Your & My Secret 7

Ai Morinaga – Tokyopop – 2010 – 7+ volumes

Yet another series left hanging by Tokyopop, but maybe they would have finished it had the last volume existed. I… I think volume 8 might be the final one, but it’s not even out in Japan yet, so it’s hard to say.

I forget between volumes just how much I love this series. It’s so funny. The jokes do chase themselves around in circles, but with only 1-2 volumes a year, who am I to say it’s too much? They’re still funny jokes, and I’m not sure I can ever get tired of Ai Morinaga drawing the most repulsive things in such a sparkly, girly manner. A good example is the cover. Every cover features a couple from the series, and each of the six covers so far has featured the four main characters paired in different ways. Lacking any more couples to draw, Morinaga’s featured couple on volume 7 is Momoi’s father and grandfather. Dressed as students. The short, rotund grandfather is wearing a schoolgirl uniform. And did I mention that Momoi’s dad is supposed to resemble Spock? They are dancing. It’s horrifying. Does it sell books? Uh… probably the opposite. But it is amazing, all the same.

It really is the gags that carry it, too. The story is winding down here, as the grandfather puts the finishing touches on the switchback machine and Akira has to decide whether switching back is really what he wants. The hangup is that Senbongi wants him to stay in Momoi’s body, presumably because they can’t go out if they are both boys. After reading Strawberry-chan, I know that Morinaga is up for bizarre forays into yaoi, so I’m not sure how that will turn out if Akira switches back into his male body. But for the time being, grandpa’s machine still doesn’t work (in fact, it backfires hilariously on Momoi’s dad), so Momoi, Senbongi, Shiina, and Akira go for one last date to “Mouseland.”

Honestly? My favorite joke in the book is one where Momoi’s dad does a deep bow while asking something of Akira, and the next page shows it in the context of… the machine backfiring. It was very subtle, and it cracked me up pretty hard. There’s also the reliable repulsive jokes, like the one with the drooling toddler featured on one of the illustration pages that open the volume. There’s also good ol’ reliable jokes about guys getting kicked in the crotch.

Stay classy, Your & My Secret. I love you dearly just the way you are. I doubt this series is going to get a third chance at life, especially since licensing anything by Ai Morinaga seems to kill publishers, and that’s a shame, because she has a gift with comedy. Hopefully volume 8 will be the last, and I think I’m just going to buy it in Japanese. I’ve been reading this series for years, and I need to know what happens, even if it does turn out to be some sort of bizarre gag anticlimax.