Kedamono Damono 1

This series I snagged from work in a pile of much crappier Tokyopop manga.  I kinda liked Fukushima’s other series Instant Teen, but on the other hand Cherry Juice doesn’t sound good at all.  I’m always game for gender swap comedies, even though they haven’t been kind to me lately, so I decided to take the plunge.

In short, this series isn’t really good at all.  It’s really chaotic and hard to follow as far as art and action go, and the pacing is really a mess.  It seems like in the chapter, several things happen.  These things happen in rapid succession, with no transition between them, and then the chapter is over.   While it can occasionally be hard to tell what’s going on in individual panels, the plot is fairly simple.   These are some serious flaws.

But let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I loved the ink off this volume.  The basic plot is that a girl who is friends with a little boy (named Haruki) finds out that the boy transforms into a “raunchy,” well-developed girl at night.  Instead of the boy she had a crush on, the girl instead falls in love with the girl version of her friend, Haruko.  There’s lots of cute kissing scenes between the girls, and they seem to be extremely open about being touchy-feely for what appears to be a manga for little girls.  I thought they were implying sex in the first chapter, actually, but later the main character mentions that she and Haruko/Haruki hadn’t gotten farther than their first, very passionate, kiss.

It’s played mostly for comedy, and there’s some angst thrown in there as well since Haruki expresses his love better when he’s a girl.  So far, it’s got stories you’d expect, like one about how a girl at school tries to start hitting on Haruki and the main character gets jealous, and one where the main character visits Haruki’s house.  The latter story is a bit odd in that Haruki’s siblings make no comment about his transforming other than to mention that the girl fell in love with him after she found about the transformation.

The romance, as stupid as it can be at times, is extremely sincere.  All the events in the chapters are abrupt, but they’re all extremely well thought-out and genuinely interesting plot points, for the most part, given what they are.  It’s really fun, and even though I don’t expect it’ll go anywhere (there’s no real overarching plot other than getting each other to admit feelings or whatever), I think I’ll really enjoy the next couple volumes.