Himegoto: Juukyuusai no Seifuku
HIME-GOTO: uniforms at the age of nineteen

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I truly love this manga, so forgive me for any bias. At its core Himegoto is a story about youth, and the methods in which characters aim to achieve and preserve what remains of it which in this story, primarily manifest in the form of their sexual expression and identities. It's extremely dramatic and it does involve a love triangle, though unlike many other stories, the circumstances and dynamic in it is extremely unique and interplays off each other wonderfully.

Every single of the main character's are amazing in their own way, and represent something different about sexual identity, with even one of the side ... characters being interesting in their own right and offering some entertaining perspective. My favorite part is simply the complexity of these emotions, rather then offering a surface-level analysis of oh I feel this way and hence want to act like this, it instead delves into the psyche and circumstances behind the way they are.

If you like psychological stories that explore sexual identity and just complicated feelings in general, then I think you'll like this. Then again, despite the fact that I dislike matters of sex in general, I still found a lot of enjoyment from this manga, so I would still highly suggest it.

Not an easy recommend, but I found it an interesting and very earnest expression of angst about battling the feelings of how the inevitability becoming more masculine with age and wrestling with rather wretched feelings and trauma can lead people to finding solidarity in the strangest of places. There's similar works which I think manage many parts better, but I think few of them really lean into the feelings of the sexual manifestations of self-destruction and disgust in the same way that this one does. There's definitely a fair few scenes to roll your eyes at, and the characters in many ways feel flat, but ... in that sense it's easier to imagine as a sort of exaggerated morality play where sex is used to convey ideas of trauma and helplessness. At any rate, I really appreciate its earnestness as an artwork - and I actually really liked the portrayal of Kaito's identity as more than just some strange fetish.

A captivating, terrible manga that is not worth your time.

Each character is meant to be unlikable in their own way, but just about everyone is truly atrocious. Eerily real sexual assault occurs often with little time for contemplation. In fact, characters often don't seem to make a big deal about how they were just assaulted. It's odd and makes the story feel disjointed while simultaneously making the characters (most of whom are victims at one time or another) hard to root for in any way. I'm all for scary and difficult topics, especially regarding sex, but this manga doesn't explore these things in an interesting ... way.

That's the main problem. The art is often quite good, the character designs are interesting, and surprisingly, the author does a good job instilling a sense of place.

I say captivating at the top because the drama is ridiculous and over the top, but kind of relatable in some ways for a little bit. Things quickly get out of hand though with truly massive levels of misunderstandings. This is okay for a bit, but drags for so long in the middle. So very long.

I'm also all for depicting messy queer characters, but wow, all three of the main characters are so very bizarre. I'm always a little sensitive to trans depictions in media, being that I'm trans myself, but wow, the trans character in this manga is truly horrific. It doesn't help that she is often just a series of scary stereotypes, the likes of which are typically peddled by hate groups.

Anyways, don't read this. Go read something else. There's plenty of great media with awful queer characters out there. This isn't it.