Ranked #1864

AKB49: Renai Kinshi Jourei (Manga)

Story -
This story revolves around a high-school student who pretends to be a female in order to support his love interest from within the audition, however what he did not expect was to be one of the candidates to pass, so he continues to support his love interest from within the group as Minori as well as from outside as Minoru. The synopsis, along with my short description, would lead you to believe that this story lacks an actual story and that it is just another one of those manga's that starts off interesting enough but quickly getting boring because the only thing they have going for them is the secret... HOWEVER I'm extremely happy to say that is not the case! The story starts off simple enough yes, but it quickly turns into something more as it depicts the life of an idol as well as the trials and tribulations of following your dream. There is very little if any perverted humor and the story focuses more on being an idol than the gender bender which I am happy about that. Stories like "Idol Pretender" start off with interesting premise but quickly lose the majority of the audience due to the lack of a story, while this on the other hand this is more of a "Birdy the mighty" since the gender bender is still present + the secret identity etc, it is not the entire story but rather, it is only a small fraction of it.

Art & Characters -
Art is fairly meh, you may struggle to tell characters apart from one another from time to time but as you get used to the art you are able to distinguish who is who, this by far is the weakest point of the manga imo.

Overall enjoyment -
I am really liking the story I've never read anything quite like this. The closest thing that I can think of is the Sun-ken Rock idol arc where it went into extreme details of life of a kpop idol, and managing a group... read more

Is your loved one struggling to reach her dreams? Well, man up! Dress up as a woman and help your darling to become part of the top idol group. At least that's what our main protagonist Urayama Minoru did. And is it working out? well.. that's for you to find out, or you can just read the review, whatevs..

STORY 8 - Well there is this one girl Yoshinaga and her wish is to become a part of AKB idol group. Minoru is her secret lover. Cute right? And then there were elections or somesort. And since she is so unconfident, Minoru went to help her out. But oh-my-couldn't-predict-it-at-all they both get accepted. There are always those ''but'' parts of the story... Minoru himself is doing quite well, and maybe he is a better idol than the person he tries to help. But! He can't stay forever as a female.. so this is why the story intrigues me. I really want to see how this mess turns out to be.
Story can be predictable at times, though, i even skipped some chapters.

ART 9 - Art is really great. I like the details, etc. Nothing bad to say.

CHARACTER 7 - Characters are good. Minori is quite strong-willed and i quite like ''her'' and i think ''she'' is the best character of the story. Anyways, this manga has many female and some other weird characters in it and i guess they all fit into the plot.

ENJOYMENT 9 - So far this has been very enjoyable. I just really want to see how Minoru will end up after all that mess. The excitement got a new push at chapter 119 so lets see how it turns out.

Overall i'd rate it 8. It has its ups and downs but overall very enjoyable gender-bender manga. Even if you do not know all that idol system you can understand what is going on. Tip: if you happen to get bored just skip few chapters, but there might not be a need to do that at all.
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