Futaba-kun Change Review
by Tintin Pantoja (07/10/2001)

I'm sure most of you are aware that while comics are, on the whole part, a good thing, the majority of material out there- anime, manga, superheroes, etc.- is a load of commercial crap, made purely to milk a dead-end concept of all it's worth (Wedding Peach, anyone? Ravage 2000?)

Now, I'm not going to argue about which, specifically, is the crap and which is the cream, since we've all got different ideas about that. But I'd like to know what other people look for in comics and anime, and in art in general.

Personally, I like my art- in any medium- to have the personal touch of its creator. It's got to have something unique in terms of the way it conveys human experience. The reason I read comics is that-- okay, I'll admit it--I don't really have that much of a life. Not in Ateneo, anyway. So I look for vicarious experience in literature. And that vicarious experience better be interesting. It should make me feel something I'm already familiar with, but on a deeper level.

LLet me try to explain what I mean by comparing two similar works. Fans of manga should easily recognize Ranma 1/2, the story of a boy who changes into a girl when doused with cold water; hot water reverses the change. A less popular comic is Futaba Kun Change, by Hiroshi Aro, and published by Studio Ironcat.

Like Ranma, which influenced it, Futaba is about an adolescent boy, Shimeru Futaba, who transforms into a sexy girl. The difference is that he only transforms when he's sexually aroused. And anyone who's been around adolescent boys should know that this isn't exactly a rare event. The reason is genetic: his whole family (the Shimeru's) has this characteristic. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD His father gave birth to him. His sister, who transforms into a beautiful boy and looks remarkably like Jadeite in Sailor Moon, is a skirt-chasing class-A pervert. His mother...well, we'll just have to see.

The second major character and Futaba's love-interest is Shima Misaki. Futaba is afraid that she'll find out, and of course, think he's some kind of weirdo pervert and abandon him. What he doesn't know is that Misaki isn't that confident about herself either, and that she often interprets Futaba's attempts to hide the changes as his rejection of her. But wait, there's more. WARNING: SPOILER! In Vol. 4, Misaki is injured in a school-wrestling match and receives a blood transfusion from Futaba. She wakes up a few hours later.... as a man.

Having set up this premise, Aro then provides a cast of characters even weirder than the Ranma crowd, making this a full-blown gag-filed green-joked laugh fest. There's wrestling in ugly spandex. There's homosexual homeroom teachers, deranged mad school nurses, nosebleeds, breast shots, money-grubbing capitalists, cameos of the Streetfighter characters, and even more wrestling. Obviously, it's not very politically correct. Think Ranma on LSD.

The comedy, in my opinion, is so-so and nothing new. But what's really interesting is the dilemma of the central characters, who must deal with chaotic physical transformations that threaten to destroy their emotional relationships at any second: it's a metaphor for adolescence and, specifically, puberty.

Think about it, people. Didn't you feel alien when your chests started to fill out, your voices start to crack, your face break out in zits, hair start sprouting where the sun don't shine? At some point, didn't you think your love life and reputation would be ruined forever because of a period stain or an untimely erection?

Futaba's transformations, which are uncontrollable, resemble this sense of alien-ness, of having his body taken over by strange forces. It's like a more-visible woody, isn't it? While Ranma dwells on the physical comedy of the change (breasts popping up in the wrong places, jealous girlfriends with mallets, etc.), these changes are never truly tragic because they're easily reversible, and the result of a clearly delineated external source (the cursed spring water). But in Futaba's case, how do you fight something that is irreversible, and what's more, something that comes from inside of you? That IS you?

In this sense, Futaba Kun Change is more personal because it sympathetically examines a topic we're not only familiar with, but also one we have had to live with intimately. What's more, coupled with both Futaba's and Misaki's sexual awakening (and subsequent gender-confusion) it's soon made clear that EVERYONE is unsure of their bodies and what to do with them. Everyone eventually feels self-conscious and ugly. Now, isn't that funny?

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