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Jul 13, 2023
Tensei Pandemic is a fun and pretty good gender bender ecchi romcom series, but don't expect much more from it than that.
Our main character Hinata, a very feminine looking boy with a complex about his lack of masculinity, comes across a mysterious stranger offering, for free, to inject him in a back alley shop with a mysterious drug that the stranger claims will solve all his problems. Naturally, he agrees immediately without any questions. Shocking nobody, Hinata comes away from this encounter infected with a contagious virus... but not your garden variety STD. No, instead, he's infected with the never-before-seen TS virus, which transforms him
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into a girl. Now he/she must navigate high school life and love interests of all shades of gender as Patient 0 of the TS pandemic.
From there, most of what the series has to throw at you is a never-ending series of boys, girls, boys-turned-girls, and girls-turned boys, locked into different lewd situations with poor, confused Hinata. Throughout the story Hinata is trying desperately to juggle teenage hormones (hers and others...) with her tiny little problem of being the carrier of a secret plague of epic proportions. Not to mention her at least nominal desire to return to being a boy. Worse yet, some of the many characters vying for her affection actually even want to be infected!
If you were hoping for significantly more development than that before the last few chapters, or some actually serious drama along the way, you'll be disappointed. That being said the series is a lot of fun and I recommend it regardless. The cast is varied and unpredictable and instead of the usual unfunny ecchi clichés we instead get this group of confused, horny oddball teenagers attempting to restrain themselves from committing biological warfare and plunging the world into chaos. It's pretty refreshing, really entertaining and if you happen to actually get attached to what little plot there is inbetween the lewder panels, everything does get wrapped up with a proper, satisfying conclusion. All in all, I give it a 7/10... a score not helped by the mediocre quality of the English scanlation currently available.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 6, 2023
This shoujo manga is a bit of a hidden gem. My Pink is Overflowing (and can I just say, what a title...) is basically a short romance series where the main girl is a total horndog, but tired of being considered "easy" and just getting toyed with by playboys. After a literal page one sex scene that's crashed, on page two, by the revelation that her boyfriend is two-timing her, our heroine comes to the epiphany that the solution to her perpetual boy troubles is obvious. She can easily avoid all the playboys... by only dating virgins! Fortunately for her, it doesn't even take until
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the end of chapter 1 to find one, and he's a real dreamboat to boot. Unfortunately for her, that boy is straight-laced as they come with a very traditional view of romance - he's totally committed to saving himself for marriage and "dating with the idea of marriage in mind". She decides to take the plunge anyway and proclaims her intent, to his face, to take his virginity.
From there, literally 80% of the manga is MC swooning over her dreamy hunk of a socially awkward, virgin boyfriend, and attempting to tempt him into the carnal side of dating through the tried and true method of steamy risqué shoujo scenes. And I'm totally here for it. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's sexy, sometimes it's endearing, but the end result is a pretty lovable and entertaining duo. Think of B Gata H Kei (which, if you haven't read and somehow got here first, you totally should!) but with a much more "experienced" female lead and with the steam dial turned up to max.
And I mean, sure, if you want to get technical there's a regular shoujo plot outside of that in the intervening panels - a love rival or two, a brief foray into the characters' relationship with the parents, what have you - but none of that really matters. This manga is about not-quite-pornographic, racy but vanilla bedroom scenes of the kind liable to induce a nosebleed in your median Japanese teenage girl. And it excels at this task.
But I do have to say that despite the way I'm making this manga sound like it's nothing more than erotica, it's actually pretty wholesome and I really liked the dynamic of this couple. It's not very often we get a borderline-nympho girl as the main lead in a shoujo manga, and much less often we see her complemented by a less assertive, less experienced boy - and even less often we see them both taken seriously and given proper development. The two of them aren't just played off as a comedy gag. This manga definitely errs more on the side of rom than on com, it treats the characters and their relationship seriously, and it somehow works out beautifully. Score one for sex positivity here.
As to the aesthetics the quality of the art is pretty above average, minimal but clean, distinctly shoujo but modern stylistically. It's not an award-winning masterpiece by any means, but it sure was well-crafted and a lot of fun. Overall I give My Pink is Overflowing a solid 8/10 and do strongly recommend it to any fan of shoujo manga who's in the mood for something a bit more spicy with an MC who's got no qualms about her own healthy sexuality.
Before I wrap this up though, there's just one more thing I have to point out. What's really crazy is just how underrated this series is on MAL. At the time of writing, it has a score of only 6.88 with only 160 users having even scored it! That's really low for a manga that's by any metric at least half decent, and fully translated / officially licensed in English. I feel bad for Kodansha, having gone to the trouble of publishing this and apparently not seeing any return on their investment. So if this review's convinced you... please support the official release!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Nov 26, 2022
Do you ever feel that yuri/GL as a genre doesn't take itself seriously enough, especially in Korean webtoons? Usually a GL series consists of a couple schoolgirls living in a blissful, bubbly world where love is love and nobody's ever bothered to worry about the concept of sexual orientation. The characters get into an alternating series of cute and melodramatic moments for our entertainment, a confession in the final chapter wraps up the series, and we all go back to the depressingly-less-cute real world.
But Blooming Sequence isn't like that. It's a rare example of a yuri series with adult characters living in a realistic world
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who actually bother to communicate with each other. That's right, no dozens of awkward misunderstandings that could be solved with 2 sentences, no pages and pages of "will they or won't they?" before a rushed finale, no magical world where sexual minorities are just accepted by society. Our main characters Seowoo and Hayoung are intuitive, reasonable human beings, acutely aware of each other and able to reasonably interpret each others' feelings. They are aware of the heterosexist nature of the world around them, they are aware of their own sexual orientation and the consequences of it in their society. To me, that alone makes this series something special.
But realism is not all it has to offer. All characters in this series are deeply flawed, each dealing with their own personal deficits and difficult pasts. The plot itself is about the characters, especially the main couple, overcoming their pasts and growing as individuals and it's handled excellently. Seowoo's lack of self-confidence and inability to push for what she really wants, Hayoung's difficulty opening up to and trusting others, both of these problems play into each other and the resulting character growth leaves us with a beautiful but mature relationship that is engaging to the reader. This coupled with the fact that the art is above average in quality for a webtoon with lovely character designs and style means I definitely recommend it and give it an 8/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 9, 2022
Note: This review is based on the now out of print paperback-only release by Project H. This manga was never fully scanlated, and to read it you'll have to track down the official print copies on the resale market. You've been forewarned.
Despite having been licensed by the publisher now known as Project Hentai, Nyotai-ka is more of a gender bender romcom than a porno. It definitely errs more on the side of comedic than spank bank material. Our protagonist, Manaka Makoto, has never been popular with the ladies. Despite a successful career, at 24 he's never even had his first kiss. He desperately wishes he
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could be more popular and envies the way women can get attention from the opposite sex so easily, to the point where he wishes and even likes to pretend that he himself was a beautiful woman. Unfortunately for Makoto, a bored goddess hears his wish and decides to make it a reality, transforming him into a woman and erasing the entire world's memory of him as a man. Hilarity ensues as Makoto tries to navigate the world as a smokin' hot OL.
For the most part, the plot (and by plot, I mean sequence of ecchi situations) focuses on the relationship between and love triangles involving Makoto, whose gender swapping gets increasingly more and more out of control, and Chihiro, a woman who's Makoto's senior at work that eventually also becomes entangled in the gender swapping phenomenon. The two are challenged by love rivals of all stripes and gender, struggles (and sexual harassment) in their careers, new spirits stirring the pot, side characters that get wrapped up in their supernatural woes, and the occasional wannabe rapist. Did I say occasional? I meant constant. The streets of Japan sure don't seem very safe for the (wo?)men of this manga.
Sex scenes in this manga, while frequent, are pretty subdued especially when compared to the mangaka's other, explicitly pornographic works. Aesthetically these scenes along with the rest of the series' artwork are kind of plain and nothing to write home about, but it doesn't matter. This manga's really funny, and occasionally even endearing. It's a dumb romantic comedy written for an actually adult audience that's horny and kinky as heck, the sort of turn-your-brain-off fun usually reserved for shounen ecchi series targetted at a more teenage audience, but with a romance plot that comes off as more fleshed out and mature than any shounen ecchi can manage.
In short, it's a seinen sex comedy that bends gender until it nearly breaks that still actually bothers to have a plot and developed romance alongside some pretty good laughs. If that sounds like a good time to you, you'll probably find this series fun. But those looking for a more serious romance with drama as well as those looking for actual porn, will probably enjoy it far less.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 15, 2020
Readers looking for an age gap yuri manga will probably be dissatisfied with this series, because the relationship between our main characters Haru and Midori isn't portrayed as romantic. But don't let that dissuade you from reading it.
Instead, while platonic, the relationship between the two is intriguingly complicated and unusual. Tsugumi was Midori's first and only love who Midori hadn't spoken to since they were 15, and Haru is Tsugumi's only daughter who she raised as a single mother without the support of her own family. At Tsugumi's funeral, after it becomes clear that nobody from the family is willing to take the orphaned
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Haru in, Midori volunteers herself for the job of being Haru's guardian. The story is about Haru and Midori processing their feelings for the deceased Tsugumi together, and the change in both of them that is built out of that grief as well as the development of their irregular family life.
Aesthetically, the manga is beautiful. The delicate artstyle suits the emotional tone of it perfectly, it's hard to believe that this is the author's debut series given how well drawn it is. And the characterization is very well done as well. Midori, a shy frumpy nervous wreck of a woman hung up on her first love, and Haru, a girl who is mature for her age but emotionally lost without her only family, make for a uniquely compelling duo.
Unfortunately, while the first two volumes of the series are strong, the third and final volume feels rushed. It's as if the author was forced to cram material they wanted to take longer to explore into just one final volume. No spoilers, but it leaves several subplots and questions without a satisfying resolution (at least in my opinion). Because of this, and because any real yuri in this series is relegated to mild subtext at best, I give it a 7/10. However, if you're looking for a manga about dealing with loss and the meaning of family, you may get substantially more out of it than I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Nov 13, 2020
Mao Marimo does a few things different in comparison to your average gender bender manga. Unfortunately, this does not save it from being entirely mediocre.
The Good: Instead of the series being a comedy about our main character Mao failing to adjust to femininity, she takes to it right away and decides that she is fine with being a girl if that is what fate has in store for her. Most everyone else takes positively to the change, too - with the exception of Mao's childhood friend Jiu, and Mao's twin sister Ako, who both initially want "her" to be a "him" again. This sort of
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reversed dynamic from the average gender bender, where main character's friends are struggling to change the main character back but the main character themselves accepts their new gender without any angst or any protesting that she's "really a boy", is a bit refreshing. What's also refreshing is the serious way the cause of Mao's transformation is portrayed, the guardian spirit of their village's lake who is as intimidating and otherworldly as you'd expect a great spirit to be.
The Bad: Despite the author trying to mostly keep a serious tone to the manga, all that the series really has to offer is Mao being thrown into ecchi situation after ecchi situation, each time having Mao acting more oblivious and suggestible than the last. This might have been alright if the art was half-decent or the series was actually trying to be a comedy, but neither is the case. Aesthetically the series is pretty sub par, and the only plot development comes in the form of generic love triangles that the author tries and fails to present in a serious tone - Mao falling for an older man that has no interest in her, Jiu falling for his childhood best friend "as a girl", and Ako falling for her twin brother "as a boy". None of these relationships are handled remotely interestingly, all that ever happens is the usual misunderstandings, blushing, and the occasional tsundere moment. And Mao herself is infuriatingly devoid of any real characterization or development. She seems to just accept whatever everyone else in the story wants, even when they're acting like complete idiots or jerks.
All in all, I won't go so far to call it a bad manga, but it's probably not worth your time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 8, 2020
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
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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.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Oct 23, 2020
Right off the bat, there's one thing that needs to be said upfront about this series: its main character is a lolicon, and the story is about the line she walks between friendship and infatuation with a 4th grade girl. Most people will probably choose to ignore it based on that sentence alone. But what if I told you that against all odds this manga is a work of art that handles its theme with tact and maturity? Would you reconsider?
I've never read anything quite like Yuzumori-san, but I have to say, I loved every second of it. It's like the inverse of every other
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romance series I've ever come across. Instead of hoping for their relationship to advance when the "will they or won't they?" moments happen you find yourself on the edge of your seat pleading that the main character will manage to restrain herself from acting upon her lustful urges for this gradeschooler.
You see, Yuzumori-san alternates between two very conflicting but somehow synergistic art styles: the fluffy, flowery way that the series' slice-of-life and romantic moments are drawn, and tense or disturbed panels whenever the main character's carnal desires surface or there is emotional turmoil. Our main character Mimika is acutely aware that her sexual attraction to the young Yuzumori is "wrong". Mimika spends the series agonizingly trying to resist her own deviant urges, trying to protect Yuzumori from herself while still remaining close to her. Chapters can therefore rapidly oscillate between happy, cute and funny moments of the two acting like a normal couple and angst / despair, with a feeling a bit like you've been suddenly thrown into a page of a horror manga. In spite of this, the manga never veers too far into the territory of being tragic or dark and retains the bubbly feeling of your standard slice of life yuri story.
This contrast is pulled off so well that you can find yourself simultaneously disgusted with and rooting for the main character, who is forever struggling to follow her moral compass and maintain a wholesome relationship with Yuzumori in spite of her pedophile nature. And Yuzumori herself, a precocious but lonely child, is loveable in her own right. She deeply cares for Mimika, the guileless way she interacts with the eternally anxious Mimika is hard to hate and the two make for an oddly compelling duo.
My only complaint would be that the series has very little to offer besides the one single plot device of getting Mimika flustered and having her struggle to control herself, there is very little advancement of the story before the last few chapters. But all in all, I'd recommend it to anyone, even if they'd probably give me a disgusted look for doing so.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 15, 2020
Adachi and Shimamura is, simply put, yuri's masterpiece - if not perhaps one of the greatest romance series to grace light novels as a medium. It is a shame that it remains little known and that most people come to the series by way of the incomplete anime and manga adaptations, which fail to grasp most of the nuance and introspection from the novels. Do yourself a favour and read this, even if light novels aren't usually what you opt for. It's just that good.
-Characters- 10/10
The main duo are the highlight of this series, and certainly some of the best written and most relatable out
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of all the yuri I have read. Both are extremes of emotional states all of us have felt at one time or another, and both are fundamentally flawed human beings, an improvement over the contrast of plain and perfect that makes up the usual leads in romantic fiction. Both main characters are delinquents (in their own words) at the beginning of the story. It is their gradual emotional development, both in general and towards one another, that makes up the substance of the series.
First, we have Shimamura. Shimamura is a reasonably functional and sociable teenage girl who just has no real attachment to life. Relationships with others, hobbies, school - she is unwilling to put in anything beyond the bare minimum effort towards them, being herself completely disinterested in all things. She is passive, never taking initiative, never voicing any preference or resistance about where the flow of time carries her. If you had to sum her up in a word, she is listless. It is this listlessness which causes her to skip class, and it is her indifference which initially causes her to accept Adachi's own flaws and behaviour without a fuss.
Adachi, on the other hand, is Shimamura's opposite. She is painfully unsociable, and aware of it. She finds herself totally incapable of connecting with others or even conversing with them smoothly, the entire experience of it is grating and difficult to her. She is a loner in every sense of the word, without a single substantial relationship in her life, even with her own family. It is this suffocating loneliness which causes her to skip class, causing her to encounter the indifferent and all-accepting Shimamura, the first person she ever truly wants to interact with.
The main pair are complemented by a suite of minor characters, who appear both in their own self-contained mini-stories and in the main chapters. Namely, there are the main pair's classmates who attempt to befriend Shimamura: the cheery and petite Hino, and her childhood friend the busty and airheaded Nagafuji. These two are very entertaining and often the source of comedy in the series, and their grounded and open natures are the perfect foil to the main characters.
On top of those two, recurring characters are both main characters' mothers (who are decidedly present in the series and have characterization of their own, against light novel norm); Shimamura's estranged childhood friend Tarumi, Shimamura's shy but energetic little sister; as well as Yashiro, an enigmatic being who proclaims herself to be an alien that seems to be possessed of supernatural powers. While the latter might seem out of place in the series, her presence is oddly fitting. Yashiro is given a fairly large amount of the series' text and at one point or another forms bonds or interferes with every character in the series. Her guileless attitude and honesty often serves as contrast to the emotional deficits of other characters, to their benefit and to the benefit of the story.
-Story- 8/10
Fundamentally a slice-of-life series, there isn't much plot to speak of to the series besides the slow but steady advance of the relationship between the main characters as the months and seasons come to pass. The story is told primarily in the form of alternating moments of day-to-day life from either Adachi's perspective or Shimamura's. Almost all of the text itself is made up of the two's inner thoughts and dialogue, giving you an idea of how character-driven rather than plot-driven the story is. For people who don't normally enjoy slice-of-life, they may initially find this lack of anything substantial occurring to be dull. They may also find the rate at which the romance progresses to be painfully slow - whole volumes can pass without any sort of major development. However, though drawn out, there is substantial character progression in this series to make up for the lack of more dramatic plot.
Though it is slow-going, the romantic development in the series is painfully good. By that, I mean it is very realistic for a couple of awkward teenagers going through the unease of gay romance. Adachi especially spends page after page agonizing over her feelings, testing herself, trying to decide what it is she actually feels and how to communicate it. She is ashamed and unsure, and you can sympathize. Adachi is aware that she isn't very good at her romantic overtures, but she persists through all discomfort regardless. The result is both endearing and hilarious in various doses. Shimamura in turn is hard to hate, she wonders what it is she wants from Adachi, or from others more broadly, and how to react to Adachi's intense feelings and actions. Both make plenty of mistakes in these efforts along the way. You can find yourself laughing and having your heartstrings pulled in the same chapter, with both humour and heartache generally being caused by the aloof Shimamura's reactions to Adachi's angst.
There is also the subplot of Tarumi, Shimamura's best friend in elementary school. Tarumi and Shimamura try to awkwardly bridge the years they've spent apart, and both want to grow close to one another again - to the detriment of the jealous Adachi. She seems poised to play the roll of the rival-in-love to Adachi, but since the story is still ongoing at the time of this review, she has yet to play a major role.
Additionally, those larger chapters are usually interspersed by brief 2-3 page vignettes from the lives and perspectives of other minor characters, such as their classmates Hino and Nagafuji, Shimamura's little sister Shou, or the mysterious blue-haired alien girl Yashiro. And yes, you did just read "alien girl" again, there is some subtle and unique magical realism to this series in the form of not only Yashiro but also seemingly genuinely powerful fortune tellers, none of which is elaborated on to an extent that you'd call it a subplot. Like the main characters do, you are supposed to accept their existence at face value as a part of the scenery.
-Overall- 9/10
To summarize, of the dozens of yuri series I have read or watched, this is by far my favourite. It's been quite a few years since any novel made me laugh aloud and then nearly brought me to tears the way this one has. I wholeheartedly recommend it and can barely wait for translation of it to continue.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 6, 2019
I was surprised to see there's anything Sailor Moon left on MAL that nobody has reviewed, so I thought I'd do a quick write-up. The long and short of it is that this is worth watching, especially if you happened to want to see more of Uranus and Neptune, but it's also skip-able and has no important plot points.
Originally airing after episode 4 of SuperS, this 1 hour TV special is broken into three 16 minute mini episodes. The first is a simple recap episode of the three seasons prior and you can essentially skip it, it has no new material besides Usagi and Luna's
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narration.
The second however takes place early in the story of SuperS, shortly after the solar eclipse. It tells what Sailor Uranus and Neptune were up to during this arc (and tries to handwave away their absence from the rest of the season with a brief explanation). The plot itself is a typical Sailor Moon style monster-of-the-week story, but hey, we get to see Haruka and Michiru being their glorious gay selves for a whole 16 minutes and what more can you ask for, we get Haruka being a playboy and Michiru getting jealous, a bit of fluff, and some fight scenes. Perfect.
The third on the other hand is protagonized by Chibi Usa who has a vampire monster pretend to be a student at her school. It's purely forgettable filler, the highlight of the whole thing is Ami arguing against the science of using garlic to fight vampires, but nothing about it is particularly bad either (besides, like the rest of SuperS, having its screentime overwhelmingly dominated by Chibi Usa).
Really, I'd recommend everyone just watches the second of the three minisodes and calls it a day, unless you happen to *really* love Chibi Usa and desperately want to see more of her. If only because of the Haruka/Michiru focus I give this an overall 7/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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