Boku to Kanojo no XXX
Your & My Secret

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I decided to read this manga after reading hana kimi and Tokyo crazy paradise and then I enjoyed gender blenders a lot. It wasn't as good as these two but it was pretty hilarious I laughed a lot and enjoyed it a lot
For story I give 6 it's really original but very annoying the way it goes at the beginning is a bit too slow that I actually went thru some pages only by looking at the pictures
For the art I give 7 it's really funny the way the artists draws the different expressions of each character
For character I give 6 sometimes momoi ... and Akira really pissed me off the way he can't stand up for himself and the way she had all the control and messed with his life as she pleases however as the events unfold the characters evolved and they became more agreeable
For enjoyment I give 8 it's actually a hilarious manga
Overall it's 7 a funny manga but if u get irritated by characters with weak personalities I don't recommend it and also it has a bit of yaoi

Do i start from the fact that this manga made me feel so uneasy that i decided to write a review about it although i never bother writing one most of the time?

To be fair, i enjoyed reading it in the beginning, it was interesting and i couldn't excatcly predict what what going to happen next so i continued reading it. I finished it in two sittings, the first sitting was fun but it was during the second sitting that i started to feel really pissed off considering how patient i was trying to be. They kept repeating te same damn mistakes and I’m gonna ... start telling you how much of a prick Momoi was to Akira. She not just violated his body and used it as she wished but she also had the nerve to threaten Akira not to even look at her body?? She slept around with girls and yet got mad if Akira had some weird THOUGHTS? Like are you for real? There are just so many disgusting stereotypes in just this one manga i couldn’t honestly take it.
And let me state my unpopular opinion that a boy’s virginity is NO LESS important or special than a girl’s. And thus Momoi is disgusting.

Now I’m going to talk about how much i loathed Senbongi :) He’s just a selfish bastard for using Akira. Akira CLEARLY didn’t like being a girl but Senbongi just kept bugging him and making him feel uneasy even though he SAID many times how he didn’t want to be treated like that and how he wanted him to look at him the way he was before because he still viewed himself as a GUY!. Then there was that time when i thought he was actually a good guy and that he actually liked Akira for who he was and not for his sex but then he starts avoiding him after Akira gets back to his own body?? For real! I can’t start to describe how bad i felt for Akira. And the ending was just wrong on sooo many levels.

My thoughts are… really complicated. I can kinda see what Ai was going for in the manga, but she’s not really known to follow the masses. She has really strange manga ideas (like Ahiru no Ouji-sama and Gokuraku Seishun Hockey Bu, another set of manga of hers I’ve yet to finish) as well as literally throwing fuck all at the wall and seeing what sticks. And I’m guessing… this wasn’t it.

On one hand, I like the idea. I like the idea of challenging the idea between masculinity and femininity and, seeing how I actually learned something about the issues of feminism in Japan, this made ... me interested and there were a lot of things I had missed on my first read-through. There were actually a lot of funny parts in it – due to poor Akira’s desire to get back to his original body but, at the same time, he wanted to enjoy his time in his crush’s body. After all, he is biologically a man.

On the other hand, no, not really. I didn’t like it. In fact, I found almost all the characters, with the literal exceptions of Shiina and Akira, to be really stupid and selfish. I eventually warm up to Senbougi, but that’s only because he finally admitted he liked Akira as Akira – no matter what body he’s actually in.

Well, I liked Senbougi until the final chapters. He became really insufferable. On one hand, I can understand. When the two of them finally did return to their original bodies, Akira had started to accept the fact he was going to stay in Nanako’s body, and vice versa. Not only that, he blurted out, as he got back into his own body, that this was normal and how things should be. Apparently, this hurt Senbougi’s feelings for some reason and he started to avoid Akira after that.

Once again, on the other hand… no, not really. I thought the point of Senbougi and Akira becoming a couple was that Senbougi was still going to like him even as a man – but that’s not the case. There was a scene that he “attacks” Momoi after the final switchback, thinking she’s Akira still. This was supposed to be funny but then it finally shows what my major problem was this was: Gender was still a big deal to Senbougi.

Momoi couldn’t care any less if she was a woman or a man – if Shiina was bisexual. Since Shiina wasn’t, Momoi was determined to get back into Akira’s body and the end. I’m not too comfortable with that idea for both of them.

Seriously, the whole deal about Akira fretting over Senbougi was that Senbougi admitted that even as a guy, he had feelings for Akira. He said it’s easier to act them out because Akira is in a woman’s body, which is fair enough. But in the end, it was still about gender. It wasn’t about his personality. The end has the grandfather get amnesia after he manages to unshrink Nanako’s dad (don’t even ask) – that’s when they got their original bodies back – and Senbougi takes it on as a mission to get Akira back in Nanko’s body and vice versa.

Another thing that really bothered me about this manga series was that Akira was the only one uncomfortable at the idea he’s not in his body. He’s the only one who’s making any effort to be comfortable in his own skin. Not only that, this manga shows the double standard men and women have – Nananko in Akira’s body literally slept with all the women (and arguably men) because she kept saying he’ll get sick if he doesn’t. However, Akira was not allowed to even look at Nanako’s naked body (while bathing!) because she wanted to save herself for marriage.

Not only that, literally everyone was saying, “Oh, don’t go back to your original body. Things are great, aren’t they?” In fact, Akira went to a fortune teller who said the very same thing.

I feel kind of dissatisfied with this manga only because of the problems I’ve presented. I do realize that Ai probably didn’t care about the main point of the manga (what is the main point anyway? does she even have any in her other manga?) and probably just wanted to do a gender bender just so she can have a story like that in her collection.

I did like the art though. The humor mostly comes from Akira’s reactions to the situations more so than anything but Nanako’s antics did get really trying really quickly. I feel honestly disappointed by this but I’m not sure what I really expected from a mangaka like Ai Morinaga. Another thing I did actually like was that Akira and Nanako did not get together and eventually Akira did finally let go of his crush. It started to get on my nerves though that Akira kept bringing how mean and cruel she is. We know that, already, dude! That’s how you got into that situation in the first place! But it was a nice change of pace that the two (opposite sex) main characters didn’t get together for once.

I’m not even sure if I would recommend this manga to anyone other than those who can appreciate something different and something for them not to take seriously. Ultimately, that’s where my disappointment lies:

I took an Ai Morinaga manga seriously.