Eoneu Nal Jameseo Kkaeeoboni Bagelyeoga Doeeo Isseotda

Baiting at its finest. This anime will promote itself as an anime with a trans main character and a comedy, and out of the blue will pull a dramatic mexican telenovela plot and don't know what to do with it.

Basically the beginning was great and the story was doing well as a comedy just as the trailer promoted. Bong Ji/Ah Reum, Se Mi and her brother were good characters, and the arc of the protagonist discovering what it was like to live as a woman was pretty good.
At this rate, the anime would do greatly by continuing to focus on Ah Reum's life and how ... she accepts her new body. We even have some sweet scenes with her and Se Mi to give her development. And this development goes nowhere.

Somehow someone decided that it would be a nice idea to switch the idea of the show completely and make this a drama with supernatural elements that they can't handle, nor can explain. And the end is a total trainwreck, full of plotholes, deus ex-machinas and a total nonsense of a resolution. The writing is bad, simply. Not to mention that the artstyle just doesn't fit a drama full of killings like this one.
And a terrible aspect is that the main character returns to his old body, having never identified himself as a woman, even if they used the word "trans" in the trailer and gave a lot of hints that the anime would be about it. Too bad because I was planning on watching it with a trans friend, and what coud be a good anime with representation ended up being queerbaiting with a nonsensical plot in the background. Not to mention that we were teased with Se Mi and Ah Reum showing attraction to each other just so in the end it would be all forgotten.

The show starts off as a somewhat lighthearted comedy about a weeb, named Bong Gi, who – after coming home frustrated from work one night – magically transforms into an attractive, young woman.

The first half of the show mainly deals with Gi coming to terms with the fact that he is now a woman, and we get to see how he adapts to this new reality as he establishes new relationships and overcomes various hurdles associated with being a young woman in modern Korean society. As you can imagine, many awkward situations and encounters ensue, which in turn, bring much hilarity to the viewer.

That being ... said, it is already apparent from the get go that the show is not your run of the mill gender bender comedy flick, as there is some rather serious (if not – at times – scathing) social commentary on modern Korean society, including topics such as bullying, sexual harassment, romance, suicide, and femininity. This can be understood almost immediately, as it is revealed early on that Gi has a very troubled past (in which some of these topics feature prominently), and this past eventually catches up to him in various ways as the show progresses. That being said, by the time you reach the second half of the show, it will also have become abundantly clear that there is something much larger and more sinister at work behind the scenes, beyond just social issues affecting Gi personally, but I will leave that to the reader of this review to experience first hand by watching the show.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(There are some completely inconsequential details below that will not ruin your experience watching the series whatsoever, but I will still warn you, just in case you do not want to know anything else beyond what I have already told you)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENDER BENDER ASPECT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my opinion, this is where this series really shines most bright. For unlike most other gender bender anime series, where men who turn into women are essentially still men because they still think and act like men, Gi undoubtedly undergoes a fundamental change during the course of the series, as he gradually behaves and thinks more like a woman as time goes on. This actually goes so far that it even has an effect on Gi’s romantic preferences, but to what degree I shall not spoil. The tool that the show uses most extensively to convey these changes in Gi are his thoughts, for Gi has a lot of internal monologue, and he constantly comments on whatever predicament he currently happens to be in. This provided a very good window into what he was thinking at any given time, and it really made you relate with him.

The aforementioned withstanding, the series is still a gender bender, so supernatural elements obviously play some part in the series. However, the series is smart and keeps such elements to a minimum, and I can say, personally, that they did not in any way detract from my own enjoyment of the show.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIALOGUE, CHARACTER INTERACTION and the PORTRAYAL of WOMEN
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The way in which the characters in this show communicated and interacted felt especially organic and believable. This is best demonstrated by how, whenever the show took on a serious – or less jocular – tone, the characters usually spoke and gesticulated more or less as you would have expected of a real person. This was also extended to how the characters acted and spoke when verbally confronting each other, and to most of the physical altercations (except for some of the scenes involving bullying). All that being said, you obviously have to make an exception to some of the comedic skits, in that this is an anime.

Another thing that also impressed me was how believable the female characters felt. They did not yammer on constantly about men (as you see in many Shoujo anime), they were not afraid to get confrontational – or, to at least not just stand completely still and act helpless – when confronted with a threat or challenge, and the chugging of beer by – and subsequent realistic portrayal of intoxication pertaining to – female characters was not an uncommon sight, especially during moments of anxiety or unease. The comedy in the show also took many subtle jabs at skimpy female clothing, and it definitely made me laugh on more than one occasion.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TONE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The series is rated PG-13, but do not let that deceive you, for the show is definitely aimed at a more mature audience, as evidenced by the very realistic and direct nature of verbal and physical altercations, as well as by the type of comedy that the show features. Needless to say, I feel that most of the social issues explored in the series can be far more well understood by an adult than by a teen.

Moreover, there are a couple of scenes of men forcefully grabbing women in a very direct and physically intimidating way, often with an underlying threat of sexual violence, and the way the show handled these portrayals was surprisingly realistic and intense. Not going to lie… I did not know that the show was merely PG-13, so two of those physical altercation scenes actually made me a bit anxious. That is not coming from a place of frailty, but from a man who is used to seeing a lot of violence and gore.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOICE ACTING
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I normally only watch anime raw in Japanese, but since I do not know how to speak Korean, I had to watch the subbed version. Nevertheless, my impression is that the voice acting was of very high quality, and the voices seemingly matched the characters well. None of the voices seemed out of place or artificial.

The story is basically about a bullied overweight guy that turns into a hot girl with some hugely sized chest equipment. It's not super innovative or anything, but it's reasonably interesting as that particular kind of a wish fulfillment type of show. S/he has a series of troubles like buying underwear and various job related stuff. She tries and somewhat manages to get back at some bullies too and then gets involved in some pretty serious mystery.

It has a number of ecchi scenes and some interesting side characters, like a girl that helps him out with shopping and stuff from the very beginning when he's ... all surprised and confused.

Korean cinema seemingly never fails to have an interesting, if not great, premise and execute it spectacularly until about halfway, where the tone whiplashes - fine enough - only to annihilate any goodwill it built up with me in the first half.

It turns out this isn't just a Slice of Life-Genderbender-Comedy, but also a Mystery show, as is readily apparent just from the title: Why and how did the protagonist turn into a girl? It's pretty cool until you realize the protagonist isn't genre savvy. This starts, as I mentioned about halfway through, but goes beyond the pale at about Episode 9 or 10. I ... was screaming at the screen I was so angry.

Maybe I'm just too smart or something, but I only needed until Episode 7 to build a functioning model in my head of what happened. The mystery wasn't solved, I didn't know all the details, and certainly neither did the protagonist, but I knew ENOUGH. Even from only his perspective I knew enough. If I was the main guy, as of Episode 6, I'd be seriously concerned, and by Episode 7 I'd be taking *immediate* and *decisive* action and the rest of the story wouldn't happen because I would have solved the conflict. I wanted to be reasonable though, so I figured the guy just didn't have enough information to realize what was really going on. Then the rest of the show happens, and even when the mystery is completely revealed, he's STILL making pants-on-head level stupid decisions. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was at that point that I sped the whole show up so I could finish it, because I still wanted to know what happened, but I didn't want to have to spend another hour watching it.

I saw the last twist coming a mile away, and though I didn't think it would save the show for me, I still thought it could be really cool. It wasn't. I understand why it took so long before the twist happened, because certain prerequisites weren't met, but the timing of it felt off, like the story beat was late. The flow of it felt wrong. What's more, I was expecting a big hero moment - hoping! - and we got one. It was a good start, if late, but oh boy it didn't stick the landing; more like it tripped and fell down the stairs. I was appalled. I can understand why it wouldn't be some glorious superhero victory, but it was groan-inducing, eye-rollingly bad.

The final reveal felt like a retcon and doesn't quite make sense. I do really like the final explanation for the magic of him turning into a girl though, chronology and complete and unabashed visual LIE that it is. I'd talk about it, but since I'm labelling this as a mixed recommendation I don't want to spoil anything. If you've seen the show you probably know what I'm referring to.

The romance didn't happen the way I wanted either. Maybe that's a matter of personal opinion and it won't bother anyone else, I don't know, but based on what was built up I was expecting/hoping for it to be a bit more *solid* at the ending for all the characters. I can't think of a better way to describe it. And let's not forget one them has a COMPLETELY unresolved romance thread which makes it feel very strange indeed.

Finally we have the positives that stand out to me, everything not mentioned here or previously receiving my general approval:

I really loved the art style for the faces. Those lower eyelashes put a smile on my face. The fanservice is mostly treated as a joke, and is actually pretty nice because it's restrained and part of larger moments, or is directly linked to the plot. Part of the conflict is rather serious business and it's refreshing that the show doesn't pull its punches. I also REALLY enjoyed the portrayal of genderbending. It's a trait of poor writers to want their characters to go on a specific journey and end up growing in a specific way, so they rush things and have them immediately adjust to whatever's happening so they can get on with the almighty PLOT. Here, not so much. Despite being genderbent the protagonist still lived his life up to that point as a guy, creating male habits and mannerisms, and it shows. Good on you, show. Good on you.

And now that I think of it, the moral of the story was really fumbled and a bit insulting to the protagonist.

The way I judge art is by starting with whether it's good or not, tempered, or even sometimes overruled, by whether I like it not. From there, I decide just how good or just how bad it is. In this case, I decided Bagel Girl is bad, but it's not 'Very Bad', 'Horrible' or 'Appalling', so while I think 4 is too low a score, I mostly agree with the label of 'Bad'. Still, recommendations count for a lot more, I find, either a definite Yes, No, or Give-It-A-Try-And-See-How-You-Feel. In this case I give Bagel Girl a very firm recommendation of 'Mixed Feelings'.