Are you a girl or a boy?

[lordoftempest]

I'm a miserable little pile of secrets.

[Doe Johnson]

I think it's largely a cultural thing. Japan has a tradition of putting gender ambiguity into their art from as far back as the early Tokugawa era, when kabuki was turned into an all-male artform like AsianBlossom mentioned. Even today, there's kabuki (all male theater) and Takarazuka (all female theater) alongside the obvious androgyny in anime/manga. It's a particular aesthetic that is embraced, and I don't think there's much else to it.

At any rate, it's not something I find 'right' or 'wrong' necessarily, and pass judgment on the character/mangaka on a case by case basis. Or I suppose I'm less likely to flip about ambiguity since people frequently mistake me for a boy.

EDIT: And I wouldn't be too worried about Momiji. Obviously the kid turned out okay in the end.

I just went to Takarazuka's version of Elizabeth last night! It was good, although confusing as I had decided to wait until after the first act to read the storyline in English. I must say, Natsuki Mizu made an excellent Death (hehe, she looked like Sephiroth half the time, especially the wing scene...). She did make a pretty guy, but quite obviously a girl.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9d/Elisabeth_%28New_Snow%29.jpg
*really only wanted to make that comment*
um....I think most of my friends are always confused by the gender of Fruits Basket characters, but I never had trouble with any but, like, one. Oh...I suppose there is also *cough* but...yeah...nobody saw that one coming.

[Ichigo_89]

[quote="USSRGirl"]The more anime you see, the more you get immune to girly looking guys.[quote]

The same can be said about myspace and emo kids.

[Alexander]

I hand you an incredible trophy as well for considering the cultural aspect of things. I think it's rather sad when people don't at least stop to think "Well hey, maybe this is because they *GASP* don't see things the way we do in Western culture!"

I've become so enriched in Japanese culture that I know more about it then my own nation. And with that, I've come to accept the peculiar and many times very foreign culture. But also an incredible one.

*hugs Japan*

Annnnnnd. Trying to get back on topic. XD

I have noticed something very peculiar in some anime though. In Kino's Travels for example, when Kino goes through her change of being a normal girl to the male like look of her later, I've noticed that she appears to have physically changed.

[Caution-Spoiler in pictures.]
Before:
http://catsspat.dyndns.org:2080/anime/Kino_no_Tabi/PCBG-50409/kino_no_tabi2_1_720x480.jpg

After:

http://kino.ming-ling.net/artwork/novel-02-front.jpg

[Spoiler end]

Although I might be wrong too. Because if I look REALLY hard at some of her features in her body, her chin, her eyes, her waist, you can still tell she is a girl. But it's very, VERY hard to notice unless you look really hard.

I almost wonder if the artists do that on purpose to really make us guess.

[Blitzkrieg1701]

I don't know. I don't really notice any physical changes other than a haircut and a less emotive set of expressions.

Also, it's worth mentioning that the recent Kino's Journey movie is set a while after the series, at which point her gender is a bit more obvious