Recently I've read a few issues of a manga called "Prettyface." It's a story about a high school martial arts hotshot named Randoh, who has no understanding of girls his age. He is caught in a bus wreck, and is thrown into a coma, with his body covered in burns and his face practically blown off. A screwy (but brilliant) plastic surgeon gets a hold of him, and decides to reconstruct his face while he is in a coma -- however, Randoh had no ID on him; only a single photo. The doctor assumes that this photo shows what he looked like before the crash.
However, it turns out to be a picture of his crush, a girl named Rina. After a year in a coma, Randoh wakes up to realize he looks just like her (and is none too happy about it). Soon thereafter, he runs into Rina, and Rina thinks Randoh is her long-lost twin sister. Hijinks ensue.
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...While reading that manga, it struck me as similar to "Cheeky Angel," an anime where a 10-year old boy (also a budding martial arts hotshot) is turned into a girl, by a genie-like prankster demon that came out of a strange old book. That anime shows his high school days, some 6 years later. He is still trying to remove the enchantment, all the while dealing with a bevy of beefy, boneheaded boys who are attracted to him/her.
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Another similar anime/manga I've heard about (but not seen) is "Midori's Days," which
also features a martial arts hotshot who can't seem to get too close to a girl before scaring her off. In the background, a very shy, young freshman girl named Midori has a crush on him. One day she wishes to be close to him everyday.... and the next day her wish is "granted" (sort of), when she is somehow shrunk to puppet size, then becomes attached to his wrist at her waist, in replacement of his right hand. :shock:
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I'm finding this to be a very odd and interesting genre of anime (I'd say "new" genre, but I suspect it's been around longer than I know). They are all definitely "shounen" anime -- meaning, targeted at boys, particularly high school in this case -- which each star a hotshot martial artist high school guy with a short fuse, who is in one way or another deprived of his masculinity and forced to learn how to understand girls... the hard way.
The laws of anime also require that any boy posing as a girl must attract enough suitors to form a borderline-stalker fan club.
The genre also tends to feature "martial arts gang warfare" within a school, which is usually exaggerated heavily for dramatic effect. I generally dislike this part, but perhaps I'd understand it better if I were a Japanese high schooler.
Obviously, one of the reasons it's popular is because Japanese high school guys and girls usually hang out in groups comprised of their same gender, so there's probably a lot of pent-up hormones at work. :roll: But also a lot of mystery, since both factions are not quite sure what goes on over there, on the other side of the gender border.
Have you seen or read anything from this genre? What do you think of it?