In the year 2999, only eleven cities still survive on Earth. The climate has changed drastically, and a biochemical apocalypse has made women extinct. For centuries, the short-lived population of Earth has survived by depending on only one woman, a religious figure called the Holy Mother whose ova are harvested to create genetically engineered children. By now, any concept of a world in which women exist as ordinary people is long gone. Society has restructured itself into clans and villages of all-male families and partnerships. Only the suspiciously long-lived men of the Medical Center of the City understand how this has come to pass.
At the beginning of Marginal, the Holy Mother is assassinated by a terrorist known as Grinja. The government in power doesn't want to start a mass panic, so it pretends that the Holy Mother has only shed her vessel and that she will be miraculously "reborn" in the near future. The public, which is superstitious and devout, believes this easily. Only government officials know that behind the scenes, there is a frantic effort to create a being able to give birth.
Published in the magazine Petit Flower from 1985 to 1987, Marginal is a Shoujo manga by famous creator Moto Hagio. It predates the subgenre of BoysLove, but is sometimes grouped with it due to the author's influence on this subgenre and the manga's depiction of relationships between male characters in the context of a world with no women.
The series stands out through its intricate plot and rich dystopian sci-fi setting. At its core, the story explores the meaning of life through the lens of reproduction, the role of science in civilization, and the delicate balance between bodily autonomy, biology and social roles. Also, expect a lot of twists.
Marginal presents examples of:
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Marginal project
- Artificial Human: Kira and his siblings, products of Ivan Alexandr's Mad Scientist-dom
- Cast Fullof Gay: Inevitable as there are literally no women on the planet.
- Crapsack World
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The disappearance of women has created institutions that readers in the real world find cringe-worthy (but normal to the inhabitants of Marginal) to emerge.
- Fictional Disability: Arguably every man on Earth. But primarily Kira and Meyard, who share the Ezekiel gene.
- Fisher Kingdom: The all-male humans on Earth only live for about 30 years, and have multiple developmental differences to the standard humans found elsewhere.
- Gendercide: Once one of the most influential works in the trope, now almost totally forgotten.
- Hermaphrodite: Kira
- Improbable Age: In a world where most men age rapidly and die in their 30s, the men of the Medical Center should all be nearing death if not already dead. However, they are not because they are standard humans from Mars and the Moon. As such, they age at the normal human rate. Only the Director has a shortened life span, but for different reasons.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Several, most notably Emerald and Ashijin.
- Lover and Beloved: In a world with no women, the relationship between adults and teenage boys is this.
- Mad Scientist: Ivan Alexandr. How he goes on and on about the role of the womb is creepy. See also: Evilutionary Biologist.
- One-Gender Race: On Earth, women lost reproductive capability because of a disease, resulting in a world with only men.
- Superpower Disability: Kira's ability to shift sex and conceive is presented as a curse he does not want, and while the Ezekiel gene has amazing psionic potential, it has caused both Kira and Meyard to suffer in different ways.
- That Thing Is Not My Child!: Primarily Arlin after the Kiras begin to read her mind, but also Meyard, though he seems more conflicted. See also: Stalker with a Test Tube
- The Immune
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The story goes back and forth between the people who assassinate the Mother and the mysterious boy they found, and the fall-out after the assassination in the city.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Grinja and his compatriots, but also Dr.Go and Arlin.
- Your Son All Along: A very unique variant, at that. Of all the people with the Ezekiel mutation whose DNA Ivan could have used to make Kira, he used Meyard's. Kira, however, never finds out, and Meyard is not happy to find out his genetic material was used without his consent.
