Otokonoko is a Japanese genre of romantic and/or erotic stories for men, focusing on Attractive Bent-
Gender male Crossdressers. The name is a pun.Details It is sometimes called '"josou" ("
women's clothes"), a more generic term for male crossdressers.
Otokonoko features both girl-on-crossdresser and guy-on-crossdresser stories (it's one of the few places where you
will find
m/f stories and
m/
m stories side-by-side in the same magazine). The target audience is men who crossdress (or are interested), and men who have a fetish for crossdressers, and the
art styles and tropes are typically those of male-oriented romance / ecchi /
hentai material. There is also a significant Periphery Demographic of female readers. (Although guy-on-guy otokonoko is often mistaken for Boys Love Genre, anything targeted to
women is not otokonoko.)
An otokonoko character must be anatomically male (no Hermaphrodites or
Gender Benders) but look convincingly like an attractive girl. Most identify as male, but even when the character identifies as female, few works try to deal with actual Transgender issues in anything like a realistic way. Since otokonoko is mainly an
otaku thing, otokonoko are quite likely to wear Sailor Fuku, Meido, Miko, Cat Girl or Naughty Nurse Outfits as well as "ordinary" female clothes.
