Shishunki Bitter Change

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Ahhh, body swapping. That tired old cliché that has been done hundreds of times in manga. Usually, we get a cheap laugh or two about the characters' failures at keeping up their façade around their family and friends, maybe a couple ecchi situations for the unsuspecting boy stuck in a girl's body, and a hackneyed romantic development to wrap things up before everything goes back to normal. And so begins this manga: with an elementary school boy and girl who swapped bodies after falling out of a tree and banging their heads together.

Given how well-trodden and mediocre the trope it builds its premise around ... is, I did not expect much from Shishunki Bitter Change. But against all odds, it manages to do something truly extraordinary. It is a series that asks in a completely serious tone, what would it *actually* be like to switch bodies with someone of the opposite sex? To have to live their life, not for days or months, but years?

This is not a comedy manga. The experiences of the characters main characters Yui and Yuuta are not played off as a gag, but are treated with heart-wrenching realism. The two suffer through actual gender dysphoria as they go through puberty and see their bodies changing ever further away from their image of themselves. They struggle with being separated from their family and the prospect of never being able to be their true selves ever again, of always having to hide. They become miserable when seeing the everyday life of other boys and girls around them, knowing they themselves can never have that. They feel distraught and disoriented when other characters treat them "as a boy" or "as a girl" when all they want is a friend.

If I had to sum it up, this is a manga about cisgender characters being made to live through the experience of a transgender person, the actual sensation of being "in the wrong kind of body". And it is handled excellently, with tact but with a level of drama and intensity that keeps you hooked. The plot itself is mostly slice-of-life, there only to give us more time to see the characters interact. In these day-to-day moments of the main characters' school lives we catch glimpses of the relationships between the characters as they shift and grow with the passing years. There are crushes, love triangles and confessions, but all of this is overlain by the suffocating fact that neither of the main characters can ever allow themselves to be true to their feelings or even their own identity.

Visually, the art style of it is relatively simplistic but clean, having been originally published as a webcomic the panels are arranged vertically and there are relatively few of them to a page. The characters emotions are well conveyed through relatively few words, for example several times in the series there are whole-page shots of either Yuuta or Yui simply looking at their appearance in the mirror and feeling uneasy with what they see which speaks volumes more than any text could have.

All in all, this is easily the best body-swapping manga I've read, and among the best drama manga I've ever read. I would strongly recommend you give it a chance.

"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.

**could be sort of a spoiler about the ending**

this is something that should have been close to a masterpiece. unfortunately it almost seemed as if the author wanted to ruin their own work. the premise is fascinating and should lead to a great deal of drama and comedy. to a small extent it delivers on the drama front, but fails due to the contrivances of "character development". simply put, yui and kazuma are awful people. they literally ruined this for me. i stuck it out in hopes that they would eventually mature into better people and we would see positive developments of the various ... relationships as the characters grew, but these 2 constantly sabotaged any meaningful progress. by the final 10 chapters the author clearly was rushing to wrap things up, but they at least gave a pseudo satisfying conclusion. it was how i wanted, but the way you get there is so incredibly vague and shallow. the way 2 friends casually discuss their feels after all that happened is just wrong in the worst kind of way. its like one had stockholm syndrome. worse is how the primary couple come to their 'decision'.

i can't say this is altogether bad because it isn't. however, the audience should be warned that this is a frustrating read. your time is probably going to be better spent on something other than this.