Feb 25, 2010
"Who loves the frog seems to love the moon" - Chinese saying
Story/Characters: 10/10
Watashi wa Kaeru ni Koisuru reveals itself as a brand new way of writing a manga. A VERY short oneshot, it is narrated on the interval of one day on first person, yet on a somewhat distant, metodic way, by a young brunette man, whose boyfriend is a blond guy he compares to a frog.
The frog is a symbol to uneasiness, with his ugly appearence. When one progresses further, however, it reveals himself as a reflection to the moon. The brunette guy is very uneasy with his situation. Dating, specially with someone as
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different from him, means leaving his comfort zone, and he is afraid. As he relates to his boyfriend as a frog, he puts himself a barrier between them, but, as a symbol of renovation, his boyfriend brings the death of this limit, and goes outside his own comfort zone to invade the brunette space.
While the lizard is related to the earth and the men, the frog is related to the water and the women. The two lovers are the lizard and the frog, two opposite sides that need each other to live, even if the first doesn't admit it at all.
The ending shows one of the main points of the water/frog analogy. The blond guy doesn't actually move the other one, but subtly flows through him.
Art: 10/10
Yumeka Sumomo isn't a storyteller with some drawing skills - she is an artist. Her usual smooth traces are completed by her ever-fresh, simple watercolouring, and the disposition of the frames and the visual elements is really nice. The only bad point is the little personal way she draws the characters chins, but it's actually overtoned by the characterization as a whole.
Overall: 10/10
It's not a manga you're going to read one time only. And it's not because of the short lenght, but because it's a REALLY interesting manga that gives the reader a nice experience. Its format, like a short story, leads to an open exposition of the situation with less complexity and space (and less frustation on the reading process, I should add. Reading a 600 chapters manga only to discover all of that could be told the same way on 20 pages is not a problem here).
For those who are searching for a intelligent romance that actually needs your interpretation (interpretation which is not just shipping characters), well, you've found it.
And for those who dislike the genre and the author, it's only a 4 pages manga. You've got no more than three minutes (download time included) to lose, but a lot to receive.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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