Nozomu Nozomi · review
What a shame - that the artwork was so good, but it was wasted on such a sleazy plot. Really, the idea of gender bender comes with so much potential to explore open waters of psychology, gender norms, and so on - and this basically becomes a shell story about the mangaka fantasizing about the topic of youth sex culture, 'barely' touching on gender norms much less. There's no story about the characters, thier ambitions, not even what they enjoy. But there's no shortage about self exploration and sexual fan-service. One migt defend this saying, "he's a immature boy in a girls skin", and that'd onlybe valid as a plot narrative if nearly 100 of the manga wasn't about sexualizing Nozomu to the reader. Again, its almost entirely about sexualizing him, not about him actually being a woman, what it means to be a woman, or the psychological dillema of transitioning from a boys mind to a womans. Also the fact there's barely a conclusion to the story and the total loss of what'd have had an interesting social position swap. It ended up become all plot telling, no showing so they could can it. Again, how disappointing.