I was so excited.
Then they kept on using male pronouns, forcing Itsuki out of the closet, calling Itsuki a guy, saying Ituski's gay, and shit like that.
As a story...? I guess it was okay. But it was so transphobic it was hard to enjoy it as a story.

It has a good premise, but there are a few problems with the manga. The pronoun use for Itsuki is all wrong (I don't know if this is a translation error), trans people usually prefer to be referred to with pronouns of the gender they identify as, so to call Itsuki "he" is actually very insulting to her. Trans people are not necessarily gay, like cisgendered people, they can have diverse sexual orientations. Since Isuki identifies as a woman, and is attracted to men, then she's heterosexual. I don't like Yuuri very much, The ending was seemed to go against the whole message of the manga.

... Last updated on January 5th, 2013, 9:58pm

The start of this manga is really good it draws the topic of transgenders really well although like the previous commenter the manga-ka seems to think being transgender also equals to being gay which isn't always the case and the two do not mean the other. But when focusing on the struggles of being transgender the manga really shines. Itsuki is such an interesting character right till the end however the ending....
I did enjoy this manga but my disappointments out weigh the things I found were good.

This started out as a really wonderful manga and I really enjoyed it up until the last chapter. It does a really good job of portraying a transgendered individual in a positive light while still being comedic and addressing some more serious issues. (if only things worked out so nicely in real life!) I also love the "romance" in the sense that the female lead for the most part isn't so much working to change him so that he will come to love her, but working through her own feelings in accepting he can't because he's a woman.

However, the ending in the last chapter kind of contradicted the message of the previous 8 chapters. So that was a bit meh.

The other thing that irks me about this is that they seem to use the terms transgender and gay interchangeably to refer to Itsuki. These are NOT the same, and I don't believe most transgender people would refer to themselves as gay. However, I don't see this as something the general public very well educated on, so I can't necessarily hold it against the mangaka, especially since she's shed such a positive light on the issue. It also upsets me that they refer to itsuki as "him" rather than "her", but I'll get over it. Not sure if that is the doing of the mangaka or translators anyway. Also wish I knew if itsuki was using the feminine or masculine "I" as well. However these things are more me being picky since I've known some transgendered individuals and attended workshops on the issue. I wouldn't say they take away from the manga.


Overall, I really liked it. I would definitely check it out! (just maybe imagine your own ending over the last chapter)

... Last updated on August 14th, 2011, 11:46pm

Some people think that Itsuki goes back to being a guy in the end, but that's not what happened. Itsuki clearly said that he can't be a guy for Hina and the reason his hair was short at the end was because he's going to the hair salon for something different.

I interpret Itsuki as a bisexual transgender who loves Hina. But I wonder could he have been just a cross-dresser since he seems to feel okay being/dress as a male; it's just that he prefers to dress like a woman and do some womanly things.

I must say I'm torn on how I feel about this manga despite liking it overall.

Half & Half deals with a topic that's not often seen and that alone is great, but it is also doing it in a positive, somewhat informative, somewhat correct way.
It unquestionably deals with actual hardships and feelings.

There seems to be a general consensus that the ending is the most questionable part of the manga, and a big part of me agrees. On certain levels it certainly does seem to undermine the entire message of the manga, but I think it also depends on how you approach it. The premise presents Itsuki as a male-to-female transgender (a male-bodied woman that is attracted to men) and that solidifies in the reader's mind. However, if you approach Half & Half as a further exploration of sexuality for Itsuki, the ending is less of a contradiction.
As is mentioned by one of the characters, sexuality is complicated. My suggestion is just to keep in mind that there are sexualities that don't negate Itsuki's sense of self and gender but also make the ending plausible.
That's the best way I can phrase it without spoilers.

I know a lot of the terminology would not be deemed correct or acceptable by the LGBTQ community. That being said, every individual is different, and there are plenty to whom pronouns and labels don't matter, so I wouldn't call how the manga dealt with those "insulting" or "insensitive" because these things aren't set in stone.

Note: The pronouns in the translations are not mistakes. An English audience loses some sense of gender in the translation, but Itsuki refers to himself in the feminine way while others have a tendency to refer to him in a masculine sense.

I agree with almost everything that has been said. I'd only add that Hina's never ending love didn't convince me. Ok, Itsuki was her first love. But it had already past a freaking decade!!!! I just can't buy that.

... Last updated on May 2nd, 2012, 7:37pm

Overall, the concept and idea of the story was probably better than how it was executed. I agree that the ending was a little.. mismatched with the the rest of the story's message/focus. I thought that it was interesting but nothing truly great - mostly because it was hard to really expect or anticipate anything from it. The main point of the story seemed to be showing one of the most absolute situations of "unrequited love" yet you get this cliched vibe that something more will happen, even though it shouldn't.
But by the end I think I did half enjoy it without considering dropping it.

... Last updated on January 17th, 2018, 1:49am

Like the other reviews say, the manga had a good start but the ending freaking ruined it all. Itsuki suddenly changed in the end. The ending made him seem like a selfish asshole and the mangaka took sexual orientation too lightly.

This manga doesn't know what it wants to be and derails itself spectacularly in the last 2 chapters. Most of it is a surface-level exploration of a cis woman (Hina) being attracted to the past male self of a transwoman (Itsuki), with Hina not knowing what to do about her feelings and how to approach the new Itsuki. The manga baits you into thinking it'll be a love story between the two, but it isn't; that it'll be about Itsuki's struggles as a transwoman in the conservative late 2000s Japanese society, but that's only a few lines here and there; that it'll be an in-depth look into gender identity and attraction, when it's... well, just read below.

The manga contains a lot of transphobic sentiments towards Itsuki and her character is poorly handled. For a story centered on a transwoman, her perspective is constantly overridden by other people's who only refer to her as a "gay guy". If the mangaka was trying to point out that trans people deserve respect, having the rest of her characters refer to Itsuki as the wrong gender without any correction kind of nullifies her entire point, no matter the intent.

The ending is rancid, and the mangaka shot herself in the foot. Let me get this straight: you write a story; 90% of it, a transwoman is explicitly attracted to men, and is happy to present as feminine. Then, you end that story with her deciding to date her cishet female friend and stop presenting as a woman. Somehow, against everything you established, this is a happy outcome. What am I missing here. Make it make sense, mangaka!

It's like the take-away from this manga is: "OK sweetie, you've had your fun but summer's over and it's time to go back to normal". Then there's Hina accusing Itsuki of "playing with her feelings", when Itsuki tells her repeatedly that she can't give her what she wants and isn't attracted to women. There's this gross implication of Itsuki "tricking" Hina, when in reality Hina's too selfish to take "no" for an answer, refusing to accept that the person she was so hung up on 13 YEARS AGO (goddamn!) is no more.

The manga does have moments where characters change their strict worldviews (sometimes, suspiciously fast). The art is also great and appealing, and as piss-poor as the ending was, there were a few good moments such as the chapter featuring Marui, and Hina staying her tomboyish self despite being repeatedly told that she's "ugly" for not being typically girly-girl feminine. Too bad she couldn't extend the same consideration for Itsuki and let HER be her true self as well.

... Last updated on September 30th, 2023, 4:01am