Genre:  Gender Bender

Age Rating:  Older Teen (16+)

Price: $10.99

This is one of those super-fun, hyper-addictive manga series, with lots of driving plot, character intrigue, and enough doses of horror and romance to keep you flipping the pages.

Seriously, I burned through this first volume in a little under an hour.

Initially, the whole thing sounded a bit too high concept piled on high concept for my taste: Ichirjo Mashiro is neither completely boy nor girl, having the upper body of a guy and the lower half of a girl--That's high concept one. See, Ichijo desperately wants to be a guy, but feels like his body betrays him at every turn, and that he can't escape this curse of girl bits! And if that's not over the top enough, well, how about adding on the other high concept: a mysterious school nurse enrolls Ichiro into an after school program in which all the students battle it out to overcome both their own demons and each other--and they're most hidden secrets are exposed to one another!

Given this set up, I inwardly groaned at the though of it--it all sounded a bit too precious for my tastes. But I came across a copy at a friend's house and borrowed this first volume. Like I said, I ended up not able to put it down. Yes, it has the gender-bender fun of many a yaoi manga, but the particular arrangement of plot elements and characters make for an addictive series-- you find it hard to stop wondering what's going to happen next, which, for me, is something I usually only encounter in solidly shonen or seinen books (Battle Royale, Death Note, or Monster, for example). Add to this some striking images (some of the characters' manifestations in the dreamworld are cool-creepy, like the girl with the hole for a face, or the python-like arm that comes out of nowhere to attack), and you've got a solid book with lots of promise for the series.

In fact, originally I was thinking of only giving this book a 7.5 or an 8 rating, simply because I didn't think I would read any more volumes, but I can't help myself, I've got to know what the hell is going on. Will Ichiro save Kureha from the dream? Is Sou the one in the knight's armor in the dreamworld? Will they ever resolve their nightmares and graduate from the dream class?

8.5