paths as teenagers, they meet again as adults at a party and fall deeply in love with each other. While she does more-or-less accept Claude's gender identity, she ends up falling in love with and gets engaged to Claude's brother Andrew. Publication Written and illustrated by Riyoko Ikeda, Claudine was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine Weekly Margaret in 1978, with the first part published in the No. 4–5 (January 15–22) combined issue, and the second part published in the No. 6 (January 29) issue. Shueisha collected and published the chapters in a single tankōbon volume under the Margaret Comics imprint on May 20, 1978. Fairbell Comics reprinted the volume in 2006 and released a digital version in 2013. Goma Books released a new digital version of the manga, along with ten other works by Ikeda, in 2018. On November 15, 2017, Seven Seas Entertainment announced they licensed Claudine for an English-language release in North America. It was published in a single volume (based on the Fairbell Comics edition) on June 26, 2018. The manga is also licensed in Italy by RW Edizioni under the Goen imprint. It was published in a single volume on May 17, 2014. Reception Claudine received mixed reviews from English-language publications. Austin Price of Otaku USA praised Ikeda's artwork as gorgeous and baroque, singling out her "expressive character designs and cinematic panel arrangements." Amy McNulty of Anime News Network (ANN) similarly commended Ikeda's iconic style of "large, beautiful eyes and fanciful attire", as well as "the finely detailed background art ... similar to architectural drawings." The story itself was described by Amanda Pagan of the New York Public Library as a "powerful tale about identity, culture, and self-acceptance." Publishers Weekly believed the manga might be able to teach its teenage demographic "something important about believing in oneself". Critics also praised the fact that Claudine "stars an undeniably trans character" without it being relegated to subtext or ambiguous writing. Lynzee Loveridge of ANN felt that this "forthrightness is unique for a genre that likes to stay in the 'will they or won't they' category so often." Rebecca Silverman of ANN agreed, stating that "for a manga in 1978 to tackle this subject is impressive in and of itself, because there's not a lot of authors in 2018 who are trying, much less in a thoughtful way." Echoing these sentiments, Erica Friedman, the founder of Yuricon, called