A 12-episode anime adaptation produced by AIC Classic and directed by Ei Aoki aired in Japan between January and March 2011.

Wandering Son was selected as a recommended work by the awards jury of the tenth Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006.

In junior high school, they meet a tall, eccentric girl who befriends everyone, Chizuru Sarashina, and her prickly friend Momoko Shirai, who does not get along well with the others—especially Saori.

In an interview in August 2003, Takako Shimura stated that the theme of Wandering Son is similar to the second half of her previous manga series Shikii no Jūnin.

However, she realized that a boy who wants to become a girl before entering into puberty would have many worries related to growing up, and changed the story accordingly.

For the designs of clothes for the female characters, Shimura consulted various fashion magazines for girls in their early teens, especially Nicola.

[58] Shimura commented self-deprecatingly in the afterword of volume one that, like her other series, her characters do not look very different from each other, her panels are too white, and there is much pathos.

[60] It was serialized in the monthly seinen (aimed at younger adult men) manga magazine Comic Beam from the December 2002 to August 2013 issue.

[71] A 12-episode anime television series adaptation produced by AIC Classic and Aniplex aired in Japan between January 13 and March 31, 2011 on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block.

[77] Following the arrest of Ai Takabe, the voice actress who played Maiko, for drug possession in October 2015, Bandai Channel removed the series from its streaming catalog.

[62] Wandering Son was selected as a recommended work by the awards jury of the tenth Japan Media Arts Festival in 2006.

[84] The Young Adult Library Services Association nominated Wandering Son for its 2012 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

[86] In a review of the first volume by Rebecca Silverman of Anime News Network (ANN), she praised the slow pace of the storytelling, which "gives it a more realistic feel.

"[87] Silverman praises Takako Shimura for making Shuichi into a "human protagonist", but notes that "most of the children act much older than they are.

Santos criticized the "emotional realism" of the work for having the young characters' "unrealistically mature attitude" towards "issues above their grade level.

[87] Thorn described the art as "clean and lovely" and went on to cite Wandering Son as "sweet, thought-provoking, funny, and moving, and I think it will resonate with readers regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

"[90] The first manga volume as translated by Fantagraphics Books had an early debut at the May 2011 Toronto Comic Arts Festival and sold out within the first two hours of the event.

Orsini praised the "delicate, watercolor-like art" and how the story is "treated with empathy and kindness", but "at the same time, it's far from a lecture; its focus on characters keeps it as entertaining as it is enlightening".