アイドル・プリテンダー

IDOL PRETENDER

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
3
RELEASE
August 5, 2013
CHAPTERS
15

DESCRIPTION

Chinami Eita wants to become a true man so he can confess to his secret love, the school idol Yuika. He tries to achieve that by beating the crap out of everyone he can. However, when he has a cold and accidently takes the wrong medicine, he is turned into a girl. An incredibly cute girl. In order to get the money to turn himself back into a guy he starts an idol career and - surprise - he meets Yuika who also wants to become an idol and starts to get enchanted by his manner ...

CAST

Eita Chinami

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Anserinn
66/100
A quintessential "Genderbender Romcom" story
If you are a frequent reader of this funky sub-genre some may call "Genderbender Romantic Comedy", then you might have noticed some features, events, patterns, and clichés or tropes; such as random (usually) hilarious causes that suddenly turns the protagonist into a girl, attempting absurd measures to turn back, getting flustered over wearing a skirt and many other feminine things, ex-him worrying that sooner or later she can't turn back and fully becomes a girl (mind and body), conflicted feelings and confusions galore, heck even a love more-than-two-angle.
___Idol Pretender have all of them___ (mostly)
A bit of small tangent before I start (might be a bit too late), I love this manga and it has been one of the greatest influence in my taste as one of the manga that opened the rabbit hole of Genderbender stories years ago. But hopefully this fact won't hinder my ability to judge it fairly as a work.

A Quintessential "Genderbender Romcom" story

As mentioned before, Idol Pretender contains Genderbender comedy clichés and tropes aplenty, and it utilize them on surgery precision level perfectly to deliver what I call "Juicy" moments to the reader. It's effectiveness is relative from person to person, but in summation Juicy moments are those moments where you feel "hhhnnnnnnngggg so sweet/wholesome/funny/awkward". Although I was exaggerating, this manga have many satisfying "Juicy" moments that works in tandem with the tropes and wouldn't be as impactful or memorable without it. (although in the near future, I will review even more series that does exactly this)

The characters are a blast, the dynamics they have with each other are hilarious and sweet at the same time (might be bittersweet depending on the person reading). The two main characters, Chinami and Oguri, could easily carry the whole series by themselves, akin to most of Yamamoto Souichirou-sensei's works, but the supporting characters are no slouch either.

Now on to the not so good parts. First, Chinami's personality change is (for my current standard, after comparing to even more Genderbender stories) a bit too sudden and drastic, by the second chapter she's practically a girl in spirit, soul, and body with violent tendencies. Second, the love pentagon gets messy especially in the latter half of the story. Third, it probably went a bit too far with the "sleazy guy threatening girls" cliche, I've seen worst from other manga (god forbid Josei Danshi to have decent side male character) but in almost every arc they are the main villain/obstacle.

Heavily recommend if you'd like a laugh reading a mostly lighthearted romcom, which utilizes Genderbender tropes to enhance it rather than to purely rely on the usual romcom or other unrelated aspect alone. It captures the essence of the appeal of this niche sub-genre, and it even wraps up nicely at the end which is a rarity for Genderbender romcom manga (genderswap or otherwise).

My ratings might seem weird at a glance, but basically <40 is [Below average] and >60 is [fine].
Story: 5.5
Setting: 2
Art: 5
Character: 6
Enjoyment: 8
Overall: 6.6
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