Highlights
- How I Attended an All-Guys Mixer, a comedy manga, is getting an anime adaptation. It follows college students Tokiwa and his friends as they navigate dating women who dress and act like men.
- The manga has received praise and good reviews since its release a few years ago. A teaser trailer and key visuals have been released, indicating the popularity of the series.
- Cross-dressing cafés are common in Japan, and the manga portrays women who dress and act as men for their jobs. It offers a unique twist on the heterosexual romance genre, providing a refreshing change for fans.
Comedy mangaHow I Attended an All-Guys Mixer just announced this past week that it will be getting an anime adaptation. An official Twitter account and website both opened on October 3rd, making the announcement official and also revealing a teaser trailer and some key visuals. The manga is only a few years old, but has received a lot of praise and good reviews since its release.
How I Attended an All-Guys Mixer follows college students Tokiwa and his two friends, who are invited to a mixer by a female classmate named Suo. She tempts them there with photos of cute women, and the three young men decide to go. However, when the friends arrive, they are greeted by only men - three handsome men, to be exact. It turns out that the women all crossdress for their jobs! Now Tokiwa and his friends have to leave their prejudices behind, and the story follows their journey dating women who dress and act like men.
The trailer is short at only 24 seconds long and does not have any voice acting. It does show all the characters, though! Tokiwa and his friends arrive at the mixer in the short clip and see the incredibly handsome "men" for the first time. It also shows how popular the manga has been in the last three years since it was first published, and ends by announcing the upcoming anime. There is no release date yet, but it is likely to not be for a few seasons at least since not even cast has been announced at this time.
How I Attended an All-Guys Mixer has been published since March 2020, when the mangaka Nana Aokawa first posted it to pixiv. It became later licensed by Square Enix, who have been publishing the manga officially since February 2021. The manga currently is six volumes long, with the latest one releasing in Japan next week. It will also start to be released in English at the end of this month by Comikey and Manga UP!
If you are a bit surprised by the story, it is important to understand that cross-dressing cafés are not uncommon in Japan, especially in the otaku community. While regular maid and butler cafés are more popular, there are plenty of cross-dressing cafés in neighborhoods like Akihabara in Tokyo as well. Sometimes, women prefer to attend a café where other women are dressed as men, rather than one with regular men because they feel safer in that environment. It is important to understand this is not the same as people being transgender; they still identify as women, but they just dress as men for work.
The women in How I Attended an All-Guys Mixer are the same - they still identify as women, and only dress and act as men because of their jobs. That means the manga and anime are telling a heterosexual romance story, but doing it with a fun, new twist. In a genre that is oversaturated with the same stories and tropes, this is a welcome relief for fans of romantic comedies. It is just important to understand what kind of story it is, and the context behind it, before going into it.
Source: AnimeNewsNetwork