CONTENT WARNING: This manga, first off, portrays the LGBTQ community in a controversial light, and thus I do not recommend reading this title if you are prone to these kinds of opinions. There are already so many posts calling Boku Girl "transphobic", "homophobic" and "bigoted" and this needs to stop being the basis of the series. While people are allowed to have their own tastes the toxicity I've seen in these reviews is in a league of its own. I'm not going to talk about any of that stuff in my review, because honestly I don't really care and like to enjoy things without involving about my political agenda, and I ask you to do the same if you can.

Story: 9/10
Boku Girl starts out as a seemingly cliché genderbender, but soon proves to be anything but. The story emphasizes the psychological aftereffects of having your Y chromosome replaced with an X very convincingly from the perspectives of Mizuki, the supposed "victim" whose fundamental values make the gender change ever more uncomfortable, and Takeru, the childhood friend who undergoes a constant struggle, attempting to decide whether to respect his friend's wish to be viewed as masculine or trust in his newfound feelings for Mizuki. In my opinion, the story of Boku Girl is incredibly well-thought-out, with its only weakness being its emphasis on the main four characters, with little development for the side characters who often serve as no more than "observers" to the events in the main plot, becoming plot devices when needed. I'll continue on this point in the Character section.

Art: 10/10
Akira Sugito's artwork is incredibly refined and clean. Again, the emphasis here is on the characters, so it's made pretty clear that a lot more effort was put into them compared to the backdrops, although Sugito manages to create vivid environments when they're needed. Good examples of this are seen mostly when plot is taking center stage, almost to tell you that what happens next is important. The thing that I admire most about Sugito's art, though, is the choice he made with Mizuki's character design. In most genderbend fantasies, the main character is obviously male, and when he becomes a woman you can easily tell, as the character spontaneously grows giant breasts, shrinks at least half a foot and sometimes even grows long hair. With Mizuki, though, his design at the start was androgynous, leaning towards female, and there is no actually visible change when he becomes female, besides the fact that his "willy" disappears. This is an extremely daring move, as later in the series when he begins to switch back and forth more erratically the only way you can tell what gender Mizuki is at the moment is through implication and/or internal monologue. This attribute, though, works in the series' favor, as it shows that the mere implication of Mizuki being male or female can change the reader's perception; when Mizuki is male, your brain somehow perceives him as more male, and the same tends to happen the other way around, even though there are no changes to the actual base design. This decision on the author's part really brings Mizuki as a character to another level, as implication and speech patterns are the only way to discern one gender from another.

Character: 10/10
As I was saying earlier, the characters are really the selling point of the series, and this is made clear time and time again across all 107 chapters. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. While the side characters do only serve as observers to the main story, this can actually serve to the benefit of the series, adding more viewpoints to the events transpiring in Mizuki's life. The best-written character in the series, though, actually isn't Mizuki; it's Takeru by a long shot. The struggle he undergoes over the course of Boku Girl takes center stage at some points, and this struggle is about as realistic as you can get in a gender-bender fantasy like this one.

Enjoyment: 10/10
When it comes to enjoyability, it should have been made clear by now that I very much enjoy this series. Out of the almost 100 anime or manga I've watched or read, Boku Girl would be somewhere in my top 20. One of the biggest factors of enjoyability that has given the series many controversial opinions is the ending of the series. This ending has been shown to be extremely hit or miss, with some saying it was excellent and others saying it was abysmal. While I won't delve into the specifics about the ending for spoiler reasons I will say I loved the ending. It was exactly what I was looking for and hoping for, and it did what similar series like Idol Pretender could not. While I know I don't speak for everyone in the community, this is simply my take so you may read the series and hate the ending yourself. It is completely based on your personal interests and as much as I'd like to try to sway everyone into loving every part of this series I am incapable of doing that. I can encourage you, though, to try the series out for everything it's worth and form your own opinions of the show, and I also ask you to please put your political opinions aside while reading for the reasons I discussed in the disclaimer.

Overall Score: 10/10

If you have any questions or concerns about this review, want to recommend a fringe manga to me, or even simply want to chat about this title, please contact me at [email protected] for any and all inquiries. My door is always open.