Kaijuu ni Natta Gay
The Gay Who Turned Kaiju

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This manga seriously deserves more attention. It's pretty rare to find a LGBT+ manga with no romance, but this one manages to tell a compelling story that represents a diversity of experience without relying on a romance plot or other overdone tropes.

The story is entertaining and manages to discuss serious topics in a relatively lighthearted way, without taking anything too lightly. The art is relatively standard in terms of style, but it does a great job of integrating the more sci-fi elements with the realistic setting. I especially appreciated the way the author switches between the kaiju and non-kaiju version of the protagonist.

The ... story mainly centers around internalized homophobia and transphobia, with a lesser but relatively realistic representation of external homophobia. However, unlike most stories centered around this type of internalized self-hatred, these characters are not perfect tragic victims. They're mean, they're vengeful, and they take joy in discomfiting those who have hurt them. If you're tired of woe-is-me gay characters in every homophobia plot line, this is definitely worth a read.

In terms of LGBT representation, there are multiple LGBT characters, straight characters, homophobic characters, and characters who consider their identities in ways that may or may not fall into these discrete categories. As a trans person, I also appreciated the inclusion of LGBT-friendly doctors and treatment in this manga. The fact that this was written by an actual gay person rather than a straight woman definitely shows.


**SPOILERS START HERE**
To address the other review on this manga, while there is sexual harassment, it is fully recognized as a bad thing done with the intent of making the victim uncomfortable. The main character acts with the intent of causing harm and exercising power over this person who has hurt him. Both the protagonist and other characters explicitly state that it is an awful and unacceptable thing to do in any situation, with the protagonist referring to himself as a monster and "the worst person ever" at the conclusion of the scene. The story as a whole addresses the balance between wanting to take revenge on those who have hurt you, and wanting to be a good person (or at least, not do things that would throw more guilt onto the existing pile of self-hatred). If "good gay representation" requires every gay character to be a good person who only ever does good things, then no, this manga doesn't do that.
**SPOILERS END HERE**


Overall, I would definitely suggest reading this. It's a short, self-contained story that manages to discuss various LGBT experiences in a realistic but entertaining way without relying on a romantic plot -- there aren't too many stories out there like this.

T/W for suicidal ideation, sexual harassment.

We basically see a struggling student Takashi who is constantly bullied in school and thanks to his homophobic teacher Kuroa-sensei, his head automatically turns into a goofy dragon head. You see in this story, peoples heads turn into “The Flintstones”-like dinosaur heads when the persons family does not accept them for who they are. I liked the fact it featured a trans man experiencing rejection, I wish they could’ve expanded more on his story.

As a result of the story's rapid speed, I was unable to understand why Takashi and Kuroa did not end up together at all. It was like after declaring their love ... for one another, Takashi just yeeted back to his old hometown where he ran into his childhood friend once more. It just seemed like the author played a uno reverse card here. I also didn’t like the fact Takashi literally groped Kuroa just because he was homophobic, it shouldn’t have needed to be there and it was brushed off as if it was nothing. That really rubbed me the wrong way like you would be rooting for Takashi to get better but when you do something like that, it puts me off rooting for him again.

Interesting idea of a plot and art was pretty neat but I wouldn’t call this the greatest LGBT+ story to recommend out there.

The premise of internalizing hatred aimed at you to the point where you'd rather be the monster people see does hit home personally. One day something tips you over the edge, and your head cracks open to reveal a grotesque visage. You finally have some power over those who hate you in this way. This is what has happened to Takashi Arashiro, and that's where the intrigue of the concept ends.

Takashi gets to enact his revenge by messing with his schoolteacher and offending classmates. It gets interspersed with jarring sexual moments. A lot of the author's other work is sexual, and it's been added here ... to the story's detriment. Not sure how Takashi grabbing his teacher inappropriately is supposed to fix his problems. By the halfway point, the story has slowed to a crawl in which it feels like the author is throwing darts at a board while blindfolded just to move the plot along. The conflict between Takashi and Naruse takes far too long than it needs to. A trans character gets tacked on haplessly when it would have been better to focus on the primary characters.

Art's ok but wavers in quality throughout. The Gay Who Turned Kaiju could have been decent with some pruning and polish.