"it's about time you realized / you are a specialty / there is no one like you ... "

[larryhammer]

A follow-on from this year's Sirens conference. As requested by jennifergale, some manga (and manhwa) series I've come across over the years that have cross-dressing as a major plot/thematic element. This is not every series I've read -- just those that made enough of an impression to remember them,* and some are included only to disrecommend them. Most are comedies, some dramas, and many romances.

These are strictly cross-dressing series -- cross-gendered body-swapping (by reincarnation or other means) is omitted, though some of those are good, fun reading. Ditto the cross-gender shapeshifters. I do however include a couple series with transgendered characters. I list the series demographic to give an idea of who it's playing to, though I don't distinguish between older and younger shoujo despite their differences. (To my surprise, no josei -- WUWT?) Licensed series are italicized, while particularly recommended ones are bolded.

* For example, hardly anything I think of as "moe otaku bait" is on the list, because I usually drop them so quickly they don't have time to rise out of the morass.

By the bullets:

• Anata to Scandal - shoujo, girl > boy to play in a band, with another girl crushing on her - rom-com with lesbian themes (scans incomplete dammit)
  
• Basara - shoujo, girl > male revolutionary, long fantasy adventure series. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Boku ni Natta Watashi - shoujo, girl > boy boarding in the dorms all-boys school; somewhat smutty drama. (scans complete)
  
• The Change! aka The Changelings - shoujo, woman > man + man > woman, a manga adaptation of a Heian-era satire of gender roles, Torikaebaya Monogatari, about TG half-siblings at the imperial court - the post icon is the FTM character being annoyed at sibling histrionics. (scans complete)
  
• Cinderella Boy - shoujo, girl > boy to be lead singer in an all-boy idol group, done rom-com style; Ichigo Channel is a better take on the trope. (scans complete)
  
• Flower Flower - seinen, girl > boy, yuri series with an arranged marriage between a princess and a "prince," played rom-com-ish. (series ongoing, scans nearly current)
  
• Girl Got Game aka Power!!! - shoujo, girl > boy to play basketball at an all-boys school, with dorm roommates mixed in - not quite as good as HanaKimi, but scratches the same itch. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Hana Kimi - shoujo, girl > boy to play track-and-field at an all-boys school. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Himitsu no Hanazono (FUJII Mihona) - shoujo, girl > boy, sweet yuri drama with strong track-and-field themes. (scans complete)
  
• Himitsu no Himegimi Uwasa no Ouji - shoujo, girl > boy, specifcially a princess disguised as a young man to check out the prince of a neighboring kingdom she's being engaged to - normally a good trope for me, but I got quickly bored. (series ongoing, scans lagging)
  
• Honey² Skip! - shoujo, boy > girl with bonus sibling love triangle - plus a bonus random penguin in the street. (scans complete)
  
• Houou Gakuen Misoragumi - shoujo, girl > boy, androphobic lesbian sent by her family to board at an all-boys school, played for laughs - not really worth it. (scans incomplete)
  
• Hourou Musuko / Wandering Son - seinen, boy > girl + girl > boy -- an excellent coming-of-age drama about two TG friends going through puberty as they slowly realize this, including all the extra ups and downs that implies, with them occassionally dressing as their preferred and presumably to be target gender. (ongoing series, scans current, first licensed volume out in a couple months)
  
• Ichigo Channel - shoujo, girl > boy - one of the better girl-singing-in-a-boyband series out there. (scans complete)
  
• Kill Me Kiss Me - shoujo, manhwa, boy > girl + girl > boy -- weird and violent and off-kilter in a mostly good way. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Kimi to Himitsu no Hanazono - shoujo, boy > girl boarding at an all-girls school for professional development reasons (he's from an onnagata family) - fluffy romance. (scans ongoing)
  
• Kira Kira Labyrinth - shoujo, boy > girl boarding at an all-girls school, pitched at a younger than usual audience, wrapped of all things around a mystery plot. (scans ongoing)
  
• Legend of Nereid - shoujo, manhwa, girl > boy as a swords(wo)man in ancient Greece -- well, sorta ancient Greece -- really, you need to close your eyes and pretend its a western-flavored ancient-world-like fantasyland -- the story is quite good, though, as expected of Mi Ri Hwang. (scans complete)
  
• Mayonaka no Ariadone - shoujo, boy > woman to work in a host club where very iffy things are happening -- a psychological drama with high squirm factor. (scans ongoing)
  
• Mint na Bokura - shoujo, boy > girl boarding at in all-girls dorm to follow his sister when she transfers -- silly, fun, fluffy young rom-com from the creator of Marmalade Boy. (scans complete)
  
• Never Give Up! - shoujo, girl > boy to be a male model alongside her childhood best friend cum crush object -- unfortunately, I got bored, but it was fun for quite a while until then. (formerly licensed but dropped before completing series, scans still ongoing)
  
• Nicoichi - seinen, salary man > woman at home by an extremely stupid plot contrivance -- but while adequate plotting could have overcoming this, his attempts to date women under both identities quickly gets morally dubious. (scans ongoing)
  
• Ouran High School Host Club - shoujo, girl > boy by a silly plot contrivance -- silly, funny, fluffy all the way through. Heroine's father crossdresses as well. (licensed volumes ongoing)
  
• Penguin Revolution - shoujo, girl > boy + boys > girls because their acting agency insists on it -- wacky hijinx ensue; unfortunately, the it doesn't end so much as suddenly stop, as if dropped by the magazine (boo). (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Prunus Girl - shounen, boy > girl because he prefers to (while still identifying as male), who has a friendship-sliding-into-romance relationship with another boy -- recommended if only for the sight of something this overtly slashy running in, yes, a shounen magazine. (series ongoing, scans nearly current)
  
• Red Lion - shoujo, manhwa, girl > boy, with school gang fighting -- I stopped reading this halfway through, but I don't remember why. (scans complete)
  
• Rose of Versailles - shoujo, woman > man, as Marie Antoinette's boyguard -- CLASSIC historical drama. (scans ongoing way too slowly)
  
• Shoujo Shounen - shoujo, boy > girl, where each of the seven is a different story of a boy becoming a girl idol singer. (scans complete)
  
• Tenshi ja Nai!! - shoujo, boy > girl, is a model, dorm setting, yadda yadda. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Tokyo Crazy Paradise - shoujo, young woman > man, specifically as a foul-mouthed yakuza boyguard in a dystopic future -- an earlier work by author of Skip Beat!. (scans complete?)
  
• Usawa no Midori-kun - shoujo, girl > boy to play soccer at an all-boys school -- rom-com, bolded mainly because it's the smuttiest series listed here. (scans ongoing)
  
• W Juliet - shoujo, boy > girl because of a bet with his father about his acting ability -- fluffy comedy hijinx ensue, with romance. (licensed volumes complete)
  
• Yubisaki Milk Tea - seinen, boy > girl for modeling purposes -- I wish I could say this was good, but it is both lame and skeevy. (licensed volumes complete, and shame on Tokyopop for it)

*whew*

Anyone have others to add?

ETA suggestions in comments.

... spend your life worrying / about what you could have been / can't you like being you

---L.