May 16, 2010
Futaba Shimeru and his entire family share an interesting physical characteristic: they change sex when they get emotionally excited. From this premise stems a touching, and intensely funny, love story.
Story: This is, at heart, a touching love story between two Japanese high school students. There just happens to be a great deal of comedy thrown into the mix. Like another manga that I have read, and liked, this one shares an unusual plot twist near the end explaining the entire sex-changing element. I will not be getting into that, however. If you want to know what the plot twist is, you'll just have to read
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one or other (or both, if you like) of the manga in question. Overall, I would say the story was a good one, but nothing truly amazing. 7/10
Art: This manga is almost 20 years old at its beginning, and I'm sure many of today's manga readers will say the art is outdated. To me, however, the art was very nice. It's nothing amazing, but very good all the same. This is the manga/anime art I grew up with, and I like it. 8/10... To me, at least.
Character: The characterization is where I found most of the love I have for this manga. Unlike another manga (and anime) character that changes sex who I can name (*cough*Ranma Saotome*cough), Futaba Shimeru actually learns to adjust to, and accept, his ability to change sex. It causes him, and a couple of people around him, trouble, but he can accept it. As this manga worked its way along I found myself rooting for the two main characters (Futaba and the girl he loves), and their relationship. This is something you can't get with bland, cookie-cutter characters that so many writers (both those in Japan and in Western cultures) use all too often. Several of the support characters will seem familiar as ones just like them have, indeed, appeared in various manga (the greedy young lady whose only thought is how she can make more money, for example), but the main characters were, I felt, well developed. 9/10
Enjoyment: I derived a great deal of enjoyment from this manga. This was part nostalgia for the art, part my liking for the main characters and enjoyment reading their trials and triumphs, and part of it was reading a manga with a sex-changing main character who doesn't complain about it at every given opportunity. I definitely enjoyed reading this, and I'm sure that I will read it again at some point. 9/10
Overall: 8/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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