progressive as it is today when it comes to transgender representation.
Edward however became a staple for trans people quickly after the anime's debut in 1998 and has been popular with cosplayers, fan fiction, and anime cons around the world. Cowboy Bebop is a revolutionary anime whose transgender character isn’t at the forefront or inserted as a token addition. Edward is an integral part of Bebop’s crew and the anime’s overarching story wouldn’t be the same without them.
When Arashi enrolled into Yumenosaki Private Academy, she knew that despite it being an all-boys academy she could be close to all these hardworking boys and have a chance at transgender dating opportunities with boys who aspite to become idols.
She might appear as a young boy with short hair and a male uniform in an all male school, but she always prefers to be referred to as female and loves to be called Naru-Chan or Ran-Ran by her peers.
She has a strange obsession with anything cute and it is honestly very funny to see her react to anything she deems cute at any given time. She is also naturally talented as a model and is a very kind-hearted individual.
For One Piece fans, Kikunojo is known as the most skilled and beautiful swordswoman in Wano Country. She has beautiful indigo eyes and long dark-blue hair and she is extremely tall.
She is always wearing her favorite yellow kimono with chrysanthemums and loves to tie her hair in a ponytail before battle. Despite being known as a male samurai in the past, she has always described herself as being a woman at heart.
Before she was transported back to the future, she dressed in a more masculine fashion that is associated with a samurai. Following her arrival in the future, she started showing a much more feminine side through wearing red lipstick and dressing in feminine clothes.
Sailor Moon is an anime that has a great representation of diverse characters and has truly made an impact on many people over the years. Sailor Starlights had the mission of finding the Princess Kakyuu through the galaxy, eventually finding their way to Earth.
In their human form, they are under male disguises on Earth but perform as males through their band Three Lights. While they are biologically female, they cross-dress as men.
In the anime, this is not just cross-dressing but they are able to fully transform into males when they make the shift. They only become female when they go into their Sailor Senshi forms.
Fire Emblem is a strong character that can be considered an amazing role model for many. While they were assigned male at birth, Fire Emblem, otherwise known as Nathan consider themselves as one of the girls and has suggested many times they are both a man and a woman.
While they used to present themselves in a more feminine nature during their younger years, Nathan now has a more androgynous presence. The writers of the show have explained to fans that Nathan is either a transgender woman or an agender individual.
Arachne is a supporting character in the anime Angle Sanctuary who truly believes she is a woman trapped inside a male body. Most people would describe her as rude and very selfish but deep down she is a very sweet and protective person towards those she cared about.
She came from royal demon descent and she believed she was the only living survivor of her family. That was until she met her sister, Kurai, who she ended up saving by sacrificing herself.
Grell is a dark and kind of scary character appearing in Black Butler as the butler of main character Angelina Durless. In reality, Grell is a grim reaper, who gets excited to kill people through her pact with Angelina.
Grell has long red hair and while born a male, she could never overcome her female personality and womanly needs so she lives her life as a female reaper. on Earth.
Miyuki is one of the trans characters everyone loved in the anime Yu Yu Hakusho, despite her status as a vilainess, as she is kind-hearted deep down. She comes from the race of demons and she is actually an Ogre, as shown by her longhorn placed on her forehead.
She is seen wearing a Chinese-style martial arts suit and has always been very sensitive about her gender identity, getting very visibly upset when someone misgenders her.
Heaven's Design Team has one of the best designers in it and that is no other than Venus. Her feminine energy and creativity are very prominent in the show and she loves to be the center of everyone's attention, oftentimes causing drama without reason.
She has a more masculine physique yet rocks long purple locks that she loves to tie up. She also has a passion for flashy jewelry and loves to design animals, which she loves with all her heart.
When it comes to seeing transgender people in children's anime being open and proud about their identity, it is always very refreshing. Card Captor Sakura achieved that through the creation of Ruby Moon.
While she is usually using female pronouns, the magical familial is very proud of her agender identity and loves to share it with the world. She keeps her female identity as a form of communicating with humans.
Steins;Gate is a 2009 visual novel video game and a 2011 anime series with deep sci-fi elements and time travel at the center of its plot. In it, a young scientist named Okabe Rintarou finds a cellphone that allows him to receive messages from the future which he is sending to himself, in the past. It is an amazing showcase of creative storytelling wrapped in a slice-of-life anime with very believable characterization and development.
One of the main characters in Steins;Gate is a Ruka, a person who is extremely feminine and gentle from the get-go, often acting shy and insecure around others. Her physical appearance is also very girly, fragile, and sensitive. Ruka however doesn’t identify as a girl – she is a boy who never corrects people around her who refer to them as “a boy” or “a girl”.
Ruka Urushibara is a trans woman from the Stiens;Gate series. She is honestly the most transparent trans character in anime that I can think of. She not only tells everyone around her that she wants to be a girl, but she even uses a timemachine to turn herself into a cis woman. pic.twitter.com/yoBYCrG3TF
— ??️⚧️Sandrock?️⚧️? (@Sandrock323) August 7, 2018
Ruka is a very complex representation of a transgender character, someone who is very fluid in their identity and doesn’t oppose anyone referring to them with any gender pronoun at any point. She/he is beloved in the anime community because of how nuanced, subdued, and natural the character feels in the show.
Their gender identity, beliefs, or identification are often at the forefront of the story. Ruka is a recurring character who appears in multiple Steins;Gate properties throughout the years and their role as a transgender individual develops organically over the property’s many multimedia iterations.
“Urushibara Ruka, delicate as an orchid, fair as a cherry blossom, the personification of feminine grace and also... a dude. Tall as a willow, slender as a reed, a dude. Radiant in shrine vestments, dude. The sun dips low in a rosy sky, secateurs buzz, Ruka is a dude.” – Okabe Rintarou
Tiger is a trans male character in the anime My Hero Academia. He is a very muscular and strong transgender man whose powers are truly amazing, considering the fact that he is a pro hero and a member of the famous team Wild,Wild Pussycats.
While he appears intimidating and scary to his students, he really cares for them and loves to fight for anything that is right. He is one of the transgender people in anime that might look like a bad guy but is truly not.
Desmon is a minor character in Carole and Tuesday but still plays an important role on how transgender people can raise to their success. Something strange happened on the planet of Mars and Desmond suddenly started displaying both male and female characteristics.
While this was hard on their body, it also allowed them to find themselves as well as a way to revitalize music on Mars. This was a huge win for transgender representation and a musical anime all transgender people should watch as it is truly enjoyable.
Being one of the main characters of Tokyo Ghoul: Re, Tooru Mutsuki is a young man working as a ghoul investigator. He is a very shy yet loving person who had a very difficult childhood.
His father had mistreated him terribly and that caused him to leave and find his way away from that traumatic environment. He is now living in his own community with other ghoul investigators and is much happier.
If you're looking for the perfect anime with a trans character, this list definitely has you covered. No matter the genre of anime you prefer to watch, you are bound to find something new and exciting to watch. On the contrary, these options might make you want to rewatch one of your all-time favorites.
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