Shishunki Bitter Change

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A body swap story that takes things a bit more seriously than usual.

The characters swap when they're very young, and can't figure out how to switch back, leading them to go through puberty in each others' bodies and move onto middle and then high school.

Body swapping is obviously a concept ripe for exploration of varying aspects of the human condition, something for which it is basically never actually used. This series gets closer than usual, but stops just short of actually get too deep or introspective.

Still, it's pretty good, I think. The characters have a pretty believable "friends who fight all the ... time" energy going on. The ending feels a bit sudden, but I still liked it overall. There's a few "after the story" bonus chapters out there that I think are pretty essential to kind of cushion it and leave you feeling a bit more satisfied with how it wrapped up.

As a disclaimer- no, I didn't read the webcomic. Yes, I know the ending is different. Tbh, if this story had ended the way I understand the webcomic version does, I'd probably hate it.

"Shishunki Bitter Change", or "Gender Bender: Can't Return to Sender" isn't great. I'd hesitate to call it good, but I certainly can't call it bad, either. It's just serviceable. It's a light, breezy read with some chuckles and a few moments of genuine pathos but there's little else too it than that.

Maybe that's all you want, but personally I like a little cheese on my crackers.

Having the characters swap at an early age and then committing to it as they continue to age up through High School, with all the angst that comes with, is an interesting direction to take, and there's plenty of room ... to mine for drama or comedy, but it feels like it only skims the surface more often than not. The drama's never too deep and the comedy's never uproarious, so it often treads this middle ground of being just funny or compelling enough to keep you reading, but not enough to leave any lasting impression or have more than a handful of effective moments.

How many times can two characters stand face to face, cry, hug, and completely wall up before we've gone through every variation?

The pace is blistering fast, and that might keep SBC from taking the time to mine the premise for all its worth, but the bigger issue is likely the characters. The two leads are great. They're cliches, yeah, but they an earnest sort of chemistry and bounce off each other well. The problem is more with the rest of the cast, and by that I mean there isn't one. Most everyone else here is entirely flat, one-note, and forgettable. If you're on this site, you know these character types by heart. Don't expect surprises.

Also, the whole world knows your taste is shit and sniggers behind your back.

The biggest hindrance point is the art. I'd call it bog standard but I think bogs have more detail and variety. Backgrounds and foregrounds are sparse and bare, utterly devoid of character, the paneling is flat and rarely changes, and there's so much filler that it makes you wonder how long each chapter would be if you just cut every panel of white space and by the numbers establishing shots.

They photoshop the plaid patterns on the pants. Come on, it's 2016, people. Have you not noticed the year in which we are living, which is the current one?

It gets the job done, it rides the threshold of competence, but it's so lackluster and phoned in that it's almost superfluous. Why bother if you're not going to bother at all? We got books now.

For all the shit-picking and nit-flinging this is still enjoyable. Like I said, there are some nice moments; it's never quite touching, but it's close enough that you can give it credit and round up. SBC's amusing enough, but what could've been a real neat sort of story just ends up being alright. It okay.

If SBC happens to tumble onto your screen and that red x button at the top of your browser is too hard to scroll through, give it a read.

It keeps on dragging on and on and on and on about very petty, unimpressively done melodrama and love and stuff. Rather than actually develop a love polygon or relevant character development and side characters, you're kind of just led around the nose with very small quabbles, monologues, and basically not a lot going on. There's time skips because the author can't actually write thoughtful characters and story so he has to skip through stuff to make the relationships progress in the way he deems fit.

You'd think the main couple or romance would be somewhat interesting, but it's really not. None of the new ... characters introduced give anything new to the story while the old characters get cast aside or barely do anything in chapters other than moan and complain about their melodramatic woes.

I wish there were more dynamic scenarios, more heart to heart dialogue, or anything that would make the story more interesting. As it is, it's a pretty below average manga about body-swapping with not much to tell for it. Them main ship is obvious and the characters that meddle in it, support it, all basically don't matter at all.