Your & My Secret: Volume 7

by Ai Morinaga, 180 pages

Akira and Momoi's body switching has been found out by Momoi's parents, who pay her grandfather's allowance. Threatened with being cut-off financially, the old man finally agrees to fix the machine that caused all the trouble in the first place. Akira is thrilled at the thought of soon being back in his own body, but no one is telling Momoi, since she's content and thriving where she's at and would probably just get violent and sabotage the machine again. In the meantime, Akira's seeing to the needs of his new "parents" and buying Momoi's dad a Father's Day tie and making him breakfast and speaking to him kindly and respectfully, none of which the harried man is used to. Akira's also putting off telling his former-best-friend-now-boyfriend Senbongi about the imminent switch, knowing he'll be heartbroken. The day of the switch arrives and Akira and Momoi's parents implement their plan to lure Momoi to the house. Everyone is in place, buttons are about to be pushed....

I find it odd how affecting this silly, slightly naughty series can be. I want Akira to stay put--voluntarily! I want the truth to be revealed to Momoi's girlfriend Shiina and Akira's family, so everyone can decide for themselves where their happiness lies. There's only one volume left, but with Tokyopop's U.S. demise (don't even get me started on that rant), who knows if or when we'll get to read it. I may just have to make up my own satisfactory ending in my head.

Your & My Secret: Volume 6

by Ai Morinaga, 162 pages

Akira is a very quiet, well-behaved, thoughtful young man with an unrequited crush on his loud, rule-breaking, selfish classmate Momoi, but neither of them has much luck in love, since everyone just ignores unmanly Akira and runs away from unladylike Momoi. Until, that is, Momoi's irresponsible inventor grandfather "accidentally" causes them to switch bodies. Suddenly, "Momoi" is a perfect lady and "Akira" is a man's man! Momoi, ecstatic at no longer having her brash behavior censured, breaks her grandfather's machine and pretty much takes over Akira's life. When she starts dating her own best friend Shiina, Akira turns to his best friend Senbongi for help and confesses the embarrassing truth to him. But with "Momoi" no longer the unapproachable hellion, Senbongi's not exactly adverse to the new status quo, either. What's a confused boy trapped in a girl's body to do?

This is one of those series where I didn't quite realize what I'd gotten myself into until I was too sucked into Akira's plight and the edgy slapstick to turn back. At first, I was all "put them back! let them be themselves!" but now I'm not so sure. I just want everyone to be happy! Mean Momoi's putting someone else's feelings before her own for the first time in her life and both she and Akira are finally finding acceptance for being themselves (only not). It's sad that the only way that can happen is for them to physically cave to gender stereotypes, so I'm conflicted. But the story's not over yet and who knows what will happen next. Besides, this is a bawdy comedy and probably isn't meant to be critiqued too deeply. Hmmmm.... Might be a good fit for older teens and others who like to laugh while pushing boundaries.