Kashou Iizuka

1960s Japan—economic boom, Olympic pride, and a crackdown on “public morals.” An anti-prostitution law targets women but spares male sex workers, the so-called “blue boys.” When police arrest the doctor performing their sex reassignment surgeries, the sensational “Blue Boy Trial” begins. Three transgender women take the stand, igniting a national debate on identity, medicine, and happiness—long before the language of LGBT existed. Though the court ruled surgery legal, the verdict cast a shadow: no such operations would occur in Japan for 29 years. Half a century later, this buried history still reverberates in the lives of sexual minorities.

A high school student living in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, has a Filipino mother who works at a Filipina hostess bar.

High schooler Yu is growing up in a small town in rural Japan, and having a difficult time at summer school, made all the worsen by the fact that he's deeply unhappy about their female body, and has always seen himself as a boy. Yu's confusion grows when a pretty girl from the year below confesses that she has a crush on him.

Shinya and Yui fall in love. Can the two have a future together when Yui dreams of having children and Shinya, who is transgender, can't have children?

1960s Japan—economic boom, Olympic pride, and a crackdown on “public morals.” An anti-prostitution law targets women but spares male sex workers, the so-called “blue boys.” When police arrest the doctor performing their sex reassignment surgeries, the sensational “Blue Boy Trial” begins. Three transgender women take the stand, igniting a national debate on identity, medicine, and happiness—long before the language of LGBT existed. Though the court ruled surgery legal, the verdict cast a shadow: no such operations would occur in Japan for 29 years. Half a century later, this buried history still reverberates in the lives of sexual minorities.

1960s Japan—economic boom, Olympic pride, and a crackdown on “public morals.” An anti-prostitution law targets women but spares male sex workers, the so-called “blue boys.” When police arrest the doctor performing their sex reassignment surgeries, the sensational “Blue Boy Trial” begins. Three transgender women take the stand, igniting a national debate on identity, medicine, and happiness—long before the language of LGBT existed. Though the court ruled surgery legal, the verdict cast a shadow: no such operations would occur in Japan for 29 years. Half a century later, this buried history still reverberates in the lives of sexual minorities.

A high school student living in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, has a Filipino mother who works at a Filipina hostess bar.

A high school student living in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, has a Filipino mother who works at a Filipina hostess bar.

A high school student living in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, has a Filipino mother who works at a Filipina hostess bar.

High schooler Yu is growing up in a small town in rural Japan, and having a difficult time at summer school, made all the worsen by the fact that he's deeply unhappy about their female body, and has always seen himself as a boy. Yu's confusion grows when a pretty girl from the year below confesses that she has a crush on him.

Shinya and Yui fall in love. Can the two have a future together when Yui dreams of having children and Shinya, who is transgender, can't have children?

Shinya and Yui fall in love. Can the two have a future together when Yui dreams of having children and Shinya, who is transgender, can't have children?