Cross-dressing is a fun way to express yourself and defy rigid gender norms - just ask Ru Paul, or y’know, a drag performer that isn’t an awful person. Unfortunately, it’s usually used as a pretty nasty trope in movies and games, reinforcing bigotry and often encouraging violence. Bokuhime Project, hopefully, won’t fall into that pit.
Pitched as a “cross-dressing game for all ages,” Bokuhime Project will follow strapping young lad Minato. Minato’s sister, as it turns out, fell into a mysterious coma during her time at a prestigious girls’ school, and Minato wants to get to the bottom of it. So he does the most rational thing possible by donning a dress and a wig to go undercover at the school.
Uh, maybe not the best way to go about things, Minato!
Anyway, the game seems to be a pretty straightforward visual novel with dating elements. There are also some promises of competitions to gauge Minato’s cuteness against his classmates, which could imply some kind of choices that go beyond the usual “who will you romance?” It’s worth mentioning, on that note, that there won’t be any overt sexuality when it comes to the romantic routes in the game - hence the “all-ages” part.
Nippon Ichi is putting this thing out in Japan. It hits stores in April, and will be available for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. There aren’t any plans to bring it West, currently, but it seems like the sort of thing that could do well with a certain audience here. Is that audience exclusively me? Yeah, probably.
Bokuhime Project seems like a fascinating little game that plays on a pretty popular anime trope. It’s very adjacent to 2009’s Maria Holic, as well as a bunch of other shows that I’m too lazy to pull up the names of right now. If done right, it could be a quirky little game that plays around with gender norms, not to mention giving us a cute femboy and a whole bevy of adorable anime girls. If done wrong, of course, it could be a harmful and vitriolic trivialization of the trans community.
We’ll see, I guess! Either way, I’ll definitely be checking it out if it comes to America.
