I bought this cos I like Kiss Him, Not Me and because it was only 4 volumes and because I don’t trust Kodansha to keep things in print…
I read the preview available on GooglePlay Books and was pleased that it had the same sense of humour as Kiss Him Not Me. Besides, I’m a sucker for body switching shenanigans (see Yamada and the Seven Witches 😅). The character interactions really are the highlight of this series. The characters themselves, though, feel more one note than the KHNM ones. I suppose I can’t help but compare this series to that one.
I think my favourite character was probably the manager. I say he was my favourite, but I don’t even remember his name 😂 His obsession with his cats cracked me up.
I was fine with the story while Azu was just a crazy fan, but when she started falling in loved with Chika I started getting annoyed. To the series credit, at least, Chika himself started growing closer to Azu but not romantically. I preferred that kind of relationship progression.
I liked the reason/mechanism behind the body switching. Although at first, I didn’t like the conclusion because I mistakenly thought it meant Azu and Chika ended up together. But then I realised that it was still one-sided and it was actually quite neat way to wrap things up. Although if Azu wasn’t so jealous would Chika have been able to return completely whole? 😅
Quite a bit of these books were extras for KHNM. I liked seeing grown-up Kae and co and how some of the relationships continued/developed.
Conclusion
I’m considering keeping these volumes because of the KHNM extras. Which is reflective of how much I actually liked (or didn’t really like) this series. The humour was good, but ultimately the relationships and story itself were pretty lacking. While I realise this is a bit of an extreme reaction, I feel kind of cheated by Kodansha. They are a major manga publisher but don’t even have a worldwide manga service. I would have happily read this via a subscription service or even viaa Manga UP style drip feed, but instead I shelled out close to $30 per volume for a series I don’t actually want to keep as part of my curated physical collection. This is very extreme, but given how much is now available to read, I’m seriously considering not buying anything Kodansha physically and spending my money on proven quality instead. Feels bad kinda dunking on Star⇄Crossed when really it’s more of the final straw of a string of Kodansha-things that have annoyed me.
Categories: Series Review
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