Click 1 by Youngran Lee: C+

From the back cover:
Joonha is a normal, healthy boy of sixteen who has cruised through life without too many problems. Imagine his surprise when a recent trip to the bathroom suddenly reveals that he’s not normal at all! With a shriek of “Oh, my God!!!,” he finds himself missing, well, something he never thought he could live without.

As it turns out, his family is abnormal in the weirdest possible way. After puberty, their chromosomes undergo some kind of mutation, which converts their bodies into the opposite sex!

Review:
There are a few things that bothered me quite a lot about Click, even while I think it’s fundamentally fairly interesting and I plan to keep reading.

1. Before spontaneously turning into a girl, Joonha is the most thoroughly infuriating chauvinist pig imaginable. He treats girls like his playthings in an attempt to teach them the feminine virtues of obedience. When the girl he likes confesses to him, he blows her off, saying that it’s her duty to “wait gracefully until you are chosen.”

2. When Joonha begins to live as a girl, he’s more tolerable, but I can’t help but think that this is because he suffered such a tremendous blow to his pride. The remorse he shows for his past actions is more along the lines of, “I should have kissed her” rather than “I shouldn’t have treated her that way.” It’s still ultimately about what’s in it for him.

3. None of the other characters are really all that likable, either. Joonha’s friend from childhood, Jinhoo, comes closest. The fact that he merely expresses mild disapproval of Joonha’s treatment of girls, however, speaks volumes.

4. Joonha’s parents are annoyingly chipper and dim. When he asks why they didn’t tell him about the family’s tendency to change genders, they claim they forgot about it. Yes, I know, I always take stories with wacky premises too seriously, but this is just too ridiculous to be suffered quietly.

There are a few good moments scattered throughout, though. My favorite is the scene in which Jinwoo and Heewon (the girl who confessed her feelings to Joonha) share their hurt feelings about Joonha’s sudden disappearing act. The art is also quite nice. It’s interesting to note, too, that once Joonha begins living as a girl, he doesn’t embody the same ideals of feminine behavior that he once held.

At this point, it’s hard to care about the story or any of the characters, but I plan to give it a couple more volumes at least to see if it gets any better.

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Comments

  1. Hmmm. My initial reaction is: “Ugh.” Am I being too harsh?

    That’s “ugh” to the series, not to your review. Just in case that wasn’t clear. 🙂

  2. Danielle Leigh says

    yeah, I don’t think Click is “good” and yet I still enjoyed…in spite of myself. Why oh why am I like this?

  3. Oh, I think I’m with you on that one, Danielle. I agree, it merits an “Ugh,” but I’ve already started volume two. 🙂

  4. I liked the series quite a bit, though I can agree 100% with everything you said here. The parents are pretty horrible and they fade away after awhile, but Joonha is a jerk pretty much through the entire series. I took his horrible treatment of women as more of a portent or lesson, like his situation is karma punishing him for acting like a jerk, even if he isn’t absorbing the lesson fully himself. It’s still probably one of the better gender swap series out there, though, at least of the ones I’ve read.

  5. I’ve just finished volume two and enjoyed it more than the first. It’s definitely very interesting.

Trackbacks

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