#ryo watari

Picking up where the original series left off, Ryo Watari (formerly Ryoko) is living his life as a 21-year old college student balancing school and part-time work while chasing his dream to become a fashion designer. While he has fought hard to get to where he is, Ryo faces conflict from his mother, who can't accept his decision to fully transition from female to male. This tension causes Ryo to be unable to come to terms with going 100% to being male as he feels that he has to keep asking people to treat him as one. Ryo's struggle is also related to money as he feels that he has to keep waiting to get enough money to afford gender reaffirmation surgery.

Ryo does get a "Just Do It"-like speech from a fellow classmate who went from female-to-male, but it doesn't immediately spur him into action. He is also afraid of job hunting (his mom points this out in a blunt manner) because of his frustrations towards those who won't view him as male right away.

I wonder how many of us can relate to Ryo's feelings about wanting to move forward, but lacking the strength or courage to do so. In Ryo's case, it's living with his mother in a somewhat safe environment despite her criticism and being around kind people at the moment. Ryo was getting too comfortable with his current situation to the point until he noticed that he had to correct people about his gender a lot. In a sense, he was feeling cognitively overwhelmed over time. Which combined with how Ryo viewed his financial status keeps him at a standstill. It's like Ryo was always fighting over people's thoughts and trying to be perfect instead of doing something more productive that can invigorate him.

And it took a reunion with his old friends, Jin and Itsuka, from the Boys Run the Riot fashion label to snap him out of it. Jin, who currently works at a retro fashion store, compliments Ryo and his designer skills in front of his store manager and validates him as male without being asked. Jin proudly wants Ryo center-stage for his own store one day. Ryo mentally wakes up and decides to go ahead with paying for his gender-affirming surgery.

Sometimes, all it takes to move forward is to feel a sense of purpose and remember what your dreams are. And it can take great emotional support to do so. We often get stuck in our heads and it always takes an outside kind perspective to truly see what we're forgetting. Keito Gaku gets it and that's why I feel -In Transition- is perfect to be an ongoing series because LGBTQ+ individuals face harder mental health challenges compared to heterosexual/cisgender people and will sadly continue to do so.