Content Warning: I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup Vol. 1 contains some homophobic and transphobic dialogue, as well as references to sexual harassment.
Synopsis
I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup is a slice-of-life comedy about four girls who meet up every month to get fancy desserts together – except three of the “girls” (Cocoa, Opera, and Lemon) are in fact crossdressing men (the fourth, Kantentaro, is a trans woman). Cocoa had a crush on Opera before they found out each other’s secrets; now that they’re open to each other about crossdressing, Cocoa and Opera have even more to bond over as friends but navigating their feelings of attraction gets more complicated.
The Good
As a queer American chocoholic, I never really associated liking sweets with femininity – though now that I think about it, I’m remembering that FOX News rant calling Joe Biden “unmanly” for eating ice cream, so maybe that association does exist among some Americans. It seems this particular gendered expectation is more significant in Japan, enough that I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup plays with and subverts this gender role – as all gender roles should be.
This manga is wholesome fluff, fitting the “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” genre except with an asterisk after “Girls.” This series has appealing characters, a nice sense of humor, and a genuine interest in exploring different facets of gender identity and sexuality. The characters are still figuring things out, and don’t always get things right – the editor’s note acknowledges that some readers might find those moments of ignorance “upsetting,” but such ignorance gets corrected, which other readers might find “instructive.” The vibes are LGBTQ+ positive throughout; I particularly appreciated Lemon’s “quintessential femboy” non-committal attitudes about gender and Kantentaro’s positive trans lesbian representation.
Kodansha USA’s first volume contains both the first and second Japanese volumes in one book, which is good because the second half of the collection gets more interesting after learning about Cocoa’s background: they’re a famous actor, Satoshi Morinaga, who started cross-dressing in part to escape his public image. Cocoa/Morinaga gets to meet Opera’s very different masc identity of Kosuke Chiyoda, and develops another cross-dressing persona that’s different from Cocoa and maybe a more authentic femme version of Morinaga. Sacchan, a girl who just observes the IRL Sweets Meetup in sidestory sub-chapters in the first half, begins to interact with the main characters in the second half, adding some new conflicts and complications.
The Bad
Kurano first published I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup on Twitter (pre-Musk/“X”), and that might explain why the manga’s pacing reads a bit weird in print. Chapters are short and fragmented, with sub-chapters included inside the main chapters in a mildly chaotic fashion. Between the panel-within-a-panel flashbacks and the sometimes excessive text, the layouts can get overly busy in places. Some of the lettering when translating web pages and magazine articles also looks off.
If you’re seeking a manga with more of a plot, look elsewhere. As I said in “The Good” section, I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup is largely fluff – entertaining fluff, but fluff nonetheless. Its positivity as a gender nonconforming flavor of fluff gives it value beyond just entertainment, and the character development over the course of the volume provides some greater substance on top of that. But this isn’t a book where a lot actually happens, so go in with the appropriate expectations.
The Verdict
In her author’s note for volume one, Kurano describes I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup as being “stuffed [with] so many of the things I love.” If you share the manga-ka’s love for things such as crossdressing, sweets, exploration of identity, and relationships on the border of romantic and platonic, you’ll find plenty to enjoy in this manga. It’s neither the smoothest read nor the most exciting, but I had a fun time sharing in these characters’ sweet delights.
You can order I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup Vol. 1 via Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.
If you liked I Cross-Dressed for the IRL Meetup, you might also like…
- Love Me For Who I Am
- Princess Jellyfish
- The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t A Guy At All
Credits
Author and Artist: Kurano
Translator: Jocelyne Allen
Letterer: Paige Pumphrey
Editor: Tiff Joshua TJ Ferenti
Editorial Assistance: Naseem Alavi
Managing Editor: Dasia Payne
Production Manager: Angela Zurlo
Publisher: Kodansha USA
Article edited by: Kelly Stewart
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