Joshi Shougakusei Hajimemashita P!

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Mod Note: This review was initially posted for the manga, Joshi Shougakusei Hajimemashita, and was subsequently merged into Joshi Shougakusei Hajimemashita P.

So here we have a manga that is about a 30 year old male virgin who, upon lamenting on his unfulfilling job and unsuccessful social life, gazes at the sweet bodice and buttocks of two prepubescent girls playing with water and proclaims how he wishes he were a girl himself. An odd, magical chibi animal named Koro overhears these inner desire, recites “Koloin Koloin Lolico Lilon,” and the 30-year old virgin is granted his wish–waking up the next morning in the body of an ... elementary school girl in the early stages of puberty.

There are a lot of problematic things about this series. Firstly being the implications that Ruru merely wants to be in the body of a younger girl for sexual desires, when in reality no one would ever enjoy being in the body of the other sex for mere sexual desire. Than there’s the whole lolicon aspect of Ruru’s character, and perhaps worse is how in order maintain his “dream power” and continue prancing around as a little girl, he has to steal panties from other girls…which Koro asserts is perfectly acceptable for Ruru to be doing now that he himself is a girl; which as I’ll mention whenever the “sexual harassment is okay if it’s girl-on-girl” comes up in anime, is a total trigger for me.

But you know what? Despite all these things that would usually provoke contempt from me, I absolutely love reading this series. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read or watched all week, and the best fanservice series I’ve seen in a while. (You know, for the comedy surrounding the fanservice, not the fanservice itself. I’m not a lolicon.) It’s surprisingly entertaining to see a 30 year old virgin naively explore the world of a young girl in Japanese society, while he interacts with two sexually-budding elementary schoolers, and the whole thing is just full of wonderfully crass humor about lady parts and gender bending.

I was sold on this series towards the end of the first chapter, wherein Ruru starts to inspect his new vaginal genitalia, and just as I started groaning as it seems eminent that this is going to turn into a some bad hentai, Ruru’s friends Riri and Nono burst into the room to witness their friend preparing to fondle themselves–demonstrating a perfect use of comedic timing. And the awkward situations that Ruru gets himself into just gets better and better.

My favorite part would have to be the whole sequence of chapter 3, wherein Ruru naively asks Riri if he could borrow some panties from her. Flustered by the seemingly intimate question this leads to Riri coming to terms with her own lesbianism, which then prompts her to thrust Ruru into a changing booth so that they can swap panties–which then leads to Riri fainting upon seeing a penis sprout on Ruru’s crotch as his Dream Power begins to run out.

It's pretty great.