Stephan Sokolow's Blog

As you may have guessed, I’ve always loved gender-bending comedy. Though it’s less likely, someone may also have guessed that I enjoy it, not only for the wild and wacky humor, but because I love seeing how the characters react and trying to decide how accurate their reactions would be in real life.

In essense, I enjoy analyzing and comparing exceptional characters by trying to get into their minds. Reading this, a logical (and correct) assumption is that I like shojo manga. To be honest, I love it. I could probably start a whole post just on this, but if I did that, I would never have time to get back on track and this post would become some completely useless and random tangent. In this form, itat least tries to be a manga review, but since I already found several other reviews which are much more eloquent, I’ll just link
to them and add my own viewpoints.

Warning: This rant ran far longer than I expected and, though I remain civilized throghout it, It’s the first post to tap whatever source I use for rants. As such, I will provide the links for the reviews here [1][2][3] in case you’re in a hurry or would prefer to skip the rant.

First, I should mention that I essentially collect unique and interesting characters. My memory is just too good and the fictional “department” of my thirst for knowledge too great, for me to read the same boring stuff cookie-cutter characters over and over again.

Also, one thing that has always bugged me about manga and anime is that, in 90% of the cases, “The nail that sticks out, gets pounded down” is a hard rule regarding tomboyish female characters. Call it one of my pet peeves. For example, if you compare “Angel Sanctuary” to “Devil and Devil”, the former is definitely beyond amazing, but the latter would be quite good too.

I say would because in “Devil and Devil”, the main female character spends a good portion of the manga looking for a way to help the main characters and what happens? At the end, after having even tried stealing a power suit from a crazed science club, the main characters once again say “Stay there and let us protect you!”, and she finally gives up. She wouldn’t survive the battle but that’s not what gets to me. It’s that throughout the series, it’s always been the same thing and during the final battle, it keeps going back to her, sitting and hoping for their return. That spoiled the whole manga for me. If Angel Sanctuary got two thumbs up, Devil and Devil probably got 1.5 thumbs down. (There were some good concepts but, in my opinion, it was a terrible implementation. The comparison is made even easier by the fact that Devil and Devil feels like a cheap ripoff of Angel Sanctuary.)

That is a rather extreme example, but in truth, the less extreme scenarios annoy me even more. It’s as if manga authors think that “tomboy + (love and/or time) = non-tomboy” is an inescapable fact of the human genome, like some aberration that cannot possibly survive without constant external aggravation. One recent example of this is “W Juliet” which really bothers me because it’s so interesting and yet, it’s falling into the same old mysoginist pattern which I can’t help but despise.

The other thing that bugs me is that, if you compare the incidences of transformations and cross-dressing, the ratio is over 5:1 in favor of “guy becomes girl” stories. I think I may have hit 10:1 before I misplaced the file I was using to keep track. (Anyone care to help me rebuild it?)

Having that for context, you can start to understand why “Your And My Secret” is so much more to me than even the glowing reviews I’m linking to. This is the first major “was girl, now guy” transformation case I can think of (outside of fanfiction), and it’s also the first case I’ve ever seen of a manga girl who’s not only un-feminine, but downright brutish and somewhat slovenly. This is not only the source of the most unique female character I’ve come across in ages, it’s an amazingly written dual-gender-bender. I’m really hoping for an equally unique fate for Nanako (the one who was originally a brutish girl) but, at the same time, I can’t risk getting my hopes up. From what I’ve seen of the manga that sells, a gender-swap that doesn’t reverse at the end, while the seemingly obvious good choice, would be as likely to be accepted by the publisher, as the chance of said author dying from a lightning strike before finishing the series. It’s far more likely that something will drive them to miss their old bodies enough to switch back.

The problem is that, I’ve never seen a character like Nanako survive that kind of ending intact. (This is speaking from experience with lesser characters since Nanako is so unique.) If the story does provide an ending that satisfies me, This Calamity Jane of manga will hold a special place in both my heart and my recommendations list. However, if it fails like every other manga I’ve seen, you’ll find it indexed under “Taming of the Shrew“.

Having ranted for far longer than I intended (I guess I read a lot more average manga than I thought), and at an intensity which I’ll probably want to edit later, I ask that you enjoy the reviews. [1][2][3]

If you ever wanted to post comments, now is the time to do so. Nighttime personality shift (That “everything feels different when you’re tired” feeling) may have given me the drive to rant at such length, but the underlying views remain unchanged.

I always get e-mail notifications of new comments so feel free to comment, no matter how old this gets. Every question, no matter how crazy, inane, biased, or bland, gives me a chance to clarify things others may wonder about. Just remember to be respectful and polite. Even I have my limits. Also, I’m willing to offer negotiable rewards for referrals of manga which I do not already have on my to-read list and, if anyone is interested, I’d be happy to post a succinct list of favorite manga and my reasons for liking them.