Marginal (manga)

Marginal
Cover of the first volume of Marginal as published by Shogakukan
マージナル (Maajinaru)
Genre	Science fiction, Yaoi
Manga
Written by	Moto Hagio
Published by	Shogakukan
Magazine	Petit Flower
Original run	1985 – 1987
Volumes	5

Marginal (Japanese: マージナル, Hepburn: Maajinaru) is a Japanese science fiction manga written and illustrated by Moto Hagio, and serialised in Petit Flower between 1985 and 1987. It is a gender-reversed take on science fiction stories that Hagio had read where women disappeared, leaving an all-male world.

The Earth has suffered a biological disaster, and by the year 2999, the Earth has become a wasteland. There is only one woman on the planet, revered as "Mother", who gives birth to all the boys of Earth, and is herself reborn like a phoenix. Prior to the beginning of the story, the number of children from Mother has been decreasing, leading to anxiety among the men. At the beginning of the story, Mother is assassinated by a cult. The setting of the world has been described as "strongly reminiscent of Arab culture", "with horses and camels, swords and arrows, the world feels more medieval than futuristic." The men of Earth only live to about 30 years old due to "defective genetic traits" It is later discovered that Earth is an experiment run by humans who live on Mars, who have men and women, and that Mother is also a man who has his mind controlled and has had organ transplants. Mother is a ruse by the experimenters to camouflage the true source of the boys, they are genetically engineered on Mars.

Serialised in Petit Flower between August 1985 and October 1987,Marginal was collected and released by Shogakukan as a series of five volumes from July 20, 1986 to November 20, 1987.Marginal was reprinted twice in 1994 and 1999 in three-volume editions.

Marginal was adapted into a radio drama.

In 2008, Marginal was staged by Studio Life, an all-male theatre troupe which had previously staged Hagio's Thomas no Shinzō twice.

Matt Thorn has described the manga as "simply the best shojo sci-fi manga ever". Midori Matsui regards Marginal as a negative Thomas no Shinzou, which deconstructs the logocentrism and idealism Matsui detects in that work.