Idol Pretender

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I recommend this manga to people have read gender-benders before, and to people who are tired of a cut-and-paste RomCom full of sexist fan-service and unrealistic character behaviors.

I'm a big fan of the gender-bender genre I think it adds a really interesting and unique-to-its-genre dynamic that you just can't compare to the other genres out there.
That said, there are a lot of problems that a lot of gender-bender writers fail to work around. A lot of works tend to be sexist and blatantly unapologetic for it. As much as I love the genre for its potential, too seldom is it written with the potential it ... deserves.
Idol Pretender IS NOT one of those mangas.
It's so much BETTER!
It actually took a much more mature approach about the situation and the emotional effects of the bend.
Now it's not perfect... it is still a manga aimed towards young boys and it has a lot of fan-service that really doesn't fit very well with the maturity it shows elsewhere, and its humor isn't amazing either. It's funny, but not brilliant.
The thing about this manga is...

...It has a great message. "Gender doesn't matter."

And I loved that. It's not a perfect work of fiction, but it is SO MUCH MORE progressive than a lot of other examples of the gender-bender genre.
It never made fun of the fact that the main character, who used to be a guy, is unsure of whether he identifies as a man or a woman.


It clearly states word for word, that gender doesn't matter. I makes it okay for someone who calls himself a man's man, to love another man. It never pokes fun at the characters who cross-dress as men or women, despite the typical revulsion you usually see in Japanese media.


It really is very progressive compared to a lot of Japanese manga, especially considering that its a gender-bender, which usually only acts a a scape-goat for boys to get to imagine themselves as the suddenly-a-female character groping themselves and bleeding out the nose in the hot springs among all the other girls.
Now... understand that it's once again, NOT PERFECT.
It has those things in it too, BUT it doesn't make a huge deal about it.
THAT'S WHAT'S IMPORTANT ABOUT THAT.
It doesn't make fan-service the focus of the series, which is where so many gender-benders fail. The story, a love story... a love story with a rare flare... is the most important and intentionally aided part of Idol Pretender.

If you know anything about Japan, and you probably do, you know that its a very, very. very very sexist country.

I'm absolutely amazed that this work made it the printing press. If I had to guess, the only reason it had what fan-service it did have, was so that someone would allow it to get published (and you KNOW that the publishers think it's important to have it in their so they can target the teen boy audience).

I recommend this manga to people have read gender-benders before, and to people who are tired of a cut-and-paste RomCom full of sexist fan-service and unrealistic character behaviors.

Great… another gender bender manga… It’s almost like the authors of these mangas really hate men because it seems that almost all the men end up as women in these types. And then to top it off, we have a harem of boys and girls who like the character and each personality is pretty much infatuated by the main character. But anyway, I drew the short straw of the randomizer (I sometimes use that to figure out what I will be reading or watching next) so now I have to dive right in.

I’m sorry to bring this up but isn’t it really bad when there ... are guys really going for the centerfolds of a woman that used to be a man? That’s the type of manga this is, and its worse when there are a ton of times you see her naked, in sexy poses and such to. I feel like it’s another side of Yaoi that I’m not so sure about… or is it Yuri when there is a woman you like is a male who has turned into a female? The whole thing confuses me to no end. Not to mention that the story pretty much ran its course of Chinami starting to act more and more like a love sick girl to a point I was getting recaps of Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Seriously, it was enough for me to want to bang my head against the ground when almost every single character kept chanting the same thing of it not mattering weather someone is a boy or girl, it only matters what’s on the inside. I mean, I go by that idea too in a sense but it really didn’t apply all that well with this type of story.

Characters pretty much had only one thing on their mind the whole time, and their personalities only grew a little, if not at all. The only character that grew a lot and had anything going for them was Chinami and even then I felt they milked the feelings part a little too much. It was just too much for what they were trying to do. I could see it if there was a little more to get me interested but the character flip flopped way to much and again, I wanted to hit my head against the table in a fit of annoyance.

The artwork is beautiful but very moe. Everything looks like it has a really strong shine to it like the characters are made from plastic. Characters have really childish faces, large glass-like eyes, and small faces. If you really want to think of what its like, think Lucky Star goes ecchi. With that, Chinami is actually supposed to be a really sexy women and everything but I can’t get past her looking like a little girl. Not to mention her breasts look a bit too big for the body she has. Her hourglass figure just feels like the proportions are off in some areas. Her hair is almost always a mess to and I don’t think that if she was going to be trying to be an idol, she would leave her hair like that. They look much more like clomps of tentacles going every which way then hair.

This is my first time to write my own review about this manga. Well, I'm not get used to it. Back to the topic, this manga is really hillarious. Good to make you laugh till the end. (Lol)

its about a story a man among the man, Chinami Eita. He did dominate the whole school with his fists, yet he's the strongest and masculine boy. A boy fallen in love with the beautiful short-haired girl which he admired it. In the end, Eita transform turn into a girl due to his friend give a unknown medicine to Eita. ( SHIT-- HNNNGG. ) Moe-overload.

This story is really ... great, it would make you nosebleed or got a heart-attack. But this manga made my day. The artwork is really beautiful, and moe. Character is great, too. Basically, I'm not interesting about idols anime in the past. but now, I really love this in the beginning when I see Eita became a 'Tsundere' type in boy form or girl form.

"A man who isn't manly a manly at all!!" - Eita Chinami.

CONTENT WARNING: This is a genderbend manga, so think twice before reading if you are made uncomfortable by this genre of manga, and please refrain from posting anything rude about the series beyond simple criticism in order to make the community as non-toxic as possible for people who just want to enjoy the series. Thank you in advance.

Idol Pretender had potential. If you're remotely familiar with any sort of competitive sport or game you'll know that saying something has 'potential' is just an insult in disguise. In this case, though, I mean it. Idol Pretender could have been something great. Incredible, even. Instead, all it ... is is an 'incredible' flop. Of course, I'll have to justify this stance for all of you, since I assume a review is what you came for.

Story - 7/10 (Synopsis in case the MAL one wasn't enough for you)

To be completely honest, I absolutely love the premise. A man - and not just any man, but the most ideally masculine man alive, is just minding his own business, beating the crap out of several other men. Let boys be boys. The man - Eita Chinami - decided on being masculine after finding out that his crush likes that kind of guy, so as you can imagine he's pretty gung-ho about it. A little later, his best friend Oguri realizes Chinami caught a cold and so Chinami goes over to his house to grab it. And, not at all fearing an overdose, Chinami decides to chug down every single pill. He suddenly feels a sharp pain and passes out, but it's all okay because he's all better! Only problem is, now he's completely opposite his macho ideals - he's a short, busty girl! And all his clothes are gone for some reason! Turns out, he drank the wrong medicine (which is probably a good thing, since he probably would have actually died of an overdose if he drank the actual cold medicine)! Oguri briefs Chinami on the situation, informing him that the medicine is insanely expensive. The pair soon realizes that the quickest way to earn back all of the money and order more medicine to turn back is for Chinami to err even farther from even the most remote signs of masculinity - Chinami needs to become an idol! And thus begins his quest to get as far away from masculinity, run into some crossdressers on the way, and earn back millions of yen! The premise is unique to the genderbend genre, and it's enough to hook in most viewers, There are some really good messages like 'gender doesn't matter' that also stick Idol Pretender apart from the rest, and it doesn't rely much on fanservice, though the fanservice that is included is very tasteful. So, dear reader, will all of this in mind, you may be wondering why on earth I would give the story a 7/10? I'll be brief on this one: The ending is one of the worst in manga history. And I don't say that lightly. No matter who you ship together with Chinami, the ending is absolutely abysmal. If I say anything else I'll be far into spoiler territory, so I'll stop here.

Art: 7/10

The art compliments the series well, as it restricts itself to strictly moe and absolutely nothing else. Every single character is cute, although it sometimes looks a bit odd that Chinami has a developed hourglass figure and yet her face looks like a ten-year-old's. And when certain events happen and you actually see Chinami as a little kid (with a significantly less developed body), she has the exact same face and yet it looks more, uh, convincing that way. All in all, though, the art's passable and then some.

Character: 4/10

The weakest point of Idol Pretender byfar. Chinami is your run-of-the-mill genderbend protagonist, desperately trying to maintain her masculinity as it slips through her significantly smaller fingers. This is entertaining to watch for the first three chapters before Chinami seems to stop caring and becomes more preoccupied with her love life. Oguri is annoyingly dense and unrelatable, and all of the other characters are utterly forgettable. Additionally, there is absolutely no character development outside of Chinami deciding who she's in love with, a process that progresses at a snail's pace over the course of fifteen chapters.

Enjoyment - 7

Like I said before, the premise is new and innovative. Additionally, it's actually pretty funny, and can definitely keep your attention for all fifteen chapters (before all of your hopes and dreams are destroyed in chapter fifteen). In the end, though, Idol Pretender was never really anything special. In the genderbend manga community, Idol Pretender has been and will be remembered, not as a particularly good title, but as the manga that had potential. And that's all it ever will be.

Overall - 6/10

If you have any questions or concerns about this review, want to recommend a fringe manga to me, or even simply want to chat about this title, please DM me or contact me at thefringereviewer@gmail.com for any and all inquiries. My door is always open.

Okay, so. I'll start by saying that this was for the most part a very enjoyable manga to read. I'm a fan of gender-bender stories, and especially ones where the gender-bent character comes to realize that the way they end up isn't so bad after all. (Having that certainly ends up approximating closer to being transgender, which I'll take as close to as I can get, lmao.) This manga is really funny too. And it did have some actually pretty wholesome things to say, such as the occasionally repeated "gender doesn't matter" (initially "as long as you're beautiful", which really ends up saying something about ... the speaking character's shallowness, but later mentioned again without that qualification in regards to love). But... the ending really soured a lot of that. Without getting too spoilery, I didn't like how they spent the whole story developing a relationship that I ended up getting really invested in only to yeet it out the window at the last second. If the ending had been handled better I could probably feel much less conflicted about Idol Pretender, but as it stands, welp.

The story began with the protagonist being macho and Uber manly. Then suddenly with a dose of girly drugs he became extremely sexy and lost all of his muscle mass. To make matters worse he had a huge crush on some chick. Yet he still tries to pursue her as a girl.

It's been years since I read Idol Pretender. The logic in this manga blows me away. His pursuits worked out in his favor but the girl he had a crush on became creepier.

As a job or a joke he became an idol, the opposite of an extremely masculine man and admitted something in the ... end that disappointed me greatly.

It's truly mind-boggling.

Idol Pretender goes from 0 to 60 in 3.5 pages. It's short, it's fast, the love is furious, and there are more overlapping love triangles that go nowhere than you can shake a stick at.

Okay, so, the decision to leave his life behind in order to live as a woman trying to become an idol for "easy" money is one thing...but when you add a new character and each new character is a new love rival but you're not going to flesh out the love that well...it's frustrating.

I'm not too happy with the ending and I was disappointed to see the characters only ... caring about their love lives than being themselves. I wish there was more conflict with the main character and understanding what he is after his gender transition, but it always boils down to "Gah?! I'm supposed to be a guy!?!" Which gets old even after a short series such as this.

There are genuinely good moments and interesting character turns that I wish were plotted out better. Part of the reason I didn't like the ending is that I didn't feel like the author put in the work to make the romance feel natural.

It's weird. By all accounts, this is a very average gender bender story, and yet it's missing just enough parts and sense that it makes it frustrating and disappointing, but not bad.

Sigh.

It was a roller coaster of "?!?"