Shishunki Bitter Change is a weird manga.

It takes a concept usually reserved for comedies, the idea of two adolescents swapping bodies, which is usually a lead in for a poorly done romance story. A popular example of this type of story, although I have yet to see it, is Kimi no Wa (Your Name), which from what I've read is a fairly usual affair of a boy and girl switching bodies.

So, if this concept is usually poorly done, why would I give Shishunki a 9/10? Well, that is because Shishunki focuses on the bad part of what could happen while in someone else's body. Whereas the average body swapping manga would have one character mess up around the other MC's parents, resulting in said character going 'B-BAKA' and the whole scene would be played for comedy.

**From this point on, Yui in Yuuta's body will be called just Yui and vice versa for Yuuta**

In Shishunki, a similar scene is done. Yui's parents have been neglectful of her for a long while before the change, and a while into the swap, Yuuta gets pissed and flips out at Yui's parents. This results in a dramatic change that improves Yui's home life immensely, and when Yui finds out, she gets mad that Yuuta managed to cause this change while she could only suffer through her parent's neglect. It plays the whole body swap concept straight.

Now then, I'll go into the aspects that make up the score system. Story, Art, Character and Enjoyment.

For story, I think it's great. It's one of those fabled 'deconstructions' of the genre, and ignore the fact that deconstruction is only used by mouthbreathers who think BnHA is as good as Part 1 of Nardo, as Shishunki is an actual deconstruction. It plays the whole concept straight, which is why the full name is 'Shishunki Bitter Change', Bitter being the key word. Everything in the story is representative of this name, with the change having an overall negative effect on Yui and Yuuta's personal life. While their social lives are for the most part still good, their relationships with each other and their mental health takes its toll over the course of the story, hitting its peak when a certain cook is introduced and befriend's Yuuta.

I won't say anything else on the story, as I'd go into spoilers. And word of warning, the original webcomic that preceded the manga was especially bitter when it came to the ending, but there have been many changes between the manga and webcomic, which means that the ending will be less bitter this time around.

The Art isn't anything to write home about. It's cute, the characters emote well, it's passable. And the backgrounds are usually simplistic or aren't there. Not saying they're in issue, just a bit lazy. Characters are cute though. Specially the guitar guy.

Characters are great, especially the new additions from the transition to manga, those being the weird girl and the guitar guy. The weakest character I'd say would have to be Yui. Her struggles boil down to 'I want Kazuma but I'm a dude!!!1!!!11'. But they make up for that with Yuuta's struggles that are at one point get to 'When will Yui stop lusting after my best friend while in my body?', and every character has their fair share of drama and personal issues.

And I put Enjoyment at 10/10. It kept me interested enough to wait on inconsistent updates (the scanlator tries his best but it's very inconsistent when he uploads from what I've seen. Still, I'm glad he does it, as nobody scanlated the webcomic, and it isn't in as bad a state as FKMT manga a few years back).

Overall, 9/10. Check it out.