Nanako is…a jerk. If she were a guy, no one would hesitate to tell her so. But she’s not. She’s a girl – and a cute one at that, if she keeps her mouth shut. Akira is…a wimp. He’s quiet to the point of being the creepy guy in the corner that you’re sure will be the one with bodies in the freezer.

The plot is…a handwave. For no reason at all, really, Nanako and Akira switch bodies. Nanako is relieved to be free of the stifling behavior code for girls and proceeds to be a jerk, but since now she’s a guy, everyone kinds of expects it. And since Akira’s face is a handsome one, she’s got the girls oohing and ahhing after her. Akira, too wimpy to say no, finds himself thrust in the role of caretaker to Nanako’s annoying grandfather. It’s no suprise that he makes a “better” (i.e., gentler and meeker) girl than Nanako.

Nanako in Akira’s body finds herself attracted to her best friend. Akira in Nanako’s body finds himself fighting off the advances of his best friend. It’s a big ole gender-bending comedy fest in Volume 1 of Your and My Secret.

Like mostly every other transgender manga that’s made it into English (indeed, like most of what’s been wrtitten for the mainstream market in any language) Your and My Secret is a comedy. The gender switch is played for laughs and shocked giggles of titillated outrage as each finds themselves dealing with a same-sex relationship via proxy body.

The down side to this plot is that the comedy resides in the most banal gender role issues, again. For instance, I learned that a girl’s greatest weapon is to look teary-eyed and weak. Call me a bitchy lesbian feminist, but, uh, NO. Unless, as a woman you bring nothing else to the table. If you are a woman who is dumber than toast, denser than a bag of doorknobs and have absolutely nothing else other than your looks, then yes, I’ll grant you that looking like a baby seal is probably your best bet. Good luck with that when you get old. Otherwise, as Akira’s supposed to be a brilliant student, you’d think he’d attempt to *think* his way out of a problem. Clearly his girl body has sucked all the brains right out of him.

The only other problem with this plot is that it goes on for volume after volume after volume. I really hope something happens to create a real plot in the next two or three volumes, because I’m not sure how much more of Akira not even looking at his own body, because it’s that of a girl, I can take. But given that this manga ran in Comic Blade, we have to allow all the “zOMG girl’s bodies have breasts!” thing. Both the wife (who liked it) and I are up for Volume 2, anyway. ^_^

As a short “ha-ha” funny take on unwanted body switching, Secret is a typical situation comedy set-up. I kept expecting Kate or Ally to walk in at any moment and explain in a sensitive voice why switching bodies is okay. ^_^; 

Ratings:

Art – 8
Characters – 6
Story – 6
Yuri – 2
Service- 6

Overall – 7

It just dawned on me that I saw the live-action version of this while I was in Tokyo. The acting was pretty damn good, actually.

Special thanks to Grace E. for sponsoring today’s review! Email me and get your “Okazu hero” badge to proudly display or shamefully hide. ^_^

Ah, those lesbians. Always unstable and lascivious, usually murderous, they are just like sociopathic male stalkers, but with breasts. Thanks to Frederick D, today’s sponsor, we can wallow in their perverted behaviors and unnatural urges!

The “lesbians” in this manga remind me of a vividly remembered “lesbian” character from a Tom Clancy novel who comforted a married woman when her husband went missing, but it was all a ruse to get into her pants. Excuse, me, skirt. Because real women wear dresses, you know. Only lezbos wear pants.

And so it is here in Lady Snowblood, Volume 4, in which Syurayuki approaches the end of her lifelong vendetta. In order to fulfill her vengeance, Lady Snowblood must bear the seduction of the overweight, sweaty and altogether unappealing head nurse at a hospital for children and, later, she uncovers the deception of a cross-dressing blackmailing murderer.

The best part of all this is the lip-smacking. I know, as do you, that us lesbians walk around eyeballing every straight woman, barely containing our drool. (I can’t even type that without rolling my eyes.)

After getting past the evil lesbian bosses, and after receiving a healing spell from her surrogate father, Syurayuki faces her final confrontation, which ends in a very traditional turn for the ironic.

Lady Snowblood has both gained her revenge and her salvation, as the story comes to a beautiful, ambiguous, melancholy end.

However. Somewhere, a new lip-smacking, evil psycho lesbian boss is chortling like Ming the Merciless, as she picks up the thread of perversion and carries it into the future. (That’s not in the book, I just made it up. It just amuses me to imagine this alternate ending. )

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Yuri – 5
Service – 5

Overall – 7

Frederick – email me and get your “Okazu hero” badge!

Stray Little Devil , Volume 4 continues the adventures of human girl Pam who was handwaved into a dimension occupied by devils and angels and forced to undergo trials and tribulations in order to be returned to the human world. In the meantime, power struggles both big and small fill the background of the angel and devil worlds, and Pam spreads her cheerful friendship across the befuddled characters who inhabit her new life.

Many adventures befall Pam as she rises to the challenge of becoming a full-fledged devil, many of which seem to require her ass being shoved in our face and or her clothes disappearing. Ah, MediaWorks, how much joy have you brought to the lives of lonely people…

The main attraction in this volume is Pam’s bonding with Lin-fa, the angel who looks exactly like her best friend forever back in the human world. The two make their way through a series of amusingly predictable scenes; Pam smiles gamely in order to cheer Lin-fa up and get her to work together and Lin-fa looks stricken a lot.

Today’s review is an exercise in the subjective nature of Yuri. I have been told by many people if only I would get to the fourth volume of Stray Little Devil I would see that it is undoubtedly Yuri. Well, I’ve gotten there, and I see what you’re all saying. But I still don’t agree.

That is to say – I am absolutely, perfectly aware that these two are being set up in a way that lends itself to being labeled Yuri by people who believe that girls have only one possible kind of friendship. Because I know that women have many more levels of friendship than just “sex-friend” and “not sex-friend,” I see this as a very intense friendship. Even if they should embrace, I will still continue to see it as an embrace between shinyuu, between close friends who find themselves with an incredibly strong bond.

So when Volume 5 comes and the inevitable climax of the plot arises, I am not likely to find their protestations of love and caring for one another to be anything more than protestations of love and caring between friends. I trust my gay-dar. I have never been wrong except for once (and I’m still convinced he was lying about his girlfriend.)

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 1 for me, 4 for those who wish to see it
Service – 4

Overall – 6

As a tale of predictable crises, with predictable outcomes, Stray Little Devil is predictably entertaining.