Mar 7, 2024
Have you ever read one of those manga, usually hentai manga, where a male character is said to have been gender bent as female, yet you never actually see them existing as male at any point except for maaaaybe half a panel on the first page, if that? It happens almost entirely, if not entirely, off screen and the "male" character is basically just a woman the entire time? Megu Milk is kind of like that.
This is not really a "gender bender" manga so much as it is a manga where the main character *technically* starts off male and uses the male-coded "ore" to refer
...
to themselves but is for all intents and purposes female. At no point in time is he ever seen to be struggling in any meaningful way with being female, and he's even given a very easy out for not having to live his life as a woman if he were so bothered by it. I mean, his character starts off looking kind of feminine to begin with (as these characters tend to) and though his character never behaves in what you might call a traditionally feminine way, he still manages to be more feminine than most AFAB characters I've seen in manga, "ore" notwithstanding. To be honest, if I weren't constantly reminded that this character was supposed to be a guy, I would probably forget because that's just how little horsepower the actual gender bending factor seems to be driving the story with.
Now, I'm not saying that an obvious ecchi manga HAS to have a serious, thoughtful take on gender bending; not at all. If anything, this is all just kind of annoying because it feels like the lack of focus on the actual gender bending and the easy escape from Meguru's female state means that the author must focus her clear desire to create drama elsewhere. The simple, easy to use, inherent drama of an errant wish and "unwanted" female body is tossed aside and Shou's personal life soap opera rears its head halfway through with an assortment of bit players who just can't help but derail what little story there is. To make matters worse, as soon as I finally started getting used to this change of gears and started to appreciate what was slowly becoming a more serious series, the author decides to end this manga in the goofiest way possible, throwing away a decent, if somewhat cliched, romance/drama in favor of... whatever the fuck that ending was.
Look, Megu Milk is ultimately not a bad manga to read, but the author clearly having no idea what she actually wants to do with it drags it down quite a bit. Not that this would be a masterpiece even if she DID know what to do with it, but this ends up being the mediocre ecchi romcom that it was probably going to end up being anyway, except worse. Temper your expectations and don't get too attached to this. It's not that good but it's not terrible either. If you like seeing cute girls in ecchi situations (i.e. various states of undress and the usual sexual touching), you'll probably think this is an alright read, but for most people there's really not much value in this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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