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Haha whoah hey there!! Welcome back – it’s me your very most Glam friend. If you think that the only Glimpse of Hell I gave you was just about Zombies, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. This Week’s descent into darkness is called Boku Girl, a romance/ecchi manga by Sugito Akira.

Ok: i’m gonna be honest here and put it right up front. If you are a person concerned with politics or the discourse, large parts of this manga probably won’t sit right with you – there’s a fair bit of nuance in this manga to be sure but it doesn’t come across in a way that’s as progressive as typically demanded from things with this subject matter.

But at the same time, what it misses in terms of having healthy language, well there’s worthwhile stuff in here for a romance story about some gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia.

Also i’m gonna additionally preface: I only started reading this because the author draws characters eyes the same way my favorite hentai artist does and (emoji)

Actually artistically there’s a lot to talk about Boku-Girl since i think the art here is legitimately great But First

Boku-Girl’s protagonist is Mizuki Suzushiro who’s this thin and short effeminate younger teen in highschool who’s pining after a girl they considers out of their league, Fujiwara. With respect, the girl herself is clearly more interested in Mizuki’s much more masculine best friend, Takeru.

Note: Mizuki is referred to as him and he throughout Boku Girl unless for occasional effect, and since as of writing this Mizuki has yet to figure out their own gender and refers to themselves as he, I’ll be using gender-neutral pronouns.

Being a gender-bender manga as well as a romance manga, it’s not long (within the first couple of volumes actually) that the protagonist runs afoul of the norse god Loki, who’s depicted as a kind of androgynous pettanko girl. They decide to play a trick on him, and our boy-of-view is stung by a strange bug that causes him to wake up the next day as a woman. Surprisingly throughout the first couple of storyarcs, there’s very little nudity and if there is it’s usually about [protagonist] being embarrassed by – and in equal terms learning to accept their new body. You’ve got Loki (the character) to thank for ramping up the ridiculous amounts of nudity and filth later on.

Actually the filth is sort of what I like about Boku Girl – there’s a strong love triangle built up over three characters that have pretty realistic desires. Fujiwara is attracted to stereotypical masculinity while being a bit of an inversion of traditional feminine roles, but Takeru is definitely a lot more than presented as at first and can only see her as a friend, while at the same time is having difficulty with how he feels about Mizuki.. All three of them are frequently unsure of their own sexualities and bodies as much as Mizuki themself. Despite being a weirdo gender-bender manga that’s vocabulary is way out of date, the way the main characters are presented is actually pretty thoughtful.

Boku girl could have easily been set up as some hell-of gross battle of the sexes. That it doesn’t, is the reason I stuck with it for so long.

Boku Girl has ridiculously strong characterization among the trio of characters the story follows the most. Takeru and Fujiwara around the middle point of the story become as prominent as Mizuki is.

Boku Girl is a sex comedy that definitely takes refuge in devices that other Ecchi manga and even straight up Hentai do pretty often, but as a rarity for the genre much more time is spent developing the characters and the love triangle they inhabit.

Mizuki’s sexuality is a big part of Boku Girl, because female-bodied Mizuki feels like their body prevents them from revealing the way they really feel to Fujiwara, yet at the same time definitely develops feelings for Takeru and doesn’t really know if those feelings are a side-effect of being female-bodied or if they truly feel for him.

Yes, Boku-Girl has a pretty reductive way of looking at sexuality like that, and I’m not saying it’s something that should be looked past – the way Mizuki feels about the female-bodied/male-bodied aspect affecting their sexuality is definitely harmful in several lights, but the fact is Boku Girl actually explores Mizuki’s feelings in that regard, rather than just having them be stated.

There’s a point in the story that I don’t want to reveal, but there’s a larger amount of nuance than you would ever expect from a story like this involved.

As far as exploring emotions and relationships, I would say that the manga leans heavily into it – Takeru, Fujiwara and Mizuki’s relationships are egged on a great deal by the antagonist, but y’know there’s still great amounts of room given for them to have relationships that unfold kind of naturally.Loki, who’s curses Mizuki in the beginning as a prank actually serves as more than just a kickstart to the core plot – a few volumes in they add themselves to the storymasquerading as a new girl joining school. Basically every interaction they have with the rest of the cast is super devious and shitty but it’s actually kind of funny – at no point is there any effort to humanize them beyond the status of Being A Literal God. The author even draws them in every panel they’re in the background of like they’re in on a joke that nobody else is which – damn that’s such a good touch it makes me love the character and hate them all at the same time.

Unfortunately there’s a some pretty gross non-consensual stuff in the middle of the dang manga but it’s nothing that ever goes super far thank god but it’s not something very easy to talk about with how it is actually handled anyway. At multiple points a bunch of different characters explore each other pretty uhh thoroughly for me to have read most of this at work and in public BUT  It’s an Ecchi Manga so there’s troublesome stuff all around – tho Boku Girl is hella in the way it explores some relationships it’s still 99% about Mizuki’s body and seeing them in various states of undress. Usually it’s played for laughs but the art is still there. Earlier I point out that there’s not much of it at the beginning, and too there’s not a whole lot near the end either. Boku Girl is still anime trash though – the manga is gonna end on a hell of a weird note because there’s never a clear answer painted for Mizuki’s feelings for Takeru.

If you wanna read a goofy gender-bending romance go ahead! There’s good stuff in there but you still gotta wade through some pretty thick filth and a couple of bad characters that (thankfully) don’t stick around for very long in the middle.

I aint gonna talk about the art but I will say it’s 10/10 Glam and Soft and thankfully not terrible moe garbage and I saved several uhhhh pages of…stuff….to my hard drive.  To read later!!

Boku Girl has more nuance than you would definitely expect reading something like this. It is very glam, but there are grim parts too. Goodbye, bubba.