Wandering Son/YMMV

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• Audience-Alienating Premise: It's a realistic story about transsexuality and puberty, that includes other parts of the LGBT. So many people are used to the slapstick "He's a trap!" type series that Wandering Son comes off as this, especially to people clueless and ignorant about transgendered issues.
• Awesome Music: The ending theme to the anime, "For You" by Rie Fu.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Chizuru is quite popular, at least in the anime, despite her lack of focus.
  • Sasa is also popular in Japan due to her Genki Girl nature and Moe Moe-ness.
• Fan Dumb / Misaimed Fandom: A lot of fans of the series completely fail to understand that the series is about two transsexuals... The Mangafox forums have a lot of comments about Nitori being gay, how he should stay male, and things like that.
  • Sounds related to the Trans Equals Gay misconception.
  • For a fair time before the anime came out, fans would often make fanart with Nitori (and sometimes Makoto) having blond hair. This is despite both being shown with brown hair in all official art, including the covers and inside colored artwork; even Nitori's wig was shown to be brown once.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Takatsuki/Chiba is the most popular pairing in the manga, though Takatsuki/Nitori is quite popular too; Doi/Nitori is gaining popularity.
• Fanon Discontinuity: A fair share of the manga fans refuse to believe the anime existed.
• Faux Symbolism: Almost all colored artworks show the boy uniforms as being pastel colors, when they're traditionally black. The anime, and the shading used in the manga, imply that they are black. It could be symbolically referring to their personalities, but it seems like it's just for artistic value (the artworks often are watercolored too, so it's a theme). Though considering how Shimura is with shading, they really could be pastel.
• Foe Yay: Takatsuki and Chiba in middle school, Doi and Shuuichi.
• Internet Backdraft: Going onto /a/ on a Tuesday (or Wednesday), going into a "Taka Tuesday" thread, and even mentioning hentai isn't exactly a good idea. You'll get near Yotsuba&! levels of backlash and Squick. On a more general note, it's not best to try and discuss the characters sexual orientations if you don't want a debate to arise.
• Needs More Love: It garnered some attention when the anime premiered, but quickly was quickly overshadowed by Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
• Misaimed Fandom: Aside from what's mentioned above, a part of the fanbase believes it's a Shojo romance manga, when it's Seinen and not romantic.
• Pronoun Trouble: While not strictly a YMMV Trope, with this series the issue tends to be within the fandom than in-story.
  • There's been discussion on the wiki about whether to refer to the transgender characters by their biological sex (Nitori is "he" & Takatsuki is "she") or by their correct mental genders (Nitori is "she" & Takatsuki is "he"). As noted in the main page, the general consensus, for the sake of simplicity, is to simply match what's used in-story (Shuuichi "he" / Yoshino "she").
  • An argument against this consensus is that what is used in the manga technically shouldn't control how the audience refers to them because we have more knowledge about them than other characters within the series, and even though they are still closeted there is no good excuse not to respect their proper genders when we have the information to know better, "getting the surgery" is not a factor when deciding if you should call someone by the correct pronouns, and is a cissexist sentiment.
  • Either way, there's little argument with Yuki. Yuki is more straightforward in that she lives as a woman, is implied to have had surgery, and everyone in-story refers to her as "she" even after knowing her original gender.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Chiba. After several volumes of being The Scrappy due to her temper and attitude, she was rescued near the end of middle school when she began cooling her head and rekindling her friendships.
  • Fumiya was redeemed after years of Saori's harsh remarks pointed at him seemingly got through to him, and the guy finally realized that he could be viewed as annoying.
• The Scrappy: Fumiya and Momoko. Chiba has her fair share of haters but she's more-so a Base Breaker than anything.
• Tear Jerker: The series could easily be called "Tear Jerker - The Manga", especially for transgendered readers.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Many manga fans feel this way toward the anime for its various changes. Fans think of it as even an Alternate Universe from the manga at best; at worst they just pretend it doesn't exist.
• Unfortunate Implications: The anime's last episode can be seen as anti-transgendered or prejudiced.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: The series is actually Seinen. It however has been referred to as being aimed at kids, and is occasionally mistaken for Shojo.
• The Woobie: Both Shuuichi and Yoshino. But Shuu more because he's hit harder by Double Standard.

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