A Different Charm: Mizutama Honey Boy

Synopsis

Strong, charming to the ladies, and the captain of the kendo club, Mei Sengoku is the farthest thing from the feminine type. Shirou Fuji on the other hand is the complete opposite and basically acts like a girl. One day, Fuji confesses to her, but with her focus being on becoming stronger, things take a turn for her and her emotions.

The Good

There have been all kinds of anime where the gender roles of the main characters are switched where the guy acts like the perfect housekeeper while the girl is the tough or cool one who gets admired by the girls. Here they not only take it up a notch but stick with it with no shame. Most often when it comes the gender role switch trope, it capitalizes on the times the tough girl shows a cute side and put the switch more on the backburner. That concept doesn’t happen as often here and that’s what makes the series so interesting.

Throughout the entire series, never had the characters shifted in their gender roles and with how the manga goes the extra mile in their portrayal and honestly, that’s rather refreshing. As stated, this trope is most often put in the backburner to place more focus on the guy charming up the girl. The series makes itself completely different in that while the guy acts as feminine as can be, he doesn’t always have to act like the cool type to show that he’s got good qualities outside of how he presents himself.

There’s just a certain charm to the series with how it handles its characters and the way that it develops the characters relationships while they go through all kinds of situations and meet different people is just good fun.

The Bad

There are points where it can get kind of repetitive with how Fuji unexpectedly saves Sengoku and the running joke of Nanao acting as Fuji’s boyfriend can get somewhat old in certain chapters. What really hit this writer however as the first negative however is how Sengoku starts admitting that she may like him. To all shoujo fans, we all know of the whole stalker/weird admirer trope where the guy who seem like the gentle and sweet type, ends up saving the girl.

It would have been much nicer if the two of them had more time together and Sengoku herself would find that as feminine as Fuji, there is more to him. Not only would that give a more wholesome start to her admitting that she likes him. There’s just quite a few tropes that have been done before in the series basically, and it adds a little too much cliche points to the relationship of the characters,

Conclusion

This series is different and that is what’s so great about it, the fact that it dishes out the gender role switch to the max capacity while showing different qualities over the two characters is what makes it stand out. What’s more, while it does the whole dancing around over their relationship trope, it does show a steady flow in the relationship. Overall the series has its holes with tropes and the art is a little rough around the edges, but it’s got charm and it’s not shy about its concept and that’s why it’s worth the read.

Rating: 7/10